Word: paratroopers
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...there. But the Army and the Air Force all too often failed to work well together; air-ground teamwork sagged badly, despite the bloody lesson of World War II that the rifleman needed help from the fighter-bomber. Unable to count on TAC airlift for practice jumps, paratroop commanders talked wryly of chartering their own transports...
Seated in a Lincoln sedan flying the U.N. flag, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold drove through the battle wreckage of Bizerte. Along the way, Tunisian troops presented arms. When the car reached a French roadblock, a paratrooper flagged down the Lincoln. "Who is this personage?" he demanded. Unimpressed on learning Dag's identity, the private poked his head inside the car, ostensibly looking for weapons. Then he ordered the chauffeur to open the trunk compartment. White with anger, Hammarskjold snapped: "You are probably unaware of the fact that I have diplomatic immunity." Replied the paratrooper: "I have my orders." While...
...dawn hours one morning in November, three crack paratroop battalions moved out of their barracks in trucks, surrounded the presidential palace and opened fire on the surprised guards. The rebels had no intention of removing Diem, wanted only his promise to dismiss his cabinet, form a provisional military government, guarantee freedom of the press and step up the fight against the Communists. Diem agreed to all this as he dickered by telephone with the rebel leaders outside. But when loyal army units arrived to break the siege. Diem blandly watered down his promised reforms, sniffing, "It was nothing . . . a handful...
These are the words of the paratroop general who led "The Battered Bastards of Bastogne," of the military diplomat who commanded U.S. troops in Berlin (1949) and Korea (1953), of the scholarly Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (1945), of the restless, rebellious Army Chief of Staff under Dwight Eisenhower. They are the words of General Maxwell Davenport Taylor, U.S.A. (ret.), soldier and statesman who, by a remarkable turn in the wheel of fortune and the special needs of John F. Kennedy, last week had the biggest, toughest job of his career: military and intelligence adviser...
...cool darkness before Sunday morning dawn, squads of paratroopers stealthily slipped through the streets of Algiers. One group ringed the ornate Moorish residence of France's delegate general in Algeria, Jean Morin, and unceremoniously took him prisoner in his bed. Also seized was Transport Minister Robert Buron, who happened to be visiting Algiers. Other paratroopers took prisoner the top military man in Algeria. General Fernand Gambiez, and occupied all the city's key buildings-post office, police and government offices. Shortly before 9 a.m., Radio Algiers announced the news to the stunned city: three paratroop regiments had taken...