"We ought to have a corps of at least 5,000 parachute troops including a proportion of Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians together with some trustworthy people from Norway and France . . .  I hear something is being done already to form such a corps but only, I believe, on a very small scale.  Advantage must be taken of the summer to train these forces who can nonetheless play their part meanwhile as shook troops in home defenses . . . let me have a note from the War Office on this subject."

  

        This note from Winston Churchill to General Sir Hastings Ismay, the head of the Defence Office, began it all.  The Central Landing School was established at the Ringway Civil Airport outside of Manchester, England on June 21, 1940 under the direction of Major John Rock of the Royal Engineers.  The first recruits for the brand new British parachute units were all volunteers from the Commandos, mainly the newly formed No. 2 Commando.  England was now ready to begin training their new paratroop forces.  There was, however, a slight problem.  Unlike the Germans, who were trained by the experienced Russian paratroopers, Great Britain was entering virgin territory.  Never before has such an undertaking ever been attempted.  There was no equipment, no training guides, no jump apparatus of any kind, nor any experienced jumpmasters to lean upon.  All they had were a few hundred parachutes and some outdated bombers to jump out of.  The Center Landing School had just six months to accomplish what it took the Germans six years to develop: an airborne unit comprised of experienced, elite paratroopers.

        Instructors for the new school were few and far between.  None of them had ever witnessed the procedures for a mass airborne drop of a battle-ready combat force before.  The Germans were with the Russians almost every step of the way during the development of the theory of "Vertical Invasion" (as the Soviets called it).  To make matters even worse, the old Whitney Mk III bombers that were to be used as training planes had to be completely converted for the task.  First the rear gun turrets had to be removed to allow for a jumping platform.  In this configuration, the Parachute Jump Instructors (or "PJI") pulled the ripcord from the recruit and the slipstream pulled the chute open.  This caused the recruits to fully wildly out of the airplane and into their descent.  Not to mention the hazard for the PJI who had to stand in an open doorway during the entire jump procedure.  It was then decided to cut a hole in the floor of the old bomber to allow the recruits to jump down and out of the airplane.  This proved to be just as dangerous as many a recruit bashed his head on the floor while exiting the plane.  It was finally decided to cut a door in the side of the plane in the fashion of the German paratroopers jumping out of the Ju88s.

        By August of 1940, 290 recruits had progressed to regular jumps and, in a little over a month, completed almost 1,000 jumps between them.  As the training progressed, it was soon discovered that the padded clothing they were originally issued was too bulky.  This began the process of wearing the regular Battledress uniform under the parachutists' smock.  Another problem was the amount of gear that could be carried by a parachutists without having too much weight forcing him to slam into the ground like a sack of wet potatoes.  By the end of the first six month period, 488 men had completed their airborne training and started the 11th Special Air Service Battalion.