The slipstream caught me immediately and swung me sideways. I felt no sensation of falling. I saw the tail of the plane go by and disappear. The chute deployed behind me and I fell gently under it like a pendulum.
It was quiet. I looked around, realizing that everything had gone properly. I felt good, watching the base spread out below me and the river off to the side. I also saw the drop zone and happily concluded I was headed right for it.
Great!
As I drifted slowly downward it seemed clear that the jumpmaster and pilot had done their jobs well. We all would be landing in the middle of the large field that was our target.
I relaxed. It was a splendid day, no wind at all. Then I heard the instructors yelling from below.
“Loosen up, bend your knees, relax!”
Apparently my legs were locked stiff as a board, but I didn’t realize it. As my stick neared the ground, the instructors became more insistent. Nothing penetrated. I was staring straight ahead waiting for my toes to touch the ground so I could smoothly roll into my perfect PLF.
But it wasn’t perfect. In fact it was terrible, exactly wrong. I landed backward because I hadn’t used the shrouds to control my direction.
So my heels hit first—wrong!
Butt next—wrong!
Then with a thud the back of my head banged onto the ground. Thank goodness for the helmet, which no doubt prevented a concussion given the force of the impact.
I was down, albeit with a ringing in my head, but I had made it; nothing broken.
I stood up, gingerly.
One of the instructors immediately got in my face.
“Dammit, Holm, don’t you listen?”
“To what?”
“To me, when I give you instructions!”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“Well, next time listen up, goddam it!”
The instructors had been talking to me all the way down via loudspeakers. So intent was I on making a good PLF that I didn’t hear them at all—I didn’t connect that I was the “number three man in the stick,” as they had kept repeating.
I started thinking about how my first operational landing might go.
About half of our group made similar mistakes, though mine was probably the worst, and nobody did it perfectly. On the other hand, nobody got hurt on landing.
The only injury was to Bob Manning, a well-liked guy with great potential as an operations officer. Despite the checks and double-checks, Bob’s static line had gotten under his arm as he hooked up. When he jumped the line immediately deployed his chute, jerking his arm upward. Fortunately the line did no serious damage; it just gave him a nasty bruise. But that didn’t stop Bob from making the rest of his jumps and completing the program.
We did four more jumps, including one at dusk. Again no one got seriously hurt, our techniques got progressively better, and our confidence grew with each jump. I listened to the instructors and actually made some passable PLFs.
After parachute training they flew us to a secluded base near the Atlantic coast for explosives and small-boat operations.
As usual the sessions included PT but with several new twists. In response to questions, our instructor explained that he had developed the exercises based on his training as a frogman. He said he had designed them to strengthen our upper-arm and chest muscles, which we’d need to place magnetic limpet mines on the hull of a ship.
That explanation brought no more questions.
Each day after breakfast, which followed PT, we moved out to a practice range, where our instructors demonstrated the use of explosives. One of them, John Ward, was also quite entertaining. He could have worked as a stand-up comic. He delivered his stories and jokes with ease and good timing that captivated our group. He continued his routines in the officers’ club in the evenings, but he also knew when to get serious. In the field and dealing with explosives, he was always dead serious.
In both classroom sessions and field demonstrations our instructors emphasized how powerful and efficient relatively small amounts of plastic explosives could be. I wasn’t sure whether I would ever want to mess with the stuff, but I resolved to keep an open mind.
The secret of using explosives properly, they told us, was to shape the charges. That is, mold the plastic and place the charges where they could best attack the structure of the target. A small amount could drop a large tree right across a road or trail, or bring down a bridge.
Safety was the highest priority, and the instructors gave precise briefings on what to do—and what not to do. They started with primer cord, an explosive itself, which is used to detonate the plastic. During our drills it was mandatory after we lit the primer cord to yell, “Fire in the hole!” to alert everyone else to move to safe areas or bunkers.
It took a lot of practice to gauge just how much time we had before the charge would detonate after we lit the cord. It wasn’t too difficult with small lengths that would explode in seconds, but figuring out how much time was needed to move away safely from, say, a bridge before it blew up proved much more of a challenge.
After several days we all grew fairly skilled at getting charges to explode just about when they should. From countdowns of ten to boom, we could get within just a few seconds of boom.
When in doubt we gave ourselves more time.
We practiced on various targets, such as trees, pieces of steel, buildings and vehicles. The instructors also taught us the basics of structural engineering, which would help us place the charges more effectively.
We also learned how to operate and maneuver small boats, in this case small, black rubber rafts propelled by powerful but silenced outboard motors. Even carrying three men plus equipment the little boats could really move.
The SEALs, the Navy’s sea, air and land commandos, used the same craft to infiltrate target areas at night. After we learned the basics about the boats and their motors we also spent a lot of time training at night.
We quickly found that in darkness it’s easy to lose your sense of direction on the water, and our drills concentrated on techniques to gain our bearings and stay on course. Sometimes they towed us out to a certain point and dropped us off. Other times we moved along the coast on our own. After a while we got the idea.
Our final exercise involved a night raid to destroy a simulated enemy command post that was supposedly unguarded.
We planned the operation as a group. We would bring three small boats to a designated cove. Each boat would carry explosives and three armed men, their faces blackened. After rendezvousing at a dock, six of us would move to the target, while the others would guard the boats. At the target two men would set up watch posts, and four would infiltrate and set the charges, with everything observed by our instructors.
After the team lit the primer cords everyone would move back to the boats and beat a hasty retreat. I drew the detail to guard the boats.
It seemed to take much longer than it should for the attack team to get their job done and return. It always does. Finally we heard an explosion and saw fire in the direction of the target.
Done! They should be back in a couple of minutes.
“Let’s get the engines started,” I whispered to the other two guards.
“What if someone hears them?” one responded.