Silent Heroes

 Jacob Tucker, feature editor

 

 

World War II was the event that defined the 20^th century. 

There were many heroes and villains, but the heroes who probably played the biggest role went unrecognized for the better part of 30 years.

The glider was a relatively new concept during the 1940s.  No one really thought about it’s use in military battles, until Nazi Germany showed it’s tremendous power. 

The Nazis used the glider to capture strategic points that were unacessable to ground and air troopers.  They showed the world the silent, but effective power of the military glider.

“The glider played a pivotal role in the success of the Axis and Allied powers during the war,” said Eddy Grigsby, curator of the Silent Wings Museum in Lubbock.

General “Hap” Arnold saw this Nazi success as an inspiration to the fledgling American glider program, and he decided to increase the emphasis of an American glider program through the United State Air Force.

“Arnold realized that the glider was much more effective than the paratrooper,” said Grigsby.  “Rather than stringing a group of soldiers over a one-to-two mile area in parachutes, the glider would offer a more concentrated and effective fighting force.”

Gen. Arnold looked toward civilian glider experts to help train pilots and help build the military gliders. 

The glider itself was made from fabric and plywood.  The plywood used for the frame was a combination of oak and birch wood.  In order for the gilder to stay strong they needed the oak wood, but they also needed the flexibility of the birch wood for flying.  Designers took the best of both worlds and combined the two to make a strong, yet flexible glider.

The nose of the plane was made of steel tubing, shaped similarly to a roll cage of a racecar.  This served as the main tow point of the glider.  This cage was also equipped with the standard controls for the navigation of a glider plane.  The control panel was usually made of a few gauges on a fabric “panel.”  The cage only had enough room to house a pilot and co-pilot. 

“The instruments used for the navigation of the glider had to be the bare minimum due to the weight restrictions of the craft,” said Grigsby.

The gilder had to be towed by a plane large enough and powerful enough to get it off of the ground, so the C-47 came into the picture.  The “tug” plane proved to be the right plane for the job.  It could pull one, or sometimes even three, gliders simultaneously.

A nylon rope, 350 feet long and was one inch, in diameter was used to tow these planes.  When unraveled, the rope could make about 2,500 pairs of nylon stockings.  When being towed, pilots had to be careful when using new ropes.  These new ropes would give slack of about 45 feet, so tug pilots had to vary their speed or serious injuries could occur. 

Tom Fox, a retired chief petty officer of the United States Navy, recalled a time during his childhood in North Carolina when one of the gliders broke loose from a C-47 and landed in a field next to his family’s home. 

“I used to go outside and lay in the alfalfa field next to our home in Catawba and watch the Army planes fly by,” said Fox.  “One morning, I saw a glider similar to the WACO, if not the same, break loose and land in a field about three miles from where I was.”

Fox and his neighbors went to investigate the downed glider, and was befriended by some Army personnel.

“Before they dismantled the aircraft, they gave us a short tour of the plane and what it did,” said Fox.

The WACO CG-4A glider could house 15 fully-equipped troops, a fully-equipped Jeep, a full field kitchen, or a few tons of weapons and ammunition with one load.  The glider’s load proved to be a valuable asset to the ground forces that were waiting.

“General Arnold had to convince the Armed Forces to use the gliders in combat somehow,” said Grigsby.

But because of civilian disasters and shortcomings in Burma and Sicily, General Dwight D. Eisenhower began to lose faith.

In a daring move, General Arnold asked Major Micheal C. Murphy to conduct a night landing program for top military personnel on Aug. 4, 1943.  Murphy had been known for stunts with bi-planes in the early 1930s, and he began to plan out the presentation.

Murphy asked to use an abandoned field for the landing strip.  Shortly before nightfall, Murphy asked the audience to extinguish all available light to completely darken the field.  He then began to explain the importance of night landings over an intercom to the unsuspecting audience.  All the while, 10 gliders landed silently in front of the crowd.

When the last glider landed, Murphy turned on the floodlights and wowed the crowd.  The crowd stared in disbelief at the 10 gliders in front of them, and all of the men who were safely carried to the site within them.

The American glider program gained the faith of General Eisenhower, and training began at 40 airbases established throughout the United States.  Nine of these bases were in Texas, including one in Lubbock.

The South Plains Army Airfield was established near the present location of the Lubbock Municipal Airport in June of 1942.

“The SPAA served as a premiere training ground for glider pilots in World War II,” said Grigsby.

The vast majority of the pilots earned their wings at this airfield.  However, the glider program was suspended shortly after the war, and the base was officially closed on April 1, 1945.

“The glider played a pivotal role in five major battles on the European front,” said Grigsby.

These battles included the invasion of Sicily, Operation Overlord in Normandy, Operation Dragoon in southern France, Operation Market Garden in Holland, the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne, Belgium, and Operation Varsity in Germany.

According to many interviews with foot soldiers and commanding personnel on the battlefield, gliders were the backbone of each of these battles.  During D-day, 1,034 gliders transported 38 Jeeps, 4,000 troops, and tons of ammunition behind enemy lines, with 85 percent of all items delivered intact.

In 1971, former pilots of this program formed the National World War II Glider Pilots Association Inc.  Their mission was to interact with the public and establish a facility were people could hear their story.

“If those few pilots would not have stepped up to tell their story, this program and all of its missions would still be in a filing cabinet in Washington,” said Grigsby.

The first museum opened in Terrell, Texas on Nov. 10, 1984.  By 1997, the pilots realized that a more permanent home was needed for their fully-restored CG-4A glider.  Lubbock was chosen to be the site of the new museum, due to the fact that the majority of the pilots had trained on the airfield there. 

The new museum opened in Lubbock during October 2002, with the restored WACO glider as the main centerpiece.

“This is a great place to have this museum, due to the rich historical roots that the program had in this area,” said Grigsby.

You can visit the Silent Wings Museum from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays, and the exhibit is closed on Mondays.  The museum is located just off of Interstate 27 on exit 9.  Look for the building with the silver “G” wings on it. 

The tour takes about 15 minutes to complete, and the gallery is open for visitors to view at their leisure.  There are usually glider veterans who volunteer at the museum during the morning hours of operation. 

Admission is $4 for adults, $2 for children under 12, and $3 for senior citizens age 60 and older.   For more information on the history of the museum visit the website at www.silentwingsmuseum.com or call at (806) 775-2047.