The fighting spirit of the Mowhawk haircut is sadly unauthorized
The Mohawk is as intertwined with the military history of Airborne paratroopers as the playing card. To this day, a debate rages about which unit shaved t…
Paratroopers carry reserve chutes…and sometimes flotation devices
A military airborne operation is inherently risky. Parachutes can fail, troops can be scattered by the wind and Murphy can generally rear his ugly head and make anything and everything…
Why British paratroopers relied on the ingenious Gammon bomb
A paratrooper invented the Gammon Bomb to fit a very specific use case. Paratroopers needed to kill Nazis of all types with just one kind of bomb. So they made…
That time Rangers stole a bulldozer for an assault vehicle
In 1983, Rangers were on the point of the spear during a mission to protect American citizens in Grenada in 1983, attacking a key airfield that was being expanded by Cuban engineers. When the Rangers began to fight the engineers, the Rangers hotwire…
The US plan to train nuclear suicide bomber paratroopers
It’s an idea as old as nuclear weapons themselves: If you could slip a nuke into a city and detonate it, the enemy would never know it was coming. No missiles detected, no early warning radar, just one day: BOOM. In Cold War lore, these man-portabl…
This is why people yell ‘Geronimo’ when jumping from heights
Watch cliff divers, bungee jumpers, or even just kids fooling around and jumping into a lake. At some point, one or more of them will yell “Geronimo!” It’s a safe bet that at some point, we’ve all yelled this name.
How this paratrooper got his trench knife back after 70 years
During the launch of Operation Market Garden, a young Nelson Bryant and thousands of fellow paratroopers from the 82d Airborne parachuted into occupied Holland in an attempt to dislodge its Nazi occupiers. Bryant, wounded in a previous mission, took…
These were America’s first African-American paratroopers
During World War II a company of service soldiers became the world’s first black paratroopers and then made history as smokejumpers.
How 87 paratroopers captured one of the world’s strongest forts
Belgium’s Fort Eben-Emael was the crown jewel of the country’s defense from invasion, boasting huge gun emplacements, defensive ditches and canals, and hundreds of artillery troops, all to protect the heartland and capital.
And the whol…
How these paratroopers came to be called ‘The Rock Regiment’
The 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment is unique in the annals of airborne history. It was one of only two parachute regiments to fight in the Pacific during World War II and the only one still active today.