glider pilots training

it has been said that the lack of training for US glider pilots contributed greatly to the casualties suffered on the night of 5 June by the US Airborne troops. What kind of training and pilot selection was there during the war [signature]

A good well-documented book by a combat veteran of glider operations is a Smithsonian Institution Press job called: "Silent Wings At War" by John L. Lowden c 1992 ISBN 1-56098-121-0 It tells about recruitment, training, and combat operations. Check with your library for a copy or an inter-library loan. Hope that this helps, Steve [signature]

belated thanks. I lost my computer and then couldn't remember my logon. I must be getting old :) [signature]

Try talking to Charles Day. I believe his book is called "The Silent Ones". He's a regular poster on Mark Bando's 101st. Airborne site "Trigger Time" at [url "http://www.101airborneww2.com"]www.101airborneww2.com[/url] Check the forum section. Chas. is a very nice guy, and a wealth of information on all things glider. [signature]

tkeating
it has been said that the lack of training for US glider pilots contributed greatly to the casualties suffered on the night of 5 June by the US Airborne troops. What kind of training and pilot selection was there during the war

Hello tkeating,
 
That's the subject I love and study it deeply through decades. Unfortunately you do have very small number of credible authors able to tell about the American Glider Program of WWII era honestly and professionally. I would say that only Charles Day, this forum's (and not only) big glider guru, as well as J. Norman Grim see all, or majority, pathologies related to the AGP. The last mentioned author called AGP as a near-panic state and I totally agree with him. The problem is in the fact that aviation does not tolerate near-panic states in the process of training, operating or equipment manufacturing.
 
What happened to the AGP during WWII was big revenge of various strategic errors done by the USAAC in interwar period as well as unique arrogance of the US authorities towards the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale and American glidermen community. In today's America there is not one author writing about the AGP who would inform American fans of history that the interwar USA was the only one country in the world that did not honor the FAI licenses for the glider pilots. The interwar USA was the only one FAI-associated country in the world which forced its glider pilots to confirmation their FAI licenses in the Aeronautics Branch, the US Department of Commerce. No wonder that nobody did it with very small exceptions.
 
That was the first scandal totally unknown in interwar Europe because what the US Department of Commerce could know "more and better" about soaring/gliding than the highest and most professional world authorities responsible for soaring and gliding? Such factors, and many other bureaucratic ones, killed the AGP, not the US glidermen who were excellent in my opinion.
 
What is very sad the American fans of history up to this day are forced to read American historic lies that at the start of AGP the USAAF found in entire USA only 160 glider pilots. That is very funny but simultaneously this is big shame for the American authors, their competences and credibility. The history cannot be a propaganda covered by quasi-patriotism. In his "The Book of Gliders" Edwin W. Teale wrote in 1930 (page 337) as follows: "Fifty-eight clubs, with a membership of approximately 2,500, belong to the National Glider Association". Nobody knows today how many glidermen were in the USA on December 7th, 1941, but it would be hard to believe that since 1930 this number reduced itself. The question is: What happened to more than 2,000 US glidermen in interwar period who the USAAF "could not find" in 1941? Did they emigrate all? Frankly speaking when I read majority of the American texts dedicated to the AGP then many times I cannot believe that such things are written in democratic country.
 
That is this big historic lie pumped to the American heads through more than 60 years. Of course nothing happened to 2,000 or maybe 3,000 American glidermen licensed by the FAI in 1930s/1940s but incompetent military bureaucrats were not going to honor other glider pilot licenses than issued by the Aeronautics Branch, the US Department of Commerce only. Those 160 glidermen found by the USAAF were only the men with their FAI licenses re-verified by the Department of Commerce. Who did not have such a re-verified license he – for the US military authorities – was not a glider pilot. That is maybe one percent of various pathologies of the AGP during WWII but nobody wants to write about it in today's USA.
 
