(humming of planes -
somber music - explosions) Hal Holbrook: World War
II was the most violent and destructive armed conflict
in the history of mankind. It is believed that
approximately 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world's
population perished in the war. Its aftermath ushered in a
new era of doomsday weapons, and shifted the
balance of global power for generations to come. The Second World War
is considered the most chronicle event in the
annals of human history. Thousands of books,
films, and memorials have been dedicated to the
conflict, yet one unwritten and unheralded chapter remains. The story of Americas
World War II glider pilots, spearheading nearly every
allied assaulter in the war. They were a fearless band
of 6,000 volunteer aviators whose exploits and
accomplishments endure as a testament to their
distinguished service. These brave American
pilots flew infantry and vital supplies on silent,
one-way transport missions deep into enemy held
territory with each hostile fire choked landing
potentially being their last. What survives is a
remarkable story vivid in the memory of American
glider veterans and unforgettable to men
who flew alongside them. Walter Cronkite: At least
when assigned to it I thought well it will be a
nice quiet way to die, at least there's no big
engine running right outside the window and
it will be quiet and a nice peaceful way
to go. Actually it turned out to be
anything but that. Andy Rooney: The glider, I
don't know whether everybody understands it was a totally
expandable piece of equipment. It was never salvaged. I
mean they came in and just, it was an accident, a
planned accident, and you hoped to survive
the accident. Leo Cordier: We knew
that we had a tough road to hoe with the
flying gliders and initial invasion
missions, D-Day missions I was very fortunate to
survive five of them. If you survive one
you were pretty lucky. (music) Hal Holbrook: At the
start of World War II Belgian Fort Eben-Emael
defending the Belgian-German border
was widely regarded as the strongest
fort in the world, impregnable to ground
attack and manned by nearly 1,000 Belgian
artillery men. By May, 1940, however
it resided in the crosshairs of one of
the most deadly and daring attacks in
military history. Rudy Opitz: It was
actually a decision from Hitler himself that
the gliders were used because everybody else thought
that it's not possible. Hal Holbrook: Operation
Granite painstakingly planned by Adolph Hitler
was about to exploit the forts single
weakness, it's roof. With a flat metal-like
surface, the forts roof created the perfect natural
glider landing strip. Just before dawn 40 German
DFS 230 assault gliders lifted off from
airfields near Cologne. Part of Germany's top secret
glider program 11 of these motorless aircraft were
bound for Fort Eben-Emael. Rudy Opitz: My people
they told they were you bring me there, you
bring us here, you know, and you don't have to
do anything, you know, we'll take care of,
once we're on the ground we'll take care of it,
but you bring us here. Hal Holbrook: The special
forces paratroopers on board were heavily
armed with flamethrowers and a top secret 110
pound hollow charge bomb. The unsuspecting Belgians
would soon experience more destructive force than had
ever been witnessed in warfare. Releasing from their
tow-ropes at 7,000 feet still within Germany
the first glider strike force in history slowly
descended towards its target. Touching down silently on
the forts grassy roof the paratroopers quickly
overpowered and neutralized
the Belgian defenders. (background music - explosions) Hal Holbrook: Before
the smoke cleared from the massive invasive explosions
Eben-Emael was in Nazi hands. Rudy Opitz: We did it
with confidence and, of course, because we
did it with confidence
it was a success. Hal Holbrook: Hitler's
gold gamble of using gliders to spearhead and
attack had paid off decisively, and ushered in a new
era in aviation warfare. From the rubble of
Fortress Eben-Emael German forces would reach the
French coast in just 10 days. Rudy Opitz: The fort
which was considered impregnable that couldn't be
taken it was gone in 20 minutes. Adolph Hitler:
(German)"Heil Hitler!" Hal Holbrook: The Nazis
secret glider program had evolved as an
unintended result of The Treaty of Versailles. The agreement had restricted
Germany's production and use of powered aircraft. Rudy Opitz: You wanted
to fly, but you couldn't. If you prevent people to
do something, you know, and you say they
can't do it, you know, they will find a way to
do it, okay, and that was the way in Germany we
started to approach flying. For us in 1927 when
Lindbergh flew to Europe and landed in France
he was probably for us a bigger hero than he
was in the United States. We flew gliders and
that was permitted and we did what we could
do with gliders. Hal Holbrook: In 1922
Hermann G█ring, a World War I veteran
who would later become chief of the Luftwaffe
called glider instruction for the youth the
first of three steps in the redevelopment
of German air power. This 18 year head
start in combat glider development presented
allied and American military planners with
a daunting challenge. In less than a years'
time design and construct new motorless aircraft
to match Germany's highly effective new weapon
and recruit and train pilots to fly the motorless
craft into battle. In 1940 America was
consumed by defensive powered aircraft manufacture
and was ill-prepared to shift resources to glider
development and training. It would take until
February 1941 when Major General Henry
"Hap" Arnold acquired a keen interest in the
successes of the German glider core that the American Glider
Program finally took off. Known as the father of
the United States Airforce and a strong advocate
or airborne envelopment through technology
innovation General Arnold would make an American
Glider Program a central component
of his strategy of
technological advancement. On February 25, 1941,
he announced "In view of certain information
received from abroad a study should be
initiated on developing a glider that could be
towed by an aircraft." Jerry Devlin: Hap
Arnold was a visionary. He foresaw the need
that World War II was coming and he tried to
do his very best and he did do his very
best to see that the United States was well
prepared in the way of having aircraft
production boosted up and he was also a big fan
of the gliders, the World War II gliders
that the Americans became so famous for.
Quite an amazing guy. Hal Holbrook: Arnold,
in a classified memo in March 1941
directed engineers at the Army Air Corps Experimental
Aircraft Test Center at Wright Field to
create designs and solicit prototypes
from manufacturers. His memo, however,
contained a clause that glider production
orders could only be solicited from civilian
manufacturers not already producing
powered aircraft. Of the four companies
that responded with a glider prototype it
was only the design by Waco Aircraft of Troy, Ohio,
which passed final testing. Jerry Devlin: Waco was a
pioneer in the manufacture of small lightweight
powered aircraft and about that same time when
the US Air Force mainly at General Arnold's
urging was pushing out feelers to various
civilian manufacturers of aircraft said look
how would you like to get in the glider
business? We're looking for an eight seater glider
and we're also looking for a 15-place glider
meaning two pilots, 12 troops, and
how would you guys like to get into
the glider business? The Air Force sent letters out
to 16 different manufacturers. When the prototypes
were built it turned out that Waco produced
the very best that the Air Force was looking
for at that time and so they wound up
getting the contract to build the very first
eight seat gliders and they also won the
contract to produce the larger CG-4A which
held 15 people, two
pilots, and 12 troops. They produced the best
contract, the best designs, and when tested by
Wright Field in Ohio it was found that they were the
very best, the very best ones. Hal Holbrook: In all,
16 firms won bids to build Waco's CG-4A
design. Among them was Cessna and automobile
giant Ford motor company. Ford's assembly line
efficiency had reduced the cost of each glider
to about $15,400 each while nearly all the
remaining 15 approved CG-4A manufacturers
charged the government a minimum of $25,000 a piece. Outwardly silent in flight
riding in the glider crew compartment it was an
entirely different story. Walter Cronkite: The
American Waco glider was a glider with a
canvas cover. Well, it was like being inside of a drum. And it made such a
terrible, terrible racket it was kind of like
being inside the drum at a Grateful Dead concert. The roar, the noise was
absolutely deafening. You couldn't talk over
it. It was just terrible and that was the first
major disappointment. Then when the tow-rope
was dropped the second major disappointment
the nose dropped and we almost went straight
down and I was saying to myself well I knew
these things wouldn't fly by themselves they
had to be towed and it turned out that this
was the technique for a good glider landing.
We had a great pilot in the glider I was in
and the technique was to dive to the point where
just before the wings came off and pull out
as low as possible when, you know, gauging the
g-force that the wings would stay on pull out
and make a quick circle of the landing field
coming in head on into the wind and get
down on the ground as quickly as possible
that was obviously to avoid the ground fire
and then once on the ground the next technique
which was the next great surprise of
riding a glider for the first time was actually
to crash the glider, that is to stop it as
quickly as possible, and the technique was
hoped that the glider pilot, and they were
exceedingly brave in doing so, they were sitting in a
little plastic bubble out there in front and
yet they would head that nose right into
the dirt with the idea of half a ground loop.
