British Airborne Forces and the Film Industry

Part 1

By Mark Briggs CMIOSH

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 television series projects in the UK, which obviously injects valuable revenue into the British economy as well as creating jobs and increasing British prestige in the international marketplace. In 1999, there were just ten studios in the UK, producing 92 films a year. By 2019, thirty-five studios were producing 376 films each year, with a further twenty-two studios under construction. Projections suggested that over 600 films would be produced in Britain by 2029. The Covid 19 pandemic has posed obstacles to this continuing growth but this could be described as relative and everything is now returning to normal as film production restarts.

HM Airborne Forces have a long association with the film and television industries, providing parachuting-related advice, hands-on knowledge and real-life experience to producers and directors. The Army Film and Photographic Unit cameramen and photographers responsible for the graphic stills and film of the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem in September 1944 were Parachute Regiment Sergeants Dennis M Smith, Gordon “Jock” Walker and C M “Mike” Lewis. The AFPU was based in Pinewood Studios and many of its members were already film and news cameramen and photo-journalists.

The above photograph was taken by AFPU Lieutenant Jack Barker at the unit’s Pinewood Studios location on 28 September 1944, the day the three men arrived home from Arnhem. Smith, on the left, was wounded in the shoulder. Michael Lewis, on the right, would later film and photograph the haunting scenes of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Major studios like Paramount, Warner Brothers, Amazon, Disney and others have come to see the UK as the ideal location for parachute and skydiving work, because of its reputation for good risk management practice in addition to the breadth and depth of the available professional skill sets provided by former military, government-qualified personnel. 

Where specialist skills from basic static line parachuting across the spectrum to HALO and HAHO freefall are concerned, international film production houses know that the best advisors and practitioners are to be found in the United Kingdom. This explains why skydiving sequences in, for instance, the James Bond and Mission Impossible movies, have been managed by British teams, who either undertake the jumps themselves or train the actors to carry out the relevant parachute filming sequences.

All of the British parachuting and skydiving teams are managed and supported by former military NCOs, predominantly from the Parachute Regiment, SAS and RAF. Parachute Regiment veterans like Brian Bosley and Ian Sandford also assist film production companies with other aspects of military training, tactics and culture, ranging from drill, fieldcraft and weapons training. Brian Bosley’s credits include Captain Corellli’s Mandolin, Charlotte Gray and Troy while Ian Sandford worked on Fury and the television series The Crown. As well as training actors and extras to look like real soldiers, Ian Sandford also restores and maintains restored military vehicles and equipment for hire to film and television production houses.

Military training forms the foundation of the necessary skill set requirements, enabling trained soldiers to acquire further specialist ground-air operations qualifications and other competencies. The actors and extras are often put through shortened versions of military training, which enhances the realism of their performances and, of course, focuses heavily on safety and safe working practices.

Former 3 PARA soldier and Red Devil Julian Spencer, now a leading stunt coordinator, commented to HERMES: “It’s not about using or training stunt extras. It is far more important to employ the most skilled person for the particular job. For example, I recently engaged a former Airborne Forces operative, ‘the Stig’,  for a complex driving sequence rather than just utilising a stunt performer from the Internet Movie Database with driving skills on their CV.”.  

Obviously, almost all of the various team members have attended No 1 Parachute Training School, passing Basic Parachute Training to begin with, which is a National Vocational Qualification or NVQ Level 2 under the Recognised Qualifications Framework. Qualifying as Parachute Jump and Military Freefall Instructors equates to NVQ Level 3 and 4. Put simply, British Airborne Forces and Parachute Jump Instructors are government-trained and qualified parachuting professionals.

British Airborne Forces’ relationship with the film industry dates back to the 1940s and the iconic film Theirs Is The Glory, when more than two-hundred veterans of the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944 returned in 1945 to what remained of the town to help Director –– and Gallipoli veteran –– Brian Hurst to recreate the battle for the cameras.