The USAAF had during WWII the best military glider pilots of the Allied countries, the best educated and trained, but they were pressed into the worst possible system of military gliding, the system which broke flight safety standards and aviation law. Between WWI and Pearl Harbor the USAAC did not like the gliders and nothing changed during WWII. Nobody wants to count today how many US glider pilots and GIR troops paid by their lives for this system -- the system which, in today's circumstances, would be court-martialed.
 
That is why my admiration for the US WWII era glider pilots is the highest possible because they had two enemies -- one in front of them, and the other one at the rears in the midst of own military authorities. A very good and illustrious sentence wrote Qualified Flight Instructor Jim Blakeslee who trained (and towed) the USAAF glider pilots at Lubbock, Texas. He wrote among others: "I might have been safer overseas being shot at by Germans or Japanese -- at least I would know who was trying to kill me" (Air Classics, June 1990, page 79).
 
Best regards
 
Gregory

Here is a link to the official history of the AAF glider training program from 1941 to 1943 (originally classified Secret -- cue spooky background music):
 
http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/numbered_studies/467593.pdf
 

Bernie Shearon
Push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. Pull the stick back, the houses get smaller (unless you keep pulling -- then they get bigger again)

If you have not downloaded the Maxwell glider pilot training summary, you should. It takes a while to read but has a lot of stuff in it.  Particularly, it shows how the training program changed about every three months, or more often during 1942-43.  Keep in mind the XCG-4 was not delivered and accepted until June 1942 and the first production articles were not delivered to Lockbourne for training purposes until Sept. 1942.

As for casualties suffered on June 5, assuming you feel them to be excessive, I believe this is greatly exaggerated. I do not have the 101/Pratt serial numbers but 82nd summaries for KIA and Evacs were 1.62% and 8.59% respectively for a total of 3,753 men carried (this does not count GPs).  More than half these were in the Horsa glider, not the CG-4A glider.  And, out of 187 Horsa gliders, 17 (1/3) of 51 KIA were in one glider.  Training was not a problem so much as night landing without landing lights, 70 to 80 foot trees rather than 30-50 foot trees.    

Gregory my friend, you got to calm down a bit!  I believe the problem was that the CAA was a part of the Commerce Department and organizationally was not a seperate aircraft agency.  Also the less thant 200 gldier pilots that normally is quoted should be qualified in that they were the Class D (Silver C) pilots.  And, even though there may have been 3,500 members of gliding clubs, most of those likely were not pilots.  In 1934-36 the Toledo (Ohio) Glider Club had 30 paying members.  Ed Knight (heir to LOF glass and local hardware suppliy company) owned a glider he flew and instructed with.  He and Stranahan (Champion Spark Plugs) apparently financed the Funk glider the club built.  Ed Knight gave instruction.  In photographs it appears that only 8 members, including Ed, flew in or piloted Ed's Haller Hawk.  Navy Captain Ed flew R4D for the Navy in the Pacific during WWII and returned to gliding after the war.  I would have to look it up, but I beleive he did not earn his Silver C until after WWII.  Emerson Mehlhose had Silver C but was not member of TGC.  Emer was known as a very good glider pilot and Ed would send his mother's limosene to Wyandotte to drive Emer down to Toledo to fly for the club.  Emer worked as aero engineer for Chrysler during WWII and had no connection with the WWII glider program. He went into powered aircraft operations after WWII.  A member of the New Jersey glider club to which Chet Decker belonged, sent me a picture of the group saying he and most of them acted as ground crew for Chet and were not by any means proficient glider pilots.          

Charles Day
Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment

Working at the bottom rung of the American military bureaucracy, I'd say an efficient bureaucracy is an oxymoron.  The government is about accomplishing things that individuals/markets/etc cannot otherwise do.  Starting a bureaucracy is always less efficient.  WWII started our current "Military-Industrial Complex" (Eisenhower I think), and our military glider concepts were a completely cold start to boot.  Actually more an afterthought and restricted by a not-to-interfere directive. 

