British paratroopers in Short Stirling?

I wonder if someone could confirm is this picture shows Paratroopers/Pathfinders transported by a Short Stirling.



According to Martin Middlebrook re to Pathfinders dropped by Stirlings at Arnhem: "The flight was uncomfortable for the parachutists, fifteen men and their equipment, including a bulky kitbag, had been squeezed into the interior of each aircraft, the men having to sit on the floor of the fuselage".

 

Strong assertion of:
The photo was taken just before take off on 5th June 1944 at RAF Keevil onboard the Stirling Mk IV EF319 G5-N of Wing Commander P.B.N. Davis, Officer Commanding No. 299 Squadron.
EF319 and the paratroopers of the 6th Airborne Division on the photo were among the very first to participate to D-Day.
EF 319 was probably the first of the 299 Squadron's aircraft to take off at 23h49 on 5th June 1944.
The 20 paratroopers and the 9 containers onboard EF319 were successfully dropped.

with further comments at:
STIRLING AIRCRAFT SOCIETY | I'm not sure, but could this be inside a Stirling | Facebook

 

Thank you for your prompt response! Another question I'm wondering about is the location of the containers dropped by the Stirlings. Were they attached to the exterior of the aircraft (wings or the old bomb bay), or were they inside the aircraft's hold?

I'm asking this in connection with the French SAS Operation Amherst in April 1945. During that operation, the Stirlings each dropped approximately 4 containers along with a stick of fifteen men.
Frankly, I find it unlikely that the bulky containers were inside the plane, especially since when jumping out of the plane, the second half of the stick had to pause for a moment because the containers were released. In one case a French SAS para jumped too quickly and was hit by a container resulting in his death (see: OPERATION AMHERST: French SAS in Holland, April 1945).

 

perhaps of help:

 

"Another question I'm wondering about is the location of the containers dropped by the Stirlings. Were they attached to the exterior of the aircraft (wings or the old bomb bay), or were they inside the aircraft's hold?"

Here you go Stolpi; one for the interior! (will read through too and see what any pertinent text may say).





Kind regards, still looking, always,

Jim.

 

Yo,

Here's the original, CH 13304, from the IWM:



There are a variety of claims concerning this photo. I asked researcher Michael Pine-Coffin about it sometime ago and this was his reply:

Wed, 8 Jun 2011

" ... Been rather busy recently, but have managed to find what I was looking for tucked away in a box in one of my sons bedrooms, this being a copy of the dope card for the picture of the paras in the back of the plane. The picture is taken at Keevil aerodrome on the night of the 5th June. The men are from 225 Field Ambulance, it is an Iconic photograph. The plane is a Stirling. The canister in the front of the picture I have been told is a flask of tea. ..."

It's interesting that there is no obvious evidence of rifles in jackets or jump bags in the photo.

As far as I'm aware containers were attached to the underside of the aircraft fuselage. But did that only apply to Dakotas? The methods used for container dropping seem to have changed and developed over the course of the war.

Supplies from the Sky: C.L.E. Containers

Regards ...

 

Thank you for the responses!

 

On the lack of weapons in view Cee.

Field Ambulance chaps. Some would have carried nothing more than a sidearm (be a revolver or auto), and many would have carried no weapon at all.

Kind regards, got to love the medics, always,

Jim.

 

In another post is written,

According to Air Publication 3231 'Airborne Forces', page 269, the Stirling could carry 22 paratroops plus 12 containers. It had a range of 1,500 to 2,000 miles and a practical radius of action (with the load mentioned) of over 700 miles. When towing a Horsa glider the radius of action was 525 miles.

Maybe when some has this book you can find out more... I see still working on Amherst

 

from Wiki

quoted source: Foot, M. R. D. (1999). The Special Operations Executive 1940–1946. London: Pimlico.

 

Some interesting follow-ons to this thread. I think that the canisters must have been transported and released from the wing bays - man handling more than one within the fuselage would probably not have been a realistic prospect, particularly if the men had been using a 'bath tub' exit just forward of the rear turret:


I see there is a book on the Squadron:

.... which someone may have access to, which could give some additional granularity of detail.

