By Scott McGaugh.
New York: Osprey Publishing, 2023.
ISBN 978-14728-5294-6.
Photographs. Notes, Bibliography. Index. Pp. vi-288 p. $30.00.
Author Scott McGaugh has written a detailed history of the U.S. Army Air Force glider forces, focusing broadly on the pilots in this often-overlooked component of airborne forces. This well-researched book should appeal to a broad audience and will be welcomed by academia and amateur historians, especially those interested in aviation and warfare. McGaugh’s use of post-mission reports, critical analysis, oral histories, and memoirs makes this a very approachable work that details a unique perspective of glider operations in World War II.
The perspective and experience of glider forces in World War II are singularly unique in the history of warfare. The use of airborne forces was in its infancy. The need to project forces quickly over long ranges into enemy territory needed creative uses of aviation at a time when powered flight was less than forty years old. The idea of towing an unarmed, engineless, fabric-covered wooden aircraft, packed with combat soldiers and equipment, to then release it for a controlled crash landing on a contested battlefield exemplifies a fine line between courage and insanity.
McGaugh contextualizes the U.S. Army Air Corps and later U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) with a brief biography of its first commander, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, who entered West Point the same year the Wright Flyer took off in Kitty Hawk. A mediocre officer, Arnold, after two and a half hours of flying time, was one of the first pilots in the Army Signals Corps. At a time when aircraft would sometimes inexplicably dive into the ground or flip over and dump their pilots, Arnold developed a crippling terror of flying. In the opening chapters, McGaugh conveys that courage far exceeded engineering advancements in the early days of aviation.
The narration expertly recounts the creation of a combat glider program, highlighting the courage and perseverance despite countless mishaps and accidents. McGaugh imparts the sense of scale and the challenges of creatively recruiting thousands of officers who would become glider pilots and the difficulties inherent in manufacturing an aircraft not yet invented that would, in the end, have 70,000 parts. Pilots from all corners of the United States volunteered, including those who did not meet pilot medical standards and those who had washed out of other officer training programs. The subcontractors would be as eclectic as the pilots. Augmenting established aircraft manufacturers, such as Cessna and Waco, would be piano maker Steinway and Sons and H.J. Heinz Pickle Company, in addition to a refrigerator company and, prophetically, a coffin maker.
McGaugh follows this eclectic band of heroes and takes the reader on every airborne operation in World War II. As the chapters progress, readers will develop a sense of skills in planning and piloting. One will feel the tensions between the glider program and the USAAF after the catastrophic casualty rates of Operation HUSKY when the gliders did not reach land in Sicily. There is a sense of relief brought by the relative success of Operation OVERLORD and the lessons learned and applied to the success of Operation VARSITY and the crossing of the Rhine. McGaugh artfully conveys the sense of blind courage and sometimes cheerful adventure; readers are flown through flak into landing zones and accompany the pilots as they make their way back through war zones and liberated towns to prepare for the next mission.
Technological advances in the fixed-winged and emerging rotary-wing industries would see the combat gliding capability not last beyond World War II. Overshadowed by enduring parachute forces and the birth of the U.S. Air Force, a band of misfits in flimsy aircraft would be all but forgotten. McGaugh reminds us that the gliding program and, more importantly, the glider pilots are worth remembering and studying as one of many examples in World War II of facing a determined enemy against all odds with courage and ingenuity.
Chief Warrant Officer Martin R. Tolton, Canadian Army
El Paso, Texas
