The Great Glider Grab - Salvaging Operation Market Garden Gliders 1944
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- The unknown and difficult operation to recover valuable gliders from the battlefield following the failure of Operation Market Garden in 1944.
Dr. Mark Felton is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers 'Zero Night' and 'Castle of the Eagles', both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries. More information about Mark can be found at: en.wikipedia.o...
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Disclaimer: All opinions and comments expressed in the 'Comments' section do not reflect the opinions of Mark Felton Productions. All opinions and comments should contribute to the dialogue. Mark Felton Productions does not condone written attacks, insults, racism, sexism, extremism, violence or otherwise questionable comments or material in the 'Comments' section, and reserves the right to delete any comment violating this rule or to block any poster from the channel.
Credits: US National Archives; Library of Congress; Duncan Jackson; 'Airborne Operations of World War II' by John C. Warren; 'Silent Skies' by Tim Lynch; 'Arnhem' by Antony Beevor
Thumbnail Image: American Society of Mechanical Engineers
My cousin was a private with the 101st, 506PIR. Operation Market Garden was his first campaign drop and his last - he died on Sep 20, a few days before his 19th birthday. He is buried at Margraten where his grave is well cared for by the locals. Thanks for honoring these vets with your excellent stories.
He and the others are not forgotten. Thanks for telling.
I was fortunate as a young man to have many elderly customers share their life experiences with me. One fought in the Spanish American war, joined the Navy afterwards and got caught up in the Boxer rebellion. Another was General Pershing's driver, and another customer told me about seeing Queen Victoria' s diamond jubilee as a young boy. He was 93 when he told me. One story that stuck in my mind was a WW2 veteran who washed out as a glider pilot. He felt ashamed of being a failure but admitted that have probably would have been killed at Normandy. I hold each of these stories dear in my memory and glad to have met these men. My advice to young people is to spend a moment to listen to old folks tales. History is being written everyday, but these are the people who lived it. I love this channel as there are so many thoughtful comments.
Like yours!
Write them down or they die with you. When coof hit I was like, 'Great, I'm gonna die in a pandemic? Typical." (we know better now, but this was march 2020). I was the only one my spoke to about WW2 and the family history. It suddenly became a priority to get it out of my mind and onto paper.
So I opened up a MS Word doc, sketched out a basic outline, and started filling in around that. I did a bunch of research to fill in the gaps. Using text boxes I folded in some pictures, made a cover with photo shop and uploaded to Amazon's publishing feature. Everyone has copies now. If I go, it's all in hard copy, which will outlive me.
Artfully articulated indeed. This channel is a great one, and its viewers are to be appreciated as well.
Good luck from 🇮🇳
Actually, in todays messed up world they actually re-write history and tell u 2+2=5 ...millions of men have died fighting wars when no war was needed.
I had an elderly friend as a young man in the 1970s. She was a distant cousin of my grandmother and visited us with her from time to time. She and I just hit it off. She had been born in 1889 and went on a tour of Europe in 1910, when she was 21. She may have bought a hand painted postcard from Hitler, but she never found it. So many stories from her. She loved Ronald Reagan and compared him to Teddy Roosevelt. I remember her and tell her stories to my son :)
A security guard at one of my jobs 25 years ago was in the Korean War. He recovered tanks damaged in battle. He said he still had nightmares of what he saw inside the tanks. You don't have to be in "battle" to have PTSD. I have so much respect for ANY soldier.
I heard similar tales of horrific scenes. The Sherman tanks were deathtraps. One old soldier heard screaming from one of them during the Battle of the Bulge that haunted him well into his eighties.
The Sherman was less of a death trap then the T34. This is because the Sherman was easy to bail out of.
@@TRHARTAmericanArtist any tank that got destroyed was a death trap. No one wanted to be in a sherman or a tiger or a panther or T-34 when it got penetrated by a shell. Because by that point, your tank became a steel coffin.
There’s a movie on prime “T34” that is excellent. Doesn’t show the full gore but gives you a good idea. Excellent movie
@@TRHARTAmericanArtist They weren't death traps At all
My late father was at Arnhem (L section 1st Airborne Divisional Signals) and he used to tell a story that during one of the exersizes on the lead up to Market Garden, there was a shortage of gliders, and an officer challenged why a particular glider was supposedly unservicable. He insisted it be hooked up to a tow plane, took it up, cast off the tow rope, carried out a few manouvres, then dove it at full speed and looped it before landing it. At which point he declared it servicable, and it was issued to ... my fathers radio crew. Needless to say they spend the whole exersize flight looking nervously at the 4 3/8th inch explosive bolts that were all that held the tail in place (see 4:00 and 4:12 where tail units have been blown off for a fast exit). He ended up being one of the few who made it back across the Rhine from Oosterbeek and the only survivor from his crew.
You must be so Proud of him.🇬🇧
That officer must have been an aircraft mechanic and/or pilot to know the difference between cosmetic damage, which doesn't matter and structural damage which does.
@@THOMMGBiki.mkoo77999lk800p
@@THOMMGB Only man to have ever looped a Horsa too no doubt... Hmmm...
Interesting note: A British group had the idea to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D-Day, by making a glider from the blueprints used to make the original aircraft. Their plan was to fill it with volunteers who would be towed by a C-47 across the Channel and land in the glider, just like on June 6. When they approached the British government for approval, they were denied permission because they deemed the glider unworthy and unsafe for human occupancy. True story.
Would have been the aviation authority rather than the government, pretty strict from what I know.
It was BAe Systems (the design authority) who didn't want it flown. In the end what they built was so unairworthy that even the RAF museum didn't want it on display. It eventually went to the Overloon museum in the Netherlands.
