C-47s tow HORSA gliders over Normandy. (photo: U.S. Air Force Material Command)
By Bruce McWhirk
Mission ELMIRA, the last American operation that happened on D-Day, June 6, 1944. This glider operation took place beyond Utah Beach, six miles inland, 18 hours after the amphibious landings had been launched along the coast.
This glider operation was an essential mission in the Allies’ OVERLORD plan. It was intended to reinforce and resupply the 82nd Airborne’s parachute/air drop operations and safeguard the right flank of the entire American landings at Normandy.
Mission ELMRA launched fleets of towplane-gliders from England early in the evening in two waves that swept over the skies of the Neptune Assault Area in Normandy. The first wave with 76 gliders was timed to depart from Ramsbury, England ten minutes behind Mission KEOKUCK, a much smaller glider mission sent to reinforce the 101st Airborne Division. This first wave carried 428 troops, 64 jeeps, 13 57 mm anti-tank guns, 12 75 mm howitzers and 24 and a half tons of supplies. The second wave had 100 gliders that took off from Greenham Common, England and carried 418 troops, 31 jeeps, 12 75mm howitzers, 26 tons of ammunition and 25 tons of other supplies. The second wave was sent out two hours after the first wave.
A press briefing held three days later by the Supreme Allied Headquarters disclosed what happened on D-Day with these glider operations. The Associated Press (AP) reported, “Glider drops were made on a much bigger scale than ever contemplated by the Germans in the Crete operations of three years ago. Both the Americans and the British used gliders in daylight on D-Day with small losses…
“One glider landed on top of a house on the Valognes-Carentan road, and the troops clambered down to capture Germans in their beds…
“A high staff officer who went along as an observer to help the gliders land was reprimanded for risking his life and later told he would be decorated…
“A colonel was injured but the equipment was salvaged.”
American troops prepare to board a CG4-A WACO glider. (photo: Smithsonian Institute)
According to training procedures, a towplane-glider combination consisted of a C-47 SKYTRAIN (a military variant of the DC-3 commercial cargo aircraft) that towed one of two glider types, either a large heavy glider, the British-made AIRSPEED HORSA, or a smaller lighter glider, the American-made CG-4A WACO. Both glider types could carry personnel, or heavy weapons /ammunition / vehicles / equipment/ supplies.
A C-47 Skytrain tows a CG-4A WACO Glider during take-off. (photo: Smithsonian Institute)
Although the AIRSPEED HORSA had more than two thirds the personnel and cargo-carrying capacity as the CG-4A WACO, the British glider was more difficult to load and offload than the American glider. Moreover, the AIRSPEED HORSA was not as sturdily built as the CG-4A WACO, so more deaths and injuries resulted in crashes of the British glider than of the American glider.
View from the cockpit of a HORSA glider under tow. (photo: Imperial War Museum)
An American glider pilot (GP) named Sergeant Gale R. Ammerman who took part in Mission ELMIRA told his story:
“TheC-47 turned right to a heading of 270 degrees and roared over Utah Beach with a Horsa glider in tow. The minute the English Channel slid under the wings and fell away replaced by Normandy countryside all hell broke loose. Tracer bullets curved up in graceful arcs any direction the two glider pilots looked. Sphincter muscles clinched as each bullet seemed to be aimed directly at what the twenty-two years old pilots were sitting on. The glider pilot in the left seat reached up, pulled the release leaver, and the three-hundred foot nylon tow rope leaped away from the hitch. The nose came up, speed dropped off and all of a sudden it was very quiet in the giant Horsa Glider. As the rope fell away a 90-degree turn to the left was smoothly executed as a potential landing site was selected. Now on base leg for the selected field the pilot said as he turned into the approach, “Give me fifteen degrees of spoilers, Bill.”
“Absolutely nothing happened and both pilots knew instantly that if the air actuated spoilers weren’t working the brakes were gone also. Without a word being spoken both pilots knew they were in for a “heap of hurt.” Any hope of a normal landing was long gone as the glider, loaded with 7,200 pounds of artillery, ammunition, sailed down the field at 90 miles per hour indicated airspeed. The 88-foot wing span glider touched down about halfway down the length of the field, hurtled on with an airspeed falling off but still at 60 mph indicated, slammed into the trees at the end of the field tearing off both wings as the fuselage came to rest in the next field.”
