part in my being where I was. The ease of it all! The tranquillity! Then, the view! Bird’s eye, yes that was it; the magnificent view. How many seconds did he say from a thousand feet – 23? Must be longer! In fact, I don’t think I’m coming down at all. Didn’t Kenty say he would see us all later at the drop zone to see if we agreed with him that it was the second best sensation in life? Well, I know that a walking fish and chip supper with salt and vinegar on – and eaten with the fingers out of a newspaper – takes some beating, but this is quite superb. Kenty was right – nearly as good.
“No. 4!... No. 4!” God, that’s me! Oh, it’s the chap down there with the megaphone. “Good exit No. 4. Keep coming as you are.” Keep coming? How the hell could I help but keep coming? Oh, I see. No need to make a turn, he means, no oscillation. I’d forgotten about that. In fact, I had forgotten everything about the rules in my unbridled happiness. But I will never forget the dramatic change of realisation from dreaming that I might be suspended in space forever to the fact that I really was coming down – and quickly. Indeed, for the last 50 feet I was sure that the earth was coming up to meet me halfway, as the speed of my descent became relative and I braced myself for what was supposed to be equivalent, on average, to jumping from a six foot wall. The reality was more like stepping off the back door, and I rolled more from condescension than necessity – a gesture which earned me the accolade of “an excellent landing” from the ground-control officer and added a boost to my rampant ego.
Pressing and turning the quick-release box freed the webbing straps, which had hitherto attached the chute to me. Holding on to a strap, I raced around the rapidly filling canopy and collapsed it before it became faster than me, in its wind-assisted mobility. As soon as it was crumpled into a reasonable bundle, I deposited it and myself into the waiting truck as instructed. The truck would take the whole stick back to the airfield packing shed for another issue of parachutes for our second jump immediately. It didn’t happen that way because of an unkind windspeed, which was a great pity since the mood I was in would have kept me jumping all day. For all the embellishment, for which I apologise, the fairly terse diary entry for the day takes some beating: “It’s the grandest of all feelings. Don’t remember coming out of the door but managed to make an excellent landing. Thrilled beyond expectations – can only remember laughing all the time, especially when ground controller complimented me”. Which I suppose only goes to show that a bit of praise now and again is good for morale.
Back at the hut, one bed without any kit on it… Oh, God! Not a casualty? He had been RTUd (returned to unit) – the instant fate of a jibber: one who could not bring himself to go out of the door. A collective silence was broken by a relieving snort from his former near neighbour. “Well! I’m glad it was that loud-mouthed bugger!” We endorsed that view. But not without sympathy, and perhaps even admiration at the courage required of such a tormenting decision – after all that arduous training. We marvelled incredulously too, at the extraordinary sensitivity of the Army in ensuring that he was off the premises before we returned: a very deliberate policy which we were to encounter again.
The cynicism which service life bred, however, alternatively suggested that the Army had the jibber’s feelings less in mind than the need to avoid contaminating the rest of us. Take your choice. Whatever one’s feelings in that minor drama, they could not compare with one’s attitude to a mass-jib of 18 volunteers (including three sergeants) who applied for and received their Return to Units from Nahariya before even transferring to the airfield at Ramat David! Something wrong with recruiting, or a persuasive barrack-room lawyer at work?
Free from duty, we went into Haifa for the rest of the day. Strangely enough there is no record of celebration but there are two probable reasons for that. With only one of seven jumps completed, it might have been tempting providence to congratulate ourselves too soon – after all they don’t bring out the champagne on the completion of the first lap of a Grand Prix. I think it likely that the risk of a hangover was not considered an ideal approach to our second jump next morning. There was also the more prosaic explanation – we were skint after our Christmas indulgence. Whatever the reason, the film The Man who Came to Dinner received our attention and it was a first rate show.
Tuesday 28 December dawned windier than the day before and with no hope of parachuting. We were, if you’ll pardon the expression, left in suspense. Wednesday morning was just as grim as the weather forecast, but with the promise of better things in the afternoon. This kept us in camp on standby with fruitful consequences in the afternoon – our second jump. Fast pairs from 1000 feet. I knew much more about this one. More aware of my exit; more certain that I did do things correctly on my first jump from instinctive execution of thoroughly instilled training practices. Arms tight by my sides, legs pressed together and a really forceful thrust away from the Hudson, that astonishing second of recumbrance in the slipstream, then again the uncanny, contrasting, library silence. Where did the noise go? I looked around and could neither see nor hear any trace of the plane. Very strange, but each of us experienced it. There was much more sensibility about coming down this time too. I was soon aware of a backward approach to the DZ, and had executed a complete reverse turn smiling the while in self-congratulation before my megaphone mentor could issue the instruction. I had another uneventful landing. That evening I finished the diary entry with “I’m really happy about this – enjoyed it immensely.”
The rain was belting down the next morning but apparently this, by itself, is no barrier to parachuting, so our early dismay at the likelihood of further postponement rapidly changed to unrestrained glee at the arrival of the trucks. We did two jumps that day – one immediately after the other – slow and fast fives from little under 1000 feet. The first was an appalling effort. Apart from a thunderclap wallop of a landing, on the a backward swing of an oscillation I had failed to correct (having missed the ground by a foot or two on the forward swing), I had already earned black marks for an earlier misdemeanour. Whilst in the plane, after Flight Sgt. Kent’s thorough inspection, I had surreptitiously released the press-stud fastening of my protective headgear to ease the tightness and the sweating. In the excitement of the collective venture of going out in a five-stick, I forgot to refasten it, with the consequence that it disappeared in an instant. I rightly incurred the wrath of the ground controller, who noticed it immediately and made no bones about telling me through the megaphone. The reprimand was continued on the ground and he was not amused by my replying that I was relieved to find that I had lost only my hat – at the time I felt sure it was my head which had been wrenched off! My stupidity, I recognised, could have had serious consequences – particularly with regard to my atrocious landing, with an unprotected head. With another set of parachutes we were in the air again for our fourth jump. Suitably chastised and subdued, I ensured that my behaviour was impeccable this time, but as luck would have it number four was the perfect jump anyway and totally incident free. Soaking wet, I experienced the carefree joy of a victorious Boat Race crew’s cox emerging from his ritual ducking.
Four done, three to come, the last of them to be a night jump. And tomorrow was New Year’s Eve… I didn’t sleep very well – not a noteworthy fact in itself – but I learned only later that statistics show that most jibbers make their momentous decision after their third or fourth jump, once the reality of what they have been doing had impressed itself more forcefully up on their minds and the time for a final decision was at hand. Jibbing had never entered my mind, yet I cannot explain that restless night unless it was excitement at the possibility of having the final jump on my birthday. New Year’s Day had fired my imagination and was driving my mind in rehearsing the composition of my proud letters home.
The morning’s conditions were not very favourable but it was decided to try, with eventual successful consequences. Jumps numbered five and six were completed in quick succession after much puzzling circling of the DZ without explanation from the crew or dispatcher. In the fifth, drifting took me a long, anxious way off target, landing me heavily on unyielding rocks – well outside the huge, more comfortable DZ field. Being in the middle of a ‘fast tens’ stick, it can be imagined that most of us were thus off course. Maybe, when one considered the odd antics of the oft-circling plane, the pilot had something to do with it. Whatever the explanation for my fifth
