Which are the most interesting facts about paratroopers?

Which are the most interesting facts about paratroopers?

The unit with the most parachute jumps into a combat zone in history wasn't even a paratrooper unit.

It was also not one of those Special Ops or Marine units we hear people talking about all the time. Instead, they came from a tiny, poorly equipped and totally underfunded military.

During the Rhodesian Bush War (1964–79), the Rhodesian Army’s light infantry units had received additional parachute training to act as an airborne counterinsurgency strike force.

A Rhodesian Army “Fireforce” unit waiting for their orders to go into action (Photo: johnwynnehopkin).

They were fighting against a communist insurgency backed by the Soviet Union. As the country was big and the roads were bad, the only way to get a counterinsurgency force quickly enough into combat was by air.

Unfortunately, however, the Rhodesian army had only a few small Alouette III helicopters in their arsenal, not enough to carry enough soldiers. To solve this problem, the Rhodesians developed a unique concept, the so-called Fireforce tactics:

While four small helicopters were used to transport an advance team of sixteen men into the combat zone, the rest of the troops were loaded on an old C-47 Dakota and dropped by parachute.

They would then quickly join the advance team while the helicopters hovered over the area to provide cover fire and as flying observation posts.

Of course, jumping from very low altitudes on an unprepared drop zone caused a lot of injuries. Still, it was the only viable means of transport.

As a result of these tactics, the Rhodesian infantry accumulated far more than 10,000 combat jumps into enemy-held territory.

It wasn't unusual for a simple soldier to have more than forty combat jumps, a number unimaginable to any Western airborne soldier!