Invasion of Sicily – disappearing CG-4As and their pilots

[Gregory]

Hello,

 

Could anybody explain me why the American historic publicists are unable to decide themselves if the US glider pilots and gliderborne troops took part in invasion of Sicily or not? Is it so hard task to research it, to write it clear, in precise manner with credible sources?

 

I have ever thought that the American Aviation Historical Society Journal is very prestigious magazine. There is AAHSJ Volume 46 Number 4 of this magazine of 2001. One of the articles is "The Glider in World War II: The Waco CG-4A Combat Glider".

 

According to the author of this article such pre-WWII soaring champion existed as "Levoin B. Barringer" -- during WWII Major Barringer and chief of American Glider Program. Revelation. I have ever thought that he was Lewin B. Barringer and when he wrote in 1942 his article "Towed Air Transports" for the Flying monthly he undersigned himself "Lewin B. Barringer". I cannot add that the America does not know today "The Levoin B. Barringer Memorial Trophy" and America knows only The Lewin B. Barringer Memorial Trophy. Has AAHSJ ever heard about it?

 

Let's look deeper into the article. The author writes as follows: "Operation Thursday was the first combat use of the CG-4A.". Revelation. The US National WWII Glider Pilots Association defines eight combat missions where CG-4As and their US glider pilots took part and were KIA. Sicily invasion is on the first place of eight mentioned. According to National WWII Glider Pilots Association the following US glider pilots were KIA over Sicily:

 

Arnold Bordewich, Flight Officer, White Plains, NY

 

Guisseppe Y. Capite, Flight Officer, New York, NY

 

Kenneth L. Hollinshead, Flight Officer, Santa Monica, CA

 

Tracy H. Jackson, Captain

 

Charles, R. McCollum, Flight Officer, Tulsa, OK

 

Gus T. Petroulias, Flight Officer, Gastonia, NC

 

 

For prestigious American Aviation Historical Society Journal Sicily glider operations have never taken place. Not one CG-4A flew combat mission over Sicily. Not one American glider pilot was KIA in 1943. For the AAHSJ combat history of the USAAF gliding starts in March 1944.

 

Could you write please what American books describe in the best and most credible manner American preparations in North Africa for glider assault in Sicily invasion? And the same question about American glider aircrews participation in Operation Husky. I would be very thankful for your consultation.

 

Best regards

 

Greg

[Jeeper704]

As far as I could find out, there is only mentioning of the British glider forces in Operation Husky.

When the US Airborne is mentioned, only Paratroopers are mentioned.

 

Example:

The British 1st Airlanding Brigade mounted in 137 gliders, were the first to land. They were to seize the Ponte Grande Bridge south of Syracuse. These landings were, on the whole, unsuccessful. Of the 137 gliders, 69 came down in the sea, drowning some 200 men. A further 56 landed in the wrong area of Sicily and just 12 reached the target area and managed to take the bridge. The US paratroopers had difficulties too, the pilots were inexperienced and dust and anti-aircraft fire resulted in the 2,781 paratroopers being scattered over an area 80km radius.

 

I did find that a lot of gliders (with British troops) were towed by American pilots;

On round figures it was said that 50 gliders landed on Sicily. The other 100 landed in the sea and that 100 were all towed by Americans, whereas of those that landed on the island, 35 were towed by British aircraft. I do sympathise a bit with the Americans. All these lads had only flown Dakotas in America, delivering letters and parcels. They had never seen a gun in their lives, so one can possibly excuse them with the barrage that they received when they hit Sicily.

Husky 1943

 

American Glider Pilots seemed to volunteer to pilot gliders into Sicilly.

Glider Pilots

 

As far as I can tell, the US Airborne part was a parachute operation, the British also a glider operation (Border Regiment, ...).

But US Glider Pilots and US Dakota crews were involved as well in that glider operation.

 

Erwin

[Jeeper704]

After two months of planning for a parachute operation, the plans were presented to General Montgomery. Expressing concern about parachute troops being scattered during a night operation, Montgomery announced that he wanted the British airborne forces to be spearheaded by gliders so that the troops could land in tight clusters near their objectives. Planners objected to the startling proposal, saying that not enough British gliders were available for the mission, and that British glider pilots were not trained to land at night. Montgomery prevailed, however, and with a little more than six weeks left before the invasion, a massive effort was launched to train and equip British forces for a nighttime glider assault. The Americans, meanwhile, stayed with the original plan for an all-parachute operation.

 

American glider pilots were assigned to train the British on the flight characteristics of the CG-4A and provide instruction on night landings. Thirty of the American instructors volunteered to go along as co-pilots on the British operation as observers for the U.S. glider program.

