77th National Airborne Day
That’s COB6 giving you the six minute warning above.
National Airborne Day is set on the day of the first parachute jump conducted by the Army’s Parachute Test Platoon on August 16th, 1940.
On the morning of 16 August 1940 the jump began. After the C-33 leveled off at 1500 feet and flew over the jump field, Lt. Ryder was in the door ready to jump. Warrant Officer Wilson knelt in the door waiting to pass the Go Point. When this was reached, he slapped Lt. Ryder on the leg and the first jump was made. Now Number One moved into position. Slap! “Go! Jump!”
Still no movement.
It was too late now to jump on this pass. Mr. Wilson motioned Number One to go back to his seat. As the plane circled Mr. Wilson talked to Number One. Number One wanted another chance. Okay, this time we’ll do it. Back into the jumping position and once again, slap!
Sadly, no movement. Number One returned to his seat.
Private William N. “Red” King moved into the jumping position in the door. Slap! Out into American military immortality leaped Red King… the first enlisted man of the test platoon to jump out of an airplane. Number One was transferred to another post and anonymity. Now there were forty-seven. Was Number One a coward? I don’t think many experienced jumpers would say so. There are things some men cannot do at a given time. Possibly another time would have been fine. He wanted to. He intended to. He just could not… at least that morning.
The first US airborne operation was in support of Operation Torch, November 1942, in North Africa when 531 members of the 2nd Battalion 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment flew 1600 miles in 39 C-47s, of which only ten aircraft dropped their pacs, the rest landed because of navigation difficulties and low fuel.
3rd Battalion, 75th Rangers secured an airfield in Kandahar in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on October 19, 2001. On March 23rd, 2003, A Company, 3/75th conducted an airborne operation to secure an airfield in Northern Iraq a few days before the 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted into Northern Iraq when the Turks wouldn’t allow the 4th Infantry Division to off-load and invade Iraq from their borders.
In years past, the 82d Airborne Division Association, mostly the DC Chapter, had to lobby to get recognition for National Airborne Day from the Senate every year, until 2009 when the Senate made it permanent.
We used to get a Presidential Proclamation every year, but for some reason, we haven’t had any since 2008.
That’s me, on my ass as usual, in the days before Eric Shinseki;
Category: Historical
You dirty, nasty Legs! Do push ups!
Sorry, P3 profile. How about some overhead claps? 😉
Congrats, all you airborne types!
No I am not ! I am one of the most hated and loved in war. I pick you grunts and take to the emeny(that’s the hate). I bring you water,eats,bullets and take your WIAs and KIAs and finally you grunts out(the love part). For I am a rotorhead. Joe
I got love for stick jockeys.
I don’t know how you guys do it… 6 million parts heading in generally the same direction.
The ‘theory’ of flight.
And on a somber note, RIP to the air crew lost at Keana Point, Hawaii.
Tropic Lightning.
My mama was a leg.
It takes a special type of person to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft…
Never been on “a perfectly good aircraft”, I will keep my parachute.
Clearly you have never been on a C-119
Or a C-123 . . . .
Or a CG-4a glider.
Jumped both C-119’s and C-123’s in jump school at Fort Campbell in 1959 and continued to jump them for the next couple of years. Also jumped the C-124 Globemaster, that double decker transport.
One of my fondest memories is of flying a “military hop” on a C-124 “Globemaster”, from McChord Air Force Base, Washington to Kelly Air Force Base, Texas.
The reason the memory is so special to me is because I knew at the time that it was one of the last flights for that aircraft.
You left out the part about ‘into the dark night sky’.
You are crazy buggers, all of you jumpers. Crazypants. Nutballs. You don’t even yell ‘Mommeeee!’ on the way down. You just collect your junk and go back for more. I don’t understand it at all.
Most fun you can have on earth . . . with your pants on. (smile)
You’re nuts, Hondo! All of you!
True jump story, Ex-PH2, and those are rare: Bitter cold winter night at Fort Campbell with a full moon and a snow-covered drop zone. When my chute opened, I was mesmerized by the beauty of more than a hundred parachutes descending very slowly in that cold dense air, in that crystal clear stillness, so much so I lost track of my position and drifted onto the top of another trooper’s chute.
