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Parachute Regiment

Battalions 1 PARA 2 PARA 3 PARA 4 PARA

The Parachute Regiment forms the airborne infantry element of 16 Air Assault Brigade. It provides the capability to deploy an infantry force at short notice, in the most demanding circumstances. As such, it is trained and ready to form the spearhead for the Army's rapid intervention capability. Watchwords are professionalism, resilience, discipline, versatility, courage and self-reliance.

It is light by design, because this confers speed of reaction, and is expert at air-land deployments, by helicopter, aeroplane or parachute. It is trained to conduct a range of missions, from prevention and pre-emption tasks, to complex, high intensity war fighting. It is also trained to provide direct support to United Kingdom Special Forces, with whom it maintains close links and to whom it contributes a very significant proportion of manpower.

1 PARA forms the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG). The SFSG provides specialist infantry support to Special Forces, such as the SAS, anywhere in the world. The basic skills required to serve in 1 PARA are those gained in training and during time in 2 or 3 PARA. There is further training on additional weapons, communications equipment and specialist assault skills. Soldiers within The Parachute Regiment will rotate through the SFSG during their careers to ensure that advanced military skills, found nowhere else in the infantry, are maintained throughout the 3 Battalions.

On 22 June 1940 Winston Churchill called for the formation of an elite Corps of troops... the Paras. Following Churchill's wishes for 'a corps of at least 5,000 parachute troops, suitably organised and equipped' a Parachute Training School was established at Ringway Airport, near Manchester. No 2 Commando was chosen for the first training in parachute duties and the regiment quickly grew into the 11th Special Air Service Battalion and ultimately, on 1 August 1942, the Parachute Regiment. Following an exceptional parachute raid in Southern Italy, the Paras' first successful raid came in 1942, with C Company of the 2nd Battalion's drop on an enemy radar station at Bruneval, France.

By the end of WW2, the Regiment comprised 17 battalions. Up to 1948 the British Army had one regular airborne division, the 6th, which was then reduced, under a Tory Government, to one brigade, the 16th Independent Parachute Brigade. The term "independent" was dropped eventually in line with the revised terminology throughout the Army. The brigade consisted of three battalions, a separate parachute company, armor, artillery and engineering supporting units and units and sub-units of various supporting services.

In the Territorial Army there existed one airborne division from 1947 up to 1956, when the airborne element was reduced to one brigade, the present 44 Parachute Brigade (Volunteers). This formation, though with a parachute capability, did not have a primary parachuting rôle, though, by training, it retained the ability to be so employed should it be required. It coul provide reinforcements for the regular battalions. The 44 Parachute Brigade (Volunteers) HQ disbanded in April 1978. The three territorial battalions of the Parachute Regiment wwere retained. HQ 44 Parachute Brigade will be disbanded, but the personnel of the headquarters will be allocated new roles. Arrangements were made to permit the transfer of those individuals who wished to continue TAVR parachute service to one of the TAVR battalions of the Parachute Regiment. All three TAVR battalions of the Parachute Regiment remained earmarked for NATO.

The 16th Parachute Brigade, of which at least two of the infantry battalions were parachute-trained, eventually comprised the Army elements of the United Kingdom Joint Airborne Task Force from 1971 to 1975. The priority rôle for this formation has remained an airborne one during the period in question, though it was rarely used in that rôle. It was used frequently, however, in a normal infantry rôle. The Parachute Regiment was primarily an infantry regiment with the additional specialist capability of being delivered to its operational area by parachute. Because it had to be comparatively lightly equipped, by comparison, for example, with an air or sea landed force, it required follow-up support as rapidly as possible. When the battalions landed by parachute they could not operate as a normal infantry battalion without quick support. Thus there are limitations as well as advantages inherent in a parachute capability. That, of course, was one of the prime lessons of Arnhem, as of other major airborne operations of the last war.

Following the defence review in 1974, it was decided to abandon the United Kingdom Joint Airborne Task Force concept, since its land forces had never been fully equipped for the highly-mobile armored and mechanised operations in a NATO environment, and, in common with all brigades in the Army, the 16th Parachute Brigade ceased to exist with the elimination of the brigade headquarters level of command. However, the three battalions of the Parachute Regiment continued in being, and each battalion in turn undertook an active airborne commitment as part of the 6th Field Force, which in April 1978 assumed the United Kingdom Mobile Force rôle. The two battalions not performing this rôle at any given time took on other infantry rôles.