This time the government / Authority was correct.
I would not fly in a glider from WW2 either! There were 1940s American politicians who flew in one for a demonstration/photo op/war bond drive and it crashed with no survivors.
I was a witness to that crash. It happened on August 1, 1943. I was 5 years old and will never forget it, even to this day. I'm 85 years old now.@@i-a-g-r-e-e-----f-----jo--b
Interesting video as always. Randomly met Babe Heffron and Bill Guarnere about 17(?) years ago. They were part of a tour along with some cast from BoB visiting bases in Europe. They were just sitting at a cafe on a nice afternoon (we were really surprised no one else had recognized them). All were super great about chatting with us and taking some pics with the kids. Of course we felt very fortunate to meet and thank them.
I regret that a long time ago I had a chance to meet Bill Guarnere at an airshow but didn't because I was a nervous kid and thought I would be bothering him
GS that is wonderful!
I met Babe Heffron on New Year's day in 2002 outside of his house on 2nd street in Philadelphia. He lived about half a block down from the Mummer's museum (most of the string band's clubhouses are on 2nd street). After the main parade the string bands party on 2nd street. All the bands stopped in front of Babe's house & played patriotic music. Babe was sitting out front in a wheelchair wearing a 101st screaming eagles sweatshirt. My friends and I walked over and talked to him for a bit.
Real nice old guy.
I wrote an email to Guarnere after the BoB came out. He sent me a handwritten letter in reply. I keep the letter with my Band of Brothers boxed DVD set.
I saw John Glenn and he was talking to a bunch of high Navy Brass. I desperately wanted to meet him and was afraid to go up to him. I got the nerve, despite my ex-wife telling me I was a nobody to him, and went up to speak with him. He and his wife were wonderful people and spent time with me. Never lose an opportunity to meet your heroes. You will always regret it. I don't regret getting divorced though. 😁
My father flew a Horsa in Operation Varsity in 1945. He was RAF and volunteered to join the Glider Pilot Regiment which was of course Army. He and his RAF colleagues insisted on wearing their Air Force blue uniforms and wings. He is 97 and remembers every detail as if it were yesterday. They were an extraordinary group of young men. Your videos are wonderful and much appreciated.
My grandad did too, he was in 2nd airborne glider regiment. Hugh Parry 1902766. He was a glider pilot. Did your father know my grandad at all
@@neillp3827 I’ll ask him and let you know.
From my father: I did not know Hugh Parry. I was with the 1st Airborne and crossed the Rhine as part of it. Once down we were on our own, met up with the Squadron, or what remained of it, took over part of the line and waited ( for two days ) for the 2nd Army to get through and take over our trenches. We were brought back to the HQ. Where we made ourselves useful, guarding prisoners etc and waited for the armour to get through and were then evacuated and brought back to cross the Elbe, but Eisenhower wasn’t prepared to go east of that. All good stuff, terrifying, but wouldn’t have missed it!!
My Uncle Mike was KIA Op Varsity. 466th PFAB. Shot by volkssturm.
Never made it to the ground. I like to think he racked his Thompson and shot the SOB who got him. Salute to you Brits for sacrifices made, military and civilian.
@@johnrudy9404 very sorry to hear about your Uncle. Many brave men died that day. I hope nothing like it happens again. The world is quite unstable at the moment.
One of the best components of a Dr Mark Felton video are his excellent pronunciations. He is the standard that I compare other history videos with. Thank you Sir for your superior content!
The Waco gliders are pronounced
Way Coe. Like the Texas town.
Wack coe means crazy in US slang.
Totally agree
A Plantagenet using the Tudor Rose! A travesty! 😬😁
Not quite, as in 'Waco'.
well he is an actual historian, and he used to work with the history channel, back when that channel was about documentaries, and not about reality shows like pawn stars
My Grandad went into Burma on one of these things, he called them crates.. He also said he met Jackie Coogan (not sure if he was his pilot or not) who was one of the pilots... Uncle Fester in the original Adams Family... :)
Yes, Jackie Coogan served as a glider pilot in Burma. Thanks to your grandfather for his service.
Was he already shooting everyone in the back back then?
No way! My grandfather parachuted from these gliders into Japanese occupied Burma jungles as well . I have a piece of the glider he kept that crashed with date etched on it. He also parachuted into India and China as well. Never met him.
@@bradraczenski2361 much respect your granddaddy
@@bradraczenski2361 These gliders were not designed to be “parachuted out” of. Troops being carried by them didn’t even wear parachutes. Usually.
The final scene of "Objective Burma" has Errol Flynn and comrades in a glider that gets snatched up by a passing Dakota. It really surprised me because I had always considered gliders to be a one-shot weapon.
They sometimes used snatched gliders to remove casualities from battle in CBI too.
Nor are they outdated, the US army has a glider drone program where instead of parachuting supplies that can get blown off course, aerodynamic pallets fitted with foldable wings can simply be dropped out of a C-130 and will glide themselves up to 40 miles to their destination. An even more ambitious British concept even has the drones made out of a consumable material that can be eaten by soldiers on the field or refugees in humanitarian relief operations.
@@fludblud Thats amazing, what would I search to read more about those programs? I was just watching a video this morning about a weapons platform called "Rapid Dragon" which is basically chucking a pallet of 6 cruise missiles off the back of a cargo plane, the pallet deploys chutes and the missiles drop out and glide until their engines are lit.
@@mindrelic Lol copycats...the soviets had the similar type of system going in the 70's and 80's for launching cruise and anti-shipping missiles from transport aircraft
@@Sandman253 (CBI), China, Burma, India and the use of Air Ambulances for the preservation of Human Life during military conflict... Great comment.