Not stopping the plane suddenly enough usually
the tail would come up and if it was done well
that's as far as it would go. Sometimes it went all
the way over, but our man did it very well,
but as it happened it was the very soft
dirt of a potato field and all this black dirt came
pouring in on top of us. We practically had to
kind of halfway dig our
way out of the glider. Michael J. Samek: The
fantasy of landing itself behind the
German lines, you know, that was a different
story, you know, I mean we call it silent
wings, you know, you couldn't hear them on
the outside, you could sure hear them on the inside
and obviously had to get towed. And if we didn't get
towed at 10,000 feet and then somebody silently
swooping into someplace, that was a little ...
didn't quite work out. It was not a romantic thing that
it seemed to have been really. Hal Holbrook: The American
Glider pilots legacy even today remains almost
as much a secret to the general public as the
objectives of their missions were to the
Germans during World War II. George Buckley: It
was a small program. We were a small group
when you compare it with an army of 10 million
men, 5,000 glider pilots is a very small outfit, but
its just been overlooked, people never heard of
them. People to this day that were old enough
during World War II to know about things said
"Gliders, I didn't know they used gliders. You were
soaring around during the war?" Aggravating. It's
aggravating, and that's another reason why
I like to collect glider stuff and let
people know about it. The fact that we were
rated pilots and after we landed became infantry
it kind of made us a little proud. I think we
were the only pilots that the Air Force ever had
that became infantry
after they landed. And I think that that was
kind of the feather in my cap. Leo Cordier: A lot
of people to this day didn't know the importance
of the Glider Program. It enabled us to get
heavy equipment in with the gliders going
right in with the paratroopers or in
conjunction with them. We worked with the 82nd,
the 101st, the 17th, and some of the 11th
Airborne Divisions that were formulated
during World War II. It gave us a sense of
independence because glider flying once you
were on the ground in a combat mission you were
on your own, so you had to pretty much
fend for yourself. We weren't regimented
like other units because the nature of
our missions was to get down and do what
we can and we were separated in many
instances and you had to fend for yourself without
any support or any help from the other troops
that might be in the area. (gunshots) (background music - planes) Hal Holbrook: As the
American Glider Program was just getting off the
ground in April and May, 1941, German forces were
preparing for what would become the most massive
all airborne invasion in history. Operation
MERKUR was the brainchild of Major General Kurt
Student, commander of the German Airborne. The
target of the intense offensive was the
Mediterranean island of Crete. After German forces
overran the Greek mainland in April 1941, Crete
with its three air fields remained the last
strategic allied outpost in the eastern Mediterranean. (background music
- plane propellors) Hal Holbrook: On May 20,
1941, the first wave of 500 German transport planes
and 69 gliders carrying paratroopers of the German
7th Airborne Division
took off for Crete. (background music
- planes engines) Hal Holbrook: British
Commonwealth commander
on the island Major General Bernard
Freyberg learning of the German advance
by air from secret ultra intercepts had
lined the air fields with hidden machine
gun placements. (background music
- planes engines) Hal Holbrook: At 7:15 a.m. the
first wave of 32 DFS 230 gliders and scores of Nazi
paratroopers began descent to Maleme airfield. Within seconds the
German paratroopers were riddled with
bullets from below and gliders that did reach the
ground were blown apart. Crete would become the costliest
battle yet for Germany. The entire structure
of the German airborne was weakened, 220
out of 600 transport
aircraft were destroyed. (explosions) Hal Holbrook: One
paratroop company lost 112
killed out of 126 men. And 400 of the battalion
600 men were dead
before the day was out. (planes engines - explosions) Hal Holbrook: Overall,
4,000 Germans died most from the 7th Parachute
Division. A major flaw in German airborne
procedures was that most of the mens individual
weapons were dropped in canisters. This
was in contrast to the practice of most other
nations airborne forces jumping with their armaments. While this German
practice facilitated quick exit it left the
paratroops armed with only their side pistols
and knives in the critical first few
minutes after landing. Many causalities were
directly attributable to the German's troops
attempts to reach their
weapons canisters. Jerry Devlin: Invasion of
Crete by the German Air Force was probably one of
the most difficult and spectacular battles
of World War II. It consisted of a
massive division level German parachute
and glider assault. A little over 10,000
German paratroopers were involved and some 69
German gliders were used. (background music -
explosions - gunshots) Jerry Devlin: Even
though all three of those airfields were under
direct fire by the British and Australian
troops the Germans kept sending more and
more aircraft in and there was just this horrible
carnage, just terrible. So with just plain
sheer guts and audacity the Germans managed to break out
of all three of those airfields, launch frontal assaults
against the defending British troops and in
about four days they had the island captured. It's
a remarkable feat of arms, probably the greatest
of airborne troops
during World War II. Hal Holbrook: On May 28th
due to allied tactical errors and an inability
to resupply the island's defenders, command in
London decided the situation was hopeless and issued
orders for withdrawal. Over the next four nights
16,000 allied troops were evacuated by ship
to Egypt. Churchill would remain bitter about
this defeat and call the
loss of Crete a crime. The Germans after such
a blood-soaked victory would tenaciously hold
Crete for the remainder of the war, but due to
the heavy troop losses Hitler would never again mount
a major airborne offensive. In a reception July 17th
for recipients of the Knight's Cross for
the victory on Crete, Hitler turned to Major
General Student and said, "General, Crete has
proven that the day of the
paratroops has passed." (music) Hal Holbrook: To British
and American military strategists, unaware of
the heavy German losses, the Nazi airborne
invasion of Crete was an unqualified success by
the enemy; a lightly armed force had flown
nearly 200 miles over water and attacked heavily
entrenched defensive forces on a mountainous island
numbering twice their size. Defense officials in
Washington had now become thoroughly convinced of the
need for a military glider corps of their own.
General Hap Arnold, that summer of 1941, announced ... "We are getting a late
start, but we shall have a glider force that is
second to none, ready for service whenever and
wherever it may be needed." Michael Samek: One day
there was a notice out that they were looking for
people with flying experience, you know, so I had done
some flying and the thing I really wanted to do
more than anything else was fly. The reason I ... I
mean I had no chance of getting into the cadet
program, one of the reasons because I
wasn't a citizen, which is an issue that
had come up once before, but without any further
consequences as far as I knew, so anyway I
indicated my interest in doing this and to
my amazement, you know, if you know anything
about the Army, you know, usually you say I want
to do one thing or the other and nothing ever
happens, you know, but in this case I was notified
about six hours later that I was going to be
interviewed four hours later and the next thing I know
I was told to go pack my bag, and I had just been
selected to get into what was known as the
Glider Program, and as I mentioned before I wound
up in [unintelligible] after a long back and
forth. I was the first class of enlisted pilots to go
through [unintelligible] And, of course, we flew no
CG-4A's, we flew [sailplanes.] It was great. It
was wonderful fun. And after we got through
with that I and the rest of the 18 guys
who were my classmates, we were all promoted to
staff sergeant pilots. (music) Hal Holbrook: During
the eerily calm summer of 1941, many isolationist
Americans still believed the European war
was not our fight to wage. Andy Rooney: There was
a big movement in this country in 1941 when
I was in college. It was the class of '42, but
there was a huge peace movement. There were a lot of
people in this country one movement called
America First did not think we had any business
getting into a war in Europe. Charles Lindbergh: These wars
in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is
defending itself against
some Asiatic intruder. There is no Genghis Khan
or Zerzes marching against
our Western nations. This is simply one
more of those age old struggles within our
own family of nations. If we enter fighting for
democracy abroad, we may
end by losing it at home. Andy Rooney: I was taken
by that and I've always been impressed ever since by
how dumb I was at the time. Hal Holbrook: Within
six months' time, America's isolation
would end on a calm Sunday morning in one
of the most devastating, unprovoked air attacks
ever conceived. (music) Hal Holbrook: On December
7, 1941, the most powerful carrier task
force which had ever been assembled consisting
of six Japanese first-line carriers
with their associated battleships, cruisers,
destroyers and over 423 planes had positioned
their strike force 230 miles north of the United States
Naval base at Pearl Harbor. At 0600 the first wave
of 183 Japanese bombers set off for Oahu. Ninety
minutes later, the northern tip of the
island was within sight of advancing enemy
aircraft. At 7:53 AM with the battle cry of Tora,
Tora, Tora, flight commander Mitsuo Fuchida began
the attack which would catapult the United
States into a world war. (background music -
explosions - planes engines) Franklin Roosevelt:
Yesterday December 7, 1941, a date which will
live in infamy, the United States of America was
suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air
forces of the Empire of Japan. A state of war has
existed between the United States and
the Japanese Empire. George Buckley: I had
just gotten out of work from the candy factory
and I was walking up to the center in Salem
to get the bus back home to Beverly and I saw some
type of ticker tape machine or something that said "The
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor." Three days later I enlisted
and by the 24th of December, I was on the way to
Fort Devens. I ended up in December, late in
December at [unintelligible] as a private. I was
attached to a military police outfit guarding
the [unintelligible] and I got off duty one night
and walked into the barracks and on the bulletin board
was a note that said they were looking for
volunteers for glider pilots. We had made inquiries
for flying cadet, but you had to have a
college education at the start of the war. They
wanted real smart guys, so they started a program
called Aviation Student which is how I went
through the glider pilot training as an aviation student. Instead of 10 weeks staff
sergeant it took 28 weeks. Hal Holbrook: With
America attacked, a wave of journalists enlisted
for assignment in Europe and the far east.
