My father was the sole survivor of a CG4 crash in North Carolina during the war. The pilot landed on a road, but a wing hit a tree flipping the aircraft with a jeep inside. While recuperating in the hospital General Joe Swing told my father he could have any job in any outfit he wanted. My father asked to be a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne. Not long after that General Swing came up with the concept of the Air Assault Division with all the glider troops qualified as paratroopers and all the paratroopers trained on gliders.
On August 1, 1943, I witnessed a fatal CG-4 crash at Lambert Field in St. Louis. It was during a large airshow and the St. Louis mayor and his staff were invited to go for a ride in a CG-4. When the towline was released from the C-47, The right wing of the CG-4 folded up and broke loose from the glider. The fuselage went straight down and everyone on board was killed instantly. I was 5 years old at the time.
my dad was a glider pilot-on D-Day he landed his glider between the rows of a apple orchard shearing off the wings--he,his crew walked a way--he was thrust into leading a combat unit headed to germany,he got a Sgt to help him since he had zero combat experience but as a officer they headed across France and met up with the russians in germany,shared vodka!!
Not true, the glider pilots had infantry weapons for when in the ground . Air superiority protected them from German fighters . They only would for a couple of ministers before Landing. The British airborne glider operation, (Pegasus Bridge) on the left flank of the Normandy invasion seized bridges to stop German armored counterattacks into the flank of the invasion beaches, by landing them nearly ON the bridges, achieving complete surprise!
Currently reading Citizen Soldier by Stephen Ambrose where he mentions, several times, the gliders. Two questions:1) were the crew armed and then became infantry once landed, and 2) I assume the gliders were used only once since they couldn’t get into the air without the C-47’s?
My father was the sole survivor of a CG4 crash in North Carolina during the war. The pilot landed on a road, but a wing hit a tree flipping the aircraft with a jeep inside. While recuperating in the hospital General Joe Swing told my father he could have any job in any outfit he wanted. My father asked to be a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne. Not long after that General Swing came up with the concept of the Air Assault Division with all the glider troops qualified as paratroopers and all the paratroopers trained on gliders.
On August 1, 1943, I witnessed a fatal CG-4 crash at Lambert Field in St. Louis. It was during a large airshow and the St. Louis mayor and his staff were invited to go for a ride in a CG-4. When the towline was released from the C-47, The right wing of the CG-4 folded up and broke loose from the glider. The fuselage went straight down and everyone on board was killed instantly. I was 5 years old at the time.
my dad was a glider pilot-on D-Day he landed his glider between the rows of a apple orchard shearing off the wings--he,his crew walked a way--he was thrust into leading a combat unit headed to germany,he got a Sgt to help him since he had zero combat experience but as a officer they headed across France and met up with the russians in germany,shared vodka!!
Very Cool, the only pilots to become infantry after the flight
Wow.Really Supermen
Not true, the glider pilots had infantry weapons for when in the ground . Air superiority protected them from German fighters . They only would for a couple of ministers before Landing. The British airborne glider operation, (Pegasus Bridge) on the left flank of the Normandy invasion seized bridges to stop German armored counterattacks into the flank of the invasion beaches, by landing them nearly ON the bridges, achieving complete surprise!
Currently reading Citizen Soldier by Stephen Ambrose where he mentions, several times, the gliders. Two questions:1) were the crew armed and then became infantry once landed, and 2) I assume the gliders were used only once since they couldn’t get into the air without the C-47’s?
Hooah 1st 57th Signal Battalion.... AIRBORNE