Page 276 - Demo

272you would not get hurt going into the sea. We spent 2 days learning how to jump out of the door, although there was a bit more to it than that. Then we were kitted up and given our parachutes. We were going to jump from about 2000ft and were given an emergency parachute that we clipped to our chest. It was however, important to get rid of it in the descent as otherwise it would hit you in the face when you hit the water. We had to tie it on to the harness and once you were sure that the main parachute had worked you unclipped it and it just dangled beneath you. I tied mine on carefully with one of my scout knots. We all climbed into the Herc and then the loadmaster came to me and said as you are aircrew, you can be one of the last to jump as you will not be sick as we go around. I had to agree but was quite nervous of the jump and would have liked to get it over with. Mysteriously, the first person to jump was Lorraine Chase the actress. She was with an army major. We all sat round the side of the aircraft and 4 people jumped in quick succession. We then all shuffled round slowly getting nearer to the door. On one of the early jumps one of the jumpers froze in the door. Before she knew what was happening, the dispatcher, who was standing behind her, gave her a huge push and she was gone. We all looked at each other and realised that none of us would be in the aircraft when it landed. There were 4 Geminis to pick us up and take us to a trawler. I think we did our exercise somewhere off the South Coast. I was number 3 in the last stick. Jumping out was odd as I appeared to be on my back with the fuselage of the Hercules racing past my face. There was a jerk as the parachute opened and second later I heard the last chap in the stick shout %u201cThank fxxx for that%u201d. I unclipped my reserve parachute and watched my super scout knot unravel and the reserve parachute drop away. The Gemini crew were very efficient and picked it up also gathering me into the boat as my feet hit the water.