History Of The Glider Pilot Regiment

The untold story of this tiny, little-known British Army regiment and the daring men who piloted engineless aircraft to WWII’s major battlefields. The Glider Pilot Regiment, having been raised as the first element of the new Army Air Corps in 1942 and disbanded in 1957, can probably claim the dubious distinction of having been the smallest and shortest-lived regiment ever to form part of the British Army. Nevertheless, in those few years the regiment gained as much distinction as it has taken other units hundreds of years to achieve. Yet, strangely enough, the story of these heroic men who piloted their flimsy gliders to most of the important battlefields of the Second World War has never before been told. It is indeed a remarkable story, and no one is better qualified to tell it than Claude Smith, who himself served with the regiment and took part in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and later in the ill-fated landing at Arnhem, where he was taken prisoner. Smith tells the story of these supremely brave men factually and dispassionately, but it is impossible to read this book without being moved by their courage. As General Sir John Hackett says in his foreword: “Those who went to battle in gliders and above all those who got them there, the Glider Pilots, deserve our enduring esteem.” Includes maps and illustrations

The fierce struggle between the British 1st Airborne Division and the superior German forces in and around Arnhem is well documented. This book tells of the role played in the battle for Oosterbeek and the bridge at Arnhem itself by the men of the Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR). These men were already experienced soldiers who volunteered to join the airborne forces and take the fight to the Germans in a totally new regiment.The men of the GPR were predominantly SNCOs trained to fly wooden assault gliders into occupied territory. Once on the ground they were expected to go into battle with the troops they had delivered onto the Landing Zone. During the Arnhem operation they were involved in the initial defense of the LZs, before fighting house to house leading mixed groups of infantrymen, engineers and medics. In so doing they suffered extensive losses from which the Regiment never fully recovered. This book tells their story in their own words from the moment they landed on Dutch soil through the fierce fighting all around the ever shrinking perimeter until the survivors of the GPR proudly marked the route out for the battered survivors of 1st Airborne Division as they escaped over the Rhine.

The British Airborne landings on Sicily are the least known and, without doubt, the most fraught with political and technical strife. Newly formed Air landing troops were delivered into battle in gliders they knew little about. The men of the Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR) had self-assembled the gliders while living in the empty packing cases. They accomplished this complex and technically challenged task while living on fly ridden, dusty North African airfields. After only a few hours of conversion training they took off for a night flight across the Mediterranean Sea that was to end in near-catastrophe.With over three hundred soldiers drowned off Sicily that night in July 1943, the first major operation attempted by the British using gliders almost ended in total disaster. In fact a few Airborne troops reached dry land and attacked their objectives. Shining examples of collective and individual acts of courage rocked the Italian and German defenders. This book tells the controversial story of that first mass glider operation and the men who proved the GPR motto Nothing is Impossible.This is the first account of the Sicily air landing operation.

Describes the glider missions in European airborne operations during World War II and the exploits of the pilots who participated in them.

Battle is the severest test a man can be called upon to undergo; it can bring out the best in a man and the worst...The author of this book, Victor Miller, joined the Queen's Royal Regiment, at Guildford, upon the outbreak of the Second World War. He volunteered for the elite Glider Pilot Regiment upon its formation and passed, with above average marks, the RAF pilot training programme.From here, he was to take part in three of the most iconic airborne operations of the entire conflict. The invasion of Sicily, the Allies first attack in to Europe, where he was wounded and temporarily taken prisoner; Arnhem, where the 1st Airborne Division struck sixty-four miles behind enemy lines only to clash with two SS Armoured Panzer Divisions resulting in 80% losses in nine days; and the assault crossing of the Rhine, into Germany proper, with 'only' 30% losses.This remarkable story, jotted down shortly after each operation when the events were still vivid in the author's mind, is an astonishing record of skill, bravery, comradeship and resourcefulness which represents a fitting tribute to many fallen friends and colleagues. The book was published initially in 1994, before the author's death. This posthumous edition comes with brand new supplementary content, drawn together by the author's sons and family.

"Long pursued by civilian thrill seekers and dare devils, airborne gliding came of age during World War II as one of that conflict's most dangerous combat operations. The armed forces of Axis and Allied nations developed gliders ... and flew them into battle at Eben Emael, Crete, Normandy, Arnhem, and Bastogne. [The author's] account brings to life both the men who carried out these perilous missions and the gliders that proved vital to the success of airborne attacks"--Page 4 of cover.