The Paras

Ref: 5207

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Price: £12.50

sadly, flyingbooks is now closed.

{detailed description}The Parachute Regiment has an enviable reputation among the units of the British Army and this has, if anything, been enhanced by the exploits of 2 and 3 Para in the Falklands. But training to be a parachutist is not simply a matter of jumping out of an aeroplane a number of times. That is just one aspect of a training programme that aims to produce supremely fit and self-reliant soldiers. In this fully illustrated book, which accompanies the BBC television series, Frank Hilton, himself a former Para, follows a group of forty-one recruits to the Parachute Regiment through their basic training, from their arrival at the Parachute Depot in Aldershot to the day sixteen of them passed out. Getting fit and keeping fit are only part of this rigorous twenty-two weeks, as they learn their military skills, go on exercises in Wales and face the hurdle of Pre-Parachute Selection- a gruelling three-day test which includes a ten-mile battle march, an assault course and the dreaded stretcher and log races-before they can go to Brize Norton to learn the skills of parachuting in the hangar, from the balloon and finally from an aeroplane. Many fall by the wayside before that final pass-out. Frank Hilton has observed all this with an eye for the detail and the humour of army life. But into the story he has woven the history of airborne warfare-Norway, Holland and Belgium, Crete and North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Arnhem and the Rhine Crossing, Indo-China and other more recent theatres-to give a fascinating picture of what it is like to be a Para.

***multi-signed copy***
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Frank Hilton
published by BBC Books 1983 1st edn. reprint 248pp profusely illustrated 18x25
{condition}fine, d/j in loose poly sleeve
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