Glider infantry Glider infantry ( also referred to as Airlanding infantry esp . in British usage ) was a type of airborne infantry in which soldiers and their equipment were inserted into enemy controlled territory via military glider rather than parachute . 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 . Early history . With the treaty of Versailles preventing any other form of pilot training in Germany , large numbers of gliding clubs and schools were formed there after World War I . Later , when planning the invasion of France , the German military was faced with the problem of the Belgian fort of Eben Emael which dominated the River Meuse . Someone ( according to some reports , Adolf Hitler himself ) pointed out that the top of the fort was a flat grassy expanse on which gliders could land . Eight DFS 230 gