Pararescue personnel assigned to
Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), perform a hoist extraction of a survivor during an Urban Operations Training Exercise (UOTE) at the Maltz training site, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003. return with a downed pilot from a successful rescue mission 8 April 2003 at a forward deployed location in southern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. provides medical attention to a wounded Afghan. climb a ladder into a U.S. Army
MH-60 Blackhawk during the 2018 PJ Rodeo at Travis Park in San Antonio, Texas
Pre-World War II As early as 1922, there was a recognized need for trained personnel to go to remote sites to rescue aircrew. In that year,
Army Medical Corps doctor Colonel Albert E. Truby predicted that "airplane ambulances" would be used to take medical personnel to crashes and to return victims to medical facilities for treatment. However, it was another two decades before technology and necessity helped to create what would eventually become Air Force Pararescue. Even so, there were developments in critical technologies. In 1940, two
United States Forest Service Smokejumpers, Earl Cooley and Rufus Robinson, showed that
parachutists could be placed very accurately onto the ground using the newly invented '
steerable parachute'. These parachutes, and the techniques smokejumpers used with them, were completely different from those used by Army
airborne units. It was in that year that Dr. (Captain) Leo P. Martin was trained by the U.S. Forest Service Smokejumper Parachute Training Center in
Seeley Lake,
Montana as the first 'para-doctor'.
World War II During the first months after America's entry into the war, there was very little need for air rescue. As the war progressed, a U.S.
strategic bombing campaign was launched, and air rescue began to play a key role. Rescue units were formed around the globe under the operational control of local commanders. While training, techniques and equipment varied, one rule was constant: "Rescue forces must presume survivors in each crash until proved otherwise." Search and rescue of downed aviators in the continental United States fell primarily to the
Civil Air Patrol, a civilian aviation group under the command of the
Army Air Corps. The CAP would usually send in ground crews after locating a crash site; however, they would sometimes land small aircraft and they did experiment with parachute rescue teams. With Canada's entry into WWII in 1939, former Canadian
fighter ace Wop May was put in charge of training operations and took over command at the No 2 Air Observer School in
Edmonton, Alberta. Edmonton was one of the common stops for
Douglas A-20 Boston,
Martin B-26 Marauder and especially
North American B-25 Mitchell bombers being flown to the
Soviet Union as part of the
lend-lease program. When these aircraft went down, likely due to mechanical or navigational problems, the crew often survived only to die attempting to make it out of the bush. May's school was often asked to supply aircraft to search for downed planes, but even when one was spotted there was often little they could do to help. May decided to address this problem. In early 1942, May asked for volunteers from his civilian servicing crew, and about a dozen agreed to join. With basically no equipment, the instruction consisted of "jump and pull" and windage was calculated by throwing an
Eaton's catalogue out the door. Early operations were comical, but in early 1943, May sent two volunteers, Owen Hargreaves and Scotty Thompson to the
smoke jumpers school in
Missoula, Montana to be trained by the U.S. Forest Service. After six weeks they returned home with borrowed steerable equipment to train two other volunteers, Wilfred Rivet and Laurie Poulsom. Soon the unit was conducting operational jumps, and by 1944 May's persistence had paid off and an official para-rescue training program started. For his work, May was awarded a
Medal of Freedom with Bronze Palm in 1947 by the
USAAF. In the
European Theater, there was very little opportunity for ground rescue. Most flights were over enemy-occupied territory, where a landing meant immediate capture. In the UK area of the European Theatre, the British military was at the time creating its own
Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service which would be based largely on civilian
mountain rescue doctrine. The RAFMRS rescued many American aircrew, or recovered remains, from USAAF crashes over its UK territory. As crashes during over-water flights created a great many casualties, the
Eighth Air Force initiated a 'sea rescue' group. From its creation in 1943 until the end of the war, the recovery rate of aircrews downed at sea rose from less than five percent to over forty percent. In the vast reaches of the
Pacific Theater, a plane crash meant almost certain death from exposure to the elements. The Army formed several squadrons in theater specifically to aid and rescue downed flyers—both at sea and on islands—with great success. The
China Burma India Theater (CBI) was the birthplace of what would eventually become pararescue. Here was a unique combination of long overland flights through territory that was loosely held by the enemy and survivable. Dominating the flying in the CBI was '
The Hump' route: cargo flights that left India carrying thousands of tons of vital war supplies had to cross the spine of the
Himalayas to reach their destinations in
China. Every day thousands of flight crews and their passengers risked their lives making this passage in
C-46 and
C-47 aircraft. Many of these flights never arrived at their destinations due to mechanical problems, weather and mistakes. Crews forced to bail out or crash land faced weeks of hardship in tracing a path back to civilization, enduring harsh weather, little food, and the injuries they sustained during the crashes. Capt. John L. "Blackie" Porter—a former
stunt pilot—is credited with commanding the first organized air rescue unit in the theater. Known as "Blackie's Gang" and flying out of
Chabua,
India, they were equipped with two C-47 aircraft. One of their first rescue missions was the recovery of twenty people who had bailed out of a stricken C-46 in August 1943 in the
Naga area of
Burma; an area that contained not just Japanese troops, but tribes of
head hunters as well. Among the twenty was
CBS reporter
Eric Sevareid. The men were located and supplies were dropped to them. The wing
flight surgeon, Lt. Col.
