Airborne Glider Wings-non voided.

[David B]

These are my first pair of Airborne Glider wings I've owned, so don't know if this is a common variation or not but I can't recall seeing a pair that are non voided like this one before?

 

Is this wing an accepted variation?

 

Many thanks in advance guys.

 

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[Kropotkin]

Yep, perfectly good to my eyes.

[Allan H.]

This wing is actually a pretty special one. It is the first wing issued to members of the 101st Airborne that participated in the Normandy operation and arrived by glider. They were issued until supplies were exhausted and the new glider badges came out, so they do occasionally show up to Market Garden vets who were not at Normandy.

 

Allan

[David B]

This wing is actually a pretty special one. It is the first wing issued to members of the 101st Airborne that participated in the Normandy operation and arrived by glider. They were issued until supplies were exhausted and the new glider badges came out, so they do occasionally show up to Market Garden vets who were not at Normandy.

 

Allan

Really!?! Wow, that is absolutely amazing!

 

Cost me £26 (approx $34) from eBay here in the UK.

 

Thank you both.

 

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[WWIIinterviews]

This wing is actually a pretty special one. It is the first wing issued to members of the 101st Airborne that participated in the Normandy operation and arrived by glider. They were issued until supplies were exhausted and the new glider badges came out, so they do occasionally show up to Market Garden vets who were not at Normandy.

 

Allan

 

Hi Allan,

How can you tell?

 

Thanks

[Tesla]

Beautiful! Very nice find...

[Allan H.]

I can tell that these are the 101st A/B version of the glider badge because it is such a unique strike, plus the fact that back in the day, there were loads of WWII veterans to talk to and often times you could see their souvenirs just by asking. I have seen several of these in the hands of 101st veterans and have never seen them in the hands of a veteran who didn't serve in the 101st.

 

There are actually TWO different strikes of this badge. They are VERY similar except that the first strike shows a glider that is level. The second strike shows the glider at a slight tilt.

 

Allan

[David B]

Thanks Allan!

 

I think mine are the second strike, they look to have a slight tilt to the glider wings.

 

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[Tesla]

I was lucky enough to find one of these at a show today! It also is the version with a tilt to the glider and the back is identical.

[David B]

I was lucky enough to find one of these at a show today! It also is the version with a tilt to the glider and the back is identical.

Awesome, great find mate! It's good to see another one. When I was searching online for an example to compare mine to, I struggled to find any.

 

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[digi-shots]

Just came across this posting... great looking glider badge!

 

Here are two badges that came from a 326th A/B Medical veteran of the 101st.

 

Top one is standard, the one below looks similar to yours and  is tilted a bit.  Allan mentioned a second strike ?  

[David B]

Yep, the bottom one looks identical to mine. It definitely has a slight tilt to the glider wings.

Great looking badges!

[Persian Gulf Command]

Found at the SOS this year. I'd like to show this version of the Glider Assault Wing w/ the non-voided lower area. I'm going to call it the Type-2 as this version is superior in the engraving detail, relief, and form* to the version Type-1, shown in the OP and all the other photos seen above. I consider this Type-2 much rarer that the Type-1.

 

*You will note that for this Type-2, the bottom of the badge is straight so leading edge of the Glider's Wing will also be level and straight.

The Type-1 has an asymmetrical shape to the bottom of the wing design, resulting in the leading edge of the Glider's Wing appearing to have a slight tilt. 

 

 

[Persian Gulf Command]

On 1/27/2020 at 11:35 AM, Allan H. said:

I can tell that these are the 101st A/B version of the glider badge because it is such a unique strike, plus the fact that back in the day, there were loads of WWII veterans to talk to and often times you could see their souvenirs just by asking. I have seen several of these in the hands of 101st veterans and have never seen them in the hands of a veteran who didn't serve in the 101st.

 

There are actually TWO different strikes of this badge. They are VERY similar except that the first strike shows a glider that is level. The second strike shows the glider at a slight tilt.

 

Allan

 

[Persian Gulf Command]

4 minutes ago, Persian Gulf Command said:

 

Allan, I'm going to suggest that the version with the tilted glider is the first strike therefore the Type-1. The glider that is straight is the second strike therefore the Type-2.

