South Yorkshire Times April 20, 1946

Training A Paratrooper.
Conisbrough Man’s Talk to Legion.

Sidelights on the training of a paratrooper were revealed to Conisbrough branch of the British Legion at their Brook Square headquarters on Sunday by Mr. K. Hutley, a Conisbrough paratrooper recently demobilised. Coun. G. Oldfield (branch chairman) presided. Mr. Hutley was attached to the R.A.M.C. before volunteering for the Parachute Regiment.

His first descent was from a balloon 800 feet up, and, in describing his feeling on that first ‘drop,’ he said his heart was playing tricks all the time they were climbing before the jump took place. He was No. 2 of a stick of four, and he hurtled through space for some 300 feet before his parachute opened. He heard a voice from below floating up. ‘Nice exit No. 2.’ Finding that he was on a contrary drift he made a turn and the voice below called out ‘Nice turn No. 2.’ At the moment of landing all the training points seemed to ‘come to hand’ as they were required. Three descents from balloons, one being at night, and six from aircraft completed the training programme. Mr. Hutley later took part in operational duties in the Mediterranean theatre. He mentioned that medical opinion had said that the strain of one descent was equal to eight hours’ manual labour.

Mr. Hutley took part in the invasion of Southern France, and detailed how, feeling very tired, he found some bushes where he could sleep without being seen. At daybreak he found himself not far from a road along which German transport was moving. Later he saw four Germans who appeared to be searching the countryside. One of them blundered on top of him, but a little ju-jitsu rendered him harmless, and two of the others came running towards him, strangely enough throwing away their weapons. The fourth man appeared to be pulling his revolver from his pocket, so Mr. Hutley fired his revolver at him just as the man pulled out a dirty white handkerchief and started to wave it.

The five of them had a conference and decided that Mr. Hutley had captured four prisoners. As he was about 30 miles away from his position the four prisoners were a nuisance, but after some miles he saw some Americans and left his prisoners with them.

In all he made 15 parachute descents.