How the Mail on Sunday saved the paratroopers’ 80th anniversary D-Day jump by alerting Defence Secretary Grant Shapps of plane shortages
As they made their way to their giant Airbus A400M transport planes ready to be flown to Normandy, 250 British paratroopers followed in the footsteps of history – thanks to The Mail on Sunday.
Wednesday’s mass parachute jump to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day was saved after this newspaper alerted the defense minister Grant Shapps to the fact that only one aircraft was available, instead of the four required.
Three more were found – paving the way for the poignant salute to the fall behind enemy lines that marked the start of the invasion of Nazi-occupied territories. France.
The MoS traveled out with the paratroopers RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, in the lead A400M.
Troops included Lance Corporal Addy Carter, 22, of the Royal Army Medical Corps – the first female soldier to pass the rigorous All Arms Pre Parachute Selection, which proves personnel have the capabilities required for the Airborne Forces .
Wednesday’s mass parachute jump to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day was saved after this newspaper warned the Defense Secretary that there were not enough planes
Troops involved in the parachute jump included Lance Corporal Addy Carter, 22, (pictured) of the Royal Army Medical Corps – the first female soldier to pass the arduous All Arms Pre Parachute Selection
The view from the hold of the plane. Soldiers reenacted the poignant salute before the fall behind enemy lines that marked the start of the invasion of Nazi-occupied France
As she waited to be “dispatched” to the fields at Sannerville, where the 8th Battalion Parachute Regiment landed on June 6, 1944, Carter said it was an “honor” to be “part of history.”
But unlike their heroic predecessors, jumpers had to show their passports – at a makeshift border checkpoint in a field. Brigadier General Mark Berry, commander of 16 Air Assault BCT, said: ‘It is important that we keep alive the memory of what was achieved on D-Day.
Our predecessors jumped into enemy territory at night, using significantly less advanced equipment than we have today. It takes courage to jump out of a plane, but to do so those circumstances are difficult to understand.’
