All that drop zone and you end up in the trees. This photo of PFC Sean Murphy of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Company C, 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion was taken last week on Sicily Drop Zone in the heart of R5311. Anyone who has jumped Ft Bragg’s Sicily DZ knows it is HUGE but often as not someone ends up in the trees, even if it’s just on the edge. Either way, retrieving a chute is a pain in the fourth point of contact. Ahhh to be a PFC again and on jump status in the center of the universe; Bragg. Lucky guy.
U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Samuel W. Goodman
Go ahead and post your jump memories here. I landed on the edge of the DZ at SERE and made it all the way down through the trees stopping about three feet off the ground. It was a nightmare to get that chute down.
This post reminded me of our NBC specialist who died, strangled by his equipment after landing in the trees just on the edge of the DZ. Made me wonder why the Army ever stopped issuing that small little switch-blade like the WWII troopers had.
Luckily, I never landed in the trees. I do remember one landing: getting out of my harness and being surrounded by exploding barf-bags impacting all around me from the next pass. Who knows what they where filled with!
I recall landing upsidedown, 25 feet up in a pine tree by the bleachers on Sicily. It took moves that Ringling Bros haven’t thought of to get uprighted. I was able to get to a branch and stand on that until “help” arrived. When they stopped laughing, they confirmed that the canopy was over the top of the tree and I could put my weight into the harness. I did everything they told us to do in pre-jump to the letter, but must say that climbing down a reserve is a whole lot easier said than done!
190 jumps, and never landed in the trees. I’ve had my canopy laid down right along the treeline more than once though.
Worse jump? Display Determination 85 in Turkey, while attached to 1/325.
Knew I was screwed as soon as I went out the door spinning and tumbling. As soon as my chute deployed I started bicycling, as my risers were twisted to the back of my neck, and and could barely raise my head to check my canopy. No sooner had the twists cleared, I luckily looked down and realized the ground was rushing up, and barely released my ruck and pulled my arms up in front of my face, never pulling a slip, and slammed into the ground.
I was dragged across the ground, a plowed corn field, bouncing and tumbling. Winding up face down, still being dragged, my face jammed into the ground because reserve was digging in. I finally rolled onto my back to pull one canopy release. Still being dragged I pulled the other, and was suddenly pulled bu my left side, with my chute still dragging me. I must have cartwheeled through my risers and suspension lines, as I was being dragged by my lowering line.
After collapsing my chute I realized I should count myself lucky, as I watched a guy from a later aircraft actually pulled back into the air after he was dragged up a hill.
Later learned the both the 1/325 Bn Cdr and Div Cdr were medevaced. BG B. Porter was medically retired about a year later, never returning to command. Rumor was he broke him helmet against a heavy drop.
@FDD: you were in Turkey in ’85? So was I! 2/504 PIR. Yeah, those rugged, hard-baked, plowed up corn fields and sunflower fields SUCKED (first time I ever got blisters on the tops and sides of my feet!).
As for jump stories – only time in my 50 jumps that I landed in the trees was on a jump in to Rhine-Luzon DZ. We were told that we’d be making 2 passes per door on the DZ becuase its so small – and I was the last man in the stick so I thought for sure I’d be on the 2nd pass. Nope – pilot just made one pass and put us all out in one go.
As soon as I left the aircraft I could see that I was a long long way from the DZ. Luckily, we were jumping Dash-1s – so I turned myself around as soon as possible to head back for the drop zone. Of course I never made it, cuz the Dash-1 just didn’t enough forward speed to get there. But I did manage to get as far as the swampy creek area on the southern edge of the DZ, and aimed for the fluffiest looking tree I could find.
Ended up landing in a big sycamore or cottonwood tree and got stopped by a big branch way up near the top. They told me later that my canopy and suspension lines were spread across three trees and they had to cut them all down in order to recover my chute.
So, I went through the drill – dropped my ruck, took my M16 out of its case, slung it muzzle down over my shoulder, and then very carefully deployed my reserve, got out of my harness and started to climb down – using the reserve’s suspension lines as a rope.
That was all going fine until I reached the point where there were no more branches on the tree, and had to literally try and use the suspension lines and canopy as a rope. Problem was that nylon is slippery, my boot got tangled in the anti-inversion netting around the base of the canopy and in trying to free it I lost my grip and fell back-first the rest of the way to the ground. We later calculated that it was a drop of just over 20 feet.
And lucky me, I landed right on one of the big old roots of the tree – right on my spine and head. When I came to, the sun was up (we had jumped just before daybreak), my back hurt like hell and I was really disoriented. I got up, picked up my rifle, left my ruck, and started to walk slowly in the direction that I thought I needed to go. But after stumbling into some blackberry bushes and tearing up one knee, I realised I was going downhill and away from the drop zone – so I reversed my direction of travel and made it back up to the drop zone.
Fortunately, a duece and a half doing the chute recovery job came along and the guys gave me a lift back to the assembly point – where they promptly brought an ambulance, strapped me to a back board and took me to the hospital for x-rays.
Luckily, nothing was broken – just heavily bruised – but I was out of action for a couple of weeks. And I still have neck and shoulder problems to this day becuase of it…
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Pathfinder school, MC1-1. 120 ft. Saw an opening to land, lowered ruck. Lifted feet to clear a pine tree, 30 ft.-25ft.-20 ft-bam, full stop.
Looked up, ruck caught in tree, chute completely grounded in clearing. Got body swinging to reach tree trunk, hit QR on lowering line. Ruck falls, hits me, knocks me out of the tree. luckily very sloping ground. me and ruck tumble together. shaken not injured. Assemble kit, moved out. glad no instructors saw it.