"For fear of dropping the troops in the sea, the pilots tended to drop them too far inland - some of them actually in the British lines. The weapon containers often fell wide of the troops, which was another handicap that contributed to our excessive casualties"
About this Quote
The specific intent is defensive clarity. Student, architect of Germany's early airborne doctrine and the commander most associated with the costly seizure of Crete, is explaining why a supposedly elite, modern form of warfare failed in practice. By blaming the pilots' fear (not cowardice, but risk calculation) and the logistics of container drops, he reframes a brutal lesson as a chain of correctable technical problems. The subtext is more uncomfortable: airborne warfare's glamour depends on precision, surprise, and cohesion; lose any one and the whole concept collapses into isolated men with no weapons, being hunted.
Context sharpens the edges. German Fallschirmjager operations revealed both the audacity and fragility of vertical envelopment. Student is describing a system where tiny deviations in navigation or timing create existential consequences on the ground. "Some of them actually in the British lines" lands like an indictment of the fantasy that war can be engineered cleanly. The quote doesn't mourn; it audits. That austerity is itself a kind of rhetoric, turning bodies into data so the doctrine can survive the story.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Student, Kurt. (2026, January 15). For fear of dropping the troops in the sea, the pilots tended to drop them too far inland - some of them actually in the British lines. The weapon containers often fell wide of the troops, which was another handicap that contributed to our excessive casualties. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-fear-of-dropping-the-troops-in-the-sea-the-158849/
Chicago Style
Student, Kurt. "For fear of dropping the troops in the sea, the pilots tended to drop them too far inland - some of them actually in the British lines. The weapon containers often fell wide of the troops, which was another handicap that contributed to our excessive casualties." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-fear-of-dropping-the-troops-in-the-sea-the-158849/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"For fear of dropping the troops in the sea, the pilots tended to drop them too far inland - some of them actually in the British lines. The weapon containers often fell wide of the troops, which was another handicap that contributed to our excessive casualties." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/for-fear-of-dropping-the-troops-in-the-sea-the-158849/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
