Although there are a few missing, the History of Operational Parachute Jumps hosted by the Special Forces Association is a great read. Its international scope goes back to 1939 and is updated with many of the most recent jumps. The list not only categorizes the date, location and type of airborne operation but also mentions the forces involved.
First record for 28 Dec 1941 is wrong. It was not Prague, Polland, but close to Prague, Czech republic. All three drops on 28 Dec 1941 were done from single aircraft.
Wow, fascinating historical data! Just amazing the number of drops (behind the lines) that happended on the same days all over occupied Europe. Really gives a sense of the total war that was WWII. Also, seeing huge number of drops by the French in IndoChina and by the Rhodesians was impressive. Hard men.
If you want to learn more about Rhodesian air drops, try to put your hands on book Selous scouts – Top secret war by Ron Reid Daly, Peter Stiff.
As a Military Science student at a major university, I would have paid good money for this info during my school days. Thank you so much for feeding my random facts need for a long time!
Thanks SSD. Added to my reference library. I’m sure it will come in handy sometime.
I see a strange lack of western allied covert jumps into occupied Poland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cichociemni
Shows what a waste of money it is to keep the 82nd on jump status.
Large scale airborne operations are a thing of the past, the capability should be kept for small units, or special forces, but that’s it.