Don Flickinger, and two combat surgical technicians, Sgt. Richard S. Passey and Cpl. William G. MacKenzie, parachuted from the search planes to assist and care for the injured. At the same time, a ground team was sent to their location and all twenty walked to safety. Although parachute rescues were not officially authorized at the time, this is considered by PJs to be the birth of Air Force pararescue. Eric Sevareid said of his rescuers: "Gallant is a precious word: they deserve it". A few short months later, Capt. Porter was killed on a rescue mission when his B-25 was shot down. In 1944, General
William H. Tunner took command of
Air Transport Command operations in CBI. Declaring the rescue organization to be a 'cowboy operation', he appointed Maj. Donald C. Pricer commander of the
1352nd Army Air Force Base Unit and assigned him several aircraft for the mission. In addition to fixed-wing aircraft, early
helicopters were deployed to the CBI for use in rescue, marking the start of a long association between rotary-wing aircraft and air rescue.
Post–World War II Recognizing the need for a unified organization to perform search and rescue, the Army Air Force formed the Air Rescue Service (ARS). Officially established on 29 May 1946, the ARS was charged with saving the lives of aircrews who were involved in aircraft disasters, accidents, crash landings, ditchings or abandonments occurring away from an air base, and with being world-deployable to support far-flung air operations. In the area around an air base, the air base commander had search and rescue jurisdiction through the Local Base Rescue (LBR) helicopter units. However, these were limited to a radius around the base due to the range and payload limitations of the aircraft. In order to reach beyond this limitation, Pararescue teams were authorized on 1 July 1947, with the first teams to be ready for fielding in November. Each team was to be composed of a Para-doctor and four Pararescue technicians trained in medicine, survival, rescue and tactics. Pararescue was given the mission of rescuing crews lost on long-range bomber and transport missions and to support other agencies when aerial rescue was requested. A mission earlier in 1947 was the final impetus for the formal creation of Air Force Pararescue. In May, Dr. (Capt) Pope B. 'Doc' Holliday parachuted out of an
OA-10 Catalina into the
Nicaraguan jungle to aid a crewmember who had parachuted from a crippled
B-17 Flying Fortress. His actions earned him the
Bronze Star and made him another of Pararescue's early legends. Shortly after Pararescue teams were authorized, the 5th Rescue Squadron conducted the first Pararescue and Survival School at
MacDill Air Force Base in
Florida. The core of instructors were experienced officers and enlisted men who were recruited from all branches of service. The commandant of that first school was pilot 1st Lieutenant Perry C. Emmons, who had been assigned to the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. At the close of the war, Emmons and six sergeants flew
prisoners of war out of
Thailand, earning his group the nickname "Perry and the Pirates", after the popular
comic strip Terry and the Pirates. After the war, Emmons completed
Airborne School at
Fort Benning,
Georgia, becoming only the second jump-qualified Air Force pilot.