Correspondents whose names would become
legend, joined American soldiers at the battlefront. Walter Cronkite: They
warned us to be sure to wear our straps
on the helmet. They hadn't yet
developed, or at least we didn't have the chin
cup that really held the helmet on and
despite the strap like in automobile accidents,
as you know, the shoes somehow they come
off. How they come off peoples' feet in an
accident I don't know, but helmets come off of
your head the same way. Mine was strapped on and
the others were strapped on, but as we landed with that
sudden jolt the helmets fly off. A helmet is a pretty
heavy thing and the edges
of it are fairly sharp. They're dangerous weapons
when they're flying through a crashed glider in that
fashion, but here they came bouncing around,
but mine was off and as we dug out of the glider I
grabbed my two musette bags. I had two, you know, over
the shoulder army bags, one with typewriter and
paper and one with my shaving kit in it
and clean shirt and I grabbed these and
grabbed for a helmet. I got the first helmet
I could put my hands on, slapped it on my head and
started across the field to what I thought was a
rendezvous point where I had saw from other
gliders people moving towards this drainage
ditch which was where we were supposed to
rendezvous and then move down the drainage ditch to
a [unintelligible] of woods at the end of the field and I
started toward that, you know, running, grouching,
sort of thing you would, in wartime circumstances.
We were getting some enemy fire, it wasn't
terribly intense, but some on the field and
the gliders were crashing in the usual fashion
running into each other, spilling out their guts,
the Jeeps they were carrying, the men, and
it was a, you know, horrendous scene, but
suddenly I felt a tug on my pants leg as I
was lying there getting ready to go again and
I looked around and there was a sergeant
behind me and four or five men behind him and
he said, "Lieutenant, are you sure we're going
in the right direction?" And I said "lieutenant,
I'm not a lieutenant, I'm a war correspondent," and
he looked at me and glared at me and said, "Well in that case
take off that damn helmet." It turned out I was wearing
a lieutenants helmet with a great white stripe
down the back of it. That was the only time
I led troops in the war. I led them very
successfully. I was going
in the right direction. Andy Rooney: I was with
an artillery outfit originally and that
artillery outfit went to Africa and was almost
wiped out at Kasserine Pass and had I stayed with the
artillery outfit instead of going with the Stars
and Stripes I would have been there and quite
probably killed or at least captured and interned
in a German prison camp for two years and
there was nothing noble about by participation in
the war. I was drafted. I went unwillingly and I
did not become conscious of what a good thing we
were doing for mankind until close to the end
of the war. Not until we got to the German
concentration camps did I realize the
horror of it all. I had been immersed in
my college years. I was so aware of what could
be done with propaganda and I was afraid that we
were being propagandized to fight this war for wrong
reasons and I was wrong. I didn't find that out until
near the end of the war. I had the read the
great line somebody said that any peace is
better than any war, and I thought that that was
true, but it's not true. There are times, just
as in your own life, you have to take chances
to do the right thing at great risk and it
was the right thing for America to do to put
itself at great risk to
rescue all of Europe. Hal Holbrook: As 1942
dawned, the American glider program
gained new urgency. Effective February 19,
1942, glider pilot training expanded to enlisted men
with these requirements: First, previous aviation
experience including completion of the Civil
Aeronautics exam in primary or secondary
powered aircraft. Second, at least 30
hours of flying time at the controls of a
civilian glider and third, passing of a rigid
physical. The goal at first was to qualify 1,000
glider pilots, but by April 1, 1942, General
Arnold increased that number to 4,200 and shortly
thereafter he set the target at a staggering 6,000
required glider pilots. Leo Cordier: It
was a crazy program because when they first
started it was too much with too little.
We had no gliders. We had no schools to
attend and they kept us in pools before they
gave us the assignments. There was a lot of idle
time. That wasn't too good, but we got to know
each other quite well. Out of 16 million troops
that were in World War II they only trained 5,000
of us approximately, so that's not too many
people out of 16 million. Hal Holbrook: By June,
1942, it was clear that army efforts would not
produce the required number of pilots. In a
hastily called meeting in Washington on June 10,
to formulate a solution, radical measures were adopted
and approved by General Arnold. Among them was the
decision to allow civilian and military applicants
who had no flying experience whatsoever.
Arnold preferred to maintain military
tradition by not pressing non-volunteer troops into
hazardous flying duty. This unorthodox decision
produced a wave of volunteer applicants
with differing levels of ability, but who all
shared one common desire, they wanted to fly. Michael Samek: I belong
to the World War II Glider Pilot Association
and we now look upon
ourselves as crazy. I think that's really the
wrong word for it, you know, in World War II there was
no question in my mind or anybody else's mind
that one had to go and
join the Armed Forces. If it was a little bit
risky so much the better. (humming of plane engines) Hal Holbrook: Doubt
regarding the viability of the glider program
began to surface. General Mathew B.
Ridgeway, commander of the 82nd Airborne, asked Hap
Arnold to send someone down to Fort Bragg
to demonstrate the airworthiness of
the CG-4A glider. General Arnold, realizing
that his glider program was in trouble, decided to
send his very best salesman. Mike Murphy, a charismatic
former barnstormer, wing walker and
world-champion aerial acrobat was given the task.
Murphy, would later rise to become the highest
ranking glider pilot in the Army Air Force
as a Lieutenant Colonel. George Buckley: He
could do anything with a plane or a glider. He
was just one of those exceptional individuals that
was born to fly and was good. Thank goodness he
got into the program. Hal Holbrook: To the
Generals, Murphy had to convince them the "ugly
beast" could fly and to the paratroopers
and pilots that it
wouldn't be their coffin. For the demonstration,
the entire 82nd airborne division was mustered
to the airfield. To show support, General
Ridgeway strapped himself in alongside pilot
Murphy. Once in flight, Murphy insisted they
try some aerial loops. At first resistant,
Ridgeway finally relented and Murphy created a
sensation. The assembled paratroops observed the
motorless plane doing maneuvers they had
not thought possible. To drive home his
demonstration, Murphy landed the glider just
three feet short of a man stationed there
to greet them. Hap Arnold's American glider
program was safe for now. (music) Hal Holbrook: As the war
entered it's third year, in January, 1943,
Casablanca became the site of President Franklin
Roosevelt and British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill's strategy meeting to devise a
war plan for the coming year. With the North African
campaign speeding to a successful conclusion,
they turned their attention to Italy.
