主题：[原创] 从天而降的猎人：施图登特和他的德国伞兵 (上) -- 顾剑

此段文字摘自 James Lucas 原文 (P109):

At one time it was widely believed in Anglo-American circles that the SS Para Battalion 500 was a penal unit,its undertrained men drawn from SS military prisoners and led by NCOs and officers who were themselves "hard cases". There is no evidence to support this evaluation and former paratroops with whom I have spoken strongly deny the accusation. They claim that the battalion was made up of volunteers, all of whom were fully trained in a paratroop role, and that the unit commanders, from sergent upwards, were professional SS soldiers with a great deal of front-line combat experience. This expertise grafted on to the SS ethos produced paratroops of outstanding ability, endurance and daring....

下面是 James Lucas 本人经历:

James Lucas fought with the British infantry in the Second World War. His first direct encounter with a German soldier -a dead paratrooper- was in Tunisia, April 1943. Shortly afterwards his unit, "C" Company of 1st Battalion, the Queen's Own Royal West Ken Regiment, fell victim to a ferocious attack from the 5th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment and he was taken prisoner, liberated after a few weeks and sent back into battle. After the war he developed and maintained close contacts with German ex-servicemen and their Associations, enabling hinm to undertake the extensive research that underline the success of his many books.