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become a paratrooper. He and his fellow recruits began with physical training, such as long runs and calisthenics ‘to harden the muscles’ as well as learning the parachute roll on landing. ‘Our class started like all the others before us, full of vim and raring to jump’ wrote Raff in a letter to an aunt on 26 June 1941. ‘It wasn’t long before most of us realized the course was downright hard labor … in the rest period we’d make a rush for the water spigot to drink until all the perspiration just lost could be replaced and the vicious circle would start once more – sweat and drink, sweat and drink.’ 3
    From rolling around on mats, the aspirant paratroopers progressed to leaping off raised platforms, first 3ft and then 5ft in height. The next jumps were from a dummy fuselage, from where the troops learned not just how to land but also how to leap into space, individually and en masse. After the fuselage the instructors had the recruits use a ‘Lulu’, a contraption that Raff explained to his aunt: ‘It’s a trolley affair on an inclined rail down which rolls the would-be parachutist hanging in a suspension harness. At some uncertain moments during the downward roll the instructor gives a jerk on a control in his hand releasing the student. No one ever knows when he’ll be released so all during the roll he has to be prepared to land feet apart, then make the somersault. Most of the time we were eating sawdust from the pit into which we drop.’
    If there was sufficient wind at Fort Benning, the recruits would don parachutes and allow themselves to be dragged across the grass so they could learn how to arrest the chute in a heavy breeze. They were also given endless lessons in folding and packing the ‘silk’, with their instructors telling the volunteers that his parachute was as important to an airborne trooper as a rifle was to an infantryman.
    Having learned how to leap from a 90ft tower, the day arrived when Raff and his fellow recruits were given the chance to make their first jump proper. Raff, who was known by his middle name of ‘Duncan’ to family members, described the experience to his aunt:
    Our novice jump took place on a day which was clear and still. The engines of two C-39 transport planes warmed up as we lined up for inspection … when we passed over a certain spot on the ground, lieutenant Walters, the jumpmaster said, ‘Number One, stand up!’ The first man stood on his feet. Walters looked him over, then gave the command, ‘Hook up!’
    Number One snapped the static line attached to his parachute on the steel anchor cable running down the centre of the transport. Next came the command, ‘stand in the door!’ The student obeyed; for a few tense seconds he stood there ready for the leap into space. Then lieutenant Walters said ‘Go!’ Out went the tyro on his first trip to mother earth. The rest of us watched him gradually lose altitude and disappear far to the rear of the plane … then came number Seven. ‘captain Raff, stand up!’ yelled lieutenant Walters.
    ‘Hook up!’
    I hooked up.
    ‘Stand in the door!’
    There I stood, looking out at the earth moving slowly by 1,500 feet below. My hands lightly touched the metal fuselage, ready to make the push off. The propeller wash (we call it the ‘prop blast’) came through the door in intermittent gusts. Thus, on the threshold of a new world, I waited for the fatal ‘go’.
    I felt a tap on my right leg. Walters was saying ‘Go! Go!’ and out I went.
    Deep down a submerged voice seemed to be counting ‘one thousand, two thousand, thr-’ but before I could finish ‘three thousand’ there was a jerking on my shoulders and I knew the chute had opened. It was a peculiar pain, strangely exhilarating. In spite of the frequent shoulder bruises from the opening jar the real joy of having that ’chute open knows no bounds. There was plenty of time to gaze around as a slight breeze drifted the chute and me to the south.