Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: jpulliam@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jacqueline Pulliam)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Airborne Operations
Message-ID: <1990Jul9.023813.9747@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 9 Jul 90 02:38:13 GMT
References: <1990Jul8.053521.8182@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington IN.
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From: jpulliam@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jacqueline Pulliam)
>From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris)

>a fair amount of research in allied airborne OBs.  All three U.S. Airborne
>divisions had a glider infantry regiment. (The 82nd's was the 325th and 
>the 101st's was the 327th and don't know the last one's probably the
>326th).  I don't know much about the third U.S. airborne division except

There were at least five U.S. airborne divisions during WWII, although
one or more never saw combat.  They were, in numeric order, the 11th,
13th, 17th, 82nd, and 101st.  There were also a number of independent
(today we would call them separate) airborne regiments and battalions.
It was the 17th Abn Div which chopped troops to the 82nd for Market
Garden.  The 17th, newly arrived in England, still had its equipment
on the docks in crates and would not be able to prepare in time for
the operation.  The 17th did finally see combat, in the Ardennes, but
as straight leg infantry.  It later jumped into battle (with the
British 6th Abn Div) in the operation to cross the Rhine (ironically,
the event whose TV dramatization started this whole line of commentary
on sci.military 8-).

It is not easy to say conclusively which glider (or parachute)
regiments belonged to which divisions, for a few reasons.  First,
units were being chopped back and forth between divisions regularly,
based on the needs of each operation and the readiness of the units
available.  Second, airborne units were new to the army, and tables of
organization and equipment were continuously being questioned and
modified at even the highest levels of command.  At one time, the 17th
Abn Div had _three_ glider infantry regiments!  Finally, the presence
of the independent regiments and battalions, also being attached and
chopped from unit to unit, muddies the historical waters even more.

>    Also developed at the end of the war was a glider borne tank the
>Locust.  It was dropped using the large British Waco glider.  It saw action 
>with the British in the Ruhr operation.
>
>[mod.note:  Chamberlain and Ellis, in _Tanks of the World, 1915-45_,
>claim that the Locusts were delivered in Hamilcar gliders.  Britain had
>their own airborne tank, the Light Tank Mk VII Tetrarch, also carried
>by Hamilcars; these were used at Normandy and in the Ruhr operation.
>Twenty were also sent to the USSR via Iran. - Bill ]

My source, Devlin's _Paratrooper!_, says the same.  The British
Hamilcar glider was the largest glider used by the Allies in WWII.  It
had a wingspan of 110 feet, overall length of 68 feet, and could carry
36,000 pounds (one Tetrach tank or two Bren-gun carriers).  The Waco
was an American glider (??).