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op zone on August 15,1944
THE GLIDER PILOT
REGIMENT TOOK PART
IN SOME OF THE
MOST HAZARDOUS
OPERATIONS OF
= WORLD WAR II.
RTE MITHbuildings, training facilites, and, not least of
all, aircraft. Some training jumps could be
‘made from balloons, and they were. Other
stopgap devices included a weird conversion of
the aging Armstrong-Whitworth Whitley
bomber, in which is rear turret was removed
‘and the jumpers were launched into space from
a litte platform jury-rigged there. There was
also a version ofthe Whitley witha hole ext in
the floor of the fuselage, through which men
Aéropped one at a time
Later the paras would make civilized jumps
through the doors of the omnipresent DC.
the Dakota, to the British—bur it would take
time for overstretched production lines to pro
duce enough ofthese versatile aircraft. The men
were all volunteers, though; their leaders and.
trainers were rough, smart, and inventive; and
the school progressed. And in time airborne sl
diers would wear the distinctive maroon beret.
Larerin the war, some Germans called them the
Red Devils, and the name was well deserved
“They were aso distinguished by the shoulder
patch of the fabulous hero Bellerophon riding
Pegasus into battle, an artistic touch said ro have
been the work of Daphne du Maurier, wife of
Lt Gen, Sit Frederick Arthur Montague Brown.
ing, nicknamed “Boy Browning,” who would
‘command the whole airborne establishment.
The beret was distinctive, not only to ladies
in pubs, but also tothe enemy. A German friend
of he author served throughout World War IL
Recuperatng from a wound, he took command
of a scratch unit of old men and boys in what
was supposed to be a quiet sector near the
Dutch town of Ahem. On the night of the
British drop, one of his few veteran sergeants,
brought in a teenage machine-gun crew, crying
bitterly, “They took our machine gun.
My friend assumed it had been a neighbor
ing unit, but the boys said, “They were big men
in red berets." A British patrol had seen the
youth of the crew, taken the gun, and left the
boys alone. “I knew then,” said my friend, “if
Thad any doubt remaining, that the war was
surely over”
The abiding problems in the early days
remained, however. First, how to get the max-
imum number of troops on the ground before
the defenders could adequately react, and, sec
‘ond, how to provide them with heavy weapons
such as artillery, antiaircraft weapons, trans
‘port, and engineer equipment once they got t0,
‘or close to their landing zone. Today's heavy-
drop technique was far in the future, and in any
‘ase there were no aircraft designed to deliver
a howitzer or a bulldozer from the air.
AA soldier could jump with his personal
weapon, but geting heavy machine guns and
‘mortars on the ground was a problem; so was
enough ammunition for them. The initial
answer was to drop such equipment separately
in containers to be opened by the troops once
‘on the ground. That was all very well if you
could find he things in strange country, inthe
dark, with people shooting at you. That prob-
Jem was partially solved by saddling jumpers
witha separate bag much like a similar device
used by the American airborne. Once out ofthe
airplane you unhooked the device from your
hhamess, and the bag then dangled below you
ona length of ine. The bag hit the ground first,
taking the weight off the jumper. It worked,
although those of us who have jumped so bur
dened did not enjoy the experience.
The answer to both problems was the slide,
not only for resupply of weapons, equipment,
and ammunition, but asa means to get a lor of
people on the ground quickly and together,
fully equipped and ready to fight. Once loose
from the rug you coud land a glider in a pas-
ture, a field of wheat, even a marsh, in theory
at least. There was no landing gear to worry
about; you could jetison the tricycle undercar-
riage at need and land the glider on its belly,
some rudimentary skids taking up some ofthe
shock, again in theory. You could build them as
bigs tug aircraftcould tow them, even buld-
ing in a knock-away nose or tal so you could
sgetbig loads out quickly. You could tow one—
Tater several—fom a powered aircraft flown
by a trained pilot
But gliders presented more serious problems
oftheir own, First there were not any military
eliders in Britain when the war broke ou, noth
ing more than small, lightweight civilian
sailplanes. Gliders were not the major problem.
Those could be built, and the first order to
British industry was for 40.
