Hi Crusader,
I only know 2 people who jumped from the Boxcar my father and Col Wood and I remember him saying that it wasn't much fun. I've jump C130, C141, Huey, Black Hawk, Chinook, Caribou and I consider the Mass Tac
night jumps the most hazardous to personnel when jumping full kit with T10s or -1s in any ac. If you were jumping less than a 1000 ft which was very common for my unit at night there was little chance of deploying your reserve chute if something happened.
Even less if you were entangled with another jumper which happened to me more than I want to remember. One good thing about jumping low was your decent was over in a couple of minutes if that. The one bad thing when jumping low is you have a couple of seconds to react to main malfunction or entanglement.
Fortunately I was never seriously injured like some of my friends. Terrible injuries including all types of breaks, tears and of course death. My old roommate being one who was killed jumping.
Day, night and unit size is what I considered the most important factors when it came to which type of jump I like most. Day jumps and water jumps with no kit are the most fun and night mass tac's on a cold night were the worst if it was more than your company.
Helo's are always fun because you can only get so many jumpers out of one.
If it was night Regiment Mass Tac then there was a good chance of high altitude entanglements.
That's when we lost the most folks to injuries and fatalities.
Personally I'm glad I never jumped out of that AC (C119) and I to consider the C130 my personal favorite. Of course a day jump with no kit is always best, but back in those days it was always night blasts with full kit.
Believe me if you were one of the last AC over the DZ you ended up bouncing all over the place. Jumpers would start getting airsick and start puking which then spread like wild fire to other jumpers and that always upset the aircrews because we normally ate a lot of chow before going on ops!
Sometimes if the winds were blowing too high you might end up race tracking around the DZ and then it was pure hell for anyone jumping until you finally got a green light and you could exit the ac or they actually called off the jump which did happen from time to time.
Only thing keeping you on your feet was knowing it would all be over if you got out of the ac and that static line which you were using to support yourself when you were weighed down with so much gear that your team mates would load it on your back. Forget about getting the safety wire in the static line hook!
Many nights we would jump and speed march 15 miles or so back to the unit and sit around wondering why the hell we do this ****. Nothing fun about tactical jumping when there's that many jumpers in the air at night with T10s'
I seldom got sick, but there was one night when I ended up puking all over myself and basically fell down on the deck of the ac and crawled out on all fours with a red light on cause I was too sick to care. No static line control either I'm lucky I didn't break my neck!
Mustang my father served with the 101st from the late 50s to mid 60s. He was with the
187th Infantry
Regiment (Rakkasans). I have some art work he created and will try to find his painting that he did for the HQ of the 101st which is there today I believe.
I served with Co.C 1/508th 82nd and Co.A 2nd Bn/19th SFG and a number of US Marine units. So your dad and I have a few things in common.
Much respect to your father. I remember Colonel Wood saying to me that you don't know what a real jump is until you jump from the Boxcar. Only one I have seen is sitting right next to the ac (
Douglas C-47 Skytrain) in that picture that I posted which was taken at the 82nd museum.
Sorry the image is sideways. This painting is on steel and is a mix of airbrush and oils with a grinding wheel that polished the metal to give a certain effect. I've only seen this picture of it as my father was living in Florida when he created this and decided to send it to Ft Campbell to the HQ. Its over 3ft tall to give you an idea of scale.
This is my pop who loved jumping and continued to sky dive after leaving the service until his death in 06. He was a master of many trades could build firearms, paint and pretty much fix anything. One of his older skills was boxing and he boxed in the Army and was a fierce opponent.
Like you I miss my father.
