History
Formed in England from the companies of the air, 400 men of the 2nd RCP were dropped over Brittany as part of the Normandy Landings. The unit was used as flank-guard to Patton’s Third army during the Battle of Normandy.
In 1947, the 2nd Colonial Commondo Parachute Battalion was posted to Indochina, where it fought until 1953, being mentioned three times in the order of the army.
In 1955, the unit was renamed 2nd Colonial Parachute Regiment; and then in 1958, the 2nd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment. It served from 1955 until 1962 in North Africa in the 10th Parachute Division. On 5 November 1956, it jumped in the second wave of the French/British attack on the Suez Canal over Port Said and was mentioned in the order of the army.
In July 1961, the regiment jumped over Bizerte and broke the Tunisian siege of the French airport installations. It was dissolved 5 July 1962, but recreated 1 January 1965 in Ivato, Madagascar from the 5th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment.
It was transferred to Reunion in 1973. Since then it has participated in various operations: Djibouti (1993/1994), Comoros (1990), Rwanda (1994) and Comors (1995/1996).
Read more about this topic: 2nd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)