- PARACHUTE REGIMENT AND SAS VETERANS JUMP ON ARNHEM 2022
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 in action there in 1944. Simon served with 10 PARA, 1 PARA and other units back in 5th Airborne Brigade days. …
- THE KIEL CANAL DISASTER 1974
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 (V) and one man from 4 PARA (V). Geoff Butler, who has contributed this article to Hermes, was a young …
- THE PARA WHO WOULDN’T DIE…
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 but Lee Crudgington’s will to live beat the odds. Surgeons and specialists came from far and wide to see the patient they considered a medical marvel. …
- DEREK CHAMBERS — PAINTING PARAS
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 one-man exhibitions aside, his art, created in an astonishing range of media and materials, has been shown at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Watercolour Society, the Royal Society …
- THE ALDERSHOT BOMBING 1972
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.] Fifty years to the day after the car-bombing by the IRA of the 16th Parachute Brigade Headquarters’ Officers Mess, a new memorial honouring those who were killed was unveiled on February 22nd 2022 …