Script co-writer Terence Young, who later wrote the early James Bond films, was with the XXX (30) Corps column trying to reach the paratroopers of the 1^st Airborne Division trapped in Oosterbeek and in Arnhem itself. Released in 1946, Theirs Is The Glory was the most profitable British war film until well into the 1950s and, as many readers will recall, continued to be shown to recruits at Depot PARA until the 1990s as part of the process of instilling the Airborne esprit de corps with its traditions and heritage.

1945 also saw the Royal Air Force providing access to No 1 Parachute Training School at RAF Ringway to the producers of the French two-part film Bataillon du Ciel, or Sky Battalion, about the Free French parachute battalion that jumped into the western French province of Brittany on D-Day. The first part of the film, whose secondary title translates as They Are Not Angels, follows the British-trained Free French paratroopers through their training.

The second part, whose French secondary title is best-translated as On French Soil, recounts their campaign in Brittany. Many of those appearing in the training, parachuting and combat scenes were serving French and British paratroopers –– along with serving RAF Parachute Jump Instructors –– who had all passed through the British parachute training schools in England and the Middle East.

Where Theirs Is The Glory focused on the 1st Airborne Division’s exploits in Arnhem and Oosterbeek, the 1977 Hollywood epic A Bridge Too Far, based on Cornelius Ryan’s 1974 book of the same title, was about Operation Market Garden as a whole and depicted British, American and Polish Airborne Forces’ actions around Arnhem and Nijmegen.

The parachuting sequences were filmed with some two-hundred serving Parachute Regiment soldiers, mainly from 1 PARA. Ian Marshall, one of the participants, told HERMES: “Filming of the drop consisted of several formations of Dakotas flying three-abreast, dropping 19-man sticks. The main parachute drop was from a three-aircraft formation of C-130s flying above the Dakotas; everything was a bit chaotic and the ground wind speeds very high, resulting in numerous injuries.”.

Dirk Bogarde, who played General ‘Boy’ Browning, did not serve with Airborne Forces but had been one of several intelligence officers sent by Field Marshal Montgomery to Arnhem during the battle to report on the situation there. Hardy Kruger, who played General Heinz Harmel, one of the ‘good Germans’, as a sixteen year-old, had served in the Nibelungen Panzergrenadier Division on the western front in the closing months of the war. Kruger had narrowly escaped the firing squad for refusing to fire on American forces and had subsequently deserted, hiding out in the Tyrolean Mountains until the war’s end. As both actors remarked, the filming brought back hard memories.

When Stanley Kubrick’s 1980s Vietnam film Full Metal Jacket was given the go-ahead, Kubrick did not obtain his US Marines from central casting. Self-exiled in Britain, Kubrick asked the MOD for serving soldiers, which is how the boot camp and Vietnam scenes came to be full of well-known 10 PARA faces. To turn the 10 PARA boys into convincing Marines, Kubrick hired American actor Robert Lee Ermey, a former USMC Gunnery Sergeant and drill instructor who had also seen action in Vietnam.

HERMES Editor Prosper Keating recalled: “After a few days of trying to extract the broomsticks from our backs, Ermey was losing his patience. We just couldn’t slouch around like US boot-necks. One morning, Ermey yelled: ‘Don’t you ladies know how to shuffle?’. Someone who shall remain nameless responded from the ranks: ‘Yeah, Lee, we know how to shuffle. Towards the door of a C130! Have you ever jumped out of a plane?’ Ermey reacted by storming off the set. Kubrick placated him by giving him the role of Hartmann as the actor they had hired wasn’t terribly convincing and then, gathering the 10 PARA lads together, asked us to be kind to Lee, who was actually a lovely bloke .”.