So it's pretty impressive what training programs and operational impacts that it did produce.  I agree with Charlie, glider casualties are skewed because usually they're mixed in with parajumper stats since they were organized together.  Something about jumping behind a well-prepared enemy's lines at night in huge numbers.  Not that better technology, perfect intel, planing & training could have reduced gliderborne losses, but there's other considerations to the largest amphibious/combined arms invasion in history and the brass was fully prepared for far worse casualties.  In hindsight everyone would like to have reduced casualties, but DDAY is arguably the biggest gamble in history.  Success was far from certain, even after establishing an 800,000-man beachhead in under a month.

There's plenty to critisize with the glider program, and in hindsight I'd have started with the CG-10A!    Sorry couldn't resist, but the Brits and Germans did have bigger gliders sooner.  Maybe not better or integrated toward sustained operations, but who knows.

I have a book called "For us 'the Var Ist Over'" by James Farrin that spends more time on the training phases of the glider pilots than most books.   I recall dad taking about three schools, Dead Stick, Basic & Advanced. Plus an abbreviated version of boot camp.

Nexgen, do you know the names of the bases where your father trained?

Louisville (Bowman) was where most did their arms training. There  were  many GPs who spent many months at Louisville keeping the hotel and its ladies in business!

Charles Day

Charles Day
Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment

Germany was forbidden to have powered flight after World War One for a number of years in their military.
 
I have heard two of their pilots speak and they both had extensive Glider Training before they learned to fly powered planes again for World War II.
 
Hitler discarded the rules from the World War One Treaty and they began to build powered fighters again. But the time used to train the pilots on Gliders was not wasted. They both felt stronger it made them better pilots. 
 
The one Ace was among the first to fly a ME 262 and he started on Gliders.  
 
I am not sure our Glider Pilots had the training the Germans received, and then with full Gliders of men and machinery it had to be tricky. 

Sincerely yours,
PA.Dutchman

Son of T/Sgt. Ray A. Heilman, JR.
11 TH Field Artillery 1937-1940
Schofield Barracks
7 TH AAC 11 BGH 42 Sq.1940-45
Hickam Survivor 12/7/1941
AAC Armorer (P) 911
P.U.Citation1942

PA.Dutchman
I am not sure our Glider Pilots had the training the Germans received, and then with full Gliders of men and machinery it had to be tricky.

No, up to the end of WWII the US pilots have never been trained in that best possible manner well known in interwar period in Germany, Poland and USSR. Almost all German, Polish and Soviet military pilots of WWII era, including fighter ones, were former glider pilots.
 
In the USA that was totally impossible due many various factors although the best US pilots, as Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, Capt. Corley P. McDarment or Lewin B. Barringer publicly appealed in 1930s for this system of US pilots training. There was not only USAAC mental blockade against it but also US industry was totally unprepared for this system.
 
In pre-Pearl Harbor period (and after as well) in entire USA there was only one (privately-owned) professional aerobatic glider. Only one in the country almost as big as continent. From European perspective it is hard to believe. This lonely glider was Yankee Doodle DLS-3 built by Lawrence Institute of Technology. The designers of this glider told very strange information about this glider that it was stressed for unlimited aerobatics. No such "unlimited" aerial crafts however. It sounds like the only one "G limited" factor in this glider was a man at the controls. It was very elegant high-performance glider designed according to the best European trends with pilot's semi-recumbent position in the cockpit the same as in the German and Polish high-performance gliders then but unfortunately DLS-3 owners never could decide themselves how to use this glider -- for the aerobatics or maybe for classic racing rivalry.
 
That is why in the 12th National Soaring Contest in 1941 the Yankee Doodle was beaten by other high-performance gliders highly specialized for racing as Ross-Stephens RS-1 Zanonia, WSwW Orlik II (Polish) and Göppingen Gö 3 Minimoa (German). With such an equipment and USAAC mentality there was no chance to train the US military pilots basically in the gliders as nazi Nationalsozialistische Fliegerkorps did it with future Luftwaffe fighter pilots and others.
 
Best regards
 
Gregory