# Origins of and Development of US Airborne and MFF



## Johca (Oct 30, 2013)

Regardless of the U.S. Armed Forces branch of service (Army, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force) much of the development of US Armed Forces military parachuting development has strong connection to the establishment of the US Forest Service’s Smoke Jumping operations that began to be considered in 1939. It should also be noted the US Forest Service began supply and resupply airdropping operations in the fighting of Forest fires in 1929 and although the parachuting in of fire fighters was considered during the years between 1929 and 1939 such ideas were discarded until 1939 as being too dangerous and completely impractical.

The first operational fire jumps were made in the Nez Perce National Forest on July 12, 1940 by Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley.

During June 1940 four U.S. Army staff officers visited the Smoke Jumper training camp at Missoula, Montana.  One of these, Major William Cary Lee, later employed Forest Service techniques and ideas in organizing the first paratroop training at Fort Benning, Georgia.  The footnote in the U.S. Forest Service Smoke Jumper history states “Major Lee subsequently commanded the 101st Airborne Division which he took to England and trained for the Normandy invasion. He became first Chief of the Airborne Command and is regarded as the unquestioned father of U.S. airborne doctrine.”

The U.S. Smoke Jumper history also discloses it trained the first Army Air Force physician, Dr. Leo P. Martin, in July 1940 and subsequently other flight surgeons and medics assigned to various Army Air Force’s Air Rescue squadrons in 1940/41.  Dr. Leo P. Martin was killed in a plane crash on 25 October 1942.

More history to follow.


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## Johca (Oct 30, 2013)

The U.S. Forest Service History discloses that 25 personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian Air Observers School and Army Air Forces Air Rescue squadrons were trained for pararescue work. Although archived training jump manifests identify specific individuals the operational utilization of these service members is not very well documented in surviving archived unit and personnel records from this era.

Most information about operational utilization, if any, is reconstructed from newspaper articles and magazine articles published during the 1940s.

The rescue jump by doctor Amos R. “Bud” Little Jr. done at 7:45 AM on June 15, 1944 deserves mention. During his service served in the Amy Air Forces from 1943 to 1946 he is credited with accomplishing 50 rescue jumps.  However it was his parachute jump to a B-17 crash site where he landed on a snag at an estimated 11,000 foot true altitude on the mountain and subsequent emergency medical treatment of the four surviving crewmembers that received national attention.  After separating from military service he continued on as a volunteer “mercy” jumper with the U.S. Forest Service, parachuting to the aid of injured firefighters and others.  He also assisted the Forest Service and other agencies in establishing parachute units and search and rescue organizations.

During 1945 Members of the 555th Battalion of Black Paratroopers were trained in timber jumping and firefighting to combat Japanese balloon fires. This was done at Pendleton, Oregon by instructors from Missoula. The 555th was stationed at Winthrop and from that base 98 paratroopers and 10 Forest Service jumpers were dropped on the Dean Creek Fire. The expected Japanese incendiary balloon menace did not materialize but the 300 paratroopers were used as suppression crews on large fires through west. These paratroopers were and are referred to as the “Triple Nickel”.

In addition to the 555th, 14 military pararescue jumpers were trained in rough terrain jumping in 1945.


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## Johca (Oct 30, 2013)

World War II provoked the necessity within the United States Armed Forces to use airborne to seize critical military objectives.

The organizational origins of the U.S. airborne program are connected to the creation of a fifty man test platoon formed on June 25, 1940.  On August 16, Lieutenant William Ryder became the first member of the test platoon to make a parachute jump.  Over the next few months, parachute tactics and techniques were developed and techniques borrowed from Germany and Russia. The fledgling program expanded as volunteers formed the 501st Parachute Infantry Battalion.

In December 1941, six new airborne regiments, consisting of roughly two thousand paratroopers, were authorized, and most of the men were handpicked. The first division to be activated was the 82nd, at eight thousand men about half the size of a normal army division. A cadre of men from the 82nd later was set aside for the formation of the 101st Airborne Division. The army would create three other airborne divisions, the 11th, 13th, and 17th, plus several independent battalions and regiments, such as the 509th, 517th, 550th, and 551st.

More info found at:  http://homeusers.brutele.be/sgteagle/welcometothealliedairborneheadquarters_usairborne.htm ,  http://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/03/11/sky-soldiers-historys-first-airborne-operations/ and
http://www.worldwar2history.info/Army/elite/Airborne.html


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## Johca (Oct 30, 2013)

Meanwhile in the US Army Air Forces.





 
The green flag at a NASCAR short track is now given.


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## 8654Maine (Oct 30, 2013)

Fascinating history.  Thanks.


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## Brill (Oct 30, 2013)

So why do you guys go to the Navy contract school in San Diego?


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## Red Flag 1 (Oct 30, 2013)

8654Maine said:


> Fascinating history.  Thanks.



Concur. Well prresented as well. Great posts Jocha, I especially liked seeing the Smoke Jumpers included in the history.


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## Johca (Oct 30, 2013)

lindy said:


> So why do you guys go to the Navy contract school in San Diego?


I don't know and didn't know the Navy contract school was being used to the degree indicated by your question.   I can ask but my casual speculation is the MFF qualification being an entry core qualification causes a training slot demand that exceeds the capability of the Army MMF course to provide sufficient training slots that align with the training pipeline.   I'm not sure what the annual training production of new PJs and CCT is, but PJ is about 120 new PJs per year and CCT is about the same.  Throw in new CRO and STO production numbers and that adds up to a lot of training slots in each course.  I could ask, but there is enough active duty PJs on these forums that they can ask and get an answer too.


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## SpongeBob*24 (Nov 1, 2013)

Very cool info, thanks....


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## Johca (Nov 1, 2013)

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I had hoped others would jump into this conversation contributing information the early day origins and development of WWII era military parachuting and airborne operations.  Regardless I’m going to throw out a couple of WWII period tangents that will tie together hopefully as the conversation move towards the Korean War period.

The first tangent is about the Winged Boot: Escape and Evasion in World War II.

Two specific regions involving the escape and evasion of downed aircrews had significant overlap with airborne operations.  The most predominant was the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater and the lesser written about Mediterranean and Middle East Theater (in Italy, the Balkans, Southern Europe, Malta, North Africa and the Middle East) as it became more significant in long range bomber operations as the Germans moved their major industrial manufacturing operation further east to get beyond the range of bombers flying out of England.  CBI will be discussed further in future posts, but the 15th Air Force’s Aircrew Rescue Unit (ACRU) 1 (known to the OSS as the Halyard Mission) was created and conducted operations out of Italy into the Balkans and Yugoslavia in July 1944. The unit had two six-man parachute teams (radio operator, weather observer, medic, etc), but unfortunately any existing documents of specific operations are being hard to find and get hold of. However before the allies’ captured/liberated Italy many long range bomber missions were flown out of Libya with emergency divert airfields/strips being located at various locations in the mid-east and North Africa.  Iran was used as an emergency divert for some of the bomb mission flown out of locations in Italy.


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## Johca (Nov 1, 2013)

The second tangent is the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater as the lack of roads, railroads, and navigable in-land water ways (rivers) necessitated military combat operations in this region to be significantly dependent on air drop supply/resupply and airborne operations.  That most if not all current era special operations designated units such as the US Army Rangers, US Army Special Forces, AFSOC, USAF Combat Control Teams, USAF Pararescue claim heraldry and operational utilization to unit fighting the fight in the region its significance cannot be ignored.

Canopies of Blue: The American Airborne Experience in the Pacific in the Second World War is an interesting read as it discloses how and why airborne operations in the Pacific differed from airborne operations conducted in Europe.


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