I see the Squadron has featured before:

so further detail might be furnished by the true light blue or maroon cognoscenti.

 

Stolpi

I am thinking containers from fuselage bomb-bay, with parachutists exiting via the "bathtub" at the rear (as per photo in Quarterfinal's post above, and Olli's - ItDan - text too). No manhandling of containers internally required.

With the wrong timing that could readily lead to parachutists coming into contact with containers from the same aircraft, as per the unfortunate French parachutist on Amherst as Stolpi has mentioned above.

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Airborne Operations, Warren

[190 Squadron and 620 Squadron participated with each six Stirlings.]


WO 171/1248

British Paratroopers assemble near Mk.IV Stirlings of 620 Squadron

 

How deeply do you want to get into the weeds? Wing Commander P.B.N. Davis was not the Pilot of the lead aircraft out of RAF Keevil. He flew CN 206 which carried a Divisional Signals stick. All of which is still very interesting as it suggests those guys seated in Stirling may be Signals rather than Medics, but if you look at the lineup the 225th PFA were very close by ... ??



See attached PDF

Regards ...

 

Learning something new every day
(until now, I thought war pigeons were a thing from World War I)

Supplement:
21st Independent Parachute Company
Commanding Officer Major B.A. Wilson

Sitting down in the aperture of his Stirling aircraft before jumping, Wilson could see cows quietly grazing in the warm sunshine below him. As the red light came on the pathfinders jumped, Wilson himself over LZ-S, and though a few shots were fired on them as they descended, no one was wounded, however two men had bullets strike their equipment, and a further two were injured when they landed heavily. As Wilson removed his parachute harness he found himself confronted by a solitary German of Wehrmacht origin who clearly wanted to surrender. The man led him to a foxhole that contained several more who were keen to become prisoners; they had been having lunch only moments before and wished to be out of the war. Wilson told the men to hold on while organised his Company. Having contacted all of his platoons and ensuring that all was well, he ordered that pigeons be released for London to carry the message of their successful and unopposed landing. Unfortunately, perhaps due to the casual and anti-climatic nature of the first few hours of the Operation, the birds settled down on the roof of the Reijers-Camp farm and needed the incentive of pebbles being thrown at them before they would leave. Source: pegasusarchive


Wireless operator of an Avro Lancaster carrying two pigeon boxes

 

LIBERATION OF EUROPE : AIRBORNE TROOPS PREPARE FOR THE DESCENT ON EUROPE OF 6TH JUNE 1944 | Imperial War Museums

https://x.com/6thairborne/status/1533472622616494080

 

keevil airfield 1944 | WW2Talk

 

CLE containers were designed to be dropped from the bomb bays of the aircraft that carried them, they were after all built to the size of a 500lb bomb which had dictated the design of the bomb bays and wing cells of the bombers that were eventually used for the airborne forces. As Bedee mentioned above, the maximum number of CLE that could be carried by the Stirling with paratroops was 12 but the Stirling had 27 bomb stations and no doubt some operations to drop supplies to Resistance groups would have had all 27 carrying CLE containers. In addition the Stirling was one of the first aircraft capable of dropping stores carried internal to the fuselage using a roller conveyor floor, which allowed the Airborne Pannier to be dropped and combinations of CLE and internal stores would be used as required. With paratroops the dropping sequence of the containers depended on whether or not the container parachutes had a delay device fitted to their parachute, if fitted, the containers could be released in sequence as the troops jumped. If no delay device was fitted it was Standard Operating Procedure to release all the containers 'mid stick', achieved by having the mid stick man's static line fitted with a lanyard that tripped a switch that initiated store release, it also required the remaining stick to pause their exits to allow the containers to clear the aircraft. The reason they did this was so that the containers landed in the middle of the stick to make it quicker for the men to collect their kit from the containers.