John,
Fantastic post! Thank you very much.
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"It was drilled into these fellows that when they were thrown into the middle of an operation like Varsity, they were on their own hook. It would be all confusion. To cope with the things that could happen to them — like dropping in the middle of a woods alone, perhaps being wounded — and then find their positions as fast as possible, physical fitness and discipline were the two things that were going to get them there," Eadie explains.
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It does not sound good for the Canadians. With such a training and equipment, as in the case of Allied WWII paratroopers, nobody had the right to require the jump in the middle of a woods. Mainly nobody had such a right towards the British, Canadian and Polish paras representing "Commonwealth school" of military parachuting. Both pre-WWII and during WWII the only one parachute service in the world trained and equipped to jump in the middle of a woods was the US Forrest Service and its parachute firefighters so-called smoke jumpers. The men who in their contracts accepted their broken hands, legs and backbones, but on the other hand the men professionally prepared for such dangerous jumps in contradistinction to WWII-era military paras poorly trained in such jumps or not trained. The fact that the Allied paras were equipped with the toggle ropes, so-called "let-down ropes", does not mean that they were trained in the jumps into the trees. Nobody organized the exercises of jumping into the trees then because the level of casualties would be a kind of horror. During WWII, and among military paratroopers, only small group of the US paras was theoretically trained by the US Forrest Service instructors to jump into the trees.
If somebody was going to order the Canadians to jump into the trees of Diersfordter Wald in 1945… what to say wise… poor Canadians. Both pre-WWII and now the parachutists jumping into the trees look like "Michelin Man" and even their faces are protected by special masks.
Two pics of the WWII-era US Forrest Service smoke jumpers.
US Library of Congress LC-USE6-D-009239
US Library of Congress LC-USE6-D-009240
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"I want you Canadians to understand that I don't want any foolishness on that drop zone," Hill told them. "You all know by now that the areas on which you will land will be ringed with enemy small arms, anti-aircraft weapons, and 88mm guns. These enemy positions have been allocated to Lieutenant-Colonel Hewetson's battalion. I want to make it clear that the objectives assigned you are your primary targets. I don't want you engaged in unauthorized targets. Leave the other man's fight to him!"
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It sounds interesting. "Foolishness" and "unauthorized targets"... I thought that only the Poles are famed for the "unauthorized orders and targets", mainly Maj.-Gen. Stanisław Maczek, GOC of the Polish 1st Armoured Division
Well, joking apart.
What did Hill mean talking about the "unauthorized targets"? Did I miss anything from the 1st CanPara history during Normandy period? I know that there was British-Canadian conflict after Normandy Campaign and the first CO of the CanPara was forced to go away. Up to this time I thought however that it was the conflict of personalities mainly, the conflict of "interpersonal chemistry" rather between Brigadier Hill and Lt.-Col. Bradbrooke than more serious accusations. There was also a conflict for manner of defence of the Le Mesnil crossroads but Hill's speech to the Canadians before Operation Varsity seems to be slightly arrogant...
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Best regards
C.
