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Steering an Aerial Plywood Box Through Enemy Fire: The Glider Pilots of WW2
In World War II, there were no C-130s or large cargo aircraft that could deliver heavy equipment
– such as a truck or artillery piece – in advance of an airborne invasion. For that, you needed to put that equipment, along with its crew, in a glider. These were unpowered boxes of plywood, pulled by a towing plane into enemy territory by a single cable wrapped with telephone wire.
The men who flew on gliders were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They…
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