Parachute Jumper in Action

(Original Caption) The Jump Master Yells: "Hook On'." One day last September the important Jap-held airstrip in the Salamaua-Lae sector of New Guinea fell to a bunch of tough young American paratroopers whose prewar sky experience is fairly well presented by an elevator ride up a skyscraper on a climb to the tip of a barn roof. But there was nothing amateurish about the Yank sky-soldiers who came hurtling from the clouds in the first mass American paratroop venture in the Southwest Pacific which prevented the retreat of 20,000 Japs who were battling Allied coastal forces. They had been trained for that day in a tough, he-man course that replaced flesh with sinew and made them unafraid to go plunging through nowhere ready for battle. Volunteers who joined the paratroopers expecting the thrill of a lifetime haven't been disappointed.