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Originally Posted by mapuc

Paratroppers was first after the WWI and if I remember correctly it was the russian who was first to use soldiers to jump from airplanes. Edit. If my memory isn't playing with me, I say it was in the middle of the 20's

That was a little detour from the thread.

Parachuting was quit new when WWI started-please correct if I'm wrong.

Seem to remember a sentence-not all pilot had parachut and those who had didn't alway survive a jump, due to bad parachute etc.

Markus

The Italians did the first true paratroop drop in 1927. Two Folgore and Nembo divisions. Although these would later fight with distinction in World War II, the divisions were never used in a parachute drop. Men drawn from the Italian parachute forces were dropped in a special forces operation in North Africa in 1943 in an attempt to destroy parked aircraft of the USAAF. Ol' Ben Franklin besides being on the world's favorite currency, also first conceived of the idea as a vertical envelopment. "Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, so that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?" —Benjamin Franklin, 1784 ominously foresaw the whole thing while observing the first leaps from hot air balloons in Paris. #1 Pierre Blanchard Folgore is 'lightning'; I recollect ol' Ben messed with that too.