 

Silent Wings Museum

 

Erwin

[Jeeper704]

Jump Summary

Date: 9/10 July 1943

Units: 3rd Battalion 504th PIR, 505th PIR, 456 PFAB & B Company 307th Engineers

Operation: Husky I

Troopers: 3,406

Country: Sicily, Italy

Drop Zone: Gela

 

Date: 10/11 July 1943

Units: 1st & 2nd Battalion 504th PIR, 376th PFA & A Company 307th Engineers

Operation: Husky II

Troopers: 2,304

Country: Sicily, Italy

Drop Zone: Gela

 

Husky

 

Erwin

[Gregory]

Thanks Erwin!

 

I am not a beginner in this subject but you did good job for wider discussion about the level of historical journalism. I want to pay your attention to the fact how much "precise" are the texts you linked and it concerns of course many other non-online texts on Sicily invasion. The gliders over Sicily have at the controls mystery people with unknown nationality though situation is much better of course when an author describes Horsa gliders. The CG-4As over Sicily are piloted by "astral bodies" with undefined nationality.

 

What I mentioned in my first post are not the last revelations of this author. Here you are, page 271, and he writes: "The Waco glider was flown by over 12,000 glider pilots, not counting Allied pilots, during WWII, with 3,600 shipped to combat." Revelation. We do have over here a miracle like Jesus Christ's miracle with wine in the Cana of Galilee. Within the framework of American Glider Program only 6,000 USAAF's glider pilots were trained but according to the author this figure must be doubled to 12,000.

[Charlie Flick]

Hello Gregory:

 

I can't answer your primary questions as to US glider pilots in Operation Husky. I just wanted to comment on the American Aviation Historical Society Journal. I am a Life Member of the AAHS and agree that the Journal it publishes is excellent. However, the Society has always had as its chief focus the aircraft and not the airmen or the operations they were involved in. There are some exceptions to that, of course, but the membership of the AAHS (which has always drawn strongly from the Southern California aircraft industry) is mostly concerned with the history of the aircraft. For that reason I am not shocked that the mistakes you mention found their way into print in the Journal.

 

I will look at my library and see if I can find any other sources that might be authoritative on the questions you ask, and will let you know if I find anything positive.

 

Regards,

Charlie Flick

[Gregory]

Dear Charlie,

 

Thanks a lot. As always forumer may count on you. I do not want to absorb you too much time, but if you remember or find who and where wrote something credible about pre-Husky preparations of the US gliders as well as how many US glider pilots took part in the Sicily assault I would be very thankful because it is underestimated subject in glider-related literature.

 

Thank you also for your comments to AAHS article I mentioned. It was real shock for me because I collect various materials on the US soaring and gliding dated since 1930 to 1945. I have never seen such a poor text.

 

I am not quite sure if "errors" is good word for situation that happened in the article I criticize. The problem with this AAHS article is much deeper in my opinion because entire this text looks like fully conscious act of manipulation and aggression against people's mind. The article was not written by young inexperienced man or other babe-in-the-woods but by retired Lieutenant Colonel of the USAF. It would be hard to believe that such a person with ambitions to write historic articles does not know that the US glider pilots as well as CG-4As took part in such famous operation as Husky. They are deleted by him though the article is on entire CG-4A history.

 

27 years of my life I lived in the hell -- behind Iron Curtain, in the heart of communism. That is why I may compare various things from todays's life and world. The AAHS article I mentioned is hair-raising text for me. It is like communist propaganda of the darkest Stalinism era. I cannot believe what I see in this article. What was bad and unsuccessful in WWII era American Glider Program it is deleted from the AGP history. What was poor in the CG-4A it is deleted as well. Sicily glider assault was not a bright card of the USAAF and AGP but does it mean that the US glider pilots from this operation must be deleted from the history? How the AAHS may tolerate such publicists? I am curious if the US National WWII Glider Pilots Association protested against this article?

 

There are so many professional and honest American publicists writing excellent articles without any taboos on the USAAF American Glider Program. I would give, for instance, the Pulitzer Prize for Air Classics magazine and their journalists Owen Gault, Frank Whyte, James M. McCloskey or Edward Owens. Through decades they did excellent job for popularization the truth about that period and American military gliding. The same goes for Peter M. Bowers and Don Downie of Wings magazine -- from me my private Pulitzer Prize for them. The USAAF many times treated its glider pilots worse than Rome treated its gladiators. If something was poor, stupid, bad, against the law in AGP Air Classics and Wings write about it normally. If something was good they write as well and there is honest balance between unwanted and good factors of the AGP. What the AAHS Journal did in Volume 46 Number 4 is a scandal in my opinion. It is not like from democratic country but from Cuba, North Korea or Belarus. This is the worst USAAF gliders-related article I have ever seen. It is like a symphony of untruth, absurdity, propaganda and manipulation.

 

The article I mentioned from the AAHS Journal has been written by Lt. Col. George A. Larson, USAF (Ret.). If somebody has such a possibility I propose to compare two USAAF gliders-related articles written by two American air forces officers -- one from USAF (mentioned) and other one from USAAF. This last under the title of "Triumph of the Whisper Ships" published in Flying Aces monthly Vol. 48 No. 4, November 1944, by Maj. Eliot F. Noyes. Everybody may see then what does professionalism mean and how interesting and honest may be glider-related article written by a man who knows what he is writing about. Lt. Col. George A. Larson wrote an article on the AGP not from this planet -- on beautiful, wise, good and successful Army. No such armies in the world.

 

I do not want to criticize especially the US Army, USAAF and AGP decision makers as well as one American publicist because it would be possible to tell the same about the Polish glider program for the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade from Operation Market Garden. We do have similar manipulations and propaganda of success in the media describing this unit. But this is a little other story and we are a little other nation…

 

Thanks a lot Charlie! Warm regards from Poland.

 

Greg

[J_Andrews]

From "Airborne Missions in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945", USAF Historical Study No. 74, 1955, page 41:

 

On the night of 9 July 109 C-47's of Troop Carrier Command [uS], and 28 Albemarles and 7 Halifaxes of 38 Wing [british] were ready to go. Waiting to be towed were 136 Waco gliders and eight Horsas. The latter, because of their size, were to be towed by the four-engine Halifaxes, supplemented by one Albemarle. The gflider pilots were drawn from the British glider pilot regiment, reinforced by 19 American glider pilots who had volunteered for the mission. The gliders were to carry the British airlanding brigade...."

 

page 46: "..at least69 Waco gliders came down at sea." ....Only 49 wacos and 5 Horsas are known to have landed on Sicilian soil.

 

Gerard Devlin's "Silent Wings" gives more coverage to the USAAF GP's who flew on the British lift, but mostly concentrates on just two of them and their experiences -- one down at sea, one as a "very light infantryman" helping the Brits take the Ponte Grande bridge. BTW he cites the number of volunteers as 30, but this may be an error linked to that being the number of intrstructors who trained the Brit GPs on Wacos.

[Gregory]

Thank you very, very much for this information.

 

If snatching system was delivered by the USAAF to Italian front then the US glider pilots had to be over there because the British were not trained in snatch.

 

Best regards

 

Greg

[J_Andrews]

Keep a few things in mind when considering glider pilots and missions earlier than Normandy:

 

1. Nobody in the USAAF overseas knew or cared about gliders and their pilots.

 

2. Although each Troop Carrier Squadron had, on paper, a Glider Pilot Section of 12 or more assigned, organic GPs, almost none of those units OVERSEAS in 1943 actually had those men! Let alone the gliders.

 

3. "Operations Analysis" drove the creation of the kinds of records that you would like to have. "OA" was a new phenomenon in WWII, first conjured up by the Brits and used to figure, with statistics and formulae, how to best use limited resources for air defense and to beat the North Atlantic U-boats. After a big, well-defined Airborne op, the OA specialist staffs would root out and organize data, such as how many planes were allotted, by Wing/Group and Squadron, what the serial numbers of the individual aircraft were, how many paras on board or which glider towed, from which units, at which bases, when they took off, how many completed the trip, how many dropped on target, how many went missing, shot-down, crashed, crew members accounted for or not, and so on. BUT Op HUSKY, LADBROKE and FUSTIAN in Sicily were a bit too early for the grand OA treatment. Normandy was OA'd front to back -- not just the Airborne phase either.

 

4. The 19 (or maybe 30) USAAF GPs who took part in LADBROKE did not do so under the control of any AMERICAN unit. So who in the USAAF would have been expected to REPORT on them and their fate? Surely not anyone in the USAAF units, Wing/Group/Squadron. IF IF IF the RAF had/kept the records, to who and how would the RAF pass the info? Not the USAAF units; MAYBE to a higher HQ, like AFHQ.

 

5. As has already been said, the AAHS has forever been focused on the AIRPLANES -- or powerplants and weaponry and aviation heros/pioneers and airlines -- but not the operational accomplishments of military forces. While I am not now nor have I ever ben a member of AAHS, nor am I familiar with the article in question, the AAHS does a very good job at the aforementioned tasks, but it is the wrong place to expect detailed info on an obscure aspect of an obscure air op. The "lost tale" of the US GPs in Sicily reminds me of the RAF history listing 303 Squadron as a high-scorer in the Battle of Britain BUT neglecting to point out that it was POLISH-manned unit.

[gliderman1]

What I have been told about this situation is the glider operation was British and Brit glider pilots had only approximately 5 hours flying the CG-4A (Hadrian). The number of US glider pilots who flew the mission was somewhere between 30 and 50 depending on who you talk to. No one seems to have actual paperwork. The apparent counts are mostly a post war sum of the men who said they flew the mission. If anyone does have any British paperwork, I would like copies. The US pilots volunteered and were supposed to fly as co-pilots. However one of them told me he flew the glider for the entire flight right up to when he landed in the water.

 

Charles Day

[Gregory]

And who piloted the CG-4As to Yugoslavia?