Brigadier General Paul L. Williams, commander of the Ninth Air Force’s Troop Carrier Command, was responsible for the overall planning of Mission ELMIRA. The original landing zone (LZ) for the gliders was designated as LZ W. This primary LZ was a large open space in the shape of an oval located only about a mile southwest of Sainte-Mère-Église. This small French town was still occupied by the Germans, but it had an important crossroads that connected it to towns in the Cherbourg Peninsula, and to the Port of Cherbourg. The highway leading to the town of Carentan ran through the middle of the LZ. The secondary LZ, according to this operations order (OpOrd), was designated as LZ E, a much smaller liver-shaped area, located adjacent to LZ W.
U.S. soldiers in a CG-4 WACO glider on D-Day. (photo: United States Army Center of Military History)
Regarding the role of the Pathfinders and the Eureka Radar Beacon System used on D-Day, R. Ray Ortensie, an historian at the Air Force Material Command, said:
“Preceding the parachute drops of the main airborne force, one hundred and twenty advanced paratroopers known as ‘pathfinders’ took off from England at 2325 on 5 June in a fleet of gliders 30 minutes prior to the initial airborne assault. Their mission was to mark the drop zones for the paratroopers and landing zones for the gliders with flare paths and electronically with the Eureka Radar Beacon System to prevent the widespread scattering of paratroopers and gliders that had taken place in Sicily. However, the men who had been assigned to mark the fields were often scattered themselves and, in the confusion and chaos, most of the fields would remain dark and no beacons were established to guide the gliders in.”
Wrecked HORSA and CG-4 WACO gliders at LZ E on D-Day. (photo: U.S. National Archives)
Mission ELMIRA consisted of 176 C-47 SKYTRAIN troop carrier aircraft acting as towplanes. 36 CG-4 WACO gliders, and 140 HORSA gliders, divided into one group of 26 and three groups of 50 towplane-glider combinations. One additional C-47, which had returned to base earlier in the day without dropping its stick of paratroopers, accompanied the last flight of the mission. The planned and briefed landing zone for the gliders was LZ W, located about a mile (1.5 km) southeast from Sainte-Mère-Église, but due to the reported dangers conditions there, a smaller landing zone was hastily chosen southwest of the town and designated as LZ O. Moreover, this last-minute change was also due to the quick decision of General Eisenhower and Field Marshall Montgomery to exploit their attack (the Neptune Assault Area was thinly defended by the Germans) and to send in gliders in more risky night-time operations from June 6-7th.
Mission ELMIRA’s designated glider landing zones (LZs) – LZ O and LZ W… and LZ E. (source of map: J.C. Warren, Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater)
Unknown to either the 437th Troop Carriers Battalion (that flew the gliders in the first wave) or the 438th Troop Carriers Battalion (that flew the gliders in the second wave), the “Eureka” Transponding Rader Beacon landing aids had been moved two miles (3 km) to the northwest of Landing Zone O. The C-47s released their gliders at the original LZ O (an area determined by aerial photography), unaware of the Eureka landing aids on LZ O. Although the 82nd Airborne considered the glider landings to be inaccurate because they did not land directly on LZ O, most came down within 2 miles (3.2 km) of this newly designated LZ.
C47’s release point for HORSA gliders on D-Day in Normandy. (photo: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)
The first wave of 76 towplane-glider combinations came under heavy ground fire just before the release point, about six miles inland from Utah Beach. The German 795th Georgian Battalion occupied that area of the landing zone. The hazards to the gliders included landing in a “postage stamp-size field” 200 yards long bordered by 50-foot trees, and some of the designated fields turned out to be flooded and laced with land mines. The German’s small arms, machine guns and 20 mm flak guns were unpleasantly accurate. Two C-47s were shot down after release and half the remaining gliders were damaged. Of the 3 CG-4A WACOs and 21 HORSAs destroyed, most were hit by German sniper fire, mortar fire and 88-mm gun fire after landing.