My grandfather took part in Operation Market Garden as a British paratrooper and his task was to take the railway bridge which I believe the Germans blew up sometime during the battle, luckily he survived the battle but unfortunately spent the rest of war as a P.O.W
I hope he spent the rest of his life living well after the war. Market garden is an amazing story, it's amazing that any British made it out of there.
My grandfather was a sarjeant in the special boat detachment (not anything to do with the SBS). He worked with the Polish 1st Bgd (Sosabowski) to assist with the withdrawel of the remnants of 1st AB Div (Urquhart) across the Nederrijn at Oosterbeek.
my son too part too..infact we all took part including my grandfather and my aunty
@@joebloggs4845 Is it true you went in disguised as the Berkshire Hunt?
I suspect its incorrect only because it wouldn't be a disguise.
[For our non-Brit readers - Please bear in mind the once Cockney rhyming slng has since been widely adopted throughout the UK].
My uncle Jess was gliders 101st airborne, there was a drop of over 400 gliders, 14 were reusable, without repairs! His brother was 82nd airborne.
they did not bounce very well stout men though!! i read alot of guys were injured or killed in bad landings
The figures are outstanding , the research astounding , Mark your 10 min video is truly
remarkable!!
Recovery and salvage are really interesting topics and rarely covered. Thank you! Timely for the circular economy as well.
Same with burying all the dead bodies.
Rarely covered. Sometimes for good reason.
Very interesting subject to cover. Peeking behind the curtains during (and often closely after) the war sometimes is more interesting than putting a spotlight on things that have been covered thousands of times.
My speciality!
I can't imagine how frightening it must have been to fly and land in these gliders. Another amazing video, Mr. Felton.
Not only that, but now you're stuck there with them. Glider pilot doesn't get to fly back with the transport planes
Now imagine being asked to fly in a patched-up already-used glider of uncertain airworthiness.
They call it "pranging" a glider rather than "landing" for good reason.
I was privelleged to visit Normandy and Arnhem on more than one occasion with my Grandfather, a former Glider Pilot. After D-Day they were back on boats on -Day +1. After Arnhem / Oosterbeek, he ended the war as a PoW and had a very bad experience in the camp until liberated by Russians. But those memories of retracing his steps. Finding his landing spots, are very precious. It took him over 50 years to be willing to return to either location though.
The Germans had erected poles and other obstacles in the designated landing zones which took a heavy toll on men and machines.
Thank you, greetings from the Netherlands ;-)
Here in Brevard County Florida there are some remains, aluminum chunks, out in the Saint Johns River area of gliders from the Banana River Naval base that were used for training from WW2. Thanks Mr Felton.
Imagine going to war against a well-armed, well-trained, and determined enemy in an aircraft with no engines,
that had already been used, patched up, and "recovered". Truly, the Greatest Generation.
I'm not sure how well trained, armed or determined the Germans really were towards the end. The ones that fought western Allies were just dumb. German POWs that got shipped to America lead the best lives possible in the war. They were the safest and ate the best. I've heard after the war ended a lot ended up settling here they liked it so much.
@@1pcfred We had one just down the street in the little Wisconsin farm town I grew up in. Bloody brilliant machinist.
@@theprojectproject01 yeah it was one of the most bizarre aspects of the war just how much German POWs liked their captors. It's pretty much an unheard of situation. I've heard stories of German prisoner trains and when they stopped the locals would give them stuff to eat. They were just such good looking lads. Everyone felt for them.
@Paul Frederick You have yo remember they weren't told stuff like that. While many knew that the Americans treated prisoners far better than the soviets (hence many fleeing to the west to surrender, or fighting bitterly to the last against the reds) they probably didn't really know.jow bad things were for the overall war effort.
A relative and I visited The Silent Wings Museum in Terrell, Texas before its relocation. The museum had interesting displays of memorabilia and a restored glider. The glider pilots were often chaps disqualified from flight school due to eyesight or other reasons. But in reality, they were exceptionally capable, sticking one-try landings while overloaded with men and equipment.
As an aside, my relative had grown up working in the fields not far away, watching the English fliers train to return home for the war. As always, another excellent Mark Felton video.
It's now located outside of Lubbock, I've visited several times as well, great museum!
One of the guys Robert Mason flew with in Vietnam - as recounted in his book _Chickenhawk_ - was in flight school in the US during WW2 when one day his whole class was shipped out to glider school. There they were ... flying powered trainers one day, and the next day practicing in gliders. The guy flew a glider onto a battle field in the Pacific, and then went on to fly fighters in Korea and helicopters in Vietnam.
Mark - you sir, are literally a machine pumping out one very interesting military documentary after another... keep up the good work!
My Granpa was pulled off of bus headed to basic training and sent to a location in Palo Duro Canyon Texas where he was tasked with building a top secret glider runway. 2 miles long 1 mile wide. Perfectly level. He warned against it as the end of the runway was into the canyon where the updraft would eventually kill several pilots before being scrapped and then he was sent to the Texas coast to begin another but the end of the war came and the need for a glider field was no longer. He then worked with a man delivering supplies by air to oil field patches. He said he never wanted to learn to fly. It was around that time he took another job where he operated a water cannon on the first fire ever extinguished by Red Adair.
Interesting.
I grew up in Amarillo and never heard of this. Do you have any more information on this, like where this strip was this exactly?. Seeing that the Texas panhandle has huge swaths of very level land. I am guessing that they built the landing strip on the edge of the cliff to practice landing over the edge of a cliff, like those in Normandy.
