Who’s there???

Heroes Remember

Who’s there???

Transcript

We made this, made this jump. I... It wasn't a, it wasn't a training jump, but after we, after we qualified, we made the occasional jump, and... So we, we made this, the mass jump. That's where everyone goes out of the plane, you know. One, two, three, four, right through until... And there used to be 10 or 12 of us that would jump en masse, and so we, we jumped. And, see, when you, when you jump, you osc-, when your parachute opens you oscillate quite a bit. You swing back and forth quite a bit, and I swung forward and my feet hit something. And we were about 12-, 1200 feet. I was about 1200 feet in the air. My feet hit something, and I heard this voice say, "Who's there?" And, and it was this Flaherty. And I had, I'd swung through his risers, and when I come back, I, I was a bit heavier than he was, so I was dropping a little faster than he was. So, I... When I finish, I swung back through his risers again, but our chutes tangled, and here I was. I was down below him, and down... and he was, he was worried about this. He said, "What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" And I said, "Well," I said, "hope that we come in on a forward oscillation," because you couldn't land standing up, you see. You always had to land and roll, and the reason for that was because if you jumped into enemy territory, it was necessary to make as small a target possible, okay? But anyway, I said, "Well, pray that we come in on a forward oscillation," because it's a lot easier to tumble going forward than backward. And, so, okay, so I had him by the ankles like this, and I had his legs open like that, and I carried him through. And, of course, we came through on a forward oscillation, and I said, "Okay!" When my feet hit and I threw him and he went into his tumble, and I went into mine, and neither one of us got hurt. But I, but it always amuses me when I think back when, when he said, "Who's there?" Oh God, that's funny.

Description

Mr. Melanson describes a humorous mid-air encounter.

Russel C Melanson Sr.

Mr. Melanson was born in Mill Village, Nova Scotia, on August 16, 1922. He worked on a farm and in the woods, and completed his education before his first attempt to enlist. He was turned down by the navy as he was underage. Similarly, after joining the West Novies, an artillery regiment, he was discharged for being underage. He was finally accepted into the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and completed his basic training in Shilo, Manitoba. Once overseas, he was attached to the 3rd Brigade, 6th Airborne Division. Mr. Melanson's first action was at the Battle of the Bulge. His second was the Allied /Russian advance into Germany from the east. After leaving the army, Mr. Melanson became a hydrographer, and retired as the Regional Hydrographer, Bedford Institute of Oceanography.

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