News
HRH opens the Airborne Assault Museum
8th December 2008
The Prince of Wales today opened a new museum dedicated to The Parachute Regiment in Duxford, Cambridgeshire.
His Royal Highness has been Colonel-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment since 1977 and only last week presented Afghanistan operational service medals to hundreds at their base in Colchester, Essex.
An army veteran who took part in one of the most famous parachute attacks in British military history said today he would be not be keen on fighting in Afghanistan.
Ex-paratrooper Tony Lowe, 79, of Preston, Lancs, jumped at Suez in 1956 - the only British parachute attack since the Second World War.
But Mr Lowe - a former corporal who served with The Parachute Regiment for more than 20 years - said he thought that British troops facing the Taliban had a harder task.
"I would not like to be in Afghanistan," he said. "I joined in 1946 and left in '69. I took part in the last parachute attack in 1956. But I wouldn't like to be in Afghanistan.
"When I fought we could see the enemy in front of us. In Afghanistan, they can't. It's very hard."
Second World War veterans at the museum opening also spoke of their admiration for soldiers in Afghanistan.
Retired Colonel John Waddy, 88, of Taunton, Somerset, jumped at Arnhem in September 1944 and was an advisor to the makers of A Bridge Too Far - the film which immortalised the attack.
But he said modern paratroopers were better soldiers and were involved in a conflict with no end in sight.
"We were, in the words of the Americans, 'LTJs' - learning on the job," he said.
"They are better trained today and they are certainly better equipped."
He added: "They are doing well in Afghanistan. But I cannot see an end to it."
The museum - housed within the Imperial War Museum - has been created after an appeal was launched 10 years ago.
It documents the history of airborne troops from the early years of the Second World War to Afghanistan.
And visitors can trace regimental heroes on a computer information base called ParaData.