Word: glider
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Lieut. Jackie Coogan, 30, Hollywood's onetime "Kid" who grew up to marry Betty Grable (and be divorced by her) was released from the Army after four years' service, mostly with glider troops. Acquired in that time: the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Presidential Unit Citation. Lost: more hair...
...getting back is another story. Heading for a clearing to be picked up by a transport plane, they find themselves cut off by the Japanese. Directed to another map reference they fight their way to it through half the Japs in Burma and arrive to meet the Allied glider fleet...
...Crete and the Low Countries opened many military eyes, and some of the U.S. Army's best brains, including Air Forces General Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold and the late, great Ground Forces chief, Lieut. General Lesley J. ("Whitey") McNair, lent support and advice to the U.S. paratroop and glider program. That program really got rolling in 1942, with the setting up of two full airborne divisions...
...started methodically, reading all there was to read on his new subject-which did not take long. Then he applied himself to the fundamentals of parachuting and gliding. His first jump came off without incident; his first glider ride characteristically ended in a rousing wreck, from which he jumped clear, ending up bruised in body and dignity, but professionally impressed with the way the ungainly box kite could put down a whole squad, jeep or gun in one place...
...introduced to each other or had ever played in public before. Liaison between air, ground and sea forces was faulty. In one of the war's most tragic errors, U.S. antiaircraft guns blasted down a covey of troop-laden planes like fat ducks. Because of this, the scheduled glider runs were hastily called off. Other transport pilots missed landmarks and sowed their hapless paratroops up & down the coast, miles from their objectives. In consequence, the parachutists came down in so many places that the alarmed Germans thought they were being hit with a fantastically large skyborne force, and milled...