Situated 90 miles north of the African coast and
just two and a half miles off the Italian
peninsula, the island of Sicily provided the
perfect staging ground for entry back into Europe and
control of the Mediterranean. Churchill and Roosevelt
resolved that Sicily would be the next offensive. Michael Samek:
Think of going from North Africa to Sicily in
the middle of the night flying a glider, you
know, in retrospect it was an interesting
idea, you know, that like out of such things,
you know, it's very hard to tell exactly
what's going to happen in a war, you know, it's
organized chaos really. Hal Holbrook: Months
in the planning, Operation Husky, beginning
in early July 1943, was the largest
combination amphibious and airborne operation of World
War II up until that time. The planned allied attack
encompassed a front more than one hundred miles
long. In overall command was General Dwight
Eisenhower. The campaign pitted 478,000 American,
British and Canadian forces against axis
defenders comprised of close to 350,000 Italian
and German troops. Operational objectives were to
drive axis air and naval forces from Sicily, and eventually
knock Italy out of the war. For American glider pilots,
this would be their first
combat action of the war. Michael Samek: The
mission was going to come up sooner or later
and indeed it did, and one day we were told
that we have a mission coming up and that we
needed some volunteers for that mission, but
in retrospect it turned out that this airborne
invasion of Sicily, which is of course what
it was, was actually the airborne part, the
glider part was really a British mission,
but they were short of glider pilots so they asked
some American volunteers and there were some
... the number is in dispute even today
if it were 19 or 24, whatever it was, you know,
this is what happened, and sure enough we
prepared for this mission. Hal Holbrook: On
July 9 and 10, 1943, the night airborne
missions commenced. The low-flying C-47's
with their gliders in tow encountered fierce
head winds, blowing many off course and
intense enemy anti-aircraft fire from the beach.
Reaching the designated landing zones became
nearly impossible. Many C-47 pilots
forced their gliders to cut loose far short of
the designated LZ's. Sam Fine: The tow
pilots signalled us to cut off, but I told
the co-pilot that we will not cut off. We
were too far out to sea. I said get me in further
so we can land at the beach at least.
He said I can't get in any further, but
I'll take you up. So we were flying at
500 feet above sea level until then, he took me
up to 2,500 sea level and I said, Good. I cut
off and I landed and went through the
[unintelligible] and
the search lights. I was able to fly the
glider and made a landing. As soon as I landed I got
shot in the back of the neck, and I was thrown out of
the seat onto the floor, and we stayed there.
In the meantime the crew got out, the
airborne got out, the British airborne and
they counter-attacked the fighting force. My pilot
was killed then at the bridge. We eventually had to give
up and we became prisoners, and while they were
marching us and they had guards on either
side a British captain came upon us, part of
the British airborne, and he fired a couple
of shots and killed one of the guards
that was guarding us, and the others got panicky
and one of the guards ran in front of me
and he looked like he wouldn't know what to
do so I took his gun away from him and eventually
we freed ourselves. They thought we had more people
[as we took them] prisoners. Hal Holbrook: In Sicily,
an unforgiving sea awaited heavily laden
CG-4█s and their pilots who had never trained
for a water landing. Michael Samek: I cannot
tell you exactly how far out I was when
I was let loose. It was 1 o'clock in the morning,
it was pitch dark of course. Nor can I actually tell
you how many of the people got out of the glider.
Certainly a water landing is the last thing they had
anticipated I want to tell you. It was ... we never
thought about it, we never really discussed
it. We learned of it since obviously. We
also had no life rafts. We did carry life jackets.
I got out, of course, and so did my co-pilot, my
other pilot, if you will. I thought I was going to
swim ashore, you know, it's only when you're
20 or 21 would you think of something like
this, you know, with
about three foot waves. I was a very good swimmer
so I thought it's doable, but after a while I
decided this was not the best idea and I happened
to run into another glider down and I hung
in with that glider sitting on the wing
freezing because obviosuly we all suffered from
hypothermia at that point. About six hours later
or four hours later we got picked up by a boat
that transferred us to another boat and
took us eventually to [unintelligible] where we
spent a night in the hospital. Sam Fine: I went to a
British field hospital. When I walked in the
British airborne troops that were laying there
were in bad shape and I didn't feel that I
should take the effort for them to, of course,
I was mobile and I just went on and I
just pressed my wound with my fingers and
tried to stop the blood flowing which I eventually did. The shirt acted as a bandage. Hal Holbrook: That night,
General Patton sent orders for the remainder
of the 82nd Airborne to be brought over from
Africa to reinforce the scattered troops
and support his move inland. Patton and
Montgomery█s troops on shore were being harassed
by German fighter planes which were being
checked by American
anti-aircraft gunners. Into this tense
atmosphere, later that night, flew Patton█s
requested C-47█s with the remainder of
the 82nd Airborne. Although every
conceivable precaution had been taken and strict
orders passed to allied gunners to
hold their fire, once the low flying unmarked
planes appeared overhead, fear won out over logic.
An American anti-aircraft gunner on the ground
opened fire and in a sickening cascade, other
battery positions followed. Generals Patton and
Ridgeway, standing on the beach, watched in
shocked disbelief as six American C-47█s
blew apart and plunged into the sea. Other
allied planes pancaked into the water and
were carved up by fire from American ships. In all, 318 additional American
paratroopers were added to the casualty list
as a result of friendly fire. Walter Cronkite:
The courage of those guys on the C-47's and
the DC-3's, piloting those planes was
great, too, of course. And it was so tragic
to watch them hit and become a fireball
and trailing smoke going down exploding
and landing. I think that is a little bit
like watching a great ship go down, you know,
that sort of thing. You expected the gliders
to have their problems. You kind of expected the
C-47's to turn around
and get home safely. Michael Samek: In
Sicily floating around the water I, in fact,
ran into a glider that had a strapped in
glider pilot sitting in the water and I could
see it. It was already light at that point,
okay, and I know who that was, okay, I
knew it was one of my colleagues obviously,
one of my comrades, and I still have that
picture. There was nothing I could do about it. The poor guy did what
he was supposed to do. He flew a glider into Sicily. He couldn't make it and I
think that's all that counts. (music) Hal Holbrook: Sicily,
for the 82nd airborne, had become the allied version
of Germany's invasion of Crete, viewed by many
military planners, as too costly in
airborne casualties to justify the objectives
achieved. A bitter General Dwight
Eisenhower, writing in his after-action report
on Sicily, opened his letter to General Marshall
with this sentence, █Sir, I do not believe in
the airborne division." (music) Hal Holbrook: By August
1943, the entire American airborne operation
was in jeopardy of being broken apart.
And for the glider program, events were about
to go from bad to worse. On a blisteringly
hot Sunday morning, August 1, 1943, a
capacity crowd gathered at Lambert Air field
in St. Louis, Missouri, to witness a patriotic
flight demonstration by Robertson
Aircraft Corporation. The company was
celebrating release of their sixty-fifth CG-4A
glider off the assembly line. Among the passengers on
board this demonstration flight were cigar chomping
Mayor William Becker along with several high
ranking city officials and the President and Vice
President of Robertson Aircraft. Jerry Devlin: Everyone
in St. Louis pretty much was all excited
about the gliders being manufactured
there. They were totally new aircraft,
revolutionary, and so at a point during that time
Robertson Aircraft Corporation decided to take one of
its newly manufactured gliders down to the
airport there at St. Louis and to demonstrate
how very safe it was, and to fly it around
and just show the people in St. Louis as
well as the American public at large just
how wonderful these
new gliders were. (patriotic music) Jerry Devlin: The
glider was [hauled] off by a C-47. It only
had been up in the air a couple of minutes and
it was coming in and making a circle being
towed around by a C-47, being towed around the
airfield so everyone could marvel at this great
spectacle taking place before them and so the
glider pilot about that time cut loose the
tow-rope and was getting ready to make his
descent and land in front of the crowd on the
runway and to the horror of everyone the right wing of
the glider just snapped loose. Just fell off just like
it had been ... just as neatly as it had been
cut off by a knife. Hal Holbrook:
Captain Milton Klugh, the helpless pilot,
could do nothing. The Robertson glider, filled
with St. Louis dignitaries, turned and plunged nose
first towards the tarmac. A horrified onlooker cried out,
█My God, they█ll all be killed!█ And with that the
Robertson glider met the earth at more than
eighty miles per hour. Jerry Devlin: So
there was a tremendous investigation to find
out what in the world could have happened to
this brand new machine just right off the
assembly line and the results of the
investigation which took two or three weeks
were that the wing, the right wing, both
wings have a strut something like this
and where the strut connected to the wing
there was a machine ball joint there to
where the ball joint and the strut connected
to the ball joint inside the wing, but
as is done today, whenever there is a
disastrous aircraft accident every little part of
the recovery, every bit of the broken parts
of the aircraft that are recovered are
looked at very closely. What had been found
out that the ball joint was machined too thin to
where it broke and gave way. Hal Holbrook: The
American public which scarcely knew an American
military glider program existed was now greeted
with nationally published photos revealing the
terrible tragedy. Military officials, who
had supported the glider effort now had to contend with
a public relations nightmare. Jerry Devlin: It
gave people a lot of pause for thought just
about how dangerous this glider business is. A terrible, terrible
disaster and one that shook the Washington
bigwigs right to the core. Hal Holbrook: With
the American losses in Sicily less than a month
earlier and Eisenhower█s feelings towards fighting
a war from the air, it had become the darkest of
days for the American airborne. And for Hap Arnold█s fledgling
glider program it was going to take no less than a miracle
to get it back off the ground. As a result of the costly
battle to secure Sicily, and Eisenhower█s opinion
of the viability of
the airborne program, General Marshall convened
a select review board to evaluate the entire
airborne effort. At the same time, Marshall
directed the Army Air forces to conduct extensive technical
tests on the CG-4A glider at Laurinburg-Maxton
Base in North Carolina. Just four days after
the tragic glider crash in St. Louis, an extensive
all-day glider flight demonstration was scheduled
at Lurinburg-Maxton. Heading up the tests
and demonstrations was Major Mike Murphy.
