Broadway - The Initial Glider Landings, 5 March 1944

Glider 24-P

No photo of this glider means another place holder that may or may not be glider 24-P. We know that the pilot and his glider landed at Broadway on D-Day but not whether he was carrying men or materials.


Pilot: 0437163 2/Lt. Richard Ernest Kuenstler (1918-1957). In training, he and his Co-Pilot, F/O Anthony Bracaliello, were injured when their glider crash landed. He also flew as Co-Pilot to F/O Charles Hon in the combat glider mission of 19 March (landing 176278 Lt. John Rankin Urquhart and 10 other men of BLADET Force near Tigyaing).


Co-Pilot: not yet identified

Plane Commander: not yet identified

I will hopefully update this post as necessary.

Regards,
Col

 

Glider 21-B

Unfortunately, this is another glider about which little is known. However, we know that it reached Broadway.


Pilot: as yet unidentified - but the pool of likely candidates is getting rather small!

Plane Commander:

Also aboard:

plus possibly as many as 14/15 men of 81 Column.

As with all these posts, all information is welcome and any new discoveries I make will be placed here!

Regards,
Col

 

Glider 25-B

Another great photo this, as it also shows gliders 25-P, 26-P, 28-B and almost certainly 26-B.


Aside from the obvious fact that 25-B carried a bulldozer, little else is known about it. However, the fact that it carried a bulldozer and that we have only one unassigned crew known to have flown-in a bulldozer that day suggests that it is most likely that this glider was crewed by:

Pilot: 0530730 1/Lt. Jackson Johnson Shinkle (1917-2009), part of the 1st ACG's Intelligence Unit,


Co-Pilot: Cpl. Raymond John Bluthardt (1921-2004), 900th Airborne Engineers.


Sadly, we know nothing of the pilots or cargo of glider 25-P. The pilot of glider 26-P, 1/Lt. Sol Schnitzer, was highlighted in post #57 on page 3 of this thread.

Glider 28-B

This glider was part of the recalled second wave and did not reach Broadway that night.

Regards,
Col

 

Glider 26-B

This was one of the last of the first wave of gliders to land at Broadway on D-Day. It is not known what it carried that night but a fair amount of equipment is still awaiting unloading.




Pilot: T122158 F/O Vernon "Needle Nose" Noland (1922-1986) also flew one of the two gliders that carried folding boats, outboard engines, petrol and 2 passengers to the Chindwin to support the crossing of 16 Brigade on 29 February 1944. His glider was too badly damaged to be of any further use but the other was successfully snatched by a C-47 and towed back to Lalaghat. He subsequently flew-in a replacement bulldozer to Chowringhee from Broadway on 7 March, along with its operator, Cpl. Walt Hybarger of the 900th Airborne Engineers.

Co-Pilot: 11087911 Sgt. Robert E Henderson (1922-2001).

Regards,
Col

 

Having again referenced the combat glider mission of 29 February 1944, it might be worth putting up the relevant glider photos here! Essentially, two gliders were towed from Lalaghat during the late afternoon of 29 February and landed successfully on a sandbank on the east side of the Chindwin near Singkaling Hkamti. Each glider carried folding boats, outboard engines, petrol and two passengers to help support the crossing of the river by 16 Brigade. The glider piloted by F/O Noland was discovered to be too damaged to be of any further use but the glider piloted by F/O James "Mickey" Bartlett (see post #18 on page 1 of this thread) was successfully snatched by a C-47 and towed back to Lalaghat. Here are those gliders being loaded in preparation for that mission:





With only the smallest of apologies for falling down this particular rabbit hole!

Regards,
Col

 

Rabbit hole....what rabbit hole?

 

Haha yes but it is tooo easy to do!

 

I am nearing the end of my collection/accumulation of Op. Thursday D-Day glider photographs. So, it now seems appropriate to post these three images here.

This first photo shows a grader being loaded into a glider named "Wheatfield Annie". Glider 22-P sits in the row in front, so, this glider must surely be 23-B or 24-P as photographs of other gliders in that range exist but do not show the "Wheatfield Annie" moniker although it is more than likely that the name was scrubbed and replaced with a chalk number once loaded.


Here's an unmarked glider being loaded with a jeep and this could quite easily be the only jeep that landed at Broadway on D-Day but I think it more likely that this was on one of the re-called gliders!


