The Glider Pilot Regiment was a British
airborne forces unit of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, which was responsible for crewing the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
's
military glider
Military gliders (an offshoot of common gliders) have been used by the militaries of various countries for carrying troops ( glider infantry) and heavy equipment to a combat zone, mainly during the Second World War. These engineless aircraft wer ...
s and saw action in the
European theatre
The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the ...
in support of Allied airborne operations. Established during the war in 1942, the regiment was disbanded in 1957.
Formation
The German military was one of the pioneers of the use of airborne formations, conducting several successful airborne operations during the
Battle of France in 1940, including the
Battle of Fort Eben-Emael
The Battle of Fort Eben-Emael was a battle between Belgian and German forces that took place between 10 May and 11 May 1940, and was part of the Battle of Belgium and ''Fall Gelb'', the German invasion of the Low Countries and France. An assault ...
. Impressed by the success of German airborne operations, the Allied governments decided to form their own airborne formations. This decision would eventually lead to the creation of two British airborne divisions, as well as a number of smaller units. The British airborne establishment began development on 22 June 1940, when the new
British Prime Minister
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...
,
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, directed a memorandum to the
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
to investigate the possibility of creating a
corps
Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies great ...
of 5,000 parachute troops.
[Otway, p. 21]
On 21 June 1941, the
Central Landing Establishment was formed at
Ringway airfield near
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
; although tasked primarily with training parachute troops, it was also directed to investigate the possibilities of using gliders to transport troops into battle.
[Smith, p. 7] It had been decided that the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
(RAF) and the British Army would co-operate in forming the airborne establishment. Squadron Leader
Louis Strange and Major J.F. Rock were tasked with gathering together potential glider pilots and forming a glider unit; this was achieved by searching for members of the armed forces who had pre-war experience of flying gliders, or were interested in learning to do so.
[
The two officers and their newly formed unit were provided with four obsolescent ]Armstrong Whitworth Whitley
The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.38 Whitley was a British medium bomber aircraft of the 1930s. It was one of three twin-engined, front line medium bomber types that were in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) at the outbreak of the Second World ...
bombers and a small number of Tiger Moth and Avro 504
The Avro 504 was a First World War biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft company and under licence by others. Production during the war totalled 8,970 and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any kind tha ...
biplanes, for towing purposes. Around this time the War Office and Air Ministry began to draw up specifications for several types of military gliders to be used by the unit. The resulting gliders were the General Aircraft Hotspur
The General Aircraft GAL.48 Hotspur was a military glider designed and built by the British company General Aircraft Ltd during World War II. When the British airborne establishment was formed in 1940 by order of Prime Minister Winston Church ...
, General Aircraft Hamilcar
The General Aircraft Limited GAL. 49 Hamilcar or Hamilcar Mark I was a large British military glider produced during the Second World War, which was designed to carry heavy cargo, such as the Tetrarch or M22 Locust light tank. When the Britis ...
, Airspeed Horsa and the Slingsby Hengist. These designs would take some time to be implemented and produced, however, and for the time being the fledgling unit was forced to improvise.
A Glider Training Squadron was formed, and the first test-flights were conducted using Swallow
The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...
light aircraft which had their propellers removed to simulate the flight characteristics of a glider; they were towed by the Whitleys using tow-ropes of varying number and length for experimentation purposes.[Smith, p. 8] Appeals were made throughout the United Kingdom for civilian gliders to be donated to the squadron, and the first four arrived in August 1941; three of them had been manufactured in pre-war Germany. Soon several more were donated, and these were put to use training instructors, glider pilots and newly formed ground crews. Accidents were quite frequent in these early months, primarily due to the hemp tow-ropes breaking during flight; these problems were only solved with the introduction of nylon
Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic.
Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...
tow-ropes imported from the USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.[ The first demonstration of the squadron's abilities took place on 26 September, when ]Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent, (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 – 25 August 1942) was a member of the British royal family, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary. He was a younger brother of kings Edward VIII and Geo ...
witnessed a demonstration of the fledgling airborne establishment's capabilities: four parachute-drops were conducted, and then two gliders were towed by civilian aircraft. This was followed on 26 October by a night exercise being conducted by the squadron, with two Avro 504s towing four gliders, and on 13 December five gliders were towed to Tatton Park
Tatton Park is an historic estate in Cheshire, England, north of the town of Knutsford. It contains a mansion, Tatton Hall, a medieval manor house, Tatton Old Hall, Tatton Park Gardens, a farm and a deer park of . It is a popular visitor attr ...
