Talk:Alan Badel

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Biography assessment rating comment[edit]

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. --KenWalker | Talk 03:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone supply information on the claim that he fought alongside the French Resistance?

According to Paradata: Alan Badel attended the Battalion parachute conversion course, along with the other 210 men who had volunteered or been selected, at RAF Ringway in July 1943. His instructors comments: “Intelligent jumper, above standard”. Between July 1943 and May 1944 he was consistently promoted through the ranks. In June 1944 he held the rank of Sergeant. He took part in the D-Day landings to Normandy, during Op Overlord.

On 5 June 1944 he was responsible for eight other men of 5 Platoon, B-Company on board Albermarle aircraft Number 5 for the jump onto Drop Zone ‘N’ in Normandy in the early hours of 6 June 1944. He landed successfully and gathered together his men and headed for the Battalion rendezvous point near the village of Ranville. He served throughout the Normandy campaign and saw action in the Ardennes during Winter 1944-5.

On 24 March 1945 he had became a Platoon Sergeant in 2 Platoon, A-Company when he jumped with them over the Rhine on ‘Operation Varsity’. He was involved in all the Battalion actions as they advanced across Northern Germany and reached the Baltic coast in early May 1945.

After VE Day, he joined the Battalion troops sent out to the Far East, along with the rest of the 5th Parachute Brigade, as part of the 6th Airborne Division’s advance party for the proposed assault on Japan. The dropping of the atom bombs negated the planned operation in Malaya and the Battalion was used on internal security duties instead.

Returning briefly to the UK, Alan was sent to Palestine to another unit within the 6th Airborne Division, upon the disbandment of the 13th Parachute Battalion, to await his discharge from the Army. He was discharged from Regular Army Service on 14 June 1947. http://www.paradata.org.uk/people/alan-f-badel

This appears to be a spurious claim and if nobody can back the statement up, I intend to change it. Acorn897 (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]