British Army Airborne Patch 1 Para Parachute Regiment DZ 1960s

British Army Airborne Patch 1 Para Parachute Regiment DZ Patch 2 1960s wool used 2-3mm thick 54mm by 54mm two and one eighth inches by two and one eighth inches.  

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History 1941-2013 

1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment 1 PARA

The Battalion formed on 15th September 1941 at Hardwick Hall Chesterfield from 11 Special Air Service Battalion previously No 2 Commando
following completion of parachute training at the RAFs 1 Parachute Training School at Ringway Manchester.

In November 1942 they sailed to North Africa under 1st Parachute Brigade and went into action parachuting to capture and hold Beja, following which they operated as line infantry. The next parachute assault was for the Primosole Bridge in Sicily on 13 July 1943 followed by the sea-borne attack on Taranto Harbour in Italy on 11 September 1943 reaching Foggia before being withdrawn back to Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire in preparation for D-Day although it did not take part. On Sunday 17 September 1944 the battalion jumped onto Renkum Heath west of Arnhem
with the 1st Airborne Division during Operation Market Garden but were forced to retire from their assault on Arnhem to the besieged Division perimeter at Oosterbeek which they defended with Lonsdale Force until withdrawing across the Rhine. Re-couperated and re-strengthened the Battalion went to Denmark to assist in the liberation. 

The Battalion operating in Haifa during the Palestine Mandate troubles until British troops withdrew in 1948 and was disbanded on return to the UK. 1st Battalion was reactivated at Lubeck in Germany from the 4th and 6th Parachute Battalions returning to the UK in 1949. From mid-1951 to 1954 it saw active service in Cyprus and the Canal Zone in Egypt and in 1956 carried out counter-terrorist operations against EOKA in Cyprus and participated in the amphibious landings at Suez in November 1956. During the 1960s the Battalion served with the Bahrain garrison between 1962-3 a United Nations peace-keeping tour in Cyprus in early 1964 before returning to Bahrain again in 1965 and 1966 and covered the eventful withdrawal from Aden in 1967. The first of its 12 Northern Ireland Operation Banner emergency tours began at the end of 1969 and included the Bloody Sunday riots in Londonderry on 30th January 1972. Tours were to continue intermittently and total 96 months up to September 2005.

After a further UN tour in Cyprus at the end of 1976 a two-year tour followed with the Berlin Garrison. On the disbandment of 16th Parachute Brigade in 1977 the Battalion became part of 6th Field Force on its return to the UK and completed an Emergency Tour in Hong Kong in 1980. Three years of public duties followed in Edinburgh until January 1983 when the Battalion relocated to Bulford as part of Ace Mobile Force Land AMF(L). Four winters in Norway as the Armys Mountain and Arctic Battalion followed until May 1987 when the battalion returned to Aldershot joining the 5th Airborne Brigade.

Training and four more Northern Ireland tours preceded the Battalions first conventional deployment since Suez in 1956 with 1 Para Battle Group securing the Kacanik Defile on the Kosovo Macedonian border in an air-mobile helicopter insertion spearheading the entry of the NATO KFOR Peace Keeping Force into Kosovo in 1999 and moved operations to Pristina for peace-keeping duties. In May 2000 a 1 Para Battle Group conducted a rapid deployment to Freetown Sierra Leone Operation Palliser to protect the evacuation of UK and other civilian nationals threatened by rebel forces. Another rapid operation was conducted in September 2001 when A Company Group was deployed for Operation Barras a
successful joint SAS rescue mission to save British military hostages held by the West Side Boys rebel group. 1 Para Battle Group advanced into Iraq with 16th Air Assault Brigade in February 2003 to secure the Rumaylah and West Qurnah Oil Fields during the second Iraq War controlling the main route to Basra and taking control of Al Amarah before returning to the UK in July 2003. The Battalion has been re-designated a specialist role as infantry support to UK Special Forces operations in various theatres throughout the world. 

This patch dates from the 1960s