The Glider's Contribution to WWII

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. William Huntington
  • 442nd Fighter Wing public affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  The success of the gliders in combat is not without controversy, or detractors, among military historians; however in most instances it did make a significant impact on the face of the battle. 

A study written for the Historical Division, European Command, by a committee comprised of former German officers, saw that on D-day the presence of the gliders, and other airborne troops, meant the commitment of German reserve forces to counter them.

As a result, these were forces the Germans could not employ to reinforce their Normandy redoubts to repulse the allied invasion. 

According to the report, "The significant fact is that the air landings made it possible to substantially increase the number of forces which had been brought to the mainland during the first phase, thus augmenting the purely numerical superiority of the attacker over the defender." 

Whatever the case, these daringly built aircraft piloted by equally daring Airmen, made their contribution to the war and their legacy remains in the form of the freedoms realized in the lands they liberated. As the Airmen succumb to time, the Waco CG-4A combat assault glider remains as a memorial to that generation's resistance to totalitarianism.