Finally, a photo of a jeep trailer being loaded onto a glider. There is no chalk number visible on this glider but it seems that the glider behind has a number that starts with a "3". A jeep trailer is not noted amongst the equipment landed at Broadway on D-Day which suggests that this was indeed in the 30s range and thus either re-called or simply did not take-off that night.


Regards,
Col

 

Glider 1-B

Sitting at Lalaghat on D-Day with 13 packs neatly awaiting the return of their owners.


Sadly, I do not know the names of the Pilot and Co-Pilot nor what else it carried aside from, at least, 13 men. We know that once Piccadilly was cancelled, pilots were pulling rank to ensure that they secured early positions in the flights to Broadway, I would therefore not be surprised if this glider was piloted by Capt. Vincent J Rose, Deputy Commander of the 1st ACG’s Glider Section; seen here talking to F/O Mickey Bartlett (with his back to camera) who shared his tug plane to Broadway that night.



If Rose was the pilot then we can add one known passenger:

Capt. Charles Joseph “Rush” Russhon (1911-1982) of the 10th Combat Camera Unit and the 1st ACG’s Photographic Officer. He was the man who took the photographs that showed Piccadilly was unusable for glider landings and was later one of the first to photograph Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb. Yes, that is Sean Connery!



Regards,
Col

 

Here's a few more images of unmarked gliders at Lalaghat on D-Day.

It's hard to tell whether this glider was due to be part of the second wave or not but it clearly served as a marshalling point for Chindits waiting to board their allotted gliders that evening. There is no trace of a chalk number but there is a faint outline of something that could read "Bertie" or something similar!



This second shot shows some pilots and crew chiefs running to their action stations in preparation for the launch of Op. Thursday:


It is however difficult to know which photographs were staged for the camera and which are genuine impromptu shots as the same personnel seem to have quickly regrouped for a "team photo" in front of the glider that their jeeps stopped at after Cochran's final briefing!


Regards,
Col

 

Two more unidentifiable gliders that were used on D-Day!

The first at Lalaghat. A chalk number can be discerned but, try as I might, I have not been able to decipher it apart from it ends with a P - possibly 2-P or 4-P?


The second is at Broadway - no trace of a number on the glider converted to mess hall but there is an undistinguishable number chalked on the glider parked near the trees at the extreme right of the photograph.


Regards,
Col

 

Fantastic research there guys. But it must have been truly terrifying to be on one of those gliders which seemed to have been very badly designed for the task. A remarkable number of crashes and failures. Has this ever been commented on in any of the post op commentaries…whether lessons have been learnt etc. Propaganda suggests that the fly in was a success, but these histories say something else. Ps I know nothing about gliders or planes.

 

Thanks Steve for info about men in Dads plane…you really are a mine of information.

 

Hi,
All the official contemporary reports, both British and American, that I have read also claim the landings a success and in many ways I suppose they were. They landed about 540 fighting men and about 80 USAAF personnel some 180 miles behind enemy lines. That may not sound like much but the fact those men were there allowed almost 900 men to be flown-in the next night and on subsequent nights. I think that the planners were surprised and relieved that the number of casualties that first night were so modest - about 30 killed and a similar number seriously wounded. The fate of the men on the gliders that failed to make it to Broadway and landed east of the Chindwin and whose occupants were taken POW were not known for a while and, of course, those fatal casualties, about another 30 including those that died as POWs, need to be added to the casualty count for a more rounded figure. I will never lightly talk of the deaths of these men in terms of statistics but war is, by its very nature, a terrible business and these men at least had a clear objective. I believe that lessons were learned from other glider operations, such as the carnage that was Operation Ladbroke in July 1943, and Eisenhower certainly called upon the knowledge of the 1st Air Commando commanders when firming-up his glider operation plans for D-Day in Europe. I fully agree that spending a few hours heading into the unknown aboard a contraption built of a few steel tubes and sheets and a mix of canvas and wood, would fill me with dread!
Regards,
Col

 

Back in June 2009, I chatted to one of the soldiers that went in on the first wave of gliders. This is what he told me:

Pte. 3771136 Philip Hayden was one of the Kingsmen soldiers that flew into Broadway on the 5th March 1944. In 2009, he spoke to Chindit Society archivist Steve Fogden at the Chindit Old Comrades dinner in Walsall.

