Captain Sam Carey's recollections of 1 Australian Parachute Training Depot

CAPTAIN SAM CAREY'S RECOLLECTIONS
1 AUSTRALIAN PARACHUTE TRAINING DEPOT
AT RICHMOND RAAF BASE, NSW
IN AUSTRALIAN DURING WWII

The difficulty I had encountered in getting submarine transport for Z operations had convinced me that other methods of entry and retrieval had to be developed. The Americans, Willoughby and Ind at GHQ, both gave a strong priority to the Coast Watchers and they got the only submarine support available. This was understandable because the Coast Watchers had been of enormous help to the American operations in the Solomon’s, and certainly had turned the tide of the air and sea battles there. So, I proposed that Z operatives should be trained as paratroops, as an alternative option of getting to our targets. I was strongly supported by Major Holland, and the proposal was adopted by Colonel Chapman Walker.

So, in early September 1943 I went to the paratroop school at Richmond, N.S.W., where the Australian Paratroop Battalion was training. I took Sergeant Mackenzie with me, and we went through the full training course, along with the newly appointed medical officer of the battalion, and their padre, who of course was nicknamed "Jumping Jesus". The training was rigorous, but after our Scorpion training, we took it easily.

Long marches, normal quick march, interspersed with marching at the double, marching on the heels, marching on the toes, marching on the sides of the feet— all to strengthen the ankles; wrestling, boxing (especially hard for me because my arms were much shorter than any opponent of the same weight or height (I had always needed the widest possible shoes for their length, and shirts which fitted my neck were several inches too long in the sleeves).

Training in landing without banging the head—we stood on a platform eight feet above the floor with a parachute harness attached to the apex of the gym high above us, let go and swung like a pendulum to reach the floor at considerable horizontal speed where we had to take the impact first on our feet, then with the calf and thigh muscles, then on the side of the buttocks, then on the shoulder as we rolled with the head tucked in. Having mastered these landings face forwards, we repeated this training leaving the platform sideways, and finally went through it all again leaving the platform backwards and landing and rolling without hitting our heads.

Training in exiting the aircraft door, first from a dummy fuselage three feet above the ground, facing forward, looking toward the horizon, body straight, legs together; then from a dummy fuselage eight feet above the ground; then from the high fuselage forty feet above the ground; this time the parachute harness was attached to pulleys on a high wire; it took steel nerves to jump off, fall freely until the flying fox arrested your fall just as your feet were about to hit the ground, whipped you back into the air, as the pulleys rolled down the flying fox until you hit the ground fifty feet further down, where the landing roll procedure had to be followed to save a stunning blow on the head. Most trainees agreed that it took more nerve and will to jump from this high fuselage than for any of the subsequent jumps from aircraft.

Training in management of the descent. Normally paratroops jump from a height of 500 feet, which means that they have thirty seconds from exiting the aircraft and hitting the ground, and so much has to be done that there is no time to think about the possibility that enemy might be firing at you. First check the attitude of the body, then check the rigging lines that they have deployed properly and are not twisting (in a bad exit the body might be turning, and the parachute would not be turning so that the rigging lines would wind up until the skirt of the chute was reached, the chute would collapse so that you would "roman candle" to your death! All parachutists are trained in how to correct this situation. During subsequent experimental work this happened to me three times).

In a bad opening of the parachute a rigging line may be caught over the top of the chute, which then looks like Cleopatra's brassiere instead of like half a sphere; we were trained in how to correct this. Next, check the canopy for blown or torn panels, for any holes there will cause your chute to drive you slowly in the direction away from the holes; Next, check oscillation; when the parachute first opens, the body is on about the same level as the chute, so you then swing down like a pendulum, and would continue to oscillate until you hit the ground, which could be fatal if the downswing of the oscillation was added to the normal vertical descent. The oscillation might be frontward and backward or sideways. All paratroops are trained in how to dampen and stop the oscillation. Next check which way the wind is carrying you; by putting the boots together and looking through the gap at the instep, the direction relative to the ground is seen. Landing is safer if you land facing forward, so you must turn into drift by pulling down on one riser, causing the body to turn slowly, until you face in the right direction. Next check the point where you will land, allowing for the drift; you don't want to land on a barbed wire fence, on the back of a bullock, into water, or worst of all on the side of a tall dead tree. By this time most of your 30 seconds have passed, so you prepare to land, feet together and knees slightly bent, and hands gripping the rigging lines high above the head; as the ground blurs, haul down strongly, which takes you up the chute; if the timing of this is just right, your speed up the rigging lines nearly cancels your descending speed, so hit the ground quite gently; but of course bad timing means you hit like a bag of bricks!

