Roger Payne OAM is telling the stories of soldiers that would otherwise be lost to history.
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The military veteran has penned a book of 250 short stories from soldiers who served in the British Airborne Forces during World War II.
“It’s not the history of the parachute regiment, it is the history of these men,” Mr Payne said.
“I’m telling stories that would never have been told otherwise.”
The East Maitland retiree served in the British Parachute Regiment for nine years before he moved to Australia and served as a senior officer in the army for 22 years.
The book, Paras – Voices of the British Airborne Forces in the Second World War, is his third, written to cope with post traumatic distress disorder.
“It’s given me something to do, the research alone,” Mr Payne said.
Some of the three-page stories are horrific, others miraculous.
Mr Payne described how one man was saved by pennies.
The man’s major told him to collect all the pennies he owned and weld them together to place in his smock. When he parachuted down, the Germans shot him in the chest, but he was saved by the pennies that took the full force of the bullets.
With very few living WWII soldiers still living, Mr Payne spent countless hours researching online.
His book is available on Amazon or Fish Pond.