‘The second problem was more perplexing
Who would fly the liders? In those erly days
the British armed forces were short of every-
PLYWOOD BOX
81thing, and that included pilots. The Royal Ai
Force, engaged in driving off the Luftwaffe in
the summer of 1940 and in creating a substan
tial bomber force to strike back, needed every
one ofits flyers. The obvious answer was to
train soldiers to fly the glider force. After all,
speaking pragmaticaly they would not have to
fly very far once the powered tug cut them loose
in ine with the target.
‘The British pondered the problem and
opened training, The idea, which proved itself
in practice, was that it was a great waste of a
‘300d soldier if all the ewo pilots did was land
this glider contraption. They ought to be able
to fight, along with their passengers, once on
the ground, And so the Glider Pilot Regiment
was born. It had only a beef lifespan. Bor in
1942, it was disbanded in 1957, bur during its
life it covered itself with honot.
‘The pilots were introduced tothe first pur-
pose-built military glider. Ir had an 88-fooe
‘wingspan and was called Hotspur, named in
traditional British style for a North British
fighting man, The litle Horspur would carry
six infantrymen and their gear. Later on, some
ofthe British airborne troops would ie to bat
tle in the American Waco glider. The British
called this one Hadrian, and it could life 15
troops including the two pilots.
The Hotspur would be followed by the
Horsa, namesake ofa ferocious and successful
Saxon wartior. To save weight, the skin ofthe
Horsa, lke that of the Hotspur, was plywood
over a wooden frame. You could open the
Horsa’s tail to get heavy gear out; you could
‘even blow the tal off with what was called a
“dynamite cartridge,” although that procedure
involved some risk of setting the wooden ar
plane on fie. Later on, the air-landing units
would get the Hamilea,an 18-ton behemoth of
wood over a steel frame,
Carthaginian soldier.
There were two pilots upfront, lying with
standard controls. There was no throttle, of
course; instead, there was a litle red handle
that released the 350-foot row rope whenever
the pilots deemed the moment propitious to
land. A telephone ne along the tow rope kept
them in touch with the erew ofthe tug.
Later a curious instrument called the cable
angle indicator was added, This device—irev
lider pls the “ange of dan
sle"—told poe flying a night his position in
relation to the tug, either just above or just
below the airplane up front. The slider pilots
learned never to fly directly behind the tug, for
the slipstream there could be violent enough ro
tear the fragile lider apart.
The Horsa was designed primarily to carry
ccently called by
wm story
infantry. The lager Hamar was designed to
«carry a couple of jeeps with trailers, two Bren-
‘gun carirs, or even a small ight tank called
the Tetrarch. The whole nose of the Hamilear
was hinged, so you could swing it upto roll out
your load.
‘The whole project began modestly when, in
October 1940, a pair of small aircraft rowed
two single-seat sailplanes. It would have ben
hard then to visualize what would come ofthis
tiny experiment. The pilot school formally
‘opened in January 1942, and the candidates
trained not onlin fying but heavily in combat
skills well. twas well they did. For example,
a formidable sergeant pilot named Ainsworth
landed in the water short of land off Sicily,
swam ashore towing a wounded man, killed
two Germans with a knife, disarmed still
behind the times that it was pled out of pro-
duction in 1941. The workhorse of the Allied
airborne in future years, the Douglas C-47, was
still coming off the production lines in the
United States. I would be produced in prodi-
sious numbers but was needed in large quant
ties all over the world. The new airborne div
sion was just one customer.
Even as the tug fleet increased, the crews
‘were also permitted to fly combat sorties into
‘occupied France, generally low-level attacks on
transformer stations to disrupt the power grid
They also dropped supplies othe French Resi
tance and British agents operating with them.
Such missions were more than morale builders,
they also provided what was quaintly called
“flak inoculation,” getting the crews used to
pressing home their attacks in a sky fll of rac
‘A Royal hic Force fight instructor fairies « ppl with the contrls of » General Aft Hotspur Mak Ii
fide. This photo was ten in December 1942 a he We,
another one, captured 21 prisoners, and then
fought on as infantry for several days more.
Other pilots manned antitank guns and
achine guns on the ground, some for days
after landing
There was never a shortage of able, willing
‘volunteers for the airborne frees, bu tugs were
another matter. RAF bomber crews were as
scarce a trained fighter pilors, and only a few
‘could be spared a the tart. The same went for
the aireraft at first. Most of the aircraft big,
‘enough to haul a glider were bombers, some
already becoming obsolete. Among them were
the Handley Page Halifax, the Armstrong
Whitworth Albemarle, and the ungainly Arm-
strong-Whitworth Whitley, considered so
Glide Tining School in Gloucestershire, England.
ers, precisely what they would be called upon
to do when they towed gliders into action.