I would think that the down drafts were the bigger danger. If you are coming in over the canyon and into the wind. Then the wind spilling over the cliff will give you a down draft the last few seconds when you are low and slow. I am sure it pushed some into the canyon wall.
My family has lived in and ran cattle in the area around palo duro canyon since the 1890's and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a lier.
Interesting life...Thanks for sharing.
What better way to than glide into another fascinating subject from WW2 than with Mark Felton at the controls.
Monty's defenders tend to gloss over this disaster. It really was a very non-Montylike operation. Up to this point, Montgomery had always carefully planned his operations and marshalled his forces, sometimes painfully so. In this case, he rushed headlong into a poorly planned assault. Had he listened to his intelligence reports, he would have known that the 9th and 10th SS Panzer divisions were there. And they were no boy scouts.
And Gavin sat on his ass for 6 hours and did nothing, defend that!
True but possibly Monty was trying to out duel Patton and thought this plan up. As it was your rendition is probably valid as Monty had no idea how to tactically plan this or align all the pieces, but still had an X on the map where the finish line was. It was far fetched operation but a big splash in the war news. I think the King of the Netherlands stated he wanted no more of Monty's "help" after the destruction of Arnhem and other towns.
@@ericscottstevens Patton had better PR professionals than Montgomery. After all his armies had only crossed North Africa and driven the Axis away, while Patton's war to date had been sitting around in Tunisia, hitting a soldier in a hospital, doing PR in England and enjoying a motoring holiday in Britany. Montgomery's armies then drove 300 miles from France into Belgium.
Patton also had Hollywood on his side!
That's OK he and browning had Sosabowski to blame.
I believe the pick up method of returning gliders used here was similar to a system which had been used in the past to allow biplanes to receive messages from ground forces. It has been some time since I came across this but I believe that during WW1, before aircraft were fitted with radios, aircraft which were spotting for the ground forces would pick up messages using this method. Any messages coming from the aircraft were usually put inside a small container with a flag attached. It would be dropped out of the aircraft near to the command position where it would be picked up and read.
"Snatching" a container from the ground in this manner was part of an experimental US Postal Service program to bring air mail to smaller, isolated communities in the US just before WWII. One of the planes used is, or was, on display at the Post Office Museum in Washington, DC.
If you have ever seen the John Wayne movie The Green Berets they use a similar method to snatch up an NVA general from deep in NorthVietnam
I wonder if the glider pilot managed to duck in time when that snatched-up tow rope snapped and came flying back through the windshield.....Yikes!
Imagine if it had failed the other way, the loose end snapping forward and destroying the C47's tail feathers.
Imagine if the glider didn't get moving from a standing start quickly enough, the tow rope didn't snap, and the C-47 lost too much airspeed so close to the ground...
Reminds me of this episode from the Novel "The bridges at Toko Ri" (Korean War) in which one of the pilots claimed he stuck his head into the end of the hydraulic catapult mechanism (thanx for the correction @rempilot) below the flight deck to "cool off" after ops: The large piston travels at very high speed and stops just inches from his head. frightening to say the least.
@@acurafillfilip9868 Great Novel and Movie (One I hope they never denigrate by doing a remake). The Korea era catapults were hydraulic and the idea was to stand just in front of the stopping point of the piston in the catapult machinery space and not flinch as it slammed to a stop inches from your face. It was kind of a way for some of the pilots to prove to themselves they weren't losing their nerve.
@@rempilot thanks for clearing up the hydraulic/steam confusion. As an ex-air Force guy I’m not very familiar with catapult systems or carrier operations but I do find the technology really fascinating. Like how thow they got those early jets back on the carrier and the way they performed Search and Rescue ops in that era! Heroic stuff
My father's a pilot on a C-47. He towed one and sometimes two gliders at D DAY and market garden. I toured one in a Houston museum one day , scary for sure.
Amazing, a brave man, was he in the 9th AF with one of the troop carrier groups? I've researched the 442nd TCG, I also have the unit record, if your father was in the 442nd I'd be happy to send it to you. Cheers.
your father was a good gentile
@@USAAFLANGFORDLODGEHC
My father was in the , 91st troop carrier squadron, 439th troop carrier group.
My Father was in the 9th Air Force 437th Troop Carrier Group on D-Day. He dropped the 82nd and 101st Air Borne and also Towed Gliders in. He survived the war and went on to be in the Korean War and Vietnam. He retired in 1968 from the Air Force. I have been to the Silent Wings Glider Museum in Lubbock, Texas and missed seeing anything about Glider Reuse Programs....Thank you Mark Felton for this Video inlightening us on this subject.
@@jameswalters9516 my father also was in the Korean War. He was in England with the 810 bomb group. Flew b 50 bomber with an a bomb to Russia for 93 days in a row.
My Uncle trained as a Glider Paratrooper. He told me after a few training landings. He was not going to go into battle in those gliders and immediately Volunteered Regular Airborne . He was assigned to the 11th ABN DIV. And went to the Philippine's.
With good reason. Glider troops were considered Airborne. However, they did not get Airborne jump pay and so missed out on those bonuses.
Smart decision. I would much rather jump out of a reliable airplane with a parachute than ride in one of those flying coffins.
The Army Air Corp Museum is one of the few places in the uk where a WACO glider and Horsa can be seen parts are still on there wants list for the Hamilcar well worth a visit
You really have to see these gliders up close to understand how brave the troops they carried were. Most of these rickety crates looked like they were knocked together in a garage by amateur carpenters. Considering the competent British carpenters were building Mosquito bombers, they probably were. Though the US versions weren’t any better. It might’ve been more efficient to train the glider troops to build their own. The idea of re using them is understandable in one sense but in another much like recycling chewing gum.