Judging by the grim looks on the faces of military
brass gathered, including General Hap Arnold, Murphy
had no easy task before him. Jerry Devlin: The
gliders themselves and the glider operations
in general had gotten a very bad name. The
Joint Chiefs of Staff were getting very
upset and very nervous about the fact well
gee this is turning into a suicide kind
of outfit here. Hal Holbrook: Murphy,
the consummate professional and
natural showman, knew he had to leave no doubt
in anyone█s mind as to how invaluable the
CG-4A glider was to the American airborne effort. (music) Hal Holbrook: After
a day filled with aerial maneuvers and
even a CG-4 water landing night fell and for the
last demonstration test, Murphy herded the dignitaries
to a remote area of the base. The atmosphere was
tense because of the raw memories of the night mission
on Sicily only weeks earlier. Jerry Devlin: About 10
miles away up in the sky a group, I believe
it was either 10 or 12 CG-4A gliders were cut
loose from their tow planes and while they were
making their descent Mike Murphy kept talking
and he increased the volume of his voice so
that the people in the stands couldn't hear
what was going on, but directly behind him he
could hear the first glider touch down,
the second one, and he increased the volume
of his voice to cover the thump down because
gliders do really land very silently and anyway
when all 10 gliders had landed, 10 or 12
or whatever it was, Mike Murphy then yelled
"Lights!" and they turned on the lights
and to the amazement of the various general
officers and the VIPs in the stands the gliders
were just about at the, right at the grandstand
which was ... they just couldn't believe
that that large number of aircraft could land
right in there, you know, right in front of them
and not, you know, didn't know that
they were landing. And the showman that
he was Mike Murphy had arranged for one of the gliders, he lifted up the nose
where the Jeeps could be rolled up, but they
lifted up the nose and out came a military
marching band. [Thanks to] Mike Murphy's
showmanship, his flying skill, his aggressiveness, he pulled
off that [unintelligible] show and it was
flawless. He showed those people sitting there on
the stands all of whom had come from Washington,
DC, these were the Chiefs of Staff
of the US Services as well as one or two
congressmen were there, and he showed them that
despite those setbacks the glider program was
still a very viable option, and given enough time to
get their act together it could do very well and indeed
it did as the war went on. (music) Hal Holbrook: Just ten
days after Mike Murphy's spectacular glider
demonstration in North Carolina, President Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Winston Churchill met for a ten day strategic
conference in Quebec. The topic, Southeast
Asia and how to assist Lieutenant General Joseph
Stilwell and his Chinese divisions in reopening
a land supply route from India across
Burma into China. There to generate American
support for a joint operation was British General Orde
Wingate. His presentation so impressed Roosevelt
that the president directed Hap Arnold to create
a small airforce to
fly General Wingate█s British-Indian Special Forces
called █Chindits█ into battle and provide direct air
support in place of the artillery and
tanks they lacked. Hap Arnold█s Army Air Corps
had its new glider mission and for secrecy Arnold
called it █Project Nine.█ The man Arnold selected
to build up Project Nine was handsome,
charismatic fighter pilot Colonel Philip █Flip█
Cochran who had been made famous as a character
in Milton Caniff█s daily comic strip
█Terry and the Pirates." Cochran handpicked
523 volunteers for
this dangerous mission including former child
actor and Army Air Force
glider pilot, Jackie Coogan. Coogan, part of this
handpicked group now called
the 1st Air Commando Group could not resist breaking
the tension of the grueling and deadly serious
mission training. Jerry Devlin: Jackie
Coogan happened to notice where they had
landed on a big field during one training
exercise some Indian workers were off to the side
with elephants using them to pull huge logs.
He got out of the glider and walked over and
talked to the Indians in sign language and said
"Look can you take your, have your elephant and
put the chain on my, pull me over I got to
go right over there about 200 yards
park this thing so I can go to the club
and have a beer." The guy with the elephant
struck a deal with him, he backed the elephant up
in front of the glider, hooked up the chain to
the nose of the glider, and gave the elephant
the command to go, and so Coogan is at the
control going along, and everything seemed to
go very fine for a while, but all of a sudden the
elephant looked back and instead of seeing
it was pulling a log it looked back and saw
this monstrous big glider. I think the wing span
was something like 60, 70 to 80 feet,
just a huge monstrous piece of machinery, and
as best everyone can figure out the glider
frightened the elephant so badly that he took
off in a gallop and he kept on heading for
the woods instead of going to the right where
the parking area was. And unfortunately the
only thing that stopped the elephant from going
into full gallop despite his hands are up and
he's saying Stop! Stop! He just ran right
into the woods, pulled the glider to the edge
and, of course, the wings of the glider broke
off and Jackie Coogan got into a lot of trouble
then, I'm sure, but that was the last time elephants
were used to pull gliders. Hal Holbrook: By
the spring of 1944, with six months of intense
mission training complete the secret Burmese glider
operation was finally a go. In the late afternoon of
March 5th, Colonel Cochran addressed his British-American
Commando Forces. Colonel Cochran: Now
is there anything anybody doesn't know. If there
is, let's get it straight now. Okay, now just before
I came over here I had our final meeting with
the British ground troops that you're going to
take in there tonight. And I talked to the guy
that's got the red flare that you know is going
to be shot off if there's too much interference with the
first few gliders that land, and he tells me that
that flare is in an awful deep pocket and
it's going to take somebody an awful lot
of finding to get at it. So, if those guys have
got that kind of heart, and they got that kind
of guts, it's up to us to get them in there so
they can do their job, and get them in right.
Now tonight your whole reason for being, your
whole existence is going to be jammed up
into a couple of minutes, and this is going
to balance it there, and it's going to take your
character to bring it through. Now nothing you've ever
done before in your
life means a thing. Tonight you're going to find out
you've got a soul. Good luck. (music) Jerry Devlin:
Provided with American airlifts Lord Mountbatten
was able to send troops from India
into Burma where other American units were
already fighting. For example, [unintelligible]
were fighting. (background music - explosions) Jerry Devlin: It took
an awful lot of time to do it, but the Japanese
were stopped in Burma, and that pretty much
reduced the worry of the Japanese getting into India. (explosions) Hal Holbrook: Although
there were some set-backs the operation
was considered swift and successful with over 9,000
troops and over 500,000 pounds of supplies delivered
to the British 14th Army in just the first six
days of the mission. By May 3rd the Burmese capital,
Rangoon, was in allied hands. Glider pilots had more
than met the challenge, but their greatest test
was just before them. George Buckley: Two
days before the trucks started to show up with
the 101st Airborne. This time they had
all their equipment, their guns, their
Jeeps, their trailers, their motors, and that's
when we first suspected that this was not going
to be a training flight. The next day they issued
us paint brushes and buckets with black and
white paint and each glider, each pilot
of each glider had to paint the stripes on the
wings on the fuselage, and the night before
take-off they called us over to the quonset hut
to the briefing room. We all walked in and sat
down and the squadron information officer or
the intelligence officer got up on the stage like
you see in the movies. The map was covered
with a cloth and and he reached up
and he opened it up. (somber music) George Buckley: And
there was the map of the Cherbourg Peninsula
with the lines of which way we were going
to go and everybody, you could feel the
tension among the people because we knew this was it. (patriotric music -
marching - planes engines) George Buckley: That
night later we loaded the gliders up and met
the people that were going to be in the
glider with us, and then they told us to go get
40 winks, which was impossible. Everybody was so keyed
up nobody could sleep. (ominous music - planes engines) George Buckley: I think we took off about 1, 1:15. Just
as we took off there was a slight rain shower
and just as the wheels of my glider left
the ground one of the airborne fellows in
the back yelled out "Look out Hitler here we come!" (ominous music) Hal Holbrook: There
are few adjectives which have not been
applied to the combined amphibious and airborne
assault operation that took place on
June the 6th, 1944. Two and a half years in the
planning, Operation Overlord, the invasion of German
occupied France would require every tool in the allied
arsenal including gliders. Leo Cordier: We were
at the altitude of approximately 700 feet.
