Chapter 12: the glider

A Shower of Frogs

Continuing Chapter 12 from the previous post ... describing Bill Stigall's glider

I told Mavis that the glider was almost as large as the two-motored plane that towed it, the C-47, weighted 3,600 pounds, and carried thirteen men and two pilots or a jeep (an additional 3,100 pounds), three men, and two pilots. It could also carry a trailer, a 75mm pack howitzer, or ammunition, food, or other supplies. For all its weight and size, it was fragile. The frame was steel tubing, the sides and wings a tissue-thin fabric taut like a drum head. The nose of the glider, called a snout, unhooked, lifted up and allowed the jeep or artillery piece to enter. All material things inside were tied down with ropes. It was this action that we performed hour after hour, practicing, experimenting, while the makers changed models.

The glider had a hook in the front with a release handle above the pilot's instrument panel and window. To the hook was attached a 300-foot nylon rope about one inch thick. The other end of the rope was attached to the rear of the C-47, which also had a release hook. The C-47 pulled the glider off the ground, into the air, and over the drop zone. We were to travel at about one thousand feet at 130 miles per hour. Over the drop zone either glider or C-47 or both cut loose and the glider circled in order to be certain of the drop area and to slow down to about sixty miles per hour. The C-47, if not severely injured from flack, went home.

On my first flight at Maxton Airbase (an improvised situation, like many other things in World War II) we took off behind the C-47 with the propeller blast blowing like a gale and lifting the glider before the tow plane left the earth. We bobbed up and down, to right and left, like a cork on water, and were soon gaining altitude as the C-47 itself gained elevation. We followed the tow plane around in large circles, like a kite on a string, for about twenty minutes.

Without warning our pilot unhooked us. At that moment the glider is free and there exists a sudden and profound silence--a few seconds of great aesthetic satisfaction. Nothing can be heard save the slight sound of wind pressing against the wings, which, by contrast to the deafening sound of the prop wash, is stunning. This sound, this singing silence, must surely approximate that known to
a soaring eagle.

We four in the jeep sat still, pressing our feet against whatever was solid in front of us. I held fast to the steering wheel, either making as if to land the damn glider or simply cursing a blue streak. Gerry, my corporal sitting beside me, usually outdid me. His streak, in soft Carolina accents, was fiery blue. The landings were tense. The glider had wheels and skids, like skis. The bottom of the glider was eighteen inches off the newly scraped ground and grass, which went by fast under us. The possibility of touching down and of immediately nosing over was ever present. Should this happen it would have been a mess of nuts, bolts, and insurance checks for loved ones. The story of glider landings was clear to me in my first landing.

We only circled once, came down rapidly, shot across the ground at about 120 miles per hour, overran the landing strip, skidded, and wobbled to right and left, coming to a harmless stop on the grass. The pilots unhooked the snout and lifted it. In seconds the three men untied the jeep and I turned on the motor and drove out.

At Maxton Airbase we repeated this action two or three times. No troubles.

The word glider is a misnomer. We glided very little; we soared not at all. It was a way of dumping a certain number of men and materials behind enemy lines. It had marvelous surprise possibilities and great potential shock-to both parties. I always flew in a jeep. Directly under my seat was the gas tank, a point of much humor, bawdy humor. We had no parachutes or seat belts.

Mavis asked if this was a volunteer outfit. I told her that one day we were an ordinary infantry outfit and the next day we were airborne. At the time, we had the privilege of volunteering for the paratroops, which I did, only to flunk the last part of the physical. I didn't have enough teeth. (For several days afterward sad jokes all around.) No, glidermen came by their work "natural-like."