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After looking up at the canopy to see that it was completely open, I tried some turns and slips. Then I gazed around some more … I noticed as I looked down that the earth seemed to be coming up toward me. The speed of its approach increased and, for the first time, I realized my drift was rearward. Working the risers (they run from the shoulders to the lines running down from the chute) I prepared to land. Both feet hit the ground at once, then a backward somersault, and the jump was over. The grassy field underfoot felt solid and good. 4
    Having qualified as a parachutist, Raff was appointed executive officer of the 504th Parachute Battalion on 6 December 1941. The following day the Japanese air force attacked Pearl Harbor on what President Franklin Roosevelt declared to be a ‘day of infamy’. On 8 December the United States of America declared war on Japan and three days later a similar announcement was made concerning Germany.
    The declarations of war affected Raff little in the short term. In March 1942 the 504th Parachute Battalion was renamed the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Parachute Infantry * and Raff – now a major – was appointed its commanding officer. He trained his men at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, night and day, recalling in his memoirs that ‘when I told them that we were going places some day, that our battalion would do any and all jobs, fighting either the Japs, the Germans or both, if I had to volunteer to do it, they cheered’. Behind his back, however, Raff had been christened ‘Little Caesar’ for the relentless way in which he drove his men. They respected their chief’s toughness and his willingness to train alongside his men, but they disliked his autocratic style of leadership. Unlike the democratic Evans Carlson, who at the same time was whipping his 2nd Raider Battalion into shape in California, Raff believed unequivocally in the military chain of command and he did not tolerate indiscipline from the men in his battalion.
    In May 1942 Raff received orders to ship out for England, and the new airborne battalion did so in the utmost secrecy. Before leaving Fort Bragg they removed all airborne insignia from their battledress and travelled to New York as an infantry battalion. On 6 June Raff and his men sailed from New York on board the erstwhile luxury liner, Queen Mary , and by the end of the month they were encamped on the sprawling Berkshire estate of Chilton Lodge, a 16th-century manor house that belonged to Mrs Jean Ward, the daughter of Whitelaw Reid, who was the US Ambassador to Britain from 1905 to 1912. Mrs Ward loaned the house’s extensive grounds to the American military for the duration of the war and Raff’s battalion was the first unit to take up occupancy in the Nissen huts erected on the estate.
    Upon arrival in England, Raff (now a lieutenant colonel) came under the operational command of Major-General Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning of the British 1st Airborne Division. Raff welcomed the association and in the weeks that followed he learned much from his Allies. A two-week field exercise was conducted in Devon and the American paratroopers travelled to the British parachute training school in Ringway, Manchester, to practise low-level drops from 650ft.
    Despite the rigorous training there was still no indication that the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry would soon be in action, and by late July 1942 the men were suffering from every soldier’s worst enemy – boredom. Raff’s men chafed at the inactivity, as Baron Frederich von der Heydte’s had in the weeks before the invasion of Crete 15 months earlier, though at least the American airborne troops had a plentiful supply of local girls on hand to help while away the hours off-duty.
    When Raff and his men were waiting impatiently to put their training to the test, events that were unfolding elsewhere would grant them their wish. On 13 August Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower, who had arrived in England two