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Silent Wings at War: Combat Gliders in World War II

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US Army Aviator Veteran Lowden has assembled an amazing collection of first person accounts of WWII glider operations from those, including himself, who lived them. Well written, almost spell-binding tales of unbelieveable heroism under fire and extremely deadly conditions. The book fills in many of the gaps of reporting in other major WWII literature.

I began doing research into glider pilots and ran across John's book. John's book follows you from his entry into the program, his training, combat, and home from the war. It is a great perspective on the glider pilot. John's book will only make you want to know more, more about the glider pilots, and more about the USAAF glider program. Glider pilots were as close to volunteer suicide as it comes, just they didn't realize it. If you don't know about glider pilots, READ THIS! See if you get hooked like I did and learned all I could about the glider program and all the men who were part of it.

Anyone interested in the work of the glider pilots and the troops they carried into combat will be informed in detail of their dangerous work.

Only one war saw the large-scale use of combat gliders and that was WWII. Gliders accompanied virtually every airborne operation and yet today are rarely discussed. John Lowden tells how he ended up a glider pilot in the U.S. Army while discussing some of the technical ins and outs of gliding into combat. His personal insights, as well as his knowledge about glider operations (American and foreign) make this book a great read. It is well illustrated with maps, photos and even a few cartoons.

John L. Lowden was a World War II pilot - of gliders. That's a bit like saying his job was to be pulled behind an unarmed C-47 transport into enemy airspace and then to deliberately crash land an overloaded, powerless, canvas boxes while under enemy fire. World War II combat journalist Walter Cronkite, who rode a glider into Holland in order to cover Operation Market Garden would later write:

"I'll tell you straight out: If you've got to go into combat, don't go by glider. Walk, crawl, parachute, swim, float--anything. But don't go by glider!"

Cronkite's admonition is quoted by him in the foreword he has written for John Lowden's account of flying and riding gliders into combat in World War II drawing upon his own recollections and those of thirty-nine fellow veterans of combat glider operations as well as other published histories and sources.

Lowden tells his own fairly common story of washing out of power flight school in 1942 before applying for glider pilot training (after six days spent inventorying army blankets in a steel-roofed warehouse in 90 degree temperatures). Chapter by chapter, he carries the story of the U.S. Army's glider pilots and glider troops forward from recruitment and training and on to operations in North Africa, Sicily, Burma, Normandy, the South of France, Holland, Bastogne, and the Rhine River crossing by an entire airborne army. He goes beyond the straight retelling of one anecdote after another to offer information on the principles of flight as they apply to combat gliders (versus sail or soaring planes which try to stay in the air while combat gliders are all about the landing) and describes how the gliders were built, tested, and sent to the theatres of war. He also traces the evolution of the tactical, operational, and strategic use of combat glider forces.

The author relies primarily on his own first hand accounts as well as of other glider pilots and glider troops, as well as the major published works on the subject. These include James Mrazek's The Glider War and fellow glider pilot Milton Dank's The Glider Gang. Lowden's work goes beyond Dank's more strictly narrative account in about the same number of pages and is probably a quicker read, but it is less thorough and detailed than Mrazek's extensive history of all glider operations during World War II whether by Allied or Axis nations. A veteran passenger on several glider missions, Mrazek remains the dean of authors on the topic with several combat-glider related works in addition to the one cited here. Also among the many sources that John Lowden draws on for his account is the art work of Glider Pilot and animator at the Walt Disney studios, Dale Oliver. Silent Wings opens with a chapter dedicated to these cartoons which illustrate "Great Moments in the Life of a World War II Combat Glider Pilot." [Interested readers will find Dale Oliver's work at the World War 2 Glider Pilots Association website[...].]