MARINE CORPS: Jumping Devildogs

A thousand feet below the fat belly of the cargo plane, the Virginia countryside had a wicked look. Rocks, scrub trees, creeks, fences, power lines looked as if they lay in wait there, in the blue summer haze.

Legs akimbo, half lying on their parachute packs, nine Marines lounged on the bare metal floor. The tenth stood before an open hatch in the side of the plane. A little older than the others, he was the sergeant and jump-master; he would be the first through the hatch. Now, while the plane rushed toward the spot chosen for this practice jump near Fredericksburg, his hands were raised above his head, gripping a cable which ran the length of the cabin.

One of the youngsters on the floor struck up a song: I’m a ramblin’ wreck from Georgia Tech. The others joined in for a moment, then the song faded out. Another tried a ballad about a certain Nelly. That, too, died away. Around the tight, smiling lips of one of the singers a tiny rim of white began to show. Among the seated men ran a quick patter of jokes: about limber legs, and that old feeling below the knees, and how lucky they were to be jumping from 1,000 feet instead of 750, which is pretty low for a safe jump, even with parachutes which open very quickly. Most of the squad had made ten or twelve jumps before. They were not afraid to jump, they said; it was the waiting that got you on edge.

Ahead of them, below the left wing of their plane, an identical ship carrying ten more jumpers heeled into position. This was to be a formation jump, with everything precisely timed and spaced for wind and distance.

The sergeant standing by the hatch suddenly turned and spoke. His men clattered to their feet. Trailing from the back of each man’s pack was a 15-foot “static cord,” with a buckle on the free end. Each man reached down, seized the buckle, snapped it to the overhead cable. They crowded into line, right hand on the shoulder of the man in front, shuffled toward the hatch. The sergeant tensed his body, flexed his knees down and out, dived. His static cord whipped straight behind him, tightened, yanked the canvas cover from his ‘chute.

Before the sergeant’s ‘chute had billowed into a white cloud just below and behind the plane’s tail, the second man had jumped. Within ten seconds, the cabin was empty. The ‘chutes drifted compactly together, behind the clump from the other plane, scudding swiftly downwind. The crews aboard the planes circling overhead saw the first jumpers hit ground, roll, vanish among their flattening parachutes. A flight sergeant yelled: “Hell, they’re in the trees!” Some of the ‘chutists had indeed gone into the trees; one landed in a creek. Damage: a couple of ripped ‘chutes, no injuries.

The Best They Can. Thus ended last week the first formation jump by the Marine Corps’s first paratroops: Company A, Second Parachute Battalion. For Captain Robert Hugh Williams, Company A’s commander, the day’s jump was his 13th.

Compared with the Army’s paratroop program (four battalions, 2,400 men) the Marine Corps has made a small start. Captain Williams’ undermanned company of 80 men (in two platoons) is one of two in the Second Battalion; another battalion is being formed, and the Corps aims at an output of 300 paratroopers a month. Last week half of Company A was at Norfolk, jumping (over land) from Navy patrol planes.

Wisconsin-born, 34-year-old Captain Williams (Annapolis 1929) was commanding a Marine detachment aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma when he applied for parachute service early this year, was assigned to form the first outfit in March. Since then he has established a hard training routine, based on his premise that paratroopers are simply a new form of infantry: daily jumps without parachute (to harden legs and ankles) from a 7½-foot-high platform when planes are not available; jujitsu, to learn such tricks as breaking enemy wrists in hand-to-hand fighting; hardening marches and calisthenics, which have made Company A a notably tough-looking outfit among Marines, who all look tough.

Shortages of planes, of special packs in which to drop equipment, and of other essentials still hamper the Second Battalion’s training. Captain Williams has no planes specifically assigned to him, though he could use four or five. Carpenters in his outfit have had to make their own crates in which to ‘chute down mortars, machine guns (jumpers carry a .45-caliber pistol and hand grenades, drop heavier weapons separately).

Company A so far has had few casualties, no deaths. Captain Williams expects one broken leg in every 500 jumps, looks on minor sprains and bruises as inevitable. Any Marine between 21 and 32 is eligible for parachute service. Most are between 21 and 25. If all the paratroopers had to do was jump, 120 Ib. would be the ideal weight. But they must also be rugged, so Captain Williams prefers men built approximately like himself: 5 ft., 8 or 9 in. tall, 160 to 190 Ib., with stocky frames trained down to bone and muscle.

Last week Captain Williams and his men jumped for the first time in green paratunics which he designed (“I can’t claim much originality; I just looked at a picture of some Germans”). Slipped over ordinary uniforms, draping the parachutists from neck to thigh, the tunic has pockets for a pistol, ammunition, grenades, rations, and a clasp knife with a quick-opening spring blade. The knife is for cutting through fouled parachute lines when jumpers hang up in trees, or get snarled in the tail of a plane. Last May, over San Diego, Lieut. W. S. Osipoff of Company A actually got caught in a plane’s tail assembly, was rescued by two naval fliers in another plane. He was still in a hospital last week. If he had carried a knife he could have cut himself loose, floated down with the second ‘chute which all jumpers carry. Now, when Captain Williams cautions his men against such mishaps, he says: “Don’t do an Osipoff!”