Sam Rafferty

Sam was born in 1923, he was the eldest of seven brothers, he also had one elder sister and three younger sisters. He had other younger siblings who sadly died and did not survive those early poverty stricken days. Sam’s family were very poor, he used to say “even the poor thought the Rafferty family were poor”. In 1935 Sam’s father sent him out to work to help feed and support his family, he was just 11 years old. He finished school and got a job as a pan lad down Chatterley Whitfield coal mine. After just a short time working down the pit Sam had a lesson on how dangerous it was and it almost cost him his life. One day there was an enormous collapse and he was buried alive on the coal face for two days until he was rescued. Sadly some of the men he worked with were not so fortunate and died in the accident. This near death experience at such a young age did not deter Sam and he continued to work down the coal pit until he was 14 years old.

As the late 1930’s approached there was talk of another War with Germany. Sam finished working down the coal mine and enlisted with the Warwickshire (Midland Counties) infantry Battalion. During the early 1940’s a call went out for men to join an elite infantry regiment. These men would be required to jump out of aeroplanes into battle which was a brand new concept at this time. These men would have to withstand the hardest training the military could hand out; they were to be called Paratroopers. Sam’s thoughts were to quote, ‘if I’m going to fight then I want to fight with the best.’ His sense of adventure meant that he was curious about jumping out of aeroplanes. What Sam had overlooked was that the expected survival time of a Paratrooper in combat was measured in minutes. Unaware of this aspect he applied to join the parachute regiment. The training was significantly harder and more demanding than other units which meant that the majority of the men who applied did not make the grade and were returned to their original unit (RTU). Sam’s early life hardships made him a prime candidate for the Paratroopers. On one occasion he was told to appear before his commanding officer, his CO remarked that he seemed to cope very well with the training and asked why this was so; Sam’s reply was that since joining the Army it was the first time in his life that he had three good meals a day and matching clothes! He went on to complete his balloon jumps, which he claimed were unnerving to say the least, and his parachute jumps from the famous C47 Dakota to win the coveted paratrooper wings. He became one of the original members of the 8th Battalion parachute regiment (8 Para) that was formed in November 1942 and commanded by the redoubtable Lt Col Alastair Pearson.

Ginger was a man of many talents; he had a baritone singing voice and was one of the boxers for the battalion. The latter is where Sam and Gingers friendship began. In order to toughen up the men the regiment introduced what was known as the ‘Milling’. Each man was given a number and then stood in a circle. The Sergeant would call out a number for a man to enter the centre of the circle. He would then call out another number which meant the man already in the circle did not know where the attack was coming from so you had to be ready. A fight between the two men would then take place until one was beaten into submission. This very rarely happened as neither man would want to give up. This attitude was a quality the parachute regiment was looking for. As brutal as this seemed at the time, Sam said it was to prove an essential part of survival for a paratrooper. Sam fought Ginger in the milling and despite this and a busted nose to show for it he and Ginger became the very best of friends.