Brigadier James Hill, commander of the British 3rd Parachute Brigade during the Normandy invasion, warned his troops about the potential confusion they might face with these words: “Gentlemen, in spite of your excellent training and orders, do not be daunted if chaos reigns. It undoubtedly will.”

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Although poorly trained and inexperienced aircrews were one reason contributing to poor drops, they were certainly not the only cause of parachutists not hitting their targets. The pilots faced dangerous assignments. Of 144 aircraft that left Africa carrying the U.S. 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment to Sicily, twenty-three never returned, thirty-seven sustained significant damage, and half the planes required major repairs before they could fly again. Flak and enemy air activity often caused pilots to take evasive action that created enormous difficulties for airborne soldiers and frequently resulted in missed drop zones. “As we approached the drop zone, the aircraft took violent evasive moves,” recalled nineteen-year-old paratrooper Bill Lovatt. “As I approached the door, I was flung back violently to the opposite side of the aircraft in a tangle of arms and legs.”

On the evening of September 24, 1943, during the Russian Dnieper River offensive, Soviet pilots panicked when they reached the front lines and began to receive heavy anti-aircraft fire. Their drops were widely dispersed and off target. Of the 4,575 paratroopers and 666 cargo containers dropped, a total of 2,017 men (or 44 percent) and 590 cargo containers (89 percent) failed to reach their intended drop zone. Germans reported downing only three aircraft and one glider from a total of 296 sorties flown. This low kill rate strongly indicates that Soviet pilots overreacted and failed to push on to their objectives.

This, however, was not only the Soviet experience. “We lost a number of people over the sea [on D-Day] from evasive action, who fell out,” revealed American Captain Richard Todd. A Canadian, Sergeant John Feduck, was slightly more fortunate. “Before the light changed, the plane suddenly lurched,” he remembered. “I couldn’t hang on because there was nothing to hang on to so out I went—there was no getting back in.” Luckily, he was over the coast of France.

Inexperienced aircrews were also the reason for the disastrous drop of twelve hundred German paratroopers under the command of Baron von der Heydte during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. The crews were unable to maintain course or formation due to enemy fire. They released their Fallschirmjäger over such a large area that only a tiny fraction of the force was able to regroup. Not enough gathered to cut off American reinforcements coming south from Belgium to relieve the pressure created by the surprise German offensive in the Ardennes.

Airborne soldiers faced still more challenges while parachuting to the battlefield, and paratroops are extremely vulnerable on landing. Individual soldiers, weapon systems, radios, and other equipment essential to the mission must all be brought together at a rendezvous point. This takes time. How long it takes depends on the accuracy of the drop. The greater the dispersion, the longer it takes to regroup, to assemble combat power.

Clearly, there is a direct correlation between the time needed to assemble and the degree of surprise and shock the jump achieved. “The hardest part of the job wasn’t the fighting, although that was hard enough at times,” conceded Canadian Lt. Col. G.F.P. Brad­brooke, “but getting ourselves organized after we hit the drop zone.”

The location of the drop in relation to the enemy’s position could also dramatically affect its success. “Those [Fallschirmjäger] dropped on the central sector fell right on top of my gun position,” observed a British Royal Artillery officer serving at Heraklion on Crete in May 1941, “with the result that my small party of twenty-five men had to deal with vastly superior numbers of parachutists. However, they did more than deal with them,” he bragged. “They almost completely destroyed them.”

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