By Simon Chambers     

[British Airborne Forces veteran and author Simon Chambers, whose books include Devil’s Playground and Shadow of the Vulture, jumped at Arnhem last September with the Pathfinder International parachuting club to commemorate the men who were killed …

BY GEOFF BUTLER

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

The Kiel Canal accident on September 9th, 1974 is one of the many tragic events punctuating Parachute Regiment and British Airborne Forces history. The disaster claimed the lives of five men serving with 15 PARA …

By Ian Marshall

Editorial Foreword

The French surgeons who put Lee Crudgington back together again after his horrific parachuting accident in southern France early last July didn’t hold out much hope of his survival …

By Prosper Keating

Derek Chambers is a self-taught painter. His natural talent and gift for scale and perspective shines through in works like ‘The Call-On, Isle of Dogs c.1950’. His …

AN OVERDUE MEMORIAL by PROSPER KEATING

[Special thanks to Colin ‘Taff’ Edwards, Geoff Butler and others who sent in many of the photographs used in this article.]

…

By Ian Marshall

Editor’s Introduction

Ian Marshall, who served with 2 PARA, the Pathfinder Platoon and the Red Devils, is regarded as one of the most experienced parachutists in the world, with more than 12,500 …

by Prosper Keating

On April 28^th 2017, RAF Brize Norton issued a communiqué: “For the first time since the Second World War, Physical Training Instructors from the British Army will graduate as Parachute Jump Instructors (PJIs) at RAF Brize …

THE INDIAN ARNHEM by Myles Sanderson

Foreword by the Editor

If the small groups of 50^th (Indian) Para Bde survivors who made it back through the jungle to Imphal after the Battle of Sangshak felt defeated, they were wrong. …

Niall Cherry, late of 23 & 144 PFA, tells the story of The Two Lieutenants.

This is the story of two young officers from The Parachute Regiment who took part …

By Mark Briggs

Part 1

British government policy over the past two decades has been to encourage and grow the film industry in the United Kingdom. Many of the major Hollywood directors and production companies now base their film and …

By Prosper Keating

“THE MEN WON’T LIKE IT IF WE LET WOMEN HAVE PARACHUTE WINGS!”

We do not know who might have said this during the 1939-1945 War but someone decided …

THE INDIAN ARNHEM by Myles Sanderson

Foreword by the Editor

John Sanderson was one of the few officers of the 152nd (Parachute) Battalion to survive the Battle of Sangshak in India in March 1944. John Sanderson’s autobiography Secret Service in …

Words by Alec Wilson, Terry Lowe and Rick Stroud, –– and the late Vic Gregg.

[With special thanks to Rick Stroud, co-author of Victor Gregg’s autobiography ‘Rifleman’ (Bloomsbury Press) and to photographer Andy Lewis for the use of his photographs…

Chosen for Hermes by Jim “Jock” Love

From: James Love
Subject: Re: November
Date: 3 November 2021 at 10:08:40 CET
To: Prosper Keating <editor@prahq.com>

P, Gus is ex 9 Ind. Para Sqn. He was down south in 82. He did a …

What I’ve Shared, I’ve Shared 

Earth, sand, and mud.
From holes, all over the world.
We’d stare, at the skies, and stars.
Share our secrets, trade our desires.
Thinking of home, wherever that was.
Thinking of those we loved…
Of …

War is Over, Our Spirits Gone…

Belgium soil
In Flanders Fields,
We dug down deep.
Where shells and bombs 
Might not reach.
We lived in mud and filthy water,
Below deaths bugle call…
and mans lust.
For senseless… slaughter.
Having …

Jock Love dedicates this poem to Captain Chris Dent of 2 PARA, killed in action below Darwin Hill on May 28th 1982.

From: James Love
Date: 28 September 2021 at 00:20:24 CEST
To: P Keating
Subject:Poem

P,

Footnote :
Before …