CHAPTER 16 NIGHT H.A.L.O. TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

As I lay back, injured, waiting for help to arrive,  I pondered life and lessons learned:

1. High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jumping on a pitch black night is, after all, not a good idea.

2. Torches would be useful, enabling the DZ staff to find injured parachutists instead of them having to yell out as I had.

3. High performance parachutes are no good if you cannot see the ground for landing.

4. And finally, HALO jumping on a pitch black night is NOT. A. GOOD. IDEA.

27th March, 1974,  the first of the night HALO trials. There was no moon and in addition there was cloud cover at 5000ft AGL. There was no light at all. It was absolutely pitch black, we literally could not see our hands in front of our faces. Today, night vision goggles would make this not an issue, but we didn't even have a decent torch.

John Boynton  had to light a small fire on our DZ so we could find it and, hopefully, drop onto him. We rigged up lights to shine on our altimeters and added lights to our helmets, shining backwards, so they could be seen from above during free fall. For these first night jumps we also had a red light on our left hand and a green on our right, shining up along our arms. The idea was to see if we could determine which way the man below was facing.

We planned to carry out four jumps, with two pairs of PJIs, on separate runs over the DZ. I jumped as #2, following Mike Wiltshire, who became the first person in Rhodesia to carry out a night, military, HALO jump. Because of cloud cover, we were limited to about a 20sec delay, but felt this would give us sufficient time to observe the other man in free fall. We found the DZ and Mike jumped with me close behind. I had absolutely no difficulty spotting him - he was lit up like a Christmas tree, and made the mental note that in future, only the helmet lights would be necessary.

At 2500ft I pulled my ripcord, felt the flutter as the parachute pack opened and the sleeve deployed, then got the usual severe smack as the Parra Commander canopy stopped my earthward plunge. I  did all the drills: check the canopy,  hell it was dark but the canopy seemed fine; take a good look to spot Mike, I couldn’t find him so called out and he answered; I then looked down and saw the fire on the DZ. We were going past it at a hell of a rate and even when I turned my parachute into the wind we were still going backwards very fast.

 I shouted down to John Boynton on the DZ and asked him what the wind on the ground was like. He answered there was no wind on the ground. Hmm! I found that hard to believe! The light shining on my altimeter, although dim, still prevented me from seeing my feet so I turned it off. This didn’t help. I was still unable to see anything. But I did know which way the wind was blowing and it was strong because the PC parachute had a forward speed of 15kts and I was, definitely, absolutely, going backwards.

 OK what now? The only option was to set myself up for a backward landing. I clamped my legs tight together, turned my feet off for a back right landing, forced my legs back hard and waited for the hard stuff to smite me.

Smite me it did. There was no wind. I wasn't going backward. I was going forward in still conditions. Even after hundreds of jumps,  I’d made a silly mistake. I’d  ignored those on the ground and assumed I was going to land going backwards. I should’ve listened to my sergeant DZ safety officer and just hung under my parachute in position. My only excuse is the night was absolutely black.

 My right leg was unable to withstand the impact and decided to break. So there I was. Deep in the bush. On a pitch black night. With a broken leg. Fortunately, due to the adrenalin, it was not very painful at the time, but, because the bottom half was wobbling about I couldn’t stand. I could however shout and was able to attract John Boynton, inform him of my dilemma, and ask if he would please grab a stretcher and find me. I managed to get out of my parachute harness and pulled the canopy into a bundle to use as a pillow- may as well make yourself comfortable while you wait for the gang to arrive.

Soon I heard John Boynton calling, “Boss, where the hell are you?” I managed to sit up and, using the light on my altimeter and a lot of loud swearing, attracted them to my position. The ambulance could not be driven up to me but they had brought a stretcher along. John was all for filling me up with morphine but I told him not to as I had to report to OC Flying and I needed to find out how the others had managed.

Mike Wiltshire was limping but claimed it was only a slightly twisted ankle. The other two had also suffered what they called minor injuries, both had bruised heels caused by fast hard landings in an unsuspected direction. We'd learned a valuable lesson - parachuting on very dark nights with high performance parachutes was a dangerous game.

In fact, high performance parachutes were no good if you could not see the ground. They drive you forward, very fast, and, if  visibility is low, they can effectively spear you into the ground. This was borne out during trials - out of  22 night jumps using PC type parachutes, 17injuries occurred amongst  experienced PJIs. Including me.

We returned to the PTS hangar where a very worried OC Flying and the two pilots waited for news. Hell, I was the C.O. of the parachuting business and yet I was the  broken one. I made my report and suggested no Para Commander parachutes be used for night HALO jumps and we should not jump on pitch black nights. The lights were fine and the altimeters could be easily seen. I recommended trials continue until we had solved all the problems; we still did not know what it was like to carry equipment at night nor how to determine if one was in a spin or upside down. 