I guess the amount of effort they put into recovering them really speaks to how valuable basic supplies were at the time
TBO: 1 day
Shows how cheap the army was
In American factories there was a skilled labor shortage. People with no experience were (hopefully) trained on the job. Some industries were better organized.
There were a number of fatalities in the United States when the wings literally fell off the gliders during test flights because of substandard metal fittings…
You never cease to amaze me with presenting WWII knowledge I hadn't learned before. Thank you, sincerely.
FYI, (at least) one of the C47s that were used to pull them out is still flying. She is appropriately named ‘Drag ‘em Oot’ operated by Aero Legends at Headcorn Aerodrome in Kent. We used to jump from her at Normandy and Arnhem every year for the commemorative events…
As a history lover and history channel, you’re always learning some new that you never knew about! That’s the beautiful thing about history. I never even considered or heard of recovering the gliders from Operation Market Garden. Outstanding job Dr. Felton!
Doing the logistic stories is almost always going to be new to one degree or another for most of us. Thanks for doing them and as usual proving you can always learn something new even about subjects you thought yourself knowledgeable in.
This is a truly fascinating factoid you cannot find anywhere else. Thank you for your work Mark!
Dr Felton is the definition of unbiased reporting of historical topics. No one is perfect but great thought and research are on display in each of Dr Felton’s videos. I know that I can trust the title of each video to not be switch bait to get me to click on. When today’s environment of changing history to fulfill certain political agenda’s is taken into consideration that you can’t trust anything or anyone without doing your own research this is one channel I don’t have to do anything but just watch to learn something new. Dr Felton takes out bias and just presents everyone with real history. For a man from across the pond to report on Operation Market Garden without painting to rosy of a picture of it and stay on task about glider’s reuse is fabulous. Thanks.
And when he does do a bait and switch title, he says so within the first 10 seconds, along the lines of "Yes, you read that right, but it's a little more complicated than that..." which is totally fine in my book!
My hometown is exactly in between Arnhem and Nijmegen. Its crazy to think that these guys have landed around me. There was a special role for Polish soldiers. They were the first soldiers to cross the rivers in rubber boats.
And look at the thanks Poland got. Handed over to Stalin
@@mikebellis5713 - Stalin had it out for Poland. He started out with the Bolsheviks as a strong-arm man, a thug. He was smart but not a good student, so the more intellectual Reds like Lenin and Trotsky bullied him. He argued his way into being a general in the Red Army in 1921 when Russia fought Poland; but he was overconfident and the Polish Army beat his Soviet army like a gong; the Polish won the war, and won concessions from Russia that they could not afford, embarrassing Stalin and making him greatly dislike them. The Soviets were just as ruthless and brutal to the Poles as the Germans were in 1939.
The first trip across the river by the poles consisted of 50 men, 35 survived
Timeless! Although I somehow missed this episode 2 years ago, it is just as interesting today as it was then. Thanks for posting these interesting and educational videos.
🙂👍
I knew a man who was a pilot who pulled gliders during the war. He was involved in the recovery operations.
Gentlemen! This is a story you will tell your grandchildren and mightily bored they will be! 😉
Many thanks to Dr Felton for this gem 😀
Ha, good one, nice reference
I see you remember that great line from "A Bridge Too Far" too!
Loved Edward Fox in that role
@@frankpinmtl One of his best!
My Uncle, Staff Sgt George Davis, landed his Horsa, intact at Arnhem. Wonder if his was recovered? He spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. Liberated by the Russians.
What squadron of the Glider Pilot Regiment was he? Where was he captured?
No, the Germans set fire to the gliders at Wolfheze, precisely to prevent an operation such as this.
@@ianjames9574 1st Air Landing Brigade, from memory. I'll recheck it and post an update. Info about him is in a book online. Ok it was F Sqn. He's quoted in the book "Glider Pilots at Arnhem" Its on Google Books. If I find more I'll edit. He was captured in the town, he told me the same thing quoted in the book. "I was hiding in a slit trench in a back garden, I didn't realize it was a temporary (SS?) HQ. Some officers came into the garden and literally fell over me. They discussed between themselves whether to shoot me or capture me, luckily they chose the later" George moved to Australia after the war. He had a large family. He never talked about the war until he was in his 70's. Im very honoured to have met and chatted to him. If you ever get to The Mosquito Museum in Hatfield they have a lot of Horsa parts there. He signed the memorial book when he visited.
@@Fordnan Yes, I did my post before Mark got to the part where only US gliders were recovered!
@@markdavis2475 That's interesting. My grandfather was E squadron, first lift. Captured at Oosterbeek, also spent the rest of the war as POW. It is said that he spoke a little German and asked his captors to speak to an officer, fearing they would be shot too.
My grandfather landed the 82 airborne in the Nijmegen sector in a cg4a.he said some glider pilots were killed when the tow ropes snapped back.
I visited Nijmegen and Arnhem to see the battlefields , a very interesting and somber tour , it was good to meet veterans too and hear their stories.
My father serviced in Iceland for two years in the Signal Corp and his unit was shipped to England and he was attached to the 101sr Airborne as a glider trooper. He never mentioned any combat jumps but the training flights weren’t fun. I remember him saying that the glider pilots had flunked out of bomber school.
The British glider pilots were trained as airborne soldiers, then taught to fly, IIRC.
If there really was a tendency to "assign the dropouts to the gliders", that might have played a big part in making gliders more dangerous than they already were.
