Paratrooper exercise shows that we are ready for war, say chiefs

BRITISH paratroops have conducted the longest strategic parachute insertion ever undertaken by airborne forces, in message that the Army is prepared for war.

C Company, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, flew almost 5,000 miles from Fort Bragg in the United States, to parachute into Latvia as part of a Nato exercise.

British paras deployed alongside colleagues from the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

The jump formed part of Exercise Saber Strike, a Us-led Nato training exercise involving around 18,000 troops from 19 member nations, that took place across the Baltic states over the last two weeks.

The exercise ended on Friday with a live fire demonstration involving Polish F-16 fighter jets and MI-24 attack helicopters in Poland’s Bemowo Piskie military training area, an hour’s drive from the borders of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, and Belarus, an ally of Moscow.

Maj Gen Timothy Mcguire, deputy commanding general of the US Army Europe, said the exercise was to show “we are prepared”.

About 100 personnel from the Colchester-based 16 Air Assault Brigade had earlier parachuted into the Adazi training area in Latvia in what has been hailed a major confidence building measure between British and American airborne forces.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Col Andrew Jackson, deputy commander of 16 Brigade, said the UK and US forces had integrated with little difficulty.

“There’s a reason why most of the world’s reference armies maintain an airborne capability,” said Col Jackson. “In strategic terms it’s not possible to get this many men and equipment anywhere on the globe so quickly by any other means. This is a very public statement that the 82nd Airborne Division Global Response Force, with 16 Brigade as part of it, is able to project significant force at short notice.”