I feel the second strike or Type-2 was an improvement on the first Type-2.

[Allan H.]

On 2/25/2024 at 2:29 PM, Persian Gulf Command said:

Allan, I'm going to suggest that the version with the tilted glider is the first strike therefore the Type-1. The glider that is straight is the second strike therefore the Type-2.

I feel the second strike or Type-2 was an improvement on the first Type-2.

I believe the oposite to be true. I believe that the very first strike was the superior strike and that subsequent strikes dropped in quality. The "tilted" variation is far more common, which again leads me to the conclusion that it came second when much larger numbers of badges were needed. remember that a lot of 101st Glider assets came ashore by boat in Normandy. The 82nd got priority for the available combat gliders because of their experience in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy.

 

Allan

[Persian Gulf Command]

25 minutes ago, Allan H. said:

I believe the oposite to be true. I believe that the very first strike was the superior strike and that subsequent strikes dropped in quality. The "tilted" variation is far more common, which again leads me to the conclusion that it came second when much larger numbers of badges were needed. remember that a lot of 101st Glider assets came ashore by boat in Normandy. The 82nd got priority for the available combat gliders because of their experience in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy.

 

Allan

Allan, that is also plausible. As the number of badges needed were increased the quality decreased. 

[pfrost]

HI, I am not sure what is meant that the "quality decreased"?  The fact that one of the versions was tilted is more an indication of the particular die that was made, not necessarily a reflection of the number of badges being made. Once a die was made, it would be used to knock out thousands if not tens of thousands of individual units that were all just about identical.  I am never sure how many individual dies would have been made for the manufacturing of badges, but I suspect each company or shop had 2 or 3 made (or maybe not, I have no idea).  I forget what it was called but there are a number of ways a new die could be reproduced using a "copying tool" and a hub or model form.  Once the basic shape of the die was made, the metal was hardened and you were good to go. 

 

That being said, the stamping process was probably pretty quick and semi-automated, with the more time-limiting step being the addition of the findings and final finish to the badge.  Again, I suspect that they (the manufacturer) ran out a huge run of blanks over a couple of days or weeks, and then sent loads of the unfinished badges to the stations were some poor fellow/lady did nothing all day but put the hinges/catch and pins on them.  Then once they had a pretty good pile of wings, they would have been sent on to final finishing (and perhaps some QC, but that was likely a minor consideration), packaging and shipping (say 100o units/box).  I have no idea what the workflow was, but I strongly believe that things were done in batches, rather than in a continuous trickle--once you had amassed enough individual badges, you put them in box or two and shipped them out.  That doesn't mean you had to amass one set of badges from one die, you probably just tossed all the finished badges you had made together, willy-nilly, with no worry about one being made from die one and the other being made by die 2.  That being said, I also suspect that there may have been some overlap with batches going out, some getting issued sooner rather than later, etc.  That a box of badges ended up being issued to guys after D-Day in 1944 doesn't really mean that those badges were the FIRST made--its more than likely those were just the first handed out.  Its a good hypothesis, but not proof.

 

Finally, I fear I am slowly growing into a grumpy old man, like Grandpa Simpson, yelling at the kids to get off my lawn!! LOL.  I doubt strongly that we can actually draw a line in the sand and say "These are the first made so we can call them type 1 and those were later, so we can call them type 2, one was made in June of 1944 and the other in August of 1944".  I suspect in the scheme of things, badges were very low priority on the list of stuff the Army wanted to get to its troopers, all things considered. And I also suspect that companies making these things never really thought about anything other than they had a contract to fill, they were going be making a huge number of badges (some companies had contracts for USAAF, US Army, USN, USMC, Coast Guard, medals, insignia, badges, ratings) and somehow they needed to make them, package them and mail them off... you see where I am going. Perhaps they had a couple of dies made so they could run multiple presses at the same time. Perhaps one package got overseas faster than another because the ship it was sent over on avoided any U-boats or was part of a faster convoy.  Maybe some quartermaster type in England was hung over and didn't send the box with a particular insignia down the line faster than his buddy in the office next door. 

 

Sorry, I had a big coffee this morning and got myself all riled up! 

 

P