Paratrooper

The ability of airborne assault to enter the battlefield from any location allows paratroopers to evade emplaced fortifications that guard from attack from a specific direction.

This was acknowledged in the army report of October 4, 1916: Eastern theater of war: ... Oberleutnant v. Cossel, who was set down from the plane southwest of Rowno by Vice Sergeant Windisch and picked up again after 24 hours, interrupted the Rowno-Brody railway line at several points by means of explosives.

Arditi Lieutenant Alessandro Tandura [it] jumped from a Savoia-Pomilio SP.4 aircraft of the Gruppo speciale Aviazione I [it] piloted by Canadian Major William George Barker and British Captain William Wedgwood Benn (both Royal Air Force pilots), when Tandura dropped behind Austro-Hungarian lines near Vittorio Veneto on a reconnaissance and sabotage mission, followed on later nights by Lts.

The terms come from the common use of white chalk on the sides of aircraft and vehicles to mark and update numbers of personnel and equipment being emplaned.

He performed 23 test and exhibition parachute drops without problems to publicise the system and overcome the prejudice aviators had for such life-saving equipment.

[15] In 1935, Captain Geille of the French Air Force created the Avignon-Pujaut Paratroopers Schools after he trained in Moscow at the Soviet Airborne Academy.

The first Allied soldier killed in the liberation of France was Free French SAS Corporal Emile Bouétard of the 4e Bataillon d’Infanterie de l’Air, also in Brittany in Plumelec: June 6, 0 h 40.

Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe Fallschirmjäger units made the first airborne invasion when invading Denmark on April 9, 1940, as part of Operation Weserübung.

In accord with standard German practice, these were called by their commander's name, such as Group Erdmann in France and the Ramcke Parachute Brigade in North Africa.

A sizable part of the battalion was retained in the airborne role for some time, forming the armoured element of the 50th (Independent) Parachute Brigade and equipped with their BMP-2 Infantry Combat Vehicles.

The IDF paratrooper brigades include: The first units of Italian parachutists were trained and formed shortly before the Second World War in Castel Benito, near Tripoli (Libya), where the first Military school of Parachuting was located.

It was trained for the assault on Malta but was used instead in ground combat operations in the North African Campaign, where it fought with great distinction during the Second battle of El Alamein, effectively stalling the southern part of the Commonwealth attack until the general retreat of the Axis forces, when it was destroyed.

Other scattered elements joined the Italian Social Republic, where they formed several Parachute units that continued to operate alongside the Germans against the Allies, fighting with distinction during the Battle of Anzio.

Parts of the Brigade have been employed many times in the Balkans (IFOR/SFOR in Bosnia and KFOR in Kosovo), with MNF in Albania and INTERFET in East Timor.

The Paratroopers Brigade "Folgore" is still mainly deployed abroad in international stabilization and peacekeeping operation, on rotation with the other elite units of the Italian Army.

It was commanded by a major general, and was organized as follows: Notably, Japanese troopers fought in the Battle of Palembang and in the takeover of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies.

The unit is currently used for homeland defense and international combat operations as part of the JGSDF’s Ground Component Command (Japanese: 陸上総隊).

During the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War, the Peruvian army had also established its own paratrooper unit and used it to great effect by seizing the Ecuadorian port city of Puerto Bolívar, on July 27, 1941, marking the first time in the Americas that airborne troops were used in combat.

The Poles suffered significant casualties during the next few days of fighting, but still were able, by their presence, to cause around 2,500 German troops to be diverted to deal with them for fear of them supporting the remnants of 1st Airborne trapped over the lower Rhine in Oosterbeek.

It was finally based in Lincolnshire, close to RAF Spitalgate (Grantham) where it continued training until its eventual departure for Europe after D-Day.

With great difficulty and under German fire from the heights of Westerbouwing on the north bank of the river, the 8th Parachute Company and, later, additional troops from 3rd Battalion, managed to cross the Rhine in two attempts.

In addition to the regular units of paratroopers, in Mozambique were also created the Parachute Special Groups, composed of African irregular troops who wore a maroon beret.

These divisions were formed into their own VDV commands (Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska) to give the Soviets a rapid strike force to spearhead strategic military operations.

The Parachute Regiment has its origins in the elite force of Commandos set up by the British Army at the request of Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, during the initial phase of the Second World War.

Churchill had been an enthusiast of the concept of airborne warfare since the First World War, when he had proposed the creation of a force that might assault the German flanks deep behind the trenches of the static Western Front.

[23] In 1940 and in the aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuation and the Fall of France, Churchill's interest was caught again by the idea of taking the fight back to Europe – the airborne was now a means "to be able to storm a series of water obstacles... everywhere from the Channel to the Mediterranean and in the East".

Later large scale drops, such as those on the Rhine under Operation Varsity and involving the British 6th and the US 17th, were successful, but less ambitious in their intent to seize ground.

The platoon leader was 1st Lieutenant William T. Ryder, who made the first jump on August 16, 1940, at Lawson Field, Fort Benning, Georgia, from a B-18 bomber.

[32] Although airborne units were not popular with the top U.S. Armed Forces commanders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored the concept, and Major General William C. Lee organized the first paratroop platoon.