Word: glider
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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That weird first night, 27 big C-47 transports hauled their double tows of gliders up to a rough, gullied clearing in the jungle. The glider pilots, Colonel Alison among the first, cut loose, hoped for the best as they headed down for the clearing...
...were running all over the field shouting instructions. Often those trying to help wounded men off the field would have to duck out of the path of a landing glider. . . . We learned lots of lessons...
...airborne operation was commanded by Colonel Philip G. Cochran of Erie, Pa., who won five medals as a fighter pilot in North Africa, even wider acclaim as the model for "Flip Corkin," Cartoonist Milton Caniff's hero of Terry and the Pirates. First glider pilot to land was handsome Flight Officer Jackie ("The Kid") Coogan, first husband of blond Pin-Up Girl Betty Grable (her second: Jive Bandsman Harry James). Said Flight Officer Coogan: "I sure feel confident riding with Indian troops as passengers." One of Cochran's transport pilots: Lieut. John ("Buddy") Lewis, lanky, hard-hitting third...
...Mosquito pilot nervously shot the thing down, then headed home, wondering glumly how he was going to report this without acquiring a permanent reputation as the R.A.F.'s biggest liar. Intelligence officers, finally convinced, guessed the monstrosity might have been an experimental glider tow plane...
Under Water. As many as ten submarines bunched against the convoy never broke through escorting Canadian corvettes, British frigates and sloops. Focke-Wulf 200s and four-engined Heinkel 1775 flew out from French bases to launch radio-controlled glider bombs (British sailors call them "Chase-Me-Charlies"). Flak from the ships, Allied Fortresses, Liberators, Hudsons, Catalinas, Venturas, Sunderlands, fought off the attackers. One British pilot said that the glider bombs looked like small monoplanes and performed "most unusual acrobatics." But they were ineffective: at the battle's end, only two Allied ships had been damaged, none had been sunk...