Anda di halaman 1dari 8
ee ete oat een en eet ee ae es eee ee Pelee cea od a ey Ct eens Ce eo eae op zone on August 15,1944 THE GLIDER PILOT REGIMENT TOOK PART IN SOME OF THE MOST HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS OF = WORLD WAR II. RTE MITH buildings, 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 81 thing, 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 | 58 60 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

Anda mungkin juga menyukai