Of course, Full Metal Jacket did not involve any parachuting. For the television series Band of Brothers in 2001, developed from Stephen Ambrose’s book, the producers again turned to British Airborne veterans for technical help and advice. The consultants adopted the template first used by Alex Black of 9 PARA Royal Engineers and his fellow 9 Squadron Parachute Display Team members for the parachuting scenes in Where Eagles Dare in 1968. Julian Spencer was the Band of Brothers parachute coordinator. His brother David Spencer, a former Guardsman who served with Omani Airborne Forces, rigged the equipment, consisting of T10 harnesses with 26-foot French reserve canopies, as these were the only serviceable white parachutes available at the time.

Former RAF PJI and Military Freefall (HALO/HAHO) Instructor Dave Emerson, who also served with the RAF Falcons and the Boscombe Down parachute test team and as Chief Instructor at RAF Weston-on-the-Green JSPC and RAFSPA was the Band of Brothers Jumpmaster. Dave Emerson is now a cinema industry parachute coordinator in his own right. The Drop Zone Safety Officer (DZSO) was Major (Ret’d) John Horne, ex-REME Detachment PARA, whose CV includes service as Commandant of the Rhine Army Parachute Association centre at Bad Lippspringe and the Army Parachute Association centre at Netheravon.

John Horne told HERMES: “Filming took place at Netheravon airfield, during a period of bad weather. After several days’ of waiting, we got up at five am on the final morning and managed to complete two jumps back-to-back, within a one- hour weather window. The cloud base was very low and the aircraft was barely visible. I gave the ‘clear drop’ instruction when the engine noise was directly overhead; Ian Marshall, Chris Francis and the other six paratroopers landed perfectly in the middle of the DZ on both occasions.”.

Initially entering the industry in 1999, and working alongside Ian Marshall in the early days on the James Bond franchise films –– and with Ray Armstrong on more recent projects –– Allan Hewitt has expanded his professional repertoire across a range of in-air related activities and parachuting disciplines including skydiving, military parachuting and special-forces freefall (HALO/HAHO), BASE jumping and speed flying.

Now one of the leading skydive coordinators in the industry, 1 PARA and Red Devils veteran Allan Hewitt told HERMES: “When carrying out skydive stunt work,  we are often at the limit, so safety is always our priority. Parasafe Ltd, for example, provides the necessary safety and technical support to the teams. This includes expert advice on how we should develop safety management systems, operations manuals, risk assessments and procedures for acceptance by regulatory authorities.”. Allan Hewitt’s colleague Ray Armstrong, ex-1 PARA, Red Devils and now serving with 4 PARA, commented: “I have been lucky enough to work with the best personnel in the industry, who have enabled the various skydive teams to push the boundaries and create award-winning sequences for both Film and TV’.

Ian Barraclough, who served with 1 PARA and Red Devils, recalled working as DZSO with Tom Cruise on Mission Impossible 6: “Working with Tom was amazing as he keeps pushing himself to the limit, and we had to try to keep up! Our Drop Zone was in the middle of the desert and I was out there providing ground-air-control to the C-17 Pilot, from morning till night.

“Before calling “Clear Drop” there were a series of safety conditions for me to check or initiate, including closing both ends of a nearby road, confirming that the ambulance and Doctor were on stand-by, requesting Air-Traffic Control to close the airspace, passing on the wind speed and required off-set to the C-17 Loadmaster, and continually scanning the landing area for unexpected hazards. I had 3 radio frequencies to switch between, in order to talk with the different Agencies. We did this up to 8 times a day over several weeks.”.

In Part 2, we shall look at the negative impact on this important and lucrative aspect of film and television production in Britain of the Civil Aviation Authority’s appointment in the 1990s of British Skydiving — formerly trading as the British Parachuting Association — as its parachuting advisor. Initially, the BPA did not interfere with traditional or round canopy parachuting but as the club evolved into a commercial solo and tandem skydiving franchiser, a decision was reportedly taken to eliminate round canopy or military-style parachuting. Being cheaper than skydiving, it represented a threat. Did British Skydiving abuse its privileged relationship with the CAA with the aim of establishing an illegal monopoly?

To be continued/…