We could see the people coming out of their
homes and the factories waving at us, wishing
us the best as we were ready to head
across the channel. (hum of planes) Leo Cordier: It was
an amazing site when about five miles from
the coast of France with thousands of ships
that were [sailing] back and forth, the
invasion fleet and the battleships out there,
the spewing flame from the guns that we
actually could see the shells as they flew toward
the targets in France. Barrage balloons were
on some of the ships and that added to
the amazing site. It's a site that perhaps
was the greatest thing I ever observed
in my entire life. Andy Rooney: Any field
that was open they had studded with these
poles so that when the gliders came in
their wings were all picked off and they
tumbled over and there were no landing areas for
gliders, no open fields where they could come
in. They must have known what was going
to happen and in many cases it was disastrous,
but there was nothing else for them to do but
come in and hit the poles. (somber music) Hal Holbrook:
Leading the armada of CG-4A gliders across
the channel as part of the 101st Airborne and
the 327th Glider Infantry was none other than
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Murphy in his glider dubbed
the █Fighting Falcon." Students at Greenville High
School in Greenville, Michigan had raised an incredible
$72,000 to donate four gliders to the Army Air Force and the
Fighting Falcon was one of them. Murphy had on board Brigadier
General Don Pratt who was Assistant Division
Commander of the 101st Airborne. Jerry Devlin: As the
gliders prepared to touch down the general
climbed on board the Jeep and sat in
the passenger side. Mike Murphy later
touched down I think it was about 3 o'clock
in the morning, he put on the brakes,
the glider kept going, and tragically it kept
on going right to the far side of that hedge
or that boxed in area and struck the far
wall. When that glider hit that wall and
because the general was wearing a steel helmet
it snapped his neck. When it finally came
to a rest Mike Murphy was outside the ...
90% of his body was outside and his feet
were tangled up in some wreckage, but he was
outside the glider and both of his legs were
broken. The aide was also killed, by the
way, so it was just a terrible, terrible
accident. General Pratt has the questionable
distinction of being the first American General
to be killed in Normandy which is a tragic shame.
Mike Murphy finally recovered, stayed in
the Army for a short while, but up until
... and I talked to the man myself he was still
limping around very badly because his legs
were very badly broken. Leo Cordier: As
we approached the Bay of the Seine on
the west side of the Cherbourg Peninsula
we made a turn maybe about a mile out
from Omaha Beach in a faraway action going
on below the fire, the smoke, the pungent
smell of the gunpowder, in our nostrils as we
crossed over the beach, and just as we hit
the beach all sorts of small arm fire was
coming up at us and [glancing] off the metal
tubing of the glider. (humming of planes) George Buckley: The
green light came on in the tow plane and
I held on for a couple of minutes because I just
didn't want to let go. I didn't want to get down
there into what was going on. Luckily by holding on
to those few minutes I missed the flooded
area that was below us. If I had cut loose the
minute the green light went on I would have
landed in a flooded area and we would have
had big trouble. We cut loose and I started
a 360 degree circle to the left, got lower
and lower and I still couldn't see a thing
and then suddenly I could see the faint outline
of a, looked like a field. It was a light patch.
By then I was so low I had no choice. I had
to stick with that field. We touched down and
it was the smoothest landing I had made and
we were all in line and I figured I got it made
and then when we hit the big ditch that was across
the field it didn't show. It was about six foot
deep and 12 foot across. The glider went down
in and then went and came up over the top and
broke the back of the glider. Walter Cronkit: My
concern about flying with the glider was accentuated
to a high degree, as a matter of fact
was created on the battlefields of Normandy
where when I got there I saw what had
happened to the gliders on D-Day and in the
hours before H-Hour when they attempted to land
behind the German lines and the Germans had
prepared for them with these great stakes
in the ground, and aircraft fire brought
a lot of others down. The ground was littered
where they had tried to land with crashed gliders
and the detritus of war around them. The machines
they had been carrying, the Jeeps they had
been carrying, the men they had been carrying,
it looked like the result of a demolition
derby except worse because of the
casualties involved. I really resolved at
that time that that would be a very poor way to go to war
if anybody should ever ask me. Andy Rooney: I think "Private
Ryan" is a great film. I mean I hesitate to
say that, but I was devastated in the theatre
watching that thing. [I was melted down.] It
was such a dramatic thing, and he did a great job.
Anybody who wants to know what D-Day was like
that's what it was like. (explosions - somber music) Andy Rooney: When I
came in on day four it seemed late at the
time, but I realized that in retrospect 50
years later I saw a lot of what happened
on D-Day. The bodies were still laid
out on the beach. They had not been
picked up yet, and it was desperately sad and
while they were still bombing the beaches
when I came in and still shelling the beaches
because the German positions were still only eight or 10
miles back of the beaches, and their artilary
could reach the beaches so they were shelling
everything coming in there. And I could see what
had happened even though I was not there D-Day
so I always felt I had a good idea what had
happened D-Day from
what I saw on day four. George Buckley: Coming up one
of hedge rows I came to an intersection of two hedge
rows and there was a German laying there on his back
that had been hit in the stomach area by something
and his intestines were just laying out
on the road and he was just making his last
gasps and he looked like he was about my age. He
had the same coloring, you know, blue eyes,
brown hair and it sobered me up and
this was my first dead German that I had seen
this way and the fact that I couldn't do
anything for him really shook me up too. At this
stage I had sympathy for him, but later on
I began to get very mad at him and things like that
didn't bother me because I had seen what they had done
to some of our paratroopers. Jerry Devlin: Those were
in the days when there were no helicopters to
speak of. Certainly no troop transport
aircraft, so the gliders played a vital role in
that they brought in not only soldiers, again,
each glider carried roughly 12 soldiers
with two pilots and they brought in medical
supplies. They brought in food. They brought, you
know, beans, bullets, the whole nine yards
that the paratroopers needed to keep on
fighting. They played a very vital role. Without
them the paratroopers just wouldn't have been
able to sustain themselves. They could have shot
up what ammo they brought in, but after that
put a [unintelligible] in your rifle and hope for the best. Without the gliders
the Normandy Invasion wouldn't have been a
success, that's for sure. Any Rooney: What
American soldiers did for all of Europe
was one of the greatest things that one group of
people ever did for another. It was dangerous. A
lot of them died, and it was noble and it's
enough to make you
proud of being American. Leo Cordier: As far
as going into battle, I was always well
prepared. We had religion and those that didn't
have it I guess after they got into one battle
and got down safely [it had] some religion
occur to them. Hal Holbrook: The 82nd
Airborne flew four separate glider
operations. Two missions took place on D-Day. The
remaining two on D-Day plus one. On July 5th for the
uncommon valor displayed by the glider pilots, General
Paul Williams, Commander of the Ninth Troop Carrier
Command signed an order authorizing award of the Air
Medal to each glider pilot who participated in
the Normandy invasion. General Williams stated, █Their
respective duty assignments were performed in such
an admirable manner as to produce exceptional
results in the greatest and most
successful airborne operation in the history
of world aviation.█ (somber music) Hal Holbrook: Operation Anvil, later named Dragoon
represented the first tactical split
between the Allies. Churchill opposed the
invasion of Southern France in favor of continuing
the Italian Campaign. Churchill viewed
reaching the Balkans before the Russians as
paramount to keeping the region out of
Communist hands. American military
planners viewed action in Italy as a dead
end and were much more concerned with driving
the Germans from France and bringing
much needed supplies to Ike█s forces in northern France. Jerry Devlin: It was
decided to launch the D-Day operation in
Normandy on June 6th and August 15th would be
a secondary operation, and by that time
they hoped that the Normandy thing would be
pretty well wrapped up. The Americans and the
British conducted that second operation down
in the southern part of France called Operation
Dragoon and the parachute troops,
British and American parachute troops
they used there, and British and American
gliders were used there
with great success. (somber music - planes engines) Leo Cordier: The
Riviera Coast, the [opposition] wasn't too
great, but we didn't have too good landing areas.
