Broadway - The Initial Glider Landings, 5 March 1944

Thank you Steve - much appreciated!

 

Here's a decent photo of Mike Calvert looking pleased with the state of the airstrip at Broadway before the fly-in of the remainder of his brigade!



Regards,
Col

 

Strewth... WTF have I been missing...?

 

Glider 10-P



A rather problematic post this as the glider in the photograph is likely not 10-P and I may be on the wrong track completely. So, like any good schoolboy, I shall try and show my workings on this!

I had forgotten that Bill Towill was aboard a glider that did not make it very far from Lalaghat and glider 10-P is the only one of the 8 gliders that came down within India on D-Day whose Plane Commander was unknown to me. This therefore seemed a potential hit! However, Towill noted that his glider was part of the fifth pair to take off from Lalaghat and that his was the port side tow - the starboard side being filled by Peter Fleming and his crew. While an excellent writer, we need to bear in mind that he wrote his memoirs about 45 years after D-Day and so some details might have slipped his mind or were included for narrative effect. Fleming's contemporaneous report of his glider crash noted that he was in tow with glider 14-P (whose fate is well documented) and that his glider took the port side. The fifth pair of gliders out of Lalaghat that night were gliders 5-P and 6-P but the ninth pair is not so far away from that number as Fleming's fifteenth pair! Given that the Plane Commanders of all the other seven gliders that landed in India that night are known, the other glider to not have left India, 10-P, seems a very strong candidate for Towill's glider!

If so, then we have the following men aboard that night:

Pilot: 2/Lt. Anthony John “Tony” Bracaliello/Bracall (1920-2019). In training, he and his Co-Pilot, 2/Lt. Dick Kuenstler, were injured when their glider crash-landed. Towill noted that “the pilot had done a remarkably good job” in landing his glider in a paddy-field that night.

Co-Pilot: unknown if there even was one.

Plane Commander: IA-490 Lt-Col. James Henry Noel George (1901-1984), C/O of 3/9 GR; in December 1943, he was MID in recognition of his services in Burma and on the Eastern Frontier of India and again for his services in Burma during Operation Thursday. Casevac on 4 May 1944, served on the War Staff of the India Office in the run-up to independence.

Maj. Beattie
Capt. D H Cox, att 3/9 GR;
260202 Capt. Archibald McDougal Fyfe, RAVC, 77 Brigade VO; reported missing near Kamaing during the night of 13 July 1944, believed drowned but body not recovered. CWGC notes killed in action on 17 July 1944.
127197 Maj. Cuthbert Roy Houghton, RAMC, 77 Brigade MO; recommended for an MC for his actions under fire in Greece in April 1941 but awarded an MBE instead; MID in recognition of his services in the Middle East between November 1941 and April 1942 and again for his services in Burma during Operation Thursday.
EC-6417 Lt. William George Towill (1920-2014), 3/9 GR, Intelligence Officer; a veteran of Dunkirk and the Arakan, author of A Chindit’s Chronicle and probably the Chindit's second-most famous member of the Plymouth Brethren, whose photograph is below.


Also aboard:

Sgt. Pringle
Sgt. Thompson
Cpl. Thurston
Gnr. Fowkes
Pte. Lawson
Pte. Reed
Rfn. Dham Bahadur, 3/9 GR
Rfn. Khan Bahadur, 3/9 GR
Rfn. Sib Bahadur, 3/9 GR

This glider cut its tow not long after take-off and was forced to land in a paddy-field between Lalaghat and Silchar. Towill’s account notes that “Apart from being shaken up and a little bruised most of us had suffered no harm. … A few red Verey lights fired into the air and, before long, transport picked us up and we were in line again, standing alongside another glider and hoping for better luck.” The glider party eventually flew into Broadway aboard a C-47 on D-Day+1.

Regards,
Col

 

Detachment 101 at Broadway

I am hoping that someone, more well versed in Detachment 101's activities in Burma than I, can shed some light on their presence at Broadway on D-Day. I have read accounts that state that Capt. Sherman Pete Joost, then the Detachment 101 Liaison Officer attached to the 1st Air Commando Group, flew-in to Broadway on the initial glider landings but this seems to have arisen from some confusion, at some point in the past; as Joost did fly-in to Broadway but on a C-47 with DAH Force on D-Day+6. Similarly, many sources state that Special Force's Detachment 101 Liaison Officer, Lt. Charles Clarkson Stelle, also flew-in on D-Day. This claim may carry some weight as Wingate had told Calvert at the end of February 1944 that he "would like him [Stelle] to go with you [into Piccadilly]". Stelle was certainly at Broadway by 22 March as he participated in one of the patrols from there the following morning but was he there on D-Day? I can't find him on any of the C-47 manifests so perhaps he was although he could simply have flown on a dedicated 1st ACG aircraft!

Another curious thing about Stelle's early sojourn in Broadway was that he is said to have arranged (by the 19th of March) the replacement of six Kachins attached to Special Force with six Detachment 101 Kachins - the six Special Force men having apparently been killed in a glider crash-landing. If this is true, then those six men could only have been passengers on either glider 6-P or glider 9-B as no other gliders carried such heavy losses that night and no other crashed gliders are known with such a high number of non-British personnel aboard. This glider could, of course, have crashed after D-Day but I have never found a hint of a crashed glider outside the main, known, operations - has anyone else?