Clobbered Turkey In late 1947, the crash of the
B-29 "Clobbered Turkey" in
Alaska brought home the need for specialized, well-trained Pararescuemen. On 21 December, the "Clobbered Turkey" hit a mountain and when the wreck was spotted on the 27th, Medical Corps 1st Lieutenant Albert C. Kinney, First Sergeant Santhell A. London, Air Force cold weather expert and T-5 Leon J. Casey—none of whom were trained Pararescuemen—volunteered to jump onto the crash site, located 95 miles north of
Nome. The team encountered poor visibility, extreme temperatures and high winds on the site and as a result, all three died. Casey's body was found from the crash site, swept there by the surface winds. Two members of the crew of the "Clobbered Turkey" who set out to seek assistance also died a few miles from the site. When civilian bush pilots William Munz and Frank Whaley finally arrived at the crash site two days later, they found that the remaining six members of the crew—who had stayed with the aircraft—had all survived. Dr. Kinney's body was not located until July of the next year. In 1949, due to a shortage of available doctors,
Medical Service Corps officers replaced Para-doctors on the teams, receiving the same training as the enlisted Pararescuemen. One of the first of these officers was John C. Shumate, a pharmacist, who was appointed commandant of the Pararescue and Survival School. At this time the Air Rescue Specialist Course was created at the
School of Aviation Medicine,
Gunter Air Force Base,
Alabama. Designed to teach Pararescuemen the skills needed to determine the nature and extent of injuries and to administer treatment, the course was taught by Medical Corps officers with previous Pararescue experience, including Dr. Pope B.'Doc' Holliday, Dr.
Rufus Hessberg, Dr. Hamilton Blackshear, Dr. Randal W. Briggs and Dr. Burt Rowan.
Korean War As Pararescue grew, PJ teams were assigned to every Air Rescue Service squadron to provide global coverage. By 1950, the unification of all the formerly independent Air Rescue Squadrons under the umbrella of the
Air Rescue Service was complete. In 1950,
North Korea attacked across the
38th parallel and began the
Korean War. This was an opportunity for Air Rescue to put training into practice and to develop theories into policies. One of the key new concepts was rescue of stranded personnel from behind enemy lines. This, along with evacuating critically wounded men from aid stations close to the front, were Air Rescue's primary missions. Pararescuemen were a normal part of Air Rescue crews for these missions. Their medical and tactical skills made them invaluable for evacuation and rescue missions of this type. Pararescuemen were often called upon to leave the helicopters that carried them in order to assist the personnel they were sent to rescue. This might call for an extended stay behind enemy lines and overland travel of several miles. The longest of these 'Lone Wolf' missions lasted seventy-two hours. By the end of the war in 1953, Air Rescue had evacuated over eight thousand critical casualties and rescued nearly a thousand men from behind enemy lines.
Vietnam War The
Vietnam War was a pivotal conflict for the Pararescue teams. The Air Force's scope of operations became so large that demand for Pararescue teams expanded as well. The use of
helicopters caused new tactics utilizing the speed, distance, and support they could provide. Rescue "packages" were created utilizing FACs (
Forward Air Controllers), rescue escorts (such as
AH-1 Cobras or
A-1 Sandys), protective fighter CAP (
Combat Air Patrol),
HC-130 "King" Hercules for Rescue Mission Coordination and helicopter refueling, and the
HH-3 Jolly Green Giant,
HH-43 Huskie, and
HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant helicopters to provide fast rescue for pilots shot down far behind enemy lines. An elite corps of USAF Firefighters,
Airborne Rescuemen/Firefighters, were part of these rescue operations. Pararescue personnel were part of these packages to provide medical assistance for injured aircrew as well as the ability to patrol for missing aircrew that might have been unconscious or dead. Pararescue team members would be inserted to conduct LSO (Limited Surface Operations) searches while the escorts maintained an aggressive patrol to provide instantaneous support. Sometimes they would be inserted to search for personnel who were being forced to escape and evade; in such cases the mission might last for days. The Pararescue teams racked up an impressive record; during the conflict, only 19 aircrew were awarded the
Air Force Cross. Ten of those were awarded to Pararescue forces.
Modern era Pararescuemen have continued to play an integral part in the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan during the
Global War on Terror and beyond. Deploying with other Special Operations Forces (SOF) teams, Pararescuemen continue to fight and save lives on the battlefield. ==Training and structure==