Claude Smith - History of the Glider Pilot Regiment

THE

HISTORY OF THE

GLIDER

PILOT REGIMENT

THE

HISTORY OF THE

GLIDER

PILOT REGIMENT

by

CLAUDE SMITH

with a Foreword by

General Sir John Hackett

GCB CBE DSO MC MA

With illustrations by
Alan Richards, DFM

Pen & Sword

AVIATION

First published in Great Britain in 1992

and reprinted in this format in 2007, 2009 and 2014 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley, South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Claude Smith 1992, 2007, 2009, 2014

ISBN 978 1 84415 626 9

The right of Claude Smith to be identified as Author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

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CONTENTS

Colonels Commandant, Commanding
Officers, Battalion/Wing/Squadron
Commanders

in the text
by Alan Richards, DFM

I am indebted to a lot of people for help in the writing of this book, primarily to Lieutenant-Colonel R.W.G. Nicholls, MBE, and David Brook, without whose guidance it would certainly not have reached the publication stage. Their advice has resulted in the revision of much of the subject matter and its presentation.

Colonel S.M.W. Hickey, MRAeS, Major John Cross and Harry Foot of the Museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop, and the staff of the Public Record Office at Kew, all supplied the efficient and cheerful service one always receives at such establishments.

One of the greatest pleasures experienced during the writing has been the contact made with so many other ex-members of the Regiment, all of whom have supplied me with much information: Major T.I.J. Toler, DFC, TD; David Hall (whose lists of all glider sorties from the UK, in such detail, can be studied at the Museum of Army Flying); Major Andy Andrews, DFM*; Colonel M.F.V. Willoughby; Bill Mackenzie; Arthur Rigby; Sidney Bland (for locating numerous relevant files at the Public Record Office for me to peruse); Alan Richards, DFM; Squadron Leader F.C. Aston, DFC, TD; Ian Blackwood, MM; Richard Clarke; Lt.Col B.H.P. Jackson, DFC; Len King; John Lister; Major W. McNeill, Lt.Col J.W. Place, DFC; and Denis Cason.

That General Sir John Hackett, that great soldier and historian, has written the Foreword is a source of immense pride.

I have been more than fortunate in that Alan Richards agreed to design the book cover and draw the plans of the landing-zones, as well as make available for inclusion his admirable sketches.

I have also made free use of many articles which have appeared in past numbers of the Regimental Magazine The Eagle.

It was a great pleasure to make contact with Doctor R.P.G.A. Voskuil of Oosterbeek, who supplied the details regarding the sighting of the glider evidence at Wolfheze in 1955 by a KLM photographer.

James Moore, publisher, author and historian, perused the manuscript with a professional eye, and I am thankful for his valued advice.

Lastly, to my wife for living with it over the past months, and to the Regiment for being the provider of it all.

THOUGH NEVER A GLIDER PILOT myself I yield to no one in respect and admiration for the British glider pilots of the Second World War and the Regiment that embodied them. I did not come across them personally until early in 1943, when the Fourth Parachute Brigade, which I had been raising and training in the Canal Zone, joined up with the First Airborne Division in North Africa and we looked forward to following up the expulsion of the Axis from Africa with the invasion of Italy. Thereafter I saw a good deal of them, learning early on how very good they were as fighting soldiers and glad later on to have a good number under my command in Market Garden. Indeed it was on a visit to a GP position in Oosterbeek that I received the wounds which put me out of the fight and was happy to be allowed by Roy Urquhart to hand over command of the shrunken remnants of my brigade to one of the best of them all, Lt-Col Iain Murray. The invitation to become Patron of the Glider Pilot Regimental Association a year or two ago was one that I accepted with great pleasure.

Churchills order, given just 50 years ago on 22 June 1940, to raise a force of 5000 British Airborne troops, in which powerful parachute and gliderborne components would be embodied, was what began it all. The techniques of delivering troops on to the battlefield in towed gliders, or dropped by parachute, had for some years been under study in several countries. Britain now developed them with vigour. From very early on the concept dominating the selection, training and use of British glider pilots was that having brought in their loads in vehicles now no longer of any use they should be put into the battle as infantry and for this they had to be as fully capable as for piloting gliders. The concept emerged of the total soldier. That great fighting airborne general, the American Jim Gavin, used to complain that his glider pilots after they had landed were little more than a nuisance. They were willing enough to help but had no idea at all what to do. It was otherwise with the members of the GPR, officially established in the order of battle by an order of 21 December, 1941, as the First Glider Regiment. These glider pilots, all officers or NCOs, usually of the rank of Sergeant or Staff Sergeant, knew well what to do when they got into the battle and were superbly trained to do it. I shall always treasure the memory of their performance in Market Garden, in which the proportion of their officers and men who were killed in action was far higher than that in any other part of the First Airborne Division, and I speak as commander of a brigade that dropped in nearly two thousand strong and came out less than two hundred. It was Jim Gavin, incidentally, who observed that if attacking airborne troops cannot be put down on or very near the target the plan should be reconsidered and perhaps cancelled. It was a pity our masters had not hoisted that one in before Market Garden, though the use of 6th Airborne Division in Normandy and the subsequent triumphant success of the Rhine crossing in March, 1945, showed that some, at least, understood it.