We landed on sort of hilltops and mountainsides
and the vignettes. We all got down without
too much ground fire. We were there for about
a week and we were evacuated back to Corsica. The
mission was a huge success. (humming of planes) Michael Samek: I would
say this was one of the most successful
missions because we had learned. We knew
how to form better. We knew how to equip things.
We knew how to fly better. The weather was better. It
was not a night mission. (humming of planes) Michael Samek: I've been back to southern France since.
It shows no traces of the invasion as
Sicily probably doesn't
either, you know. Jerry Devlin: It was
a mortal blow to the Germans who were struggling
up there in Normandy. They said well at least
we can hold southern France and keep the
Americans out of there, but the southern France
operation Dragoon was a great success and
it caused the Germans to pack up and boogie
on back to Germany. (marching music) Walter Cronkite: When
Market Garden came up the call went out as
it had been prepared in advance a coded message
to us at our offices that we were to gather
[unintelligible] of information for transport to a base that
would be selected for us. And I went along to
that with field gear ready to go not having
any idea where we were going or even what
unit I'd be going with. They put us in a car
and sent us off and I went off to 101st which
was outside of [Redding]
and preparing to go. Hal Holbrook: After
Normandy, 18 airborne operations had been
planned and scrubbed at short notice when
ground forces advanced more rapidly than expected.
Many commanders in the Airborne were anxious
to get back into the air for fear the war
would conclude before they could launch
another operation. Hence Operation
Market-Garden was planned as the largest airborne
attack of the entire war, deep behind enemy
lines in concert with a ground attack by the
British Second Army. (plane propeller - patriotic
music - humming of planes) George Buckley: So
we flew into the drop zone area, landing
zone area by ourselves, and as we passed between
Best and Eindhoven off to my left I could
see a 20 millimeter Flak wagon the Germans
had that opened up on the tow plane and
the bullets or shells went through the left hand
wing into the fuselage and came out of the top
of the fuselage where the radio operator sits.
Pieces of the [unintelligible] tow plane started
coming back and hitting the glider on the front
and then the bullets or the traces I could
see them coming back along the rope and
then they stopped. Evidently hopefully they
had run out of ammunition. But Bill Miller
kept right on going. He didn't deviate. He
didn't try to avoid it. He just flew straight and level. He did a heck of a job on it. When I got out of the
glider I grabbed a little dirt and I
hung onto it. It felt so good to be down and
then I figured, boy, Bill has to go back
through that and I kind of said a silent prayer for him. Walter Cronkite: I
got up there and I was with the guys with the
officers at the bar hearing all the horror
stories about Normandy that they managed to repeat to
try to scare the newcomer, and then I got my
briefing actually from Maxwell Taylor, the
general briefed me, and when he did he said you'll
be going in this glider. My gosh it's the first
time I ever thought that I might be assigned
to a glider and I went out of that room in a fit
of considerable depression, and really thinking
seriously that I might refuse the assignment.
Being a civilian I could, of course. I
was a volunteer from United Press to go. If
I had thought that I could ever face my
colleagues again after having done that and perhaps
save my job I probably would have said no, I
won't go in the glider. Hal Holbrook: The
invasion of Holland ushered in the first
mission of the newly formed First Allied
Airborne Army under American General
Lewis H. Brereton. The U.S. Ninth Troop
Carrier Command dispatched 1,899 gliders
and the British RAF some 697 [horses] in the
largest single glider
operation of World War II. The airborne mission was
to lay a carpet of glider
and parachute troops over a 55 mile highway
stretching from Eindhoven to Arnhem and seize
control of the towns and five major bridges in between. The final bridge at Arnhem would
prove to be a bridge too far. George Buckley: I flew
Holland. I went in on the Holland on the
19th which was the bad day when the weather was
bad. The casualties among gliders and tow planes
was the heaviest that day. A lot of gliders
ditched in the channel because of the fog, 12
or 15 gliders overflew the drop zone and
flew into Germany. A lot of them got back and
a lot of them made PW's. Gliders crashed all over
Holland on the way in, all over Belgian on the way in. It was just the
worse day there was. That was Tuesday the 19th. Walter Cronkite: We
landed in the neighborhood of Eindhoven on the
[Zuid] Canal and moved out from there north up the
road toward Nijmegen. And, you know, German
resistance all the way. The road was constantly
under attack and frequently being
[cut] in small places. And the 101st became
kind of a fire department rushing up and down
that road clearing the road as the Germans
would attack it, but we kept it open, it
was there for the British to use when
they got there. Hal Holbrook: The Dutch
who had been under Nazi occupation for
four suffocating years
must have thought, looking skyward, their
liberation was finally at hand. For a good number of those
citizens, that freedom
would have to wait. Walter Cronkite: The
failure was not really in the airborne
operations so much as the failure in the ground
forces to move as quickly as they should
have. Montgomery's army simply didn't get across
the Escaut canal as quickly as expected to. They
were two or three days late, and that was enough to create
the disaster in Arnhem. The American forces got what
they were supposed to get. We got our bridges. The
82nd got their bridges at Nijmegen. We had
the responsibility at 101st of holding a
long section of road open so that the British
Army coming up could sweep right on up to the
rivers. We did our part. The problem was that
the British would delay in getting to the
airborne corridor. Hal Holbrook: What
had begun with such promise ended in
agonizing defeat. The term █limited success█
rang hollow as without the farthest bridge
at Arnhem in allied hands, the other bridges were
on a road leading nowhere. There was plenty of
blame to go around and, in fact, General Gavin,
Commander of the 82nd Airborne, just days after the
invasion issued a harsh letter critical of
the glider pilots. █I do not believe
there is anyone in the combat area more eager
and anxious to do the correct thing than
glider pilots, but despite their willingness
to help, I feel they were definitely a
liability to me. They should be assigned
to airborne units.█ Gavin█s assessment that
glider pilots should be reassigned was based
on his observation of the glider pilots
operating under extreme handicaps imposed by
their own superiors. Most had been given no
compasses before the mission, about half received
no maps and even fewer were informed of the actual
airborne deployment areas. American glider
pilots, among the most dedicated soldiers fighting
on the front lines would once again have to prove their
worth to command headquarters. (music) Hal Holbrook: The rapid
allied breakout from the Normandy beach
had saw the liberation of Paris in late August 1944. Andy Rooney: [unintelligible]
great American reporter in Associated Press
named Don Whitehead, and he was the only one of
all these aggressive American reporters, he
was the only one who had the sense to go in and
call the American Embassy on the telephone and
there was a housekeeper there that the Americans
had kept paying. She went up on the roof
and gave this reporter a great view of what it
looked like in Paris, what the Germans were
doing and what everybody else was doing. She could
look across the river and see us and he'd get a great
story just on the telephone. I go to Paris now and
I get in a cab and I get some offensive
young French cabdriver, and I'm going down
these streets and he's being negative to me
or dismissing me as an American tourist
and I think to myself boy I know something
about this city you'll never know fella, but
he doesn't know or care, and I don't speak enough
French to be able to tell him. Hal Holbrook: With
the prize of Paris now in allied hands General
Eisenhower had a standing bet that the war
would be over by Christmas. The refrain █End the War in
44█ was on everyone█s lips. Just days after
liberation, Paris showed little trace of
German occupation. The allied armies push into
the continent was rapid and The U.S. War
department began shifting troops to the Pacific theatre. No one suspected that
within four short months, Hitler whom many people
speculated was dead, would strike back with
a ferocity befitting
a wounded animal. Secure in an underground
bunker, Hitler planned every last detail of
his new offensive. German high command
realized that many of their radio messages were
reaching the allies so Hitler ordered
complete radio silence. This absence of enemy chatter
caused no great allied concern for it was taken
as another sign of coming
German capitulation. (explosions) Hal Holbrook: On
December 16, 1944, Hitler█s Ardennes Offensive
