DICK GLEDHILL"S STORY Episode 1 P.T.S.

In 1977 and 1978 the Parachute Training School was flat out training almost every unit in the Rhodesian Army resulting in a shortage of Parachute Jumping Instructors. The optimum number of students per PJI was 8 students and we were trying to train courses of 60+. A call went out to all units in the Rhodesian Army asking for volunteers from the best junior N.C.O.'s to fill this void and the enticement on qualification as a PJI was sergeant stripes and pay. Dick Gledhill was one of these men, he was a keen skydiver and had completed a parachute course in Australia prior to joining the Rhodesian Army. Dick had no problems with the actual parachuting phase of the PJI course. He struggled a bit with the instruction phase, however with his ability to persist and overcome all student short comings he became an excellent PJI and a trusted member of the Parachute Training School staff. Dick has written a book titled ONE COMMANDO which is a novel based on his time with the Rhodesian Light Infantry.

This is Dicks Story as he sent it to me a few years ago. Enjoy.

P.T.S

Grand Reef Forward Airfield and Fire Force Base. 1978.

I arrived a day late for the start of the parachute jump instructors course. The reason for the lateness was simple. During any war, an army is always short of troops and will do anything to keep its men.

As a keen parachutist, I had applied to transfer from my Commando in the Rhodesian Light Infantry to the Parachute Training School. The trouble at Grand Reef Forward Airfield  was that we were often away on operations for days at a time. We had just come back from some very successful contacts with several groups of C.T’s (Communist terrorists) and had been away for two days.

As we walked back into the base camp, I heard an Air Force sergeant asking for a Dick Gledhill.

“Yeah mate, you’ve found him. What’s up?”

“You are supposed to be at New Sarum. Your course started yesterday.”

I realised then that the army had been up to its usual tricks. But you can’t blame them for trying.

No 1 Parachute Training School.

New Sarum Air Force base. Rhodesia 1978.

The Parachute training school was a converted aircraft hangar. The ground training area is divided in two by a row of offices. At one end of the hangar is a small store; next is a lecture room with projector and screen. The staff crew room and locker room take up the rest of the centre.

The large area taking up the two sides of the rest of the hangar was the training section. It consists of thick coir matting for practising landing rolls. As well as the mats there were three different landing trainers, including high and low ramps, swing wheel trainers and the block and tackle. Flight trainers, including harnesses strung from metal frames and flight swing trainers  and mock ups of the Dakota D.C 3 aircraft used by the Rhodesian Air-force. Each side of the hangar was a mirror image of the other, all except for the dreaded Fan. The fan was simply a platform high up in the hangar roof. To the front of the platform was a drum; attached to the end of the drum were four scrawny little wooden blades. A wire rope was wound round the drum with a harness hooked onto one end. A ladder went up to the platform up which the trainee climbs. Once on the platform, the trainee was fitted into a harness enough wire was let out for the parachutist to get into the harness. The idea was for the trainee to leap out from the platform and perform a series of drills on the way down, culminating in a landing roll. All that stopped the person from falling too fast was the wind resistance on the fan blades. The fan was the one piece of equipment at which even some of the most hardened warriors baulked the idea works well; it was just the thought of so little doing so much that frightened some.

Out side the hangar were the offices, trainee crew room and the main store.

The course.

The P.J.I’s course consists of three parts. The first is a basic Para course. Which takes two weeks? The first week being taken up with ground training, the second week is jumping. After eight jumps the trainee becomes a qualified military parachutist. For the ex R.L.I soldiers on the course, this was their second basic Para. For me it was my third, having done one in the Australian Army some years before.

Phase two is the dispatcher’s course. This takes three weeks. We had to learn how to manifest and lay parachutes out, to help kit out the paras, fault finding when kitting up and to dispatch the paras in the air. By the time the dispatcher’s course was over, we were reasonably competent parachutists.

Phase three was the Mutuals, this was the arduous part and took several months.

Mutuals.

For teaching purposes, every stage of a parachute jump is broken down into easy, manageable stages. Emplaning drills, aircraft drills, flight drills and landing drills.

The flight drills alone take up a lot of time, as there are a lot of scenarios involved.

There are the basic flight drills.” Look up. Check Canopy” “All round observation” (to ensure you are not going to collide with another parachutist” “Kick out of seat straps.” “Look down, asses your drift” ”Pull down on correct lift-webbs to slow horizontal speed on landing. Then there are the emergency drills to learn. Malfunction of the main parachute and reserve drills. Collision drills etc.Landing drills. The parachutist is taught how to absorb the shock of landing by doing a Para roll. First the rolls are practised on the mats, then on the low and high ramps, then the wheel swing trainer. The block and tackle is a device where the trainee is hauled up in the air and swung as hard as the instructor wishes. The trainee then goes through his flight drills and sets up for landing. This piece of equipment takes the decision of when to land away from the trainee as the instructor lets go when he wants and is a good way of assessing the student’s progress. Of course then there is the fan of which I mentioned earlier. There has been many a shaky knee up there.

Each and every single part of the drills had to be practiced by each and every single one of us and as there were six of us on the course, we did a lot of drills, as we had to be students five times and instructor once every drill. This ensures that we knew every drill like the back of our hands. At times this could be quite tedious, but well worth it as by the end of the course we knew what parachuting military style is all about

This photograph is of basic static line parachute course #69 and some of the PJI" are shown seated LtoR Kevin Milligan, Derek de Kock, Chris Pesarra, and on the hard standing astride the white line Dick Gledhill.