A wind machine consisting of an aircraft engine and propeller mounted on a tractor trains you to get up when the parachute drags you head first and flat on your back; it is useless to bend the knees and attempt to stand; the only way to escape, with the tractor keeping the wind dragging you, is to spill the wind from the chute by hauling in the bottom rigging lines until the parachute collapses. They start with a moderate wind, and as your skill increases, so does the wind velocity by opening the throttle. As the wind speed doubles, the wind force quadruples.

Finally, the live drops. First a solo exit from 1000 feet and as soon as you exit the aircraft, you hear the sergeant major bellowing through his loud hailer to do this or do that or correct this or that until you hit the ground; next a slow pair, with two of you from 1000 feet; next fast pair with less than a second between the two exits; then a stick of eleven paratroopers from 1000 feet, followed by a stick of eleven from 500 feet. The last man out sees ten men lined up in front of him down the aisle, but three seconds later they have all gone, and he is rushing down the aisle at full speed and out the door, and 25 seconds later he would be on the ground, because the aircraft with feathered propellers drops a bit during the jumps. We also had to pack and repack parachutes under the critical eyes of the skilled WAAF parachute packers, and by custom the fourth jump had to be made with a parachute we had packed ourselves. After seven successful jumps, you get your wings and the right to wear the dull cherry beret.

“The Silk Merchant” VH-CRF A30-12 dropping
a parachutist – note the static line.

While at Richmond I also did Z experimental work. Because Z landings would be into water on moonless nights and there would be difficulty in finding the stores, I linked together with sixty feet of one-inch manilla rope store-packages, each with its separate parachute, to see how daisy chains of parachuting stores would behave. This was quite successful. In another test we dropped a Folboat package from a height of 900 feet on a statichute and Mackenzie and I followed it immediately on statichutes, and within three minutes from leaving the aircraft we had the Folboat assembled on the ground.

The para-battalion did not train for water jumps, but that would be necessary for L. Water jumping can be dangerous for a number of reasons. If you come in with the wind, your feet hit the water first, you enter flat on your face, and the parachute from your shoulders forces your face down and you drown. In that situation, by grabbing the risers above your head and crossing them over, this whips you around so you hit the water backwards heels first and you go in flat on your back, with the parachute lifting your head out. But the parachute probably comes down on top of you with a great tangle of rigging lines, and you are likely to drown under the wet parachute, because if you lift it up, the water rises also (even to a height of 32 feet, the weight of the air pressure). As there would be no rescue pick-up boat in Z operations, it was necessary to get out of the parachute before hitting the water. So, we used a parachute harness with a quick-release box.

This is a round aluminum box at your navel which locks the four webbing straps one over each shoulder, and two round the hips from the base of the parachute bag. Turning the disc on the box ninety degrees unlocks it, then a sharp tap lets the four straps drop out and you are free. This must not be done too high, or the water impact will be fatal, so at about a hundred feet up you turn the disc and give it the tap at about ten feet. The wind carries the chute away, ripping the cover off the K-type rubber dinghy worn between the parachute and your back. With the cover gone the dinghy drops out, but its painter is attached to your belt, so when you come up the dinghy is at your chest ready to be inflated by the small carbon-dioxide bottle. The dinghy has an open flat at the bow which stops it running away as you climb in. However, it is difficult to estimate the height above the water even in daylight, but in Z night operations it is very difficult indeed, but this must be mastered.

There was no suitable water near Richmond for this training, so we had to use a dam not far from the airfield. It was only about one hundred feet wide and had a barbed wire fence across the middle of it. Also, the whole of the effluent from the septic tank system drained into it. Mackenzie and I jumped from 1000 feet, managed to guide ourselves into the dam, and at one minute and 54 seconds from leaving the aircraft we were in our dinghies. It so happened that as I was boarding the aircraft for this exercise, I was handed an urgent telegram to say that my wife had delivered a son. (Harley Roberts Carey was born 28 September 1943). So, he has to live down the fact that when his father was told of his birth, he jumped out an aircraft into a dam. I had hoped to get back to Melbourne before this birth. We still had a night drop to do before leaving Richmond, so I arranged it for 8 p.m. (the third jump for Mackenzie and me that day) and boarded an RAAF aircraft for Melbourne that night.

The policy of the Para battalion, and hence of the Richmond training school, was that no emergency chute was ever worn. The philosophy was that in operation, each man had so much else to carry down that there was no room for the emergency chute, he would be less than 30 seconds in the air, and there would be little time anyway to open the emergency chute if it were needed, and if the men trained with emergency chutes which were denied him in the real operation, his inevitable battle anxiety would be further increased. For my part, I never wore an emergency chute (even while testing new equipment) until civil parachuting after the war, when an emergency chute was compulsory in all countries.

I'd like to thank Graham R. McKenzie-Smith OA and Harley Carey for their assistance with this web page.

"The Unit Guide - The Australian Army 1939 - 1945" by Graham R. McKenzie-Smith OA

I need your help

Copyright

Disclaimer

Please e-mail me
any information or photographs

"Australia @ War"
8GB USB Memory Stick