In most films of WWII i’ve seen , all the paratroopers , they carry some rope . From the movie i think the rope is to thin , so probably it’s not for climbing , i guess:neutral:. Does anyone knows what was this rope for ?
I believe it was to give them an escape rope to climb down on if they were caught in a tree or church steeple or something. 
Never saw nor heard of such a thing.
My father was 506th PIR in WW2 and I went to jump school in 1967.
I was on jump status 3 1/2 years.
I have seen one million paratrooper movies and clips and lived the real thing.
No ropes.
One method of climbing down from something is to deploy your reserve and climb down it.
A length of rope, called a ‘toggle rope’ was standard issue for Australian troops in Vietnam.
The toggle rope, originally made of hemp with a timber toggle, was intended to be linked together for a variety of purposes. It was issued during the Vietnam War as ‘Fibre rope assembly, single leg, polyester fibre, 1-in circ. 9ft long’. Although the timber toggle was no longer attached it was still universally known as a togle rope.
http://www.remlr.com/roseworthy/issued_kit/index.html
My training at the time, which was derived from field experience, was that the toggle rope could be linked with other toggle ropes for various purposes, including turning over enemy bodies from a safe distance to avoid booby trap injuries.
Another use was to put a number of canteens on a rope and send one man to refill them, thus avoiding reducing the section / platoon effectiveness to any great extent.
A mate of mine found that this wasn’t the best part of his service in Vietnam when various factors resulted in the wrong smoke being thrown as an air strike was called in when his platoon should have been out of the firing line. He saw what was coming but felt he was running in slow motion until he realised that he was dragging a swag of canteens he’d just filled. He moved a lot quicker when he slipped the toggle rope holding the canteens.
And here is a toggle rope wound as I remember it, but the ones I knew didn’t have the wooden toggle but otherwise were wound the same way.
http://cas.awm.gov.au/heraldry/REL34788
We used the toggle ropes also, RS. The two main use we put them to were: linking any number of them togetherr to form a rope for river crossing; and to wrap around a log for log racing.
http://www.army.mod.uk/images/image-scroller/PARA_Insight_Course307.jpg
We normally carried them wrapped about our waists, fastened at the front by the toggle.
thanks for that information. i didn’t know much about paratroopers really.
Scroll down this site. Here’s a famous picture of Ike in WWII. Look at paratrooper on left. What’s that hanging down?? A rope! Every paratrooper carried one.
Didn’t anyone see “Band of Brothers”??
Google “paratrooper letdown rope” and see all the repros being sold.
http://www.olive-drab.com/od_soldiers_clothing_combat_ww2_airborne_paratroopers.php
WWII Brits carried a toggle rope to make rope bridges in jungles.
As I share the pilots’ view that it is insanity to leap voluntarily into the sky from a perfectly serviceable aeroplane, I don’t know what the letdown rope was intended to do.
Was it to enable a stranded paratrooper to descend from a tree etc?
Or did it carry the equipment bag suspended below him during his descent?
Maybe they ment to throw it around a limb and swing from tree to tree like Tarzan.
After all, they were one tough bunch of fit men.
Deaf
Yes, yes it was. After jump, you never see them in pictures. They are dumped with chute and harness.
Ya know, it’s amazing with this thing called “google”, that you can search the WWW to see what a “let-down rope” is for. I had to buy books to read and look at pictures to see what WWII soldiers wore and used. “Band of Brothers” book doesn’t mention rope in it’s jump equipment info. Yet, the movie/series shows them with rope all over the jump field, one para calls it “this BS”.
You should go to WWII reenactor’s sites and read what some say. “If there’s no picture, it never happened.” Even Vets can’t remember what they wore or used, unless they have a picture of themselves. After 65 years, I don’t think I could remember what I wore or used either. One guy said he didn’t remember what stuff was called, he was just issued it and everything was OD green. What did you have for lunch last month? People are even now trying to figure out what camo was worn in Desert Storm.
My first backpack, when I was 5, was a musette bag one of my family brought back.
BTW, that picture of Ike, in two of my books, it’s been “cropped” so you don’t see trooper with
rope.
And I saw one as I remember it this weekend in one of the many excellent displays of Vietnam gear at the Vietnam Veterans’ Museum http://www.vietnamvetsmuseum.org/default.asp
People are even now trying to figure out what camo was worn in Desert Storm.
We wore “chocolate chip” in Desert Storm. Combat performance showed us that the camouflage wasn’t really the best for desert warfare, so design went into the later “DCU” that was more similar to the woodland BDUs of the day
Don’t want to hijack thread, but I’ve got a set of “chip” camo.
Some folks say that “woodland” camo was worn during “Desert Storm”.
Most of the chemical-proof gear was printed in woodland BDU, so you see a lot of that in pics from Desert Storm. Then again, when you’re in the desert, there’s not much that can hide you anyways
LOL, saw that last night while watching “Jarhead” DVD.
Guess that would confuse people.
As a side note, on WWII reenactor site, one guy said they were all dressed up as 6/6/1944 D-Day troops for a parade and people were asking if they were shipping out. So, some folk don’t know what gear/uniform troops wear.
Ha, apparently some people haven’t kept up with the times…
you are right, that is exactly what it was for, the would slide down the rope, rather than fall and brak bones
We were trained to deploy our reserves and climb down them.
Funniest thing I saw was a guy “bagged up” who had ended up inside the canopy.
He had to stay there a while as in training it was not good to cut up equipment.
We sometimes carried ropes fo aid in mountainous or hilly terrain.
We could rappel or just make aids from them.
Most things have many uses and different things used on different days.
Never a one anwer or use subject.
Guess I forgot to post this:
When the paratroopers were being started/trained, they copied from smoke jumpers.
So the fire fighters had ropes for getting down from trees, they did too.
Heck, at first they wore “football” helmets or cloth headgear and dropped their gear in crates to be found and unloaded.
As for reserve chutes, sometimes they weren’t worn to carry more ammo/gear.