El batallón invencible

This so-so drama purports to tell the story of a new paratrooper in the 82nd division of the army. Eddie Slocum is a wet behind the ears kid who has dreams of becoming a paratrooper just like his Uncle Charlie. As is custom with movies like this, he meets up with a motley of crew members all from different backgrounds, like Rocky, the bully of the group, and Mouse, the uh, jive-talking "lover" of the group. Anyways, they all get put through exercises, and we get to follow them, and actually this is all very interesting. However some 'Drama' develops when Eddie meets a doe-eyed country girl by the name of Jenny May. And well, the love interest side falls flat, because the actress playing her is sort of a airhead, and since her character really is no one we should care about, we just wait around to get the action pumping again (sort of like Top Gun actually). The ending is sort of lovey dovey too with the new chutists, as well, but all in all, I enjoyed this.

This independent film produced by one Art Diamond was a vehicle for another Diamond named Bobby. After the Fury series ended young Bobby Diamond was footloose and this was no doubt to be a film that would establish him on the big screen. Bobby Diamond for the rest of his career until he became a lawyer would be cast in these youthful roles.

Diamond is a youthful volunteer for the Airborne service, wanting to be a paratrooper like his uncle who saw service in World War II. But this kid makes Gomer Pyle look like Noel Coward. His character is impossibly naive.

Airborne is not much more than a recruiting film for the Airborne Rangers. It was shot at Fort Bragg and many officers and enlistees at the time play roles here. Having been a weekend warrior a decade later almost, I can testify to the fact that country kids like Bobby Diamond's character are the rule, not the exception in the army. Knowing that fact and seeing the way he was teased because of his country ways just rings too impossibly untrue.

Airborne may have been shot at Fort Bragg, but it was shot on a minuscule budget. The side romance for Diamond could have been done away with, the film just should have concentrated on the training.

The film is dedicated to the 82nd Airborne, but the 82nd Airborne deserves a whole lot better.

I went through Jump School at Fort Campbell in June 1961 near the time of this movie. At Campbell you went to the Jump School area while still in Replacement Detachment and made one exit from the 34 foot tower before being assigned to your unit. It was fun ,not, being one of three legs in a company of airborne qualified troopers. No chance of blending into a group. I flunked the PT test for admission twice and did PT every day for the six weeks in between. I passed on the third and last chance. The time in Jump School while demanding was easy compared to time in the Company. One major difference I noted was our Black Hats would constantly make the lead group drop out and get gigs on the run. Then you had to haul ass to catch back up. We did not have a fan for the quick release from your chute. We were drug by a 3/4 ton vehicle. Dirt would build up in the releases and pose a challenge to activate the releaser. One thing they really missed was if one of The Black Hats got your number and circulated it you would never graduate Jump School. Someone posted about the 250 tower. None of the Unit Jump Schools had that only the Primary School at Benning has that feature. We did have the station where you ran through and got soaked down. Consequently our boots did not have to stand tall and we did not have to break starch every day. Movie was totally hokey but I enjoyed the Jump School part of the film.

The best I can rate this movie is 5 stars, and that is based on the good scenes of some of the Airborne training. Otherwise, the accuracy of the film leaves much to be desired, and the story itself is just too hokey. The script of the naïve country boy away from home and the street-wise city guys and their machismo is right out of the book of the handful of WW II fluff films that were as much propaganda as they were entertainment. And, in my real day and place, we didn't have base dances.

"Airborne," came out on May 30, 1962, although I doubt it had much of a release. Less than two months before that I graduated from the U.S. Army Airborne School that has been at Fort Benning, Georgia, since it was established in 1940. But this film was made at Fort Bragg, N.C. Two of my brothers also graduated from Jump School at Fort Benning. One four years later was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Viet Nam. The other one, seven years later, went to the 82nd at Fort Bragg. I served in the 504th and then the 509th Airborne in Germany. They made up the 1st Brigade (Airborne) of the 8th Infantry Division – the only American airborne troops in Europe in the early years of the Cold War. Through the end of 1962, we got newly trained paratroopers from Fort Benning almost every week. I've never met anyone who went to Jump School anywhere but Fort Benning.

Yes, Fort Bragg is "Home of the Airborne," as an early scene shows when the trainees arrive at the base. The 82nd (All American) Division and XVIII Airborne Corps have made Fort Bragg home since the end of WW II. The 101st Airborne (Screaming Eagles) Division has been at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. It is no longer a parachute unit but an air assault division (helicopters).

Fort Bragg apparently has some jump training facilities, as shown in the film. We too had such in Germany, where we also ran a small jump school at Weisbaden. It was to train volunteers who signed up while on duty in Europe, and for those who were going into the Special Forces over there. I suppose it made more sense and cost much less to train GIs there than to send them back to the States for three weeks, and then back overseas.

The scenes in this film that show Jump School training are good – up to a point. One thing obviously missing is scenes of the 250-foot towers. They surely would be shown in any Airborne training film. But you'll only see them at the Fort Benning Jump School. Several other things are wrong in this film. It shows this group of GIs going to Jump School right out of basic training. But, before we went to Jump School, we had to first complete our Advanced Individual Training. In my case, AIT was infantry. So, I had 8 weeks of basic, then 8 weeks of advanced infantry training before I got to Jump School. By then, I was in good physical shape.

In this movie, after the group arrives for Jump School, Sgt. White marches them to their platoon barracks. The men appear to have glider patches on their caps. Then, within a few days, they are wearing 82nd Airborne shoulder patches. Neither of these things would happen. They would only be able to wear the glider patch after earning their wings. And, they wouldn't have been assigned to their units until after graduating from Jump School (or dropping out). During training, GIs are assigned temporary duty to the schools, so they don't wear the patches or insignia of those training units. It's obvious that most of the men shown in this film were actual paratroopers. So, but for the dozen or so movie stars in the film, the rest were already trained and assigned to units of the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg.

The actor who played the trainees' platoon sergeant, Bill Hale, doesn't fit the physical mold of a paratrooper at all – much less a Jump School leader. He's far too big and bulky. He doesn't show the leg muscles that are prominent on paratroopers. Think of marathon runners and long- distance walkers. Oh sure, he double-times with the platoon in a scene or two, but that guy would never last consecutive 20-mile jogs that we did during PT week (the first). The film only shows a couple of guys falling out – and then because of fear in jumping from the 34-foot tower. I don't recall anyone ever quitting for that reason, but some did freeze in the door of the planes. Most of our dropouts were men who were set back a week because they couldn't pass the physical tests at the end of PT week. Pull-ups often got them, more than anything else. They would get two more weeks to try to advance to jump training. Some would, but many just didn't make it. The muscular, big men had the most difficulty. Airborne service calls more for stamina and endurance, rather than brute strength mostly used for frontal assault.

The film shows the actual jumps over a sandy field at Fort Bragg. From Fort Benning we jumped onto a field of hard red clay somewhere nearby in Alabama. We jumped out of C-119 (Flying Boxcars) as shown in the film. They were cramped, packed planes. In Europe, we jumped from C-130s and C-124 Globemasters. Today's paratroopers jump from C-17 four-engine jet troop transports that are bigger and much roomier. You can find video clips of Jump School and paratroop jumps on the Web.

Airborne concerns a group of recruits to the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division as they undergo basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Really that's it. Not that it's uninteresting or bad. The characters are generally relatable and it's largely educational about basic training (in that the film includes several clips of training exercises and activities. If you think you'd find that interesting then there enjoy. If not, I'd skip this one because there's really not a whole lot else that happens.