PARA PERSPECTIVES

By Lieutenant Colonel G.S. Nanda

A paratrooper undergoes parachute training which familiarises him to the airborne delivery aspects of his role. Basic parachute training started in India in November 1941. In those days, the dropping zone, an enormous expanse of ploughed plain, dotted with shrub, bush and desiccated cattle, was located to the west of Delhi Cantonment. Parachute drops were quite an event those days. Spectators would gather near the ambulance at one end of the dropping zone when the drop took place. Training companies came to be authorised for each para battalion which were later merged to form the Parachute Troops Training Centre in Delhi itself. Subsequently, seeing the unsuitability of Delhi as a training ground for para trooping, it was decided to move the Brigade to Campbellpur and the air landing school to Chaklala AFS. Both are now in Pakistan. Later, even the centre was shifted to Rawalpindi, which is also now in Pakistan.

After Independence, Squadron Leader T.S. Gopalan, who had come out of Chaklala AFS with 20 odd parachute jumping instructors and some safety equipment workers, set up a Parachute Training School (later Paratroopers Training School) at Agra in November 1949, which continues to the day to be the Mecca for all airborne training. The basic course comprises ground training, followed by five descents. The trainee is graduated to jumping with combat loads. This results in the award of the paratroopers wings to the successful trainee. Thereafter training continues in respective units, by way of participating in sub-unit and unit level airborne exercises. An annual refresher course comprising two or three jumps is also mandatory to maintain operational currency. Specialised skills in form of combat skydiving from up to 25,000 feet to achieve undetected exit and penetration, alongwith a multitude of techniques in combination, also forms part of the training. At present, helicopters, have also come to be increasingly used for operations involving parachute troops and special forces.

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