BADGES AND BREVETS OF THE FIRST FRENCH PARATROOPERS 1936 - 1946

At the end of 1946, the badge for the "military parachuting brevet" was created. Before that date, no single badge attesting to this qualification was worn in the French army.

During the hostilities and in the immediate post-war period, the vicissitudes of training French paratroopers outside metropolitan France generated a great diversity of badges manifesting membership of the elite troops or special services.

It is this variety of French and foreign badges and brevets with strong parachutist symbolism that the book presents, evoking the circumstances of the creation of the first airborne units in France, Great Britain, French North Africa and the training of agents parachuted into British and American jump centres in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Drawing on the finest sources on the history of French military parachuting, calling upon public and private museums and the experience of seasoned collectors, the authors sought to bring together diffuse, sometimes confidential knowledge, as well as an extensive photographic record, most of it previously unpublished, to illustrate the creation and wearing of these badges.

This exceptional work, indispensable to collectors and researchers concerned with the saga of French paratroopers, presents a number of nominative sets comprising badge, diploma or brevet certificate that help to authenticate, date and localise the manufacture of certain pieces.