The Paras - The Inside Story of Britain's Toughest Regiment

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John Parker. The Paras - The Inside Story of Britain's Toughest Regiment

THE PARAS

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Parachute Regiment Battle Honours

INTRODUCTION

WIVES AND WIDOWS

WARRIORS FROM THE SKIES

GET A MOVE ON!

INTO ACTION AT LAST

LIGHTING THE TORCH

THE LONGEST DAY

ARNHEM: THE BRIDGE TOO FAR

THE PANZERS MOVE IN

‘MY WIFE WILL KILL ME!’

SHOT IN THE BACK

UPON SWIFT HORSES (OR BIKES)

THE SUEZ FIASCO

WHERE’S THE FIRE?

THE TROUBLES

GETTING PERSONAL

THE FALKLANDS ADVENTURE

DROPPED RIGHT IN IT

MARCH OR DIE!

BLOODSTAINED HEROES?

NOTES FROM A SMALL IRELAND

BLOODY HOT!

DO YOU WANT TO…?

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Maps

INDEX

Copyright

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The Inside Story of Britain’s Toughest Regiment

JOHN PARKER

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Many of the early operations of these special forces groups were swashbuckling in style and met with varying degrees of success – or failure, sometimes to the point of fiasco. Months of trial and error and not a few casualties forced war managers to press for more subtle ways to carry out clandestine work against the enemy. There were many who thought special forces and their fanciful operations were a waste of time and manpower. Sending out small groups of men to blow up railway lines or pillboxes, killing a few enemy soldiers and as often as not losing half, sometimes all, of their own team in the process – for what? Enemy morale was barely touched and damage to installations quickly repaired. There were much more cost-effective ways, it was argued, to use ships and aircraft and highly trained men. Even so, there were many good results and quite a few heroes.

The risks involved in special operations were invariably heavy and extremely evident. The fact that a good proportion of the men might not return was generally not mentioned, although there was always that plaintiff cry at the end of the briefings on all of these operations: ‘How do we get home?’ The escape route back to base was usually meticulously worked out, but in effect rarely ran to plan, and as the war progressed, hundreds of men sent covertly behind the lines were captured, shot up in firefights or executed.

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