page_title: Glider infantry
section_title: Later German operations
hierarchical_section_title: Glider infantry / Later history / Later German operations
context_page_description: Glider infantry was a type of airborne infantry in which soldiers and their equipment were inserted into enemy-controlled territory via military glider. Initially developed in the late 1930s by Germany, glider infantry units were used extensively during World War II but are no longer used by any modern military.
context_section_description: After the heavy losses at Crete the Germans made no more large-scale glider assaults. They did make several coup de main attacks against targets which were not protected by anti-aircraft guns. One of these was Unternehmen Eiche ("Operation Oak") a landing on the Gran Sasso in Italy on September 12, 1943, in which the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was rescued from house arrest.
  Another was an attack (codenamed Operation Rösselsprung) on the headquarters of Marshal Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia in March 1944. Glider troops landed above Tito's headquarters. This was in the middle of a large concentration of Yugoslav partisans, and the glider troops once again suffered heavy casualties, while Tito escaped.
  The last German glider attack was on the liberated Free French redoubt of the Vercors in July 1944. This attack from an unexpected direction drove the resistance fighters from the plateau, but the conduct of the operation was marred by the brutal behaviour of the glider troops.
caption: Luftwaffe soldiers loading the DFS 230 in preparation for deployment
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