Inspite ofa lack of doctrine and shortages of
equipment, the training went on, with more
and more gliders becoming available and RAF
‘crews ordered into the towing operation, More
and more airplanes became available, and lt
tlelacerin the war American C-47 crews would
also carry British airborne soldiers into battle.
Regular infantry batalions would be assigned
to what were now being called the air landing
brigades.
In October 1941, Ma Gen. Boy Browning
left the Guards Brigade to become commander,
paratroops and airborne troops. The airborne
division he was to command was nowhere near{ull staffing and organization and was short of
almost everything, but one ofits major ele
ments, Ist (Air Landing} Brigade, was quickly
‘assembled,
The brig a battalion
cach ofthe Border Regiment, the Ox and Bucks
Light Infantry, the Ulster Rifles, and the South,
Staffordshire Regiment. These were al storied
infantry units all loaded with battle honors,
from a dozen wars. To them the British added
a recon company, an antitank battery a “field
ambulance” of medical personnel, and small
support units. As the airborne forces expanded,
other infantry battalions and aeillery barteries
were added. The brigade trained separately
from the paratroops, who were drawn from
volunteers all over the Army, and would
become the Ist Parachute Brigade
By the summer of 1943, there would be three
parachute brigades in addition to the airland.
ing outfits, Thee support included li
units equipped with American 7:
itzers, and they would be moved by large num:
bers of Dakotas, many flown by American
pilots. But that was well into the future. For
now the pi lider pilot training
cadres made it up as they went along.
The division's leaders were able and hard-de
ving commanders; one particularly tough bat
talion commander was nicknamed “Dracula”
by his soldiers. Physical conditioning was high
‘on Dracula’ list of desirable things, as it was
throughout the regiment. The pilots. were
famous for their discipline and military bear
ing. They were coming to be recognized as the
elite soldiers they were
was virtually no experience to
draw from, all was improvisation and tral and
error, down to experimentation and modifica-
tion of parachutes, uniforms, weapons, har-
igs Training was improvised
+00, but the command of the new airborne
atroop and
Since there
nesses, and kit
forces settled on two jumps from a captive bal-
Joon and five from aircraft, including a night
jump. Ringway, the taining installation, also
hosted foreign volunteers especially Polish sol
diers, and gavea special short course for several
thousand SOE (Special Operations Executive)
agents—including a number of women—for
theie night drops into occupied France
The glider pilots trained with the Royal Air
Force at Derby and went through the same 12-
14 week course in powered aircraft as did the
RAF pilots, flying the forgiving Tiger Moth.
Alter glider eaining—both day and night fly
ing—some were selected forthe big Hamilcars;
the rest would fly the Horsas, the troop carr
cers leading the attack. With everything in short
supply, some ofthe lighter gliders were cowed
ABOVE: The Pegasus ins ofthe 6th borne Division
prominently emblazoned onthe fuselage of ther
Hotspur get pl of gdermon prepare fre mission. Elements of he 6th Airborne goined fame inthe
predown hoors of D-Day, coping the Coen Canal Bridge, which was later renamed Pegests Bridge in honor
‘ofthe expla, BELOW: Ghd troops prepare foro traling exer in 1942. Glider operations were partic
larly risky gives the ght weight end wooden constriction of the craft ond the ned for substantial deer
ground on which Yo ln and dsgrge troops.
in taining by antique Hawker biplanes
Medical support for both air landing troops
and paratroopers was provided by the field
ambulances, which landed with the men they
supported, both paratroops and glider soldier.
One doctor an officer named Robb, performed
more then 160 surgeries during the North
African
ting, Mose of his operations were
nd he lost only a single patient. His ast
patient was himself, for he had injured one kn
‘on landing; he had said nothing and had hob-
bled on until his job was done. Hippocrates
‘would have been proud, He and other airborne
doctors were supplied by air aftr the initial
landings, blood plasma and surgical gear
dropped in weapons containers.