or Battle of the Bulge began what would become,
in numerical terms, the largest land battle
in the history of the
United States Army. (explosions) Hal Holbrook: Hitler's
objective was to split the allied line in half,
capture Antwerp and encircle and destroy western
forces resulting in a favorable peace
treaty with Germany. By December 21st German
forces had completely surrounded the vital crossroad
town of Bastogne trapping the 101st Airborne and Command
B of the 10th Armored Division. During the intense
fighting when asked by the Nazi█s in a written
ultimatum to surrender, General Anthony McAuliffe
of the 101st Airborne simply sent a one word
reply which read █Nuts." The situation, however,
was indeed desperate, the Germans had captured
most of the allied medical supplies and
medical personnel. On Christmas eve during
Operation █Repulse█ the 101st determined
that the only way to bring in needed medical
personnel was by glider. And on the 26th a single
glider carrying a nine member medical team successfully
landed within the 101st airborne parameter. Subsequent glider missions
brought in 16 tons of desperately needed supplies. Instrumental in
delivering those supplies by a glider at Bastogne
on the first day of the mission were troops from the all Black 969th Field
Artillery Battalion. The last glider touched
down fifteen minutes ahead of General Patton█s
armored spearhead through the encircling
German lines. Of the roughly 100
gliders launched, only
65 reached Bastogne, a 35% mission loss rate and one
of the highest of World War II. It had been a successful
yet highly costly mission. But for the glider
pilots their most dangerous mission of
the war still lay ahead. No invading Army had
crossed the Rhine since Napoleon 140
years earlier in 1805. To Hitler the Rhine
represented German resolve and he was committed to defend
Deutschland to the death. (music) Hal Holbrook: Second
only in magnitude to the Normandy
invasion, Varsity, the airborne component of
General Montgomery█s █plunder█ campaign would include
the British sixth airborne, and the US 17th Airborne
division both under the command of General
Mathew Ridgeway. (planes engines - music) Hal Holbrook: Taking
off from 17 airfields in north central France
and 11 airfields in
southeastern England, the grand offensive
was not coming as a surprise to the
German high command. █Axis Sally' better known
to the GI█s by a far
less favorable moniker, had announced on her
nightly propaganda broadcast that the Nazi█s were
expecting the 17th Airborne and she promised
them a hot reception. (music) Hal Holbrook: Large
numbers of German troops and new anti-aircraft
guns were positioned in all open fields and other
conceivable landing zones. And the allied glider
pilot█s mission was to land
directly on top of them. George Buckley: Past
missions of the paratroopers usually landed and
kept the Germans fairly well busy so we could
land fairly safely, but this time we had
to land right on top of the Germans with
the gliders because we carried the 194th glider
infantry people in my glider, and the LZ was
covered by smoke that Montgomery's troops
had set smudge pots off to hide the commandos
that were crossing the river going to [unintelligible]
but also the smoke blew over the landing and
drop zones and you couldn't see them until you
got down below the smoke. And planes were going down,
gliders were going down, that was the worst
mission of the war in my estimation the
[unintelligible] was terrible. (gunshots - planes
engines - explosions) Leo Cordier: All
the troops were down below us. We weren't
landing behind them. We were landing on top
of them and as such it was very, very difficult. Perhaps it was the worst mission
for just about all of us. (explosions) Leo Cordier: Market
Garden was bad enough, and, of course, it all
depends on how well you fared out, whether
you're hit or not, or you're in an area that
the fire wasn't that great, it all depended upon the
individual glider pilot where he was going into. The gliders that landed
just behind me were all blown to smithereens
and I could have been the one and why they missed
me to this day I don't know, but that battery of
88 guns that was right in the orchard in
the landing zone it's amazing that I didn't
get hit. We all survived that one quite well. We were
able to get our radio equipment in order and I was able to
communicate back to Paris to let the headquarters know
how the battle was going. (music) George Buckley: The
field I picked out first when I cut loose was
filled with three or four gliders that were
burning that had been hit by an 88 artillery
piece that the Germans had in a farm facing
them and as they landed the Germans were
picking them off. So I extended my glide
to stay out of that field and landed in a field
about a quarter of a mile away fortunately.
Later on I went back to that field and the
guys were still in the gliders just burnt to a
crisp still at the control, still sitting in the
Jeep. In front of one glider was the pilot,
the glider pilot that had been flying one of
those gliders he had crawled out right
after he landed and evidently a bullet got
him in the back of the head and came up
through his forehead and took most of his forehead
off and I looked at his dog tags and he
was a person that I had known back in the states. Hal Holbrook: Varsity
had indeed proven to be the glider pilot█s
toughest assignment of the war with the Germans fighting
tenaciously on their own soil. In one night-time
engagement which would become symbolic of the
American Glider pilots distinguished service,
soldiers from the 435th Troop Carrier Group fought a pitched
battle at a vital Airborne crossroad with a much
larger German force. The battle hardened
Nazi force included two light tanks and two
20-MM mobile flak wagons. The glider pilots and
glider infantry had only light arms and a
single bazooka manned by Glider pilot Elbert Jella. During the night Jella
with his lone bazooka, knocked out one of the German
tanks at point blank range. By morning dead German
infantry littered the road and the glider pilots
captured 75 prisoners. In 1995 Air Force Chief of
Staff General Ron Fogelman learning of this heroic
glider pilot action, directed awarding of the
Bronze star to all soldiers
from the 435th Group and Flight Officer Elbert
Jella was decorated
with the Silver Star. (music) Hal Holbrook: The
largest armed conflict in human history demanded
all an individual soldier could possibly muster
and the American glider pilots flying in
unarmed and powerless aircraft were among the bravest
individual soldiers serving
on the allied lines. The first into battle
and always on their own
to find their way home. Walter Cronkite: I have
the greatest respect and admiration for
the guys who sat there in the pilots seat
of those gliders. Here they were without weapons. They had no defense mechanism
aboard the plane themselves. They were flying a powerless
aircraft such as it was. They had only way they
could go down and land. There was no escape mechanism
built into that airplane whatsoever at all and
they knew they were going into enemy territory.
The whole purpose was to land behind the enemy. I think they were
remarkable people, absolutely remarkable
and to think that they not only trained to do
this very thing, but were then prepared to turn
around and do it again, and again and again as often as
they [were going onto] do it. Hal Holbrook: Self
reliant and brave, America█s World War II
glider pilots and their accomplishments more
often than not have gone unheralded and
un-noted by military historians for more
than sixty years. While many glider
veterans will humbly tell you that they were
simply doing their part they will add that the
"G" on their wings did
not stand for glider. It stood for guts. Michael Samek: When I
think back of it now it's amazing, you know.
Would I do it over again? If I would be 19 the
answer is probably yes. Jerry Devlin: They had
a two part mission. One was bring that
glider in there, get the troops off, get the
equipment out, and then they formed up into
squads and platoons and they fought as
infantry. It's never been done in the history of
the United States or any other country
except for England and they're a very
remarkable group and the Air Force as well as
us Americans who are enjoying the freedom
of the country we owe a lot to
those guys, a lot. George Buckley: I guess
we were the only ones that knew who we were.
We were glider pilots. Because there was such
a small group of us and so many men [under]
arms it made us feel that we were kind of
special. We were all volunteers which
made us feel we were something special too
and because we were something special we
got away with a lot of things that maybe we
shouldn't have gotten away with, but the spirit
that we had or the [rapport] or whatever
they call it was when we got overseas was
really fantastic. Chip on the shoulder.
Don't fool with us. We're glider
pilots. It was good. Male Voice: What do you
think of that glider
pilots? How about it? (applause) Hal Holbrook:
Recently outside of Portland, Oregon, two
reconstructed CG-4A gliders were unveiled to
a very special audience. (applause) Man: [unintelligible]
riding one of them. Man: This is wonderful. I didn't
remember they were quite so big.
