The early operations are parachute raids of up to company strength mounted against the Tragino Aqueduct in Southern Italy in February 1941 and Bruneval on the Channel coast in France in early 1942. Major-General Browning started the formation of Airborne Forces in support of Churchill’s directive, establishing the 1st Airborne Division at the end of 1941. The Parachute Regiment was formed on 1st August 1942.
Just after midnight on February 28, 1942, 120 men dropped into the snow-covered fields surrounding the village of Bruneval in France. Less than 3 hours later, they scrambled down the cliffs to escape with a captured German radar and two POW technicians,...
Towards the end of 1940 at a meeting in London, a decision was taken based on information from a civil engineering firm (George Kent and Sons), that if an aqueduct in Italy could be destroyed it would severely damage the Italian war effort. The co...
Airborne Assault Museum