The courage of the Red Devils

At Goose Green during the Falklands campaign, the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment forced the surrender of more than 1,000 Argentinian soldiers. It was an extraordinary feat of arms. The battalion numbered 650 men, far fewer than the accepted ratio of 3:1 when attacking a defensive position. The Parachute Regiment had upheld the old tradition: ‘fast, far and without question.’

In June 1940 Churchill ordered the formation of a parachute force. He had been taken aback and quietly impressed by the success of the German parachute forces, the Fallschirmjäger, in the Battle of the Hague the previous month. Their success in seizing crucial bridges in coup de main operations had opened up the heart of the Netherlands to the Panzer divisions. It appealed to Churchill’s appetite for audacity and taking the fight to the enemy.

Regiments, like any enduring institution or successful enterprise, are created by people made of the right stuff. Mark Urban, in this history of the Parachute Regiment in the second world war, paints a colourful picture of the officers and men who volunteered for what in 1940 was a leap into the unknown. Whatever their motivation – a thirst to get to grips with the enemy, the appeal of an extra two shillings a day or a desire to escape the drudgery of the drill square – they displayed exemplary discipline and daring under fire. Their discipline back home or kicking around pubs was not so commendable.

Urban pens a masterful portrait of one of most memorable characters, Johnny Frost.A fellow officer wrote:

His brother officers came to realise that the tall Scot was able to wear the mask of command, that mysterious quality of leadership in which uncertainties or fears are cloaked and the assurance of success projected to all those around him.

And, like in the film A Bridge Too Far, where he is played to perfection by Anthony Hopkins, he really did blow a hunting horn to rally his men.