Contrast that with Wing Commanders Richard Seys (USAAF) and Fowler Gobeil (RCAF), the pilot and co-pilot on that thoroughly insane _transatlantic_ glider flight (Newfoundland to Scotland, by way of Greenland and Iceland) that Mr. Felton covers in another video. Those guys were flying through insane storms and fog the whole way, sometimes unable even to see the C-47 that was towing them. Think how physically and mentally exhausting that flight must have been. Those guys weren't dropouts from anything, I'll bet. (Even if Seys was assigned to that insanely risky mission by his father-in-law, which is darkly hilarious. Shades of Col. Moodus & Gen. Dreedle in _Catch-22._ )
This is fascinating Mark. I always wondered what happened to all the gliders that were used in Market Garden and other airborne drops where they were used.
I always assumed they got incorporated in the homes or greenhouses of the thrifty Dutch farmers that hosted them. Great material as always from Mark!
Unfortunately, the German troops set fire to them. The metal parts can still be found on the landing sites.
After WWII there were Gliders and other aircraft unused still in their shipping crates in the U.K. and the U.S. They were surplused and auctioned off. There are stories where farmers bought the crated aircraft....drug them out of their crates and burned the gliders only wishing to use the crates for chicken shacks and other livestock shelters. There is a UA-cam video of a museum finding a chicken shack crate and they obtained it for restoration in their glider museum.
This channel is the Gold Standard.
The oddly hilarious in context counterpoint to this was over in the Pacific, where Carrier Air Crews were being told to not waste time repairing damaged Hellcats. Just toss it overboard and get a new one out of the box. Grumman was producing them so much faster than they were being lost. The Navy was running out of parking spaces, but they didn’t want to slow down the production lines or lay people off with the war ongoing.
I see that old footage of them dumping those planes overboard and it is painful.
@@90whatever Probably less painful then what happened to all the Hellcats after the war. Painted Orange and used as target and test drones. The vast majority of the Hellcats built were shot down by the US Navy and Marines.
It is amazing to me how little Germany could think that it could fight the entire might of the Soviet Union, the United States and the British Empire of 1944. Germany was out numbered by what, 8 to 1 or was it 7 to 1. Such ingenuity by the Americans and British, amazing. Thank you Mark Felton, your stories are wonderful.
It was Germany and Japan at that point. Every other person that died in WW2 was a Russian.
Some one should have gifted Mr. Hitler with a World Almanac in 1932 or 1933.
History Channel: Who are you?
Mark Felton: I am you, but with fewer aliens.
More like the ghost of History Channel past.
History Channel: Who are you?
Mark Felton: I am you, but with actual history.
And no fawning over pawning.
I learned something today !thanks!
Absolutely amazing video. Thanks much for your efforts to pull this together.
Cheers from Brazil.
Great video - Can you imagine the trepidation of a glider pilot sitting in a patched up machine waiting for a C47 to fly over and pick up your tow rope! You would imagine yourself about to be catapulted into the nearest tree!
Nothing compared to the trepidation of the C47 pilot wondering if the glider will take off as planned, or if it'll pull the C47 out of air.
ROTFL I can really see that in my mind!
Yet another masterpiece brought to you by Mark Felton ! Thanks a lot for your work !
Bleeding heck. Surfing U tube and Mark has been on for 11 minutes. 1.5k views. Good Lord. Must be a "must watch' jobbie. And it is!
Dear Mark, I had a few long too long weeks being unsubscribed to your channel.
But here I am and full of joy to listen to your lectures. I missed them very much.
Dr Felton, please, continue.
The spearhead 1st airborne was roughly handled by the germans...i love the typical British understatement.
...80% loses... roughly handled I'd say!
@@wilfdarr Indeed, it seems the 1st was served a meager tea by their German hosts.
It’s a great day when Mark Felton uploads
Just started reading the castle of the eagles, took me a while to get round to it and I'm glad I did, cheers for the top notch content proffeser Felton!
Yet another aspect of WWII that I had never given thought to nor even considered. Thank you again Dr. Felton for this.
Very informative, I had assumed the gliders were scrapped or burned after use.
Whilst on the topic of Market Garden, any chance you could do an episode on the Polish General Stanslaw Sosabowski?
Yes, at least some burned in place... Interesting that their burn mark was visible for years afterward ...
Another unique story from Dr. Felton. Many thanks.
Two episodes within 24 hours? The Fates have blessed us!
Same. I just finished watching and commenting on a Mark Felton video and then another one turns up in my feed!!!!
These 10min videos packing so much information... unbelievable!
Both stories & their telling! 🔝
No one that reviewed the plan for Market Garden heard the part about the narrow road? Seems like a colossal oversight to me.
I not only never knew this but never thought about it. Very interesting.
Getting picked up by a plane flying over.... that's so crazy! the forces put on both planes, must be a very frightening moment for both pilots. Incredible that the planes don't get ripped apart!
7.50 shows the tow lugs pulled away from the airframe, strain must of been incredible 0 to 70++ mph in a few seconds
@@Elatenl think that was from the cable coming back toward the cockpit after snapping
By 1958, the Fulton aerial retrieval system, or "Skyhook", was picking up humans the same way. Must have been quite the experience.
@@Elatenl how sure? I think there had to be. For keeping it airborne and for landing.
@@Elatenl that was when the shock cord sprang back and punched the glass out. Look at 4x4 recoveries gone wrong, happens way more often than good sex.
Hey Dr. Felton...I always click "Like" on your videos before the video actually starts. An indicator of my esteem for your work.
Pre-emtively saying good work Mark, Keep up the good work!
I have never heard of this. Once again, Dr. Felton is educating me.