As ever, all thoughts welcome!!

Joost is pictured below left and Stelle (in cammo gear) at right - both men went on to enjoy very successful careers in the CIA and the State Department.


Many thanks!
Regards,
Col

 

Was hoping there might be something in The Deadliest Colonel by Thomas Moon and Carl Eifler, but nothing doing Col.

 

Thanks for checking Steve!!

 

Here's an interesting snippet concerning all the gliders used on D-Day!


And a few images from 6 March 1944 to help illustrate that they were immediately put to good use!






This is an image of Alison, who took charge of the landings at Broadway on D-Day with two injured glider pilots - possibly T749 F/O Russell John West (1918-2007) who broke his ankle on landing and T465 F/O James Kenneth Rollins (1918-1987) who lacerated his hand on landing at Broadway.


Regards,
Col

 

Glider 27-P

This glider, in tow with glider 28-P, was one of the last pair of the first wave of gliders to land at Broadway on D-Day. The below photograph showing the attachment of a tow-rope to a glider at Lalaghat that day may or may not be chalk number 27-P!


As yet, little is known about this aircraft or its passengers and cargo. The glider's Co-Pilot and Plane Commander are unidentified but we know that its pilot that night was :
2/Lt. Herbert Joseph Delaney (1920-1981)


As ever, this post will be updated if/when more information emerges!

Regards,
Col

 

Glider 16/17-P?



Just to keep this thread ticking over, here's T1273 F/O Earl Curtis Waller (1921-1999); a pre-war enlistee and keen musician who, later in 1944, served as a glider pilot in France with 98 Troop Carrier Squadron, 440 Troop Carrier Group. I believe that he piloted glider 16-P or 17-P and its cargo of Chindits into Broadway on D-Day - a flight that he described as "like going through hell, a second at a time”.



During his down-time in Lalaghat and Asansol, he co-wrote the song "Basha Blues" with F/O Kenneth Georgeson - dedicated to his CO, Maj. Bill Taylor, and the other men of the 1st ACG.



Regards,
Col

 

Just one of those serendipitous moments the other day. I was discussing the glider landings with one of Peter Heppell's family and they mentioned that James Olney and Albert Small were two of Peter's best pals. He searched out their graves at Taukkyan War Cemetery when he visited Burma (including Broadway) in 2006.

 

Thanks for this Steve - an emotive reminder indeed that these simple names were all once friends, fathers, sons, brothers and husbands!!

 

Thanks Col. The family were a little sad that Peter couldn't share now in all the information on this thread, but were amazed with what has now come to light......manifests and all.

 

To fill-out this thread a little, I thought I should add some details on the 1st Air Commando Group pilots who flew the C-47s that towed the gliders to Broadway that night. I believe that the 1st ACG's Transport Section included 26 pilots, so some are clearly missing from this group photo taken in February 1944.



Unfortunately, verified information on which Pilot flew which plane alongside which Co-Pilot is very hard to come by! However, I believe that we can be fairly sure of the men who flew the pathfinder force to Broadway on D-Day.

Major William Terrell “Bill” Cherry (1915-2000), Commander of the 1st ACG’s Transport Section and pilot of the first tow plane to Broadway on D-Day and to Chowringhee the following day. In October 1942, he was the pilot of the B-17 carrying the Rickenbacker mission that ditched into the Pacific Ocean, he later saw service in the Korean War and was one of the first to pilot a Boeing 747. Pictured below (smoking a pipe) with Capt. Thomas R Baker who flew the fourth tow plane on D-Day.



Capt. Jacob Peter “Jake” Sartz (1917-2007), Deputy Commander of the 1st ACG’s Transport Section; a pre-war enlistee and highly experienced pilot who flew the second tow plane to Broadway.

Capt. Richard Eugene “Dick” Cole (1915-2019), Engineering Officer of the 1st ACG’s Transport Section and the Pilot of the third tow plane although some sources claim he flew the fourth plane. He was Doolittle’s Co-Pilot during his raid on Tokyo in April 1942 and a veteran Hump pilot. He is pictured below standing to the left of Lt-Col Doolittle. His Co-Pilot on D-Day was Lt. Ralph Cauthorn Bordley (1922-1988).



Regards,
Col

 

Regarding glider 3B
I found this in my trolling of the Indian Archives. This was in NAIDLF00859129 Airbearing Thursday
It is a report by the group that picked up Olsen & Evan’s. It’s a slightly confused report as they were also trying to get back home, and some of the text reflects that. Also, it appeared in the middle of a file without the previous pages, so I’m not entirely sure who wrote it, but here goes

 

Ah, regarding #215 above…
I’ve found the front page
It is the report regarding Glider 4B, and their journey back
I can isolate the pages and post them if desired

Jim

 

Yes, that's Guyon's report on the loss of 4-B - a chap who was fortunate to walk out of the jungle and not succumb to an unfortunate "accident". I seem to recall that the War Diaries for 3/1 GR carry very little on this but I guess we should not be surprised as it was only one of a number of patrols they had out that day.
Regards,
Col