Richard W. wrote:Those things seem so flimsy, it’s hair raising to think of riding one into battle.
I knew a WW2 glider pilot, many years ago. He said when they were putting them together and taping the seams, they'd tell passers by that the tap was the only thing holding them together.
At Operation Varsity, when they had very few glider rated pilots, he stepped into his Waco glider to get ready and found a glider infantryman who'd had time in light aircraft before the war (but wore glasses, keeping him from flying for the Army) as his co-pilot. He said the kid actually helped out a lot and knew how to fly well when they went in. He even wrote a letter recommending a waiver for him to get his own glider wings but he never heard what happened (he as sure it was turned down, which I agree was likely). The kid, he said, told him he was better off as a grunt, saying he'd "live longer that way".
He also said the gilder riders got grief from the paratroopers all through the war, right to the very end of the war when apparently they all got told of the losses among glider forces. He said right around the time of VE day, he had drinks paid for by paratroopers a couple of times.