gliders, engineless aircraft used to carry airborne troops, tanks, artillery, and supplies. They were usually towed singly, but sometimes in pairs, behind specially converted bombers. Made of wood, or constructed from a tubular steel frame covered with fabric, they were towed to their targets and then released to glide down to a predetermined landing area.

The USSR pioneered gliders for military purposes, and glider units were formed there during the mid-1930s, but during the German–Soviet war the Soviets used them only to supply their partisans. Germany was the first to employ them to transport troops, and was the only Axis country to do so, though Japan did develop a glider assault force. To acquire suitable military personnel, gliding was fostered by the Nazis as a sport between the wars, and the DFS230 ‘attack glider’ was developed. It was this type which, at the start of the German offensive of 10 May 1940 (see FALL GELB), was used to capture the Belgian Eben Emael fortress and the three vital bridges across the River Meuse. The Germans also used gliders to seize the Corinth Canal bridge in Greece during the Balkan campaign and then for the airborne invasion of Crete. The heavy losses incurred during this last operation turned Hitler against large-scale airborne assaults, but the Germans continued to use gliders in smaller operations. They were used to deliver supplies on the Eastern Front; Skorzeny employed them in his daring operation to liberate Mussolini; and they were also used to attack French resistance fighters in the Vercors. The Germans built the largest glider of the war, the 24-ton Messerschmitt 323. Called the Gigant (Giant) it could carry 200 fully equipped men, but it needed three aircraft, or two welded together, to tow it and though 200 were built they never proved satisfactory.

The Allies developed several types, notably the British 30-man Horsa, the larger Hamilcar, which could carry a light tank, and the American Waco. The British first used gliders, against Vemork, in November 1942. But their first large-scale use by the Allies took place at the start of the Sicilian campaign in July 1943 when 69 gliders out of the 137 used landed in the sea. More successful was their use by the Air Commando which, in March 1944, landed some of the Chindits by glider behind Japanese lines in Burma. This led to their being employed in large numbers to place Allied airborne troops on the flanks of the Normandy landings in June 1944 (see OVERLORD). They were also used successfully during the French Riviera landings that August; during operation MARKET-GARDEN in September 1944 where more than 2,500 gliders delivered British, Polish, and US units to their targets at Arnhem and elsewhere; and when British and US units were dropped beyond the Rhine in March 1945 during the battle for Germany.

Attempts by the Americans to develop an amphibious glider for the US Marine Corps in the Pacific war were curtailed, and the only use made of American gliders used in that theatre was when seven landed supplies and jeeps in northern Luzon (see Philippines campaigns) in June 1945. They were also similarly employed in the last phase of the Burma campaign. See also air power.

Bibliography

Mrazek, J. , The Glider war (New York, 1975).

GLIDERS

GLIDERS. The military glider, unique to World War II, became obsolete after the war as aviation developed, especially with the production of successful helicopters.

The Germans conducted the first glider mission in 1940. Recognizing the possibilities, the British and Americans implemented their own glider programs designed to discharge, in a small area, large numbers of fully armed troops ready for immediate combat, thus eliminating the costly time required to assemble paratroopers. Gliders also made it possible to deliver vehicles and weapons too heavy for parachutes.

The Germans made the most imaginative use of gliders to land troops silently on top of the Belgian Fort Eben-Emael in May 1940. Within ten minutes they blinded that great fortress, virtually putting it out of action. In May 1941 the only large-scale employment of gliders by the Luftwaffe played a significant role in Operation Merkur, the successful airborne assault on Crete. A daring, small-scale glider mission liberated Benito Mussolini from imprisonment at Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi Mountains in Italy in 1943. Elsewhere, minor glider missions substituted when transport aircraft operations were not feasible.

Allied forces used gliders on a larger scale. The first operation, in 1943, a British-American assault on Sicily, provided valuable experience despite being inept and costly. Use of gliders on D day in Normandy was largely successful but indecisive. The largest Allied glider mission, part of Operation Market-Garden in September 1944, employed 2,596 gliders to secure a bridgehead across the Rhine River at Arnhem, Netherlands, but had limited success. Operation Varsity, the last glider operation of the war, near Wesel, Germany, on 23 March 1945, employed 1,348 gliders and was considered a tremendous success.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Craven, Wesley F., and James Lea Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in World War II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950–1958.

U.S. Air Force. USAF Historical Studies, Air Force Historical Research Agency, nos. 1, 97, and 167.

John A.McQuillenJr./c. w.

See alsoD Day ; World War II, Air War against Germany .

glid·er / ˈglīdər/ • n. 1. a light aircraft that is designed to fly for long periods without using an engine. 2. a person or thing that glides: the flying lemur is an efficient glider as well as climber. 3. a long swinging seat suspended from a frame in a porch.

glider n.
1. a light aircraft that is designed to fly for long periods without using an engine.

2. the pilot of such an aircraft.

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