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Where did that tradition come from?

The US Army's Test Platoon, soldiers of Fort Benning's 29th Infantry Regiment, assembled in June of 1940. They made many training jumps.

On the eve of their first mass jump, four men took in a movie at the main post. The movie was a western featuring a story about the Indian Chief Geronimo.

After the movie they strolled over to a near by beer garden for obvious imbibing. While they were telling 'There I was...' stories it came out that some of them were not sold on the idea of many men jumping one after another.

Pvt. Aubrey Eberhardt said that the mass jump should be no different than all of the other practice jumps they made.

Upon hearing this, Eberhardt's buddies teased him about being as afraid as they were. He would probably not even remember his own name.

Eberhardt was very sure of his ability to perform the jump and had a great awareness of his jump. He could hear elastic bands, holding the suspension lines in place, snap as they released the lines. He got peeved at his buddies and said, "All right dammit! I tell you jokers what I'm gonna do! To prove to you that I'm not scared out of my wits when I jump, I'm gonna yell 'Geronimo' as loud as hell when I go out that door tommorrow!"

By the next morning, word of the 'Geronimo' plan had spread throughout the camp. Half of the troops boarded the aircraft and the other half watched from the ground.

The plane made its way to altitude and turned onto jumprun. The exit commenced. The first jumper exited, then the next and next. The fourth man exited even before the first man's parachute opened. At the same time, a loud yell of 'Geronimo!' followed by a war-whoop was heard inside the plane and on the ground.

Many of the men exiting after Eberhardt, yelled 'Geronimo!' too.

The troops began the practice of shouting 'Geronimo!' on exit from then on.

Later the practice was discontinued because the jumpers were required to count 'one-thousand, two-thousand etc' for parachute opening.

Occasionly, soldiers bend regulations and shout 'Geronimo!' anyway.

That's fine but who is ?

The owner has over 20 years in sport parachuting, a short stint on Military Freefall status with the US Army, as a civilian, many years as a technical engineer of parachute systems and a vast library of parachute and skydiving books, magazines and microfiche.

Email to find out the real identity of Geronimo.