Italy was the first country which founded airborne forces in the 1930s. Germany and Soviet Union soon followed. Germany was the first country to use paratroopers, called "Fallschirmjäger" (German language for "parachute ranger") in combat in World War Two. Germany dropped paratroops in Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Norway in 1940. United Kingdom founded its own airborne forces in 1941. The first British paradrop operation was a guerrilla strike against an important water line in Italy. In 1941, the Germans launched a massive paradrop operation in Crete, capturing the island from the British. The British troops had fought back so bitterly and caused so heavy casualties (that is: dead and wounded) to the German paratroopers that Adolf Hitler forbade any further paradrop operations.