, where they landed alongside sixteen parachutists dropped from two Whitley bombers.
There was a certain carefree atmosphere in the squadron in the first few months of its existence; new recruits were not obliged to pass a medical test to join the squadron, and it attracted a number of adventurous-minded men with a passion for flying. That one sergeant claimed to have flown a Messerschmitt during the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
,[Lynch, p. 32] suggested that volunteers' accounts of their past flying experience were not always subject to significant scrutiny with regard to accuracy, let alone questions of loyalty. These first pilots had been volunteers recruited from all branches of the armed forces, primarily the Army, but as the squadron began to conduct training exercises, arguments broke out between the RAF and the Army over the pilots. In the view of the RAF, gliders were aircraft and therefore came under their jurisdiction and should be controlled by them; the Army argued that as the glider pilots would subsequently be fighting alongside the troops they had transported, they should come under Army control.[ After much debate, a compromise was brokered between the two services: the pilots would be recruited from the Army but would be trained by the RAF.][
Volunteers were sought from the Army and had to be passed by RAF selection procedures before entering training. Once qualified as light aircraft pilots after a 12-week course, they were given further training on gliders: another 12-week course to qualify on the General Aircraft Hotspur. After a while they would then go to a Heavy Glider Conversion Unit for a six-week course so they were qualified for the Airspeed Horsa.
]
Higher formations
In 1942 the Glider Pilot Regiment came under a newly formed administrative corps, the Army Air Corps, alongside the Parachute Regiment and wartime Special Air Service, and the Air Observation Post
Air Observation Post (AOP) is an aeroplane or helicopter used in the role of artillery spotter by the British Army and Commonwealth forces. In this role, either the pilot of the aircraft or another crew member acts as an observer watching for tar ...
squadrons of the Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
. In 1949, the AAC was broken up and the regiment formed part of the Glider Pilot and Parachute Corps. In 1957 the Glider Pilot Regiment and the Air Observation Post squadrons of the Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
amalgamated to form the current Army Air Corps Army Air Corps may refer to the following army aviation corps:
* Army Air Corps (United Kingdom), the army aviation element of the British Army
* Philippine Army Air Corps (1935–1941)
* United States Army Air Corps (1926–1942), or its p ...
.
Regimental Association
Veterans of the regiment were represented by the Glider Pilot Regimental Association. The association published a journal entitled "The Eagle", operated a benevolent fund and organised pilgrimages to locations where the regiment had fought, particularly Normandy and Arnhem. Due to the declining number of veterans and lack of external support, the members of the association voted in favour of winding it down. It closed on 31 December 2016.
Family members of veterans, who had previously been permitted to join the association as associate members, gathered together to form a civilian society named The Glider Pilot Regiment Society which officially opened on 1 January 2017 with the approval of a large number of veterans. The objective of the society is to preserve and promote the heritage of The Glider Pilot Regiment through education and engagement and create a network for veterans of the Glider Pilot Regiment and their families to engage with one another. The society produces a magazine entitled "Glider Pilot's Notes", arranges trips for veterans and organises events every year to mark key anniversaries relating to the regiment's history.
Battle honours
The regiment was awarded the following battle honours for its service during the Second World War:
*Landing in Sicily
Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or ...
*Sicily 1943
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
* Normandy Landing
*Pegasus Bridge
Pegasus Bridge, originally called the Bénouville Bridge after the neighbouring village, is a road crossing over the Caen Canal, between Caen and Ouistreham in Normandy. The original bridge, built in 1934, is now a war memorial and is the cent ...
*Merville Battery Merville may refer to:
Communes in France
* Merville, Haute-Garonne, in the Haute-Garonne ''département''
* Merville, Nord, in the Nord ''département''
* Merville-Franceville-Plage, in the Calvados ''département''
Other places
* Merville Garden ...
* Southern France
*Arnhem 1944
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks o ...
*Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
*North-West Europe 1944-45
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
See also
* The Parachute Regiment - the UK's other airborne infantry
*Assault Glider Trust
The Assault Glider Trust is a registered charity established in 2001 and based at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire, England.
The trust was formed by veterans of the Glider Pilot Regiment Association. Current projects of the trust are to convert a D ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
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External links
{{Commons category, Glider Pilot Regiment
Glider Pilot Regiment Society
The Assault Glider Trust
Airborne units and formations
British military aviation
Education in Wiltshire
Gliding in the United Kingdom
Military units and formations established in 1942
Military units and formations disestablished in 1957
Regiments of the British Army in World War II
Regiments of the British Army
Military gliding