German soldiers examine a downed CG4-WACO glider, June 6, 1944. (photo: Bundesachiv)
Flight Officer Henry C. Williams from Omulgee, Oklahoma, wrote a letter to his brother in which he described his terrifying experiences being a glider pilot (GP) in the first wave of the glider assaults in Mission ELMIRA. He wrote:
“We were really lucky. I was flying a large English glider with a jeep, trailer, and seven men. We were under heavy machine gun fire while we were landing, which was in the middle of it all. I landed within 25 yards of a German machine gun. Either he was a poor shot or I hold the world record on the 100-yard dash. But I will admit he really made me dance a jig. As scared as I was, I had to laugh at myself.
“… All the fields are small in France and are hard to set a large glider down in. Most of the fields are mined, and large poles with barbed wire criss-crossed on the top. If you land in a field like this you’re a dead duck. I don’t mind telling you that I was plenty lucky. I barely made it over a mine field…
“I had to lie in the ditch for three hours until it got dark. Every time I stuck my head out of the ditch, bullets would come too close for comfort. We were completely
surrounded by Germans and depended entirely on the seaborne [soldiers from Utah Beach] which moved in about 4 o’clock the next morning. By this time, we were beginning to feel at home with shells bursting all around. It was nothing to see dead men all around and men shot all to Hell.
“We only stayed there 20 hours, but it seemed like a life time. The glider pilots had to fight after we were organized, but this time the Germans were retreating. We didn’t have to fire a shot. They were probably tired and scared too I guess.
“By this time, thousands of seaborne were coming in and there was no further need of us staying…”
German soldiers inspecting a crashed HORSA glider. (photo: Bundesachiv)
The second wave of 100 towplane-glider combinations arrived at 2255 at twilight and headed for the Eureka beacon on LZ O. Approximately halfway there, it came under the most severe ground fire of the day, since the route to LZ O passed directly over and along the same German positions that had previously attacked the first wave. Therefore, damage was similar to that of the first wave that had arrived two hours earlier. Despite the order for a slow landing, some pilots slammed their HORSAs into the landing fields at 100 miles per hour. Since the fields were short, some being only 100 yards long, and since the waning twilight made a precise approach over the hedgerows difficult if not impossible, most of the pilots were lucky if they escaped a crash with their lives.
A giant HORSA crashed over a hedgerow near Hiesville France, June 6, 1944. (photo: United States Army Center of Military History)
The second wave’s two glider serials landed in different locations. The first serial released early and came down near or within German lines, while the second serial came down directly on Landing Zone O. 5 towplane-glider combinations followed their original briefing orders and landed on that OpOrd’s secondary landing zone, LZ E. Three C-47s ditched on the way home.
Landed Allied Gliders on D-Day. (photo: U.S. National Archives)
Despite this operation’s many SNAFUs [situation normal, all fouled up] – in planning, coordination and execution – almost all of the personnel of the glider artillery battalion had safely arrived at the 82nd Airborne positions by late morning on June 7th. By sundown the following day,15 of the 24 guns of the 319th Glider Field Artillery Battalion (GFAB) were in operation.
Mission ELMIRA was considered to be a success.
Casualties in Mission ELMIRA were 15 killed, 17 wounded, and 4 missing among the glider pilots; and 33 killed and 124 wounded among the soldiers onboard the gliders.
REFERENCES
Gale R. Ammerman, An American Glider Pilot’s Story, Merriam Press, Hoosick Falls, NY, 2001, p. 1
Glider Landed on Roof Captured Nazis in Bed, Standard-Speaker, Hazelton, PA, June 10, 1944, p. 2
Glider Pilot’s Letter Describes Glider Invasion, Omulgee Daily Times, Omulgee, OK, June 27, 1944, p. 5
R. Ray Ortensie, FLASHBACK: Gliders…from Wright Field to the Netherlands, Air Force Materiel Command History Office, September 16, 2019
J.C. Warren, Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater, USAF Historical Studies (97). Maxwell AFB, Alabama: USAF Historical Division, Research Studies Institute Air University, September,1956, pp. 65-69
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BKM June 4, 2021
NauticaSpace Press 