Timeline

1941 - 1942

Raiders - The Early Years

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1941 - 1942

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.

Events

  • Bruneval (Operation Biting)

    On January 8, 1942, Admiral Lord Mountbatten, the Chief of Combined Operations, contacted the Headquarters of the 1st Airborne Division and the RAF's 38 Wing to secure their support for a raid on a radar station near the village of Bruneval. The station was situated on a clifftop twelve miles north of Le Havre, and had been recently spotted on December 5, 1941, by a Spitfire of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) flown by Flight Lieutenant Tony Hill.

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  • Tragino (Operation Colossus)

    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 contractor had originally built this aqueduct near a place called Tragino near Naples in southern Italy. The water supply for three major ports crossed a valley here. Various options were looked at and finally a request to help went to Britain’s only parachute unit.

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Articles

  • Whitley Bomber

    The RAF's largest bomber at the outbreak of war. In 1939 it soon became obsolete due to its slowness and vulnerability. It was then handed over to Airborne Forces, being used for parachute training until superseded by the Albemarle and Dakota. It carried the parachute assault parties for the raid on the Tragino Aqueduct in Italy in 1941 and the Bruneval Raid in February 1942.

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  • X Troop 11 SAS

    A total of 35 men consisting of seven officers and 28 other ranks were selected from the 11th SAS Battalion in early 1941 to form a raiding force, which was designated ‘X Troop’. It executed the first British parachute raid of the war against the Tragino Aqueduct in Italy, code named Operation COLOSSUS.

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