Steve asked: So, you flew into Burma in one of the WACO gliders Philip. Do you remember the number of your craft? It would probably be pre-fixed with the letter B or P.

Philip replied: All I can remember is that I was worried about the fact the plane was going to tow two gliders at the same time. Very frightening for us first time flyers.

Steve then asked: How long did the journey to Broadway take roughly? Do you recall seeing the Irrawaddy River from the air as you passed over?

Phil Hayden replied in his firm Scouse accent: Listen son, I never saw a thing, I had me head in my hands for the entire time, I was that bloody scared!!

 

A quick question! This is a very well-known image of Wingate et al taken at Broadway on 7/8 March 1944. The cigar-smoking 1st Air Commando standing at the far left is often cropped from versions of this photograph and I wondered who he was. I assume that he was some kind of liaison officer attached to Wingate's team as he also features in other official photographs with Wingate en route to and at Chowringhee but I have never seen a name. Does anyone recognise him or know who he might be?
Many Thanks,
Col

 

Another image of Wingate with the same soldier. The only name I've ever seen put against this man is Frank Merrill, but I'm not so sure about that??

Here is one such example if you scroll down a bit:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/orde-wingate-burma-campaign.html

 

That's the chap Steve. I too have seen him named as Frank Merrill and also as Dick Casey but he is clearly neither of those men. One of the troubles with the internet is that if a misattribution is made, it can quickly get repeated ad nauseum and then becomes accepted, unthinkingly :-( I wonder if he was a journalist?

 

900th Airborne Engineers

One of the last elements to be attached for service in support of Operation Thursday was the US Army’s 900th Airborne Engineer Aviation Company in February 1944. On D-Day, a detachment of these engineers flew into Broadway to create an airstrip capable of taking the C-47s which would fly-in elements of 77 and 111 Brigades.

In all, two officers and ten enlisted men flew-in aboard nine gliders that night; several of these have been mentioned in previous posts in this thread, so, I will not repeat details here. Those that landed were:

O1104554 Capt. Patrick Richard Casey (1915-1944); commanded the engineers and died as a result of wounds sustained on impact. [Glider 17-B]
1/Lt. Robert Russell Brackett (1919-1945); awarded the British MC for his efforts at Broadway. [Glider 35-P]
Sgt. Joseph Anthony DeSalvo (1915-1990); injured his head and broke his thumb on impact. [Glider 35-P]
Sgt. William Walter Geider (1922-2000)
Sgt. Stanley J Ryniec (1920-2005)
Cpl. Raymond John Bluthardt (1921-2004) [Glider 25-B]
Cpl. Ralph Robert Hammond (1919-1994)
Cpl. Walter Joseph Hybarger (1924-1990); subsequently flew-in to Chowringhee to help build the airstrip there. [Glider 24-B?]
Cpl. Murlin Edward Sneed (1923-1996)
PFC Raymond Hylton
PFC Paul F Johnson
PFC Robert E Wade

Here's a photograph of some of these engineers and their equipment boarding a glider at Lalaghat on D-Day.


Unfortunately, the chalk number of this glider is not known but we do know that several engineers flew aboard Glider 5-P; the first glider of the main wave. The other engineers would have flown with their respective pieces of heavy equipment, namely:

4 Clark Tractors (one wrecked on impact) which were carried aboard 17-B, 24-B, 25-B and 35-P. The official reports use the word tractor but we know from photos of glider loading at Lalaghat and activity at Broadway that these were tractors and bulldozers.
2 Carry-all Scrapers, one was carried aboard Wheatfield Annie (possibly 24-P).
1 Towed Grader (damaged on impact)
1 Jeep



The tractor driver above is, as yet, unidentified but here is Lt. Brackett hard at work.




Another Jeep, a Grader and two other engineers were on gliders that failed to reach Broadway that night.

I appreciate that it is a very poor quality image but it is worth placing here as it shows three of the engineers who were at Broadway on D-Day celebrating the completion of their work on the airstrip at Meiktila a year later!

Walt Hybarger, Bob Brackett and Joe DeSalvo.

Regards,
Col

 

Great extra additional information Col. Thanks for posting.