There is an unrestored Waco glider in my local WW2 aviation museum here in Idaho. It was converted into a camping trailer at one point!
Great wartime footage of the aftermath of “a bridge too far” - thanks for awesome video Dr Felton
I'd have hated having to ride one of these in WW2! Terrifying! Having being Airborne qualified in '89. Give me a parachute.
Ironically, in the US Army, the parachutists got flight pay, and the glider troops didn't. Given that a glider landing was basically a controlled crash, it should have been the other way around.
I’ve known about operation Market Garden for some time but I had no idea how many gliders were used and how much effort was expended to recover those aircraft that were salvageable. Simply amazing.
Loved the video Mark. The Waco (pronounced Wah-Co) airplane company has a very interesting history. Initially they made biplanes in Troy Ohio, near the wright brothers's Dayton. They designed their glider for the war, subcontracted it out, and pretty much disappeared.
There is a Museum for them still in Troy Ohio, and the reminants of the company became part of BF Goodrich, now Collins Aerospace, and they now make the Wheels and Brakes (Ironic) for nearly every airplane.
So I did get the pronunciation correct this time!
@@MarkFeltonProductions Yes. Second time is the charm.
@@MarkFeltonProductions Yes. It is correct. Three pronunciations out there ... Way Co, Wack O, and Wah Co. Last one is it. I better know, my father flew them in Operations Detroit, Dragoon, Market and Varsity. One could say he was Wack O.
Trying to work here..oh oh got a mark Felton notification..time for a break here...mark Felton master of all history channels both on you tube and across the universe....I try to reuse and recycle as much as possible...thanks mark for another great video on Gliders!
U.S. Army doctrine required three all-weather paved highways to exist in front of any armored or infantry division for operational plans; to that, the Great Monty said, "Bosh!", and tried to send an entire corps up a single raised highway across open country that was defiladed and exposed virtually the entire way to Arnhem. All Market Garden accomplished was delaying the entire Allied advance for 3 months, destroyed 3,000 gliders, killed off the Red Devils as a fighting force, killed and wounded another 60,000 crack allied airborne troops and subjected the Dutch people to another 6 months of Nazi terror. It also no doubt helped assuage that pompous little glory hound's ego. The entire war effort in Europe would have been far better along had he remained in France pivoting on his Caen.
The problem is where do you go with limited supplies?, & hindsight is a wonderful thing. I don't doubt Monty's v Patton's egos got in the way though. Churchill may also have been pushing for some extra late war British prestige as the Americans were eclipsing them/had eclipsed them on the world stage. The Allies got caught up in their own 1944 advance success, & thought the Germans were spent. Another issue was that the Parachute/Glider units had been training for a long time, had previous cancelled missions and would start losing effectiveness, which worried the Allied High Command & it takes a very long time to organise or cancel - which were part of the reasons it went ahead (despite the poor intelligence & overall plan, the risk was worth the potential rewards to the Allied High Command, & politicians).
Are you sure it's 60,000 other airborne troops, seems too many?
With hindsight taking the sea passage & covering islands to Antwerp port would have been more successful, BUT... the mission nearly worked, & may have done so if the Allies had done the max drops on Day 1, the Germans weren't so skilful with their counter attacks along the single corridor (didn't they capture a map of the plans early on?), & the Americans captured one of the earlier towns/river crossings when it was open.
Many actions are won or lost by a fine margin, if it succeeds the general is said to be a genius, if it fails he is a fool. Your condemnation is far too stark and too easy to make in hindsight.
As for the US 'requiring' this or that, well just about every other military does, or tries to do, what it has to with what it's got.
Well said, Monty was nearly as bad as Churchill. Caen...hmm, another f--k up. Peace be unto you.
@@martinwarner1178 For context, what part of Caen are you saying was bad please? The initial plan to reach it on D-Day, the envelopment, capture, push beyond, or all of it?
@@eze8970 The bombing, with not a care for people, city, the country of France. As with bombing of Germany. Brutes acting towards women and children.
Love these. Always well-researched, perfectly concise and interesting.
I'm far from an expert, but the biggest problem with Market-Garden is that there was little if any room for error. Every part had to succeed or the whole thing would fail. Monty screwed up and he was just trying to save face.
He screwed up every time he was in charge
The whole plan was hair brained and impossible in practice. Maybe if there were no Germans it could have worked. But there were, so it didn't. It didn't even take a lot of Germans to completely screw it up. Relying on that one road to move the ground element was foolhardy. That was no normal road over normal ground. It was a raised road over soggy ground. Which made it a shooting gallery.
Right, but everyone knew he had failed. The Brits still ashamed of that.
Mark love your content. Best WWII videos ever. Better than TV
The failure of Marketgarden does not diminish the effort and sacrifice of those that conducted the entire operation.
Yes they did it for our Fried dom
@@Cazador60140; To give half of Europe to the Russians.
Thank you!
In the dutch movie 'De slag om de Schelde' (english title = the forgotten battle) there is a scene of these glisers being towed and what that was like, especially under fire. I mean, no armor whatsoever on those things.
those glider snatch video shots were really cool, many thanks!! (sometimes i worry abut why i enjoy this obscurata so much)
OK So as an aircraft mechanic let me just say that glider recovery sounds like the crap end of the stick as far as maintenance details go. I feel for those guys working out in the rain and artillery fire!
Another phenomenal WWII story. Thank you Mark!
