Flight Without Sound

By last week a big glider program was emerging in the U.S. Just how big it was no one in the War Department would say. But a call had gone out for glider pilots; the first training schools were ready, others were on the way. Civil pilots, 18 to 35, ineligible for regular aviation-cadet training, were sought as glider students. Several large aircraft factories, a few smaller ones, had fat contracts to build big gliders for troop transports, small ones for training.

About Face. Early in 1941, Secretary Stimson said: "Flight training in gliders or sailplanes as a preliminary step in power-plane training is of doubtful value, and it is believed the cost is not commensurate with the results obtained." A Navy spokesman announced: "It was definitely determined that the inclusion of glider training in the flight syllabus was not worthwhile."

U.S. glider enthusiasts had persisted, forming 180 clubs, held contests each June, supervised by the Sparing Society of America, among the green hills of Elmira, N.Y. Glider pilots flew as far as 290 miles on air currents.

But U.S. gliding was child's play compared with what the Germans were doing.

Young Germans by the tens of thousands had learned to glide. Versailles had denied them, military planes--but not gliders. The invasion of Crete, 22 years later, paid off Versailles' thinking. Planes towed gliderfuls of soldiers to points a few miles off the Cretan coast, then cut them loose.

The gliders landed noiselessly, troops piled out, mowed down Tommies with machine guns, seized airdromes.

At that point, the U.S. had 154 certificated glider pilots, a bare handful of glider pilot-training schools, and fewer than 200 gliders. By summer's end, the Navy had contracted for 14 experimental gliders, including four to carry troops. A score of Army pilots had entered glider training. Marines were training glider troops, flyers and ground crews. Last September a prominent U.S. gliderman, Philadelphia's lanky, shy Lewin B. Barringer, was appointed civilian director of the Army's training program.

The Future. As the program finally got up steam, the possible U.S. war uses of gliders remained secret. But Director Barringer said significantly: "There are two fundamental values in the use of large transport gliders: first, the carrying of troops for a surprise attack; second, the routine transportation of troops. By towing large gliders the transport planes can greatly increase their carrying capacity without decreasing materially speed and range."

Gliders are so ridiculously cheap to build (a steel frame is covered with plywood and "doped" fabric), and have such a variety of potential uses, that no one could believe that the U.S. is employing motorless flight only to make its pilots better flyers and to teach them an awareness of wind & weather. A glider full of troops is no home-defense weapon.

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