Glider infantry

The British Airlanding Brigades consisted of three infantry battalions and a small headquarters. The infantry battalions consisted of 806 men in four rifle companies, each with four platoons, and a support company consisting of two Anti-tank platoons each with four 6-pounder guns, two mortar platoons armed with six 3 inch mortars, and two Vickers machine gun platoons. These battalions were larger than those from the Parachute Regiment.^[2] Initially the American Glider Infantry Regiments (GIR) had only two battalions, but later in Europe, the two battalions of the 401st GIR were divided in March 1944 to act as the 3rd battalions of the 325th and 327th GIRs. In March 1945 the 401st Glider Infantry Regiment was disbanded and the battalions formally became part of their new regiments.

In both the British and American armies, there was a sense that the glider infantry were poor cousins to the more glamorous

In one respect the American and British armies differed. The British Army formed the Glider Pilot Regiment from the glider aircrew. The men in this unit were not only trained aircrew, but also very well-trained infantry.^[3] After a large scale landing, they would form an infantry battalion, attached to the HQ of the airborne division involved. The US Army did not form a comparable unit.

Usage and doctrine

Firstly, glider infantry are loaded into gliders which are attached to towing aircraft by a cable. The loaded gliders are then towed through the air by towing aircraft and flown to a release point usually just beyond the hearing range of enemy troops.^{[citation needed]} The tow cables are then released and the gliders would be piloted, without engine power, to a designated landing zone. Once the gliders landed, the troops and equipment would disembark and enter combat. Glider pilots were often organized together after landing to fight or be extracted to safety.^{[citation needed]}

Compared with

• Gliders could carry and deliver much bulkier and heavier equipment (such as anti-tank guns, or vehicles such as jeeps or even light tanks) that could not be parachuted from the side-loading transport aircraft normally used in World War 2. Thus, glider infantry units were usually better equipped than their parachute infantry counterparts.
• Any one stick of glider infantry could disembark intact and combat ready, while paratroops needed time after landing to regroup and reorganize before beginning operations. Under ideal conditions, whole glider units could land intact.
• Unlike drop planes which delivered paratroops, gliders were totally silent and detection by the enemy was difficult, greatly increasing the element of surprise. In fact, completely undetected insertions were possible, especially during night landings.
• Glider infantry required much less training than parachute infantry. In fact many glider infantry units were simply converted from regular infantry units with only cursory training.

However using gliders as a method of insertion also had serious drawbacks:

• Gliders required a relatively smooth landing area free from obstructions. A common countermeasure against gliders was to sow
  posts
  and other obstructions in likely landing areas.
• Gliders were fragile and glider landings were rough and brutal affairs. All too often,^{[citation needed]} gliders were destroyed during landing attempts, killing or injuring the crew and passengers.
• In practice, it was difficult for entire units to land together and glider-borne units often^{[citation needed]} ended up even more widely scattered than parachute units.
• Gliders and towing planes were extremely^{[citation needed]} vulnerable to interception by enemy aircraft while gliders were under tow. Gliders were also helpless against ground fire if they were detected before landing.
• Glider pilots, who were expensive to train and replace, suffered heavy casualties.

Later history

Sicily

The

Normandy

With much better intelligence, planning and rehearsal, the glider landings in the Battle of Normandy were far more successful. In particular, one coup de main force in six Horsa gliders captured the Caen canal and Orne river bridges by surprise, led by Major John Howard. The 6th British Airlanding Brigade, part of 6th Airborne Division (United Kingdom), were in action early on following concentrated landings, and prevented early German attempts to counter-attack the Allied landings. American landings were more scattered, but still more successful than many planners had hoped for.

Arnhem

In Operation Market Garden, the 1st British Airlanding Brigade, part of the 1st British Airborne Division, were landed on the first day of the operation. The landings took place in daylight and were unopposed, but the only landing and drop zones thought suitable for such a large force were a considerable distance from the vital bridge which was the objective. No attempt was made to mount a coup de main attack by glider (although this was largely due to the haste with which the operation was mounted). A jeep-mounted reconnaissance squadron brought in by glider failed in the mission.

In the subsequent fighting in Arnhem, the 1st Airlanding Brigade and the Glider Pilot Regiment suffered heavy casualties.

Rhine crossing

The last major operation involving gliders was the crossing of the River Rhine in March 1945. To avoid the long delay in relieving the airborne troops which had been a major cause of the failure of Operation Market Garden, the landings were made close to the German front line defences. The landings took place in daylight once again, and heavy German anti-aircraft fire took heavy toll of the vulnerable gliders. Most Allied casualties were incurred by the glider pilots.^{[citation needed]}

Far East

The

Later German operations

After the heavy losses at Crete the Germans made no more large-scale glider assaults. They did make several coup de main attacks against targets which were not protected by anti-aircraft guns. One of these was

Glider infantry did not survive long after the close of World War II. The German glider infantry units were disbanded. The U.S. Army Glider Infantry School was closed in 1948 and remaining glider units were eventually converted into parachute infantry. About the same time the British Glider Pilot Regiment was subsumed into the Army Air Corps and the airlanding brigades were disbanded. However the Soviet Union continued to train and use glider troops well into the 1960s.

A convergence of factors led to the rather quick displacement of glider-borne infantry by regular paratroops. Larger capacity post war cargo plane designs with stern loading ramps enabled paratroops to carry heavier equipment. It was unsafe to tow wooden gliders at the high cruising speeds of four engined transports. Improvements in parachute infantry training and tactics reduced the scattering when paratroops disembarked. Newer anti-aircraft technology like radar and radar directed guns made gliders readily detectable ^{[citation needed]}.

The concept of using aircraft to forcibly insert infantry, however, never completely died and was eventually revived in the late 1950s with the advent of helicopters and

References