In WW2 I know that the USA & the UK extensively used paratroopers, but what about the other major countries?

by Redtube_Guy

What about Italy, Japan, USSR, France, & Germany?

Did they use paratroopers and if so, what operations in what stage of the war did they use paratroopers?

What other countries used paratroopers and what operations did they perform?

Chris6395

Germany certainly used paratroopers quite extensively throughout the war, although rarely in their intended roles following 1941. France, for obvious reasons, was never in a position to use them, but it's also worth noting that they devoted far fewer resources or development towards a concerted paratrooper force. Such units are almost exclusively used for offensive purposes and the French, during the interwar period, focused far more on defensive development than offensive. The Russians also had paratroopers, but they were never used in any operation more than brigade level strength and most of the time it was smaller and more localized operations than the extensive operations like Market Garden. Similarly the Italians also had paratroopers, but used them in small scale drops with specific and definitive objectives rather than large scale ops. Japan used some as well in their early war operations in, but aside from that I don't remember them using such forces in any sizable airdrops. Germany is the only one who developed and extensively used their Fallschirmjager forces, but after getting brutalized by British forces at Crete the Germans never dropped in anything larger than regimental sized force. Ultimately the truth is that paratrooper units are extremely specialized forces that are good for a select number of tasks, and devoting the resources to properly develop, equip, and execute large scale airborne operations was never something most of those countries needed or invested in.