Can't believe it was ever considered to be economically or militarily valuable to try and reuse non-engined aircraft which I would assume were mostly made of wood. Surely it would have just made sense to have broken down those that were useful for spare parts and left the rest than resources on engineers, aircraft, and fuel in flying them back to base
The British gliders were of wood construction, but the American Waco ‘Hadrian’ used an all-metal frame.
these were still hard to make, what i would have expected is that they be dissassembled and reassembled and loaded onto trucks instead
surely they would know what was worth it and what wasn't
@@istoppedcaring6209 From the video I'm not sure they did still I always thought gliders were one use and disposable. It just feels like the sort of thing the resource short Germans might do
Great video sir. There is an outstanding Glider Museum in Lubbock Texas next to the international airport as it used to be a glider training school in WW2.
"A Bridge too far"
Congratulations prof. Felton! I always wait your videos and war stories with great joy and thirst for knowledge. Thank you so much for your efforts in keeping education at a high standard!👍
You didn't mention aluminium (or aluminum). The gliders - particularly the American Wacos) were full of aluminium which was a resource the Allies were desperately short of throughout the entire war. It was really precious stuff and worth recovering. How precious? Well, the US Army signal corps was forced to use steel for the casings, chassis and internal struts of many of its later radio sets because of a critical shortage of aluminium. Steel, although plentiful, is nearly twice as heavy as aluminium so that was a significant and very unwelcome weight penalty - especially for portable sets. Whilst the US was undoubtedly the 'Arsenal of Democracy' in WW2, we may not know that the British Empire & Commonwealth was a vital supplier of RAW MATERIALS to America. Many billions of dollars worth of rare and precious metals (refined or as ores), - things like chromium, molybdenum and gold - were supplied, along with fibre, woven fabrics, quartz (for radio crystals) and particularly rubber (the only free world source was British Ceylon - and synthetic rubbers, neoprene and so on, were far from successful in the war) along with vast quantities of petroleum products from British refineries in the Middle East as well as foodstuffs from Oceania were sent to America and US troops - particularly in the Pacific, SEA and CBI theatres via 'reverse lend lease'. American Lend-Lease supplies accounted for LESS than one-fifth of even just the British Isles war production; useful, sure but not the 'total dependence' that US revisionists have attempted to claim ever since WW2.
The Waco were not full of aluminium, they were built from steel tube covered in fabric and the wings were mostly wood. Likewise the British gliders used very little aluminium.TheHorsa was one of the most wooden aircraft ever built and the majority of the metal used was mild steel. The larger tank carrying Hamilcar used not only mild steel but also stainless steel at the high stress points, yet it was still mostly wood, and not high grade wood at that.
Fantastic. Entirely unknown to me, very informative, one of your best efforts. Thanks!
Great video, as always. I really like them.
One sort of related question: if Market Garden had succeeded and they would have crossed the river Rhine, they would still have to cross one more river before they could enter Germany: the river IJssel. A river that is also quite wide near Arnhem. I’ve never seen any plans how they wanted to tackle that problem. Does anyone know?
Fair point. If Arnhem is under Allied control, then there appears to be some crossing points nearby. Effectively, it's all about racing the Germans North to the main crossing & outflanking points. I'd imagine the main point would be to get over the Rhine, & split the German forces in two, bottling up those major forces to the West/along coast, without those the Germans are in even more serious trouble.
@@eze8970 yes, there are bridges over the IJssel, of course. But they can be blown up as well (just as they were afraid the Germans would do with the bridges over the other large rivers). It just seems weird to make all that effort to get possession of the first bridges ms to forget that there is one more river to cross. Because when you’re in Arnhem, you still can’t just waltz into Germany without crossing a large river.
@@Natureviewmovie The main thing for the Allies was to split the German forces, & get over the largest river. The confusion this would cause would help their advance later on.
I do agree it looks odd on the map, but they just didn't have the capability to do the extra river, they struggled with 3.
As the saying goes 'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it'!
Went to the war museum at Arnhem, 1975. Thanks for reporting on this aspect of that terrible battle. I had not known why it was a bridge too far.
“First out where the paratroopers!” When a glider was clearly visible already on the ground.
Just because the glider is on the ground doesn't mean anyone actually got out of it.
@@1pcfred The narration is incorrect, if it's referring to the landings north of the Rhine, in any case. Glider-borne troops were to secure the drop zone at Ginkel Heath, which they managed - briefly - before being overwhelmed by the old men and boys apparently on the verge of surrender...
@@Fordnan never underestimate old men and boys.
Another fascinating video about a topic I had honestly never hear of. Good work.
Holy crap, I wonder how that glider pilot was on the receiving end of the tow line!
0 to 120 in a second or so, and they probably didn't have suspension webbing or very good seats. Talk about whiplash!
Perhaps the pilot jumped aboard after the glider was yanked off the ground.
There’s a glider museum just south of Amarillo, TX where they used to train in WWII. They have one fully restored glider. It’s a pretty nice museum and worth seeing once in an afternoon.
Pronounced 'Wayco'. 'Wacko' is best used to describe the whole concept of Market Garden.
Yeah we'll push the armor element up a narrow road. What can possibly go wrong?
Or what went on near Waco a few decades ago.
I think that the non-landing recovery method. For gliders. Was pioneered in Burma by Ord Wingates Chindits. Enabling casualties to be evacuated from behined Japanese lines. Another great video. Thanks Dr Mark.
That glider snatching with the tow plane must have been dangerous as I'm sure the towplane received great drag and pull back when it engaged the glider, and I'm sure if the glider decided to shed a wing or flip that could be bad for the tow plane at very low altitude if he lost control even just briefly.
And, there was a pilot in the glider as well. They must've ferried them back and forth.
That's why they used a bungee cord to convert some of the tow plane's kinetic energy to potential energy without pulling it out of the sky. Then that (stored) potential energy would assist with launching the glider. Physics works ...