Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: The Glider Pilots of World War II

Historian McGaugh (Honor Before Glory) highlights in this vivid and inspiring account the exploits of Allied glider pilots during the liberation of Axis-occupied Europe. Making their combat debut in the invasion of Sicily in 1943, Allied glider pilots carried troops and supplies from bases in Tunisia. Though more than 600 men and officers died in Operation Ladbroke, most of them by drowning, generals Omar Bradley and Dight Eisenhower committed to using gliders to ferry troops and equipment to Normandy on D-Day. McGaugh also documents Market Garden, “the largest glider mission of World War II,” when 2,000 gliders supported the Allied offensive across Holland. “The glider pilots knew their mission was to deliver the infantry and their supplies under enemy fire, likely by crashing their gliders, then get back to their base hundreds of miles away, as quickly as possible, and be ready for the next assignment,” McGaugh writes. Gliders also played key roles in supplying besieged American forces at Bastogne and winning the Battle of the Bulge. Mothballed after the war, the glider program’s tasks were assumed by cargo aircraft and helicopters. Throughout, McGaugh draws on firsthand accounts to convey the terror and thrill of piloting noiseless, fabric-skinned aircraft with no engines, defensive armaments, or parachutes. This WWII history soars. (Feb.)