Airborne Assault, Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridge

The first paratroopers in the British Army were recruited in such haste in the summer of 1940 that they were accepted without medical check ups. All they needed was guts, according to Arthur "Taff" Lawley, one of the volunteers. His is among numerous "paras'" stories featured in a new museum within a museum at the Imperial War Museum (IWM), Duxford.

Relocated from Aldershot and unveiled at the end of last year by its colonel in chief, the Prince of Wales, Airborne Assault, the Museum of the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces, is in many ways a model regimental museum. The regimental colours, medals and ceremonial dress are present and correct, but it is the courage of the officers and men that shines through.

Lawley's memories of make-do in 1940 are shown alongside a copy of Winston Churchill's memo in which he first called for men willing to drop behind enemy lines with minimal equipment. Those enemy lines could well have been somewhere in Britain as a German invasion looked inevitable that autumn.

The makeshift origins of the maroon beret-wearing "red devils" is illustrated simply and effectively, a characteristic of the museum as a whole. Four years later, US and British paras - which included Empire, Polish and French troops - were jumping from planes to capture bridges and batteries and so open the way for advancing tanks.

The museum occupies just one large gallery in rented space in a corner of AirSpace, the IWM Duxford's super-sized hangar. It could have ended up as something of a sideshow, but Airborne Assault makes its presence felt using a simple and inspired design idea.

Displayed on its doorstep is hardware for a "heavy drop". A jeep and its trailer, a motorcycle and anti-tank guns defy gravity, hanging just above the floor from steel cables.

Quick march

The idea is repeated inside the museum where two large central showcases contain more equipment and an arsenal of guns. One side of the case of weapons features those used by British paratroopers since the 1940s. On the other side are weapons they faced. Everything is suspended from cables, including one curio, a gold-plated automatic rifle, bling liberated from one of Saddam Hussein's many palaces.

Stirring, elegiac music provides a soundtrack to the museum. There is also the dramatic noise of helicopter blades at one end of the gallery accompanying a short film of paras in Afghanistan today.

And there are the original commentaries accompanying archive films shown on small screens placed at regular intervals. The multiple audio elements have been deployed with uncommon skill, with only one commentary inaudible.

The relative youth of the paras means that its history does not get bogged down in lists of campaigns and name changes, the lot of many regimental museums. The events of D-Day, disaster at Arnhem and crossing the Rhine form the heart of the museum.

Original, detailed briefing models survive and are displayed to good effect. Archive film and audio recordings support them, including one made by a BBC correspondent on the spot.

The second half of the space repeats the symmetrical layout of the first but with its quick-march through conflicts since 1945 (Cyprus, Aden, Borneo, Suez, Jordan and the Falklands), the storytelling inevitably loses much of its impact. The paras who fought the Japanese in Burma alongside Indians and Gurkhas get sidelined.

And Bing, the para dog, seems to have strayed from the D-Day display. The civil rights march in Londonderry that resulted in Bloody Sunday is acknowledged as a "controversial incident" in the regiment's record of peacekeeping.

The museum's archive is also housed at Duxford. Access is provided through ParaData, an online archive available through touchscreen displays in the museum. There are few other forms of interactivity available to visitors.
This could change, as the trustees want to build an activity centre that will include a simulated parachute jump and a training gym for would-be recruits. Also missing, but easily remedied, are the faces of a few veterans - the men who will be returning this summer to Normandy and beyond, D-Day plus 65 years.

Javier Pes is the editor of Museum Practice