The ailanding brig
pany of Royal Engineers—the parachute
brigades each had a platoon—signal detach:
‘ments, small headquarters elements, and light
arillery. Horsas carried the gunners and their
les included a fll com
howitzers. One glider could lft six passenger,
wwnstor | 5860
a gun, a jeep, a trailer or wo, and perhaps a
‘motorcycle Supplies and ammunition arrived
not only by glider but were dropped in simple
wicker panniers, carrying up to 500 pounds,
pushed from an aircraft door from a conveyor
system, Weapons were also dropped in what
the British called bombcells, metal con
that ft the bomb racks on fighting airraft.
“These and many other vital things trickled
down only slowly to the troops, from a supply
system overwhelmed with the immense require
ments ofall the Allied forces. The airborne
forces had settled on the American jep as the
ideal transport for troops onthe ground. But by
carly 1943, ths vital vehicle was tll n short,
supply. At one point, 132 of them were
reported to be “standing on the quaysie wait-
ing to be delivered.” But, as one British soldier
recorded, “Itcould not be discovered on which,
side of the Atlantic this quayside was.” There
were shortages too of 20mm cannon, of 6:
CGlders i motels in daylight near the Coes Cane
fly hous of Jone 6, 1944, The ridge was kay element inthe inland movement of British solders from
the lvasion beaches of D-Day.
pounder antitank guns, and a dozen other
things the troops required. But the men—the
cream of the crop—were read.
A handful served in an indispensable unit
that played a crucial roe in glider operations.
Called the Independent Parachute Company,
they were pathfinders, dropped in ahead ofthe
parachute troops and gliders. Fist into any LZ.
(landing zone), they deployed a signaling
device code-named Eureka, which broadcast
to an aircraft-borne receiver called Rebecca
‘They could set up lights as well, when and if
coment
the tactical situation permitted,
The first airborne operations were small
‘ones, the frst strike against a major aqueduct
in southern Italy. The insertion was by para
chute for this one, a small element that suc
ceeded in blowing a span out of the aqueduct
and dropping a bridge. But none of the raiders
‘made it out tothe coast where they were slated
to be collected by submarine, which in any
event could not itself keep the rendezvous. The
second airborne raid, however, was a trement
dus success.
‘Thistime the airborne troops dropped on the
French mainland, where they attacked a Ger-
‘man radar station at Bruneval,on the coast. The
objective was parts from the big Waireburg
radar, which British boffins needed to devise
countermeasures. While the soldiers shot up the
German garrison, a Royal Air Force NCO
named Cox calmly dismantled the apparatus,
and took what he needed. The Royal Navy
ridge, whi was sted by Bish er ops i the
lifted the raiders ove the beach, complete with
radar parts, and British casualties were minimal.
But the gliders had still to be tried. Ther frst
test was a small one, Operation Freshman, in
November 1942. Two Horsas, carrying sap
pers, were towed from Scotland ro Norway, a
‘mission of some 400 miles. The objective was
the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant about 60
niles from Oslo. The mission was fraught with
peril because navigation was extremely difficult
and the weather bad.
‘One tug, fying beneath cloud cover to locate
the objective, smashed into a mountain. The
«ew al died; but the lider was jared lose. It
landed heavily killing or injuring several more
sappers. The second tug flew higher, but a it
crossed the Norwegian coast, turbulence jerked
the lider lose. It landed near the wreckage of
the first, and the Germans quickly rounded up
the survivors. The Gestapo took jurisdiction
cover them, and they were eventually mur
dered—shot or strangled pursuant to Hitler’
‘notorious “commando orden.”
Inthe spring of 1941, the dramatic German
parachute and glider attack on Crete painted a
Spectacular picture of what airborne soldiers,
could do: with massive close air support feet
of transport and tug aircraft, and a sky full of
eliders, the Germans carried the island, But
Crete also emphasized the risks attendant on
attack from the sky against fierce opposition.
While Crete fll he island was also the grave
ofthe German aborne. Those who didnot de
‘on Crete kept thie pride and morale, but they. *
fought as regula infantry through the rest of
the war.
‘Not othe Bish. The British airborne fores
would persevere. After the fighting in North
[Arica-—most of which involved neither par
chutes nor gders—the ist major effort forthe
air landing units would be Sicily. Los of hard
lessons were learned there by both the British
airborne and the American 82nd Airborne
Division, General Jim Gavin of the 82nd Ait
borne apey described the operation asa “se
adjusting fou-up." Even so, mach was earned
and mach accomplished in particular the cap
i of two vital bridges by the Briish—at Pri
amasole and Ponte Grande.
