Boxing Day was a ‘training-free’ day spent in anticipation of the parachute jump which was to come sometime soon. I have often been asked if I found sleep difficult on the night before my first parachute jump. I can honestly answer that I had no trouble whatsoever in sleeping soundly. Coolheaded courage? Not a bit of it. I slept well because I didn’t know I was jumping the next day. At 0430 on 27 December, the hut’s slumbering silence was broken by the premature reveille inflicted by the excited Flight Sergeant, announcing unexpected jump facilities due to a sudden reduction in the wind velocity. No breakfast, no shaving, just “get dressed and into that bloody truck outside.”
At the packing shed we drew our parachutes from the stores, fitted them on our backs, shortened a strap here, extended one there, and slotted their metal end-tabs into the quick release box near our bellybuttons. Each pack was then checked meticulously by Flight Sgt. Kent. We joked nervously about who’d got the Roman Candle one and about how silly we looked in our circular, canvas, rubber-filled, protective hats –which resembled a two-inch deep sponge cake wrapped around one’s head – with canvas sides meeting under the chin where there was a stud fastening. Daylight had appeared before we reached the aircraft, where there was some anxiety about the latest wind speed figures being marginally above the 15 miles per hour recommended maximum for non-operational jumps, but at last we were in the Hudson and receiving our final briefing from ‘Kenty’. We would go in slow-pairs; that is to say there would be five runs over the dropping zone, with No. 1 and No. 2 jumping at the first run. There would be no great emphasis on speedy exits for the first jump, the normal necessity for operational parachutists to land as closely together as possible being, for once only, ignored. When the red light flashed on at the door he would call “action stations, No. 1” and expect No. 1 to take up his trained, half-crouched position at the door with fingers lapped outside the door entrance, with which to eject himself with all his strength from the plane into the body-weight-supporting slipstream, immediately on his green light-prompted command of “Go!”
He would give the same commands for No. 2 whilst the green light was still on, so requiring close backing-up in the plane. He wanted clean exits: half-cock, shambling, testing the water, peeping walk outs would end in disaster, as the slipstream would catch hold of any loosely protruding limb and cause it to spin the body back against the fuselage and possibly, though God forbid, against the plane’s tail, where severe injury would be almost certain and entangling the parachute rigging lines an unthinkable possibility. Once floating under our air-filled canopy, we were to listen to the megaphone-amplified voice of the dropping zone officer, who would supplement our own observations about any corrections we might need to make to our landing.
As Kenty clipped the end of our static lines to the rigid metal rod in the plane, I understood better why military parachutists use the static line chute and not the self-operated ripcord (free fall) chutes. With so much to sweat over, it was sensible to be relieved of the critical operation of pulling a rip-cord. The static line, attached at one end to the rod strongpoint in the plane and at the other to the back panel of the parachute, would expose the chute to the atmosphere automatically, as falling body weight broke the graded series of strings which detached the back panel from the parachute pack. The military objective was perhaps even more important: a uniform length of time between exit and the opening of the chutes means closer contact as a unit on the ground.
The Hudson was airborne and soon cruising at the optimum jumping height of 1000 feet. The jokes had stopped, as much from the inability to think of any at such a time as from the dry mouths which would have found them difficult to relate anyway. I had been allotted the No.4 position in the stick – second to go in the second run. Preoccupied with my own personal crisis, I cannot remember much about the first two disappearing except for Kenty’s near maniacal “Go!” and his undisguised pleasure at their exits, as the Hudson banked for the circuit which would straighten out for my run. Two things had already surprised me. Firstly, the Hudson’s ‘door’ to which I have already referred, was not a door at all – it was an open doorway. The actual door was probably on a metal scrap heap somewhere, abandoned for the rest of the war as useless or simply in the way. The other remarkable thing was that our respected, fearless dispatcher was not wearing a parachute. He had stood in the doorway from take-off, looking like a bored bus conductor awaiting passengers, until standing aside for the first exits, giving us more palpitations for his safety than for our own. Worse than that, after 1 and 2’s departures he sat sideways in the doorway, his back pressing against one side. He then wedged himself with one foot against the other side for leverage as he proceeded with tug-of-war intensity to haul in the discarded static lines and back panels of the first two jumpers, against the possessiveness of the howling slipstream.
I didn’t need to look out for the reservoir. When the Hudson straightened up after its tightly banked circuit around the DZ, even Flight Sgt. Kent’s nod and smile towards No. 3 and myself were superfluous. I had remembered how the plane had cut back its airspeed just prior to the first pair’s exit and I recognised that rather alarming juddering as the pilot strove to achieve minimum airspeed. We sidled towards the door, someone called “good luck” from behind us, whilst Kenty’s last advice was “Go out like the first two and you’ll be fine.” The red light came on. “Action stations No. 3.” He was in position. I shuffled to where he had been standing. Green now!
“GO!” He vanished – and I filled the vacant aperture. “No. 4 GO!” I surged out into space, not consciously aware of carrying out any of my training instructions. For a second I was weightless, reclining horizontally on the intangible couch of the slipstream. Then, without any sensation of falling or of tugging or buffeting, I imagined that I might have been in Heaven itself for all the dramatically contrasting peace and serenity in which I found myself. Perhaps I was in Heaven? Had the Roman Candle been mine? The noise and vibration of the plane was a world away: never a glance towards its remote flight direction: never a thought about such an object’s part in my being where I was. The ease of it all! The tranquillity! Then, the view! Bird’s eye, yes that was it; the magnificent view. How many seconds did he say from a thousand feet – 23? Must be longer! In fact, I don’t think I’m coming down at all. Didn’t Kenty say he would see us all later at the drop zone to see if we agreed with him that it was the second best sensation in life? Well, I know that a walking fish and chip supper with salt and vinegar on – and eaten with the fingers out of a newspaper – takes some beating, but this is quite superb. Kenty was right – nearly as good.
“No. 4!... No. 4!” God, that’s me! Oh, it’s the chap down there with the megaphone. “Good exit No. 4. Keep coming as you are.” Keep coming? How the hell could I help but keep coming? Oh, I see. No need to make a turn, he means, no oscillation. I’d forgotten about that. In fact, I had forgotten everything about the rules in my unbridled happiness. But I will never forget the dramatic change of realisation from dreaming that I might be suspended in space forever to the fact that I really was coming down – and quickly. Indeed, for the last 50 feet I was sure that the earth was coming up to meet me halfway, as the speed of my descent became relative and I braced myself for what was supposed to be equivalent, on average, to jumping from a six foot wall. The reality was more like stepping off the back door, and I rolled more from condescension than necessity – a gesture which earned me the accolade of “an excellent landing” from the ground-control officer and added a boost to my rampant ego.
Pressing and turning the quick-release box freed the webbing straps, which had hitherto attached the chute to me. Holding on to a strap, I raced around the rapidly filling canopy and collapsed it before it became faster than me, in its wind-assisted mobility. As soon as it was crumpled into a reasonable bundle, I deposited it and myself into the waiting truck as instructed. The truck would take the whole stick back to the airfield packing shed for another issue of parachutes for our second jump immediately. It didn’t happen that way because of an unkind windspeed, which was a great pity since