A PARATROOPER from Southend has been on exercise picking up tips from the Polish army.

Private Michael Bellotti, of the Colchester-based 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, has been on Exercise Anakonda, alongside troops from the Polish 16th Airborne Battalion.

During the two-week-long exercise in Drawsko Pomorski, Private Bellotti worked side-by side with Polish paratroopers to learn about their tactics and weaponry.

The training culminated in a joint parachute assault, with troops jumping from an RAF Hercules and Polish aircraft to capture bridges on the training area.

Describing the training exercise, the 22-year-old said: “A lot of it was going back to basics, because we have got some new lads in A Company. I haven’t been on exercise for a while, so it was good to do the low-level stuff again on a big exercise like this.”

Private Bellotti, who has been in the Army for a year is on his second overseas stint, after visiting Kenya last November for Exercise Askari Storm.

He said: “I never thought I’d get to work with the Poles. It’s a change and really different.”

Exercise Anakonda was designed to improve the ability of British and Polish airborne forces to work together.

It is part of a programme of joint exercises and immediate assurance measures to reassure Nato allies in Eastern Europe.

The 16 Air Assault Brigade is the British Army’s largest brigade with 6,200 soldiers, combining the speed and agility of airborne and air assault troops with the potency of Apache attack helicopters.

The brigade’s core role is to provide the air assault task force, the British Army’s rapid reaction force, which is ready to deploy anywhere in the world at short notice to conduct the full spectrum of military operations, from non-combatant evacuation operations to war fighting.

The brigade is part of the joint helicopter command, which brings together helicopter forces from the Royal Navy, Army and RAF.