Finally I could head for the hospital, and, for your information, my leg was now very sore. The ambulance took off with me clinging to the stretcher in an effort to

stop my leg from moving about. After all that, they, my PJIs, decided I did not need morphine but could wait until I arrived at the hospital. I am still considering whether or not to forgive them for this.

On arrival at the Emergency Department, the doors of the ambulance were flung open and two small young nurses started to pull the stretcher out. The ambulance was a four wheel drive military van, and the stretcher was not on wheels, and these two little ladies were going to carry me into the hospital? No way. No bloody way. They were not strong enough and I did not need to be dropped. I grabbed onto the inside of the vehicle and did not let go until two beefy men arrived and carried me into the emergency area (editors note: what a big drip!)  I was placed on a trolley and somebody cut the laces on my parachute boot and removed it. All could see there was something very wrong with the bottom part of my leg and I was sent off to the X ray department.

Up to this time everybody had been very sympathetic and gentle. But when I got to the X ray dept things changed. Firstly I was again moved onto another bed under the machine and this was painful (editors note: what a wuss!) Then the radiographer looked at my foot which stuck out at a strange angle and said, “I can’t take an X ray with it like that.” She grabbed my foot and tried to yank it straight.  I let rip with a few expletives and explained to her  it was at that funny angle because it was broken, and please, please, (I may have used a different word,) do not move it again.

I had a Potts Fracture. The fibula was shattered and the foot ripped out from the ankle. Surgery was necessary and a nut and bolt was inserted to hold the ankle together. I had to remain in bed until the swelling subsided. There was absolutely nothing I could do except, get a few good books and make myself comfortable.

 Because I was the CO of the Parachute Training School I was in a private ward and was allowed visitors at any time within reason. On the second night in hospital at about 9 pm there was a little disturbance in the duty room. Somebody demanded to see me and all my notes. They were going to take me out to the camp hospital immediately. Then a number of my PJIs barged into my room complete with wheel chair and white coats doing their best impressions of TV doctors. Their plan was to take me to a pub and fill me with beer. Alas it was thwarted by the sister in charge who called the night super and the Air Force hospital at New Sarum.

Luckily it was all taken as a great prank although they did sneak a couple of cold beers in, which were consumed with gusto. It took about six weeks for me to recover, but I still have problems going through the scanners at airports.

Another cartoonish incident occurred during this period of experimentation. Frank Hales slammed into the ground and was consequently a little disorientated -imagine cartoon birdies flying around his head. He shouted to his No.2, “Where are you?”  Charlie Buchan, who had jumped with him, yelled “Over here, sir!”  Stumbling around in the dark, Frank turned towards Charlie’s voice, and stepped towards him. Off into space. He had landed on top of a large rock and was unaware that he was about three meters above the ground. Luckily he  was only bruised - in both body and ego.

The night HALO trials proceeded without me. My suspicions were confirmed. It was very dangerous to jump on dark nights except with ordinary PT 10/ SAVIAC canopies modified to TU or double blank gore status.  Use of high performance parachutes was not advised on pitch black nights, but were acceptable with a reasonable amount of moon-light which permitted the parachutist to gauge his landing. Parra Commander parachutes were not used for night military parachuting after this time. It was just too expensive for the good health of the PTS staff.

During the next few months whilst  I was recuperating I was relegated to despatching or DZ duties whilst the rest of the staff did the experimenting. I often wondered which was more dangerous standing on the DZ having unguided missiles dropped onto you or following those missiles down. Methods of fitting a strobe light to the top of a HALO box so it could be seen during free fall and also to give the stick of HALO parachutists a point to aim for when under canopy. The box parachute was always set to operate at a lower altitude than the parachutists which made it easy to follow and  land close to it. Another item we found useful  was a large chemical light tied to the apex of the box parachute, which glowed at the top of the canopy, giving off a ghostly look to the uninitiated. It  also helped if something nasty happened to the strobe on the way down. I do not recall ever having a box failure during the many dozens of operational deployments especially after we received the KAP 3 A.O.D. Life in PTS during this period was at times painful but never dull.  

This photograph is the only one I can find which shows a box with a 24ft supply dropping parachute fitted to the top. I realise that this photo is not very clear but it gives an idea of the size of the HALO boxes we used during Rhodesia's terrorist war. In addition this box is about to be launched out of Jack Mallock's DC7F which is another story and it will be covered later in the Blog. I apologize for the quality of this photograph but hope the reader realizes that it was taken over 40 years ago and because of sanctions film was hard to get.