Just geting there was a major undertaking.
“The gliders fist had to be flown from Briain
to the new Allied bases in North Africa. The
task equied the Halifax towing arrat to fy
total of about 70 hours permission. Some 50
ofthese were spent rowing the vital gliders.
Worse, thei out o their fst stop, an airfield
neat Casablanca took them far too close to
German territory and they flew erammed with
cota fuel, Atleast one tug was shot down by
Focke-WalfFw-200 Kondors. slider landed
in the ea, and is pilots wer collected several
days afterward by a passing Spanish ship. In
about the same area another pait—both tug
and row—simply disappeared without a trace.
Thegliderbome tops thistime flew mostly
in Wacos with British plots, hastily tained in
this unfamiliac aircraft Some of the pitts even
assembled their own gliders—at one airfield
tler pilots put rogther 52 piers in ust 10
days. And the operation was indeed a series of
errors from which everybody learned. The
= —weather was ful, with a gale-forc wind that
made dificult forthe tugs and glides to tay
con course. The trip was especially difficult for
theplider pilots tying to keep station with thee
tugs twas about 450 miles long and the ar
craft lw at no more than 100 fet. Te com-
pletion ofthe mission speaks volumes forthe
endurance and experts ofthe alder pilots
‘Thee landmarks invisible in the gloom ofthe
night and shrouded ina monstrous dust cloud
driven by a powerful offshore wind, many of
the gliders dropped their tows too soon and
ended inthe ocean. Clinging to the remains of
thei lide, Brigadier Philip Hicks, command
ing the airlanding brigade, spoke daily o his
brigade-major. “Alls noc wel, Bil,” he said,
and it was a massive understatement. Only 52
sliders managed to each the land, and only 4
landed anywhere near their target LZs
Even so, the Ponte Grande Bridge fell ro a
Lieutenant Withers and some 14 men of the
glider landed South Stafords. Withers and five
of is men swam the canal, and his inate fore
then pu in its atack from both ends ofthe
bridge. This handful of lider soldiers removed
the enemy’ demolition charges and with cea
sional small cinforeements held doggedly onto
the bridge through the nigh, although there
‘were never more than 100 troopers to fight off
determined counteratacks. Driven off the
bridge at last, the glider troops met other
friendly units advancing and took the bridge
back, Ie was now permanently British,
In the blackness over Sicily, German antiair-
craft fre hit one Horsa, unfortunately carrying
bangalore torpedoes; it exploded in the ai.
Thee other Horsas fying witht however, put
down safely. Finding themselves Some 25 miles
from their objective, the soles on hoard nev
ertheless, as the British put it, “yomped”
through the night and gor theie mission done.
A handful from another crashed glider—just
six men ofthe South Saffords including a doc-
tor—rejoined ther unit afer swimming ashore,
crawling undera20-fot tangle of barbed wire,
and marching 10 more mils inthe darkness.
Along the way they accounted for an antitank
gun, three machine guns, and a couple of pl
boxes, and brought in 21 prisoners,
‘Wherever they found themselves, the glider
troops raised havoc with whatever hostile unis
they encounered, although much of thei time
vwas spent wandering through the gloom ofa
serange landscape, searching fr each other and
for somebody to fight. One small group from
brigade headquarters, including the brigade
commander and a handful of pier plots, putin
their own improvised attack on a shore battery,
working through the enemy wire and destroy
(kders ofthe British 6th Ar Landing
observers.
ing five field guns and the ammunition dump,
IF the inital landings had been bad, worse
wasto come, Asa second wave of powered air
craft and gliders approached the coast,
‘on the Allied invasion let, cruising of the
Sicilian coast, mistook the transport aircraft
and the gliders for hostile aircraft and opened
fire. Casualties were heavy as aircraft were
destroyed inthe air or crashed into these. The
final casualy list counted 50 glides crashed at
sea out of force of 108; another 25 had si
ply disappeared forever
Nevertheless, the glider soldiers and thie
pilots had acquitted themselves very well
indesd. Although they could not know i yet,
there was a monumental test waiting for them,
‘one on which the future of the world quit lit
erally depended. Back in Britain planning was
already well advanced for Operation Overlord,
the invasion of Festung Europa from both the
sea and the sky. Overlord would be the payoff
forall the years of taining, the casuals, the