I actually sat down on top of his canopy and my own chute began collapsing. I yelled at the guy below to pull a hard slip right and when he did I slid off the side of his canopy and fell very fast until my own chute refilled and broke my fall before I hit the ground, allowing me land very scared but unharmed.
More than fifty years later I can still see that snapshot in my mind.
Poetrooper, thank you for your vividly descriptive story.
I still will not strap on a chute and jump out of an airplane.
I think you are all nuts.
Agreed…would rather jump off a burning ship! lol
My son jumped a few weeks ago and the chute of the guy before him opened up directly under him.
He managed to starfish off and got down ok.
Poe, you failed to maintain canopy control, lower jumper has the right of way. You’ve Got to run off the lower jumpers canopy to keep from stealing your own air and your chute collapsing. It is a sweet ride down under silk lol. Was it Suckchon DZ ?
I would love to have the opportunity, just once, but CINC-House says no. He’s rather protective of me.
Never in the history of Air Farce / Army relations has the Farce EVERY allowed the Army to use ANYTHING that might be considered “Perfectly Good”.
For jumps they sent us the planes they hauled cattle in.
Early 90’s we used to get a lot of aircraft support for airborne operations from the 118th Wing of the Tn Air National Guard. I was the primary Jumpmaster for an operation and after JMPI I conducted the Jumpmaster inspection of the aircraft and I swear this C130 looked and smelled like a Cadillac fresh off the showroom floor! I joked with the load master that I was scratching this jump because there wasn’t any hydraulic leaks.
All the way!
ALL O.K DRUNK BASTARD!!
Lets meet up at Sicily North.
Happy Jumping out of airplanes using a low bid piece of equipment Day. You are Braver and crazier than I am.
Nice Picture Jonn.
Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door, jump right out and count to four!
Lean back in your chair, close your eyes and enjoy!
DEATH FROM ABOVE!!
I don’t remember the name of it, but there’s also a similar song on the album, “BALLADS OF THE GREEN BERET”, by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler.
It’s about a young paratrooper making a night jump and his parachute catches fire.
Maybe one of you guys can find the YOU TUBE video, and post it here (if it exists)?
Thank you.
https://youtu.be/z3YkG-AAqF8?list=PLe2WTRCV07jrNceLUz0V_-yImxKjc3MVy
Feet and knees together, Airborne!!!!!
My Airborne!
Beat me to it!
Just for today, we will skip the low-level and go direct to the IP. Green Light! 😎✈️
Nothing like a long low level in July around the NC countryside on a 130/123. Barf on the deck.
Hand the barf bag to the load master on your way out lol. JK Air Force brethren we’d never do something so crass.
That’s some awesome porn music.
Happy A-Day to all you jumping adrenalin junkies…..I have nothing but the utmost respect for you.
There were ulterior motives to jumping: $110/month extra when base pay for 2LT in ’63 was $222.30!
Serving with outstanding Troopers: Priceless!
Up Out Open Down
So easy, even a Corpsman can do it. 🙂
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Paratroopers ! ! !
God bless all of you guys!
I never jumped, but I’m proud to have served in the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) when I was in the old Republic of Viet Nam.
My father never jumped, either, but he was among the cadre that reactivated the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky.
In my copy of the “101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION ‘SCREAMING EAGLES'” history book, I am fortunate enough to have the autograph of one of the original “Band of Brothers” members (now deceased).
By the way, I’m a “LIFE” member of the 101st Airborne Division Association.
That’s how I got my copy of that book (which also mentions me and a deceased buddy).
Why is it I keep having to write, “deceased”, whenever I mention someone I know?
Because they’re dead? As time goes on, it seems like more and more are moving from checkmarks in column A to checkmarks in column B. As we all will.
I’m just a yute of 54, and I’m not liking the way column B is growing.
It doesn’t get any easier.
I Parachuted from the Coney Island parachute jump back in 1955. Do I qualify????
Hey, I did the same at Ft. Benning around 1958. They hooked up the bench to the 250′ tower on Armed Forces Day. I also got to jump from the 30′ tower …. well, they probably hooked us up a bit closer to the ground? It’s just a blur.
I did get a Junior Paratrooper certificate … wish I still had that! I’d frame it and put it above my Airborne School certificate.
I would post my YOU TUBE video of me singing, “BALLAD OF THE GREEN BERET”, but I don’t know how to do it.
Please keep that gem to yourself.
Here you are, Tony, just for you!
https://youtu.be/WjABWniQ-GI
Thanks, I sent it right down the shitter.
My dad got his wings in 1948 — completed all of his jumps in 1947, but bad weather delayed their GLIDER rides.
He was:
505 (from machine gunner up to youngest 1SG)
77th SFG (Team Sgt)
then OCS; around 1963:
* 1st SFG
* 6th SFG
* 5th SFG
* Training Group
* Advisor to 11th Regiment, Kings Own Bodyguards (Thailand).
Me? I only have two additional jumps that I got at Camp Mackall in ’83 while trying to follow in his footsteps. They were much too large for me, those footsteps.
Congrats to the Airborne!
Semper Fidelis.
http://www.skysoldier17.com/319%20Detailed.htm
“On 23 October 1918, during the Meuse offensive, Maj John H. Wallace, commander of the 1st 319th FA, was adjusting fire from a balloon. The balloon was shot down by a Bodne airplane and Maj Wallace was forced to bail out. Maj Wallace made a successful descent by parachute and is remembered as the first person in the 82d to make a parachute jump.”
Damn Jonn you sho was a cutie 😀
This is 11+ minutes of footage from WWII’s Operation Market Garden, which included paratrooper drops and gliders. The birds with stripes on the fuselage ahead of the tail are the CG-4a gliders, troops/equipment carriers.
There’s also a 1946 ‘Theirs Was the Glory’ which dramatizes this event.
At the very beginning of the film, I was interested to see them assembling their hand grenades before going into battle.
We didn’t have to do that.
Our hand grenades came in sealed black cardboard cans, and all you had to do was open the can, take out the grenade, and fasten it to your web gear, ready for use.
@John;
When we used to Med Moor in Gitmo Bay, Cuba, I got the Starboard motor whale boat watch as the boat engineer and one of the gunners mates rode with us as we went in circles around the OKIE 3 in case of someone trying to plant a mine on the hull. He had a box of the old pineapple grenades which were in those round black card board boxes. I think there was a thin piece of string or wire with a little loop on the end that one had to pull around the container to open it up. These memories are over 50 years old so some of the stuff are vague. I also remember he brought an M 1 Garand on the boat.
Most fun I ever got paid to have.
Ditto. Jumpers HIT IT!!!
Yup. I still miss it.
Great another excuse for the damn Airborne to show off yet again…
Shine up those jump boots and get ready to hit the silk…
In his autobiography, “SERGEANT NIBLEY, PH.D.”, Professor Hugh Nibley (now deceased), who served in the 101st Airborne Division during the Second World War, tells of the planes and gliders taking off for the D-Day invasion.
The guys who prepared the gliders were gathered around drunk and laughing as the planes took off, for they were jealous that they were being left behind and wouldn’t get the chance to be heroes.
In their drunken jealousy, they had deliberately sabotaged some of the gliders, causing them to fall apart in mid-air, resulting in the deaths of many 101st Airborne paratroopers.
At 2015Z March 26, 2003, Air Force history was made when members of the 86 CRG, including 18 jumpers from the 786 SFS (14 of which were SF. In addition there was 1 medic, 1 intel, 1 Fuels, and 1 CE also in the SFS, as they are a multi-AFSC 16 squadron) under command of Major Erik Rundquist, made the first Air Force combat parachute assault along with about 1,000 paratroopers of the Army‘s 173 Airborne Brigade onto Bashur Airfield in mountainous northern Iraq. This was also the first combat jump made from the C-17 Globemaster transport and was the largest airborne assault since Operation JUST CAUSE in 1989.
One of the proudest days of my life was the day I earned my Parachute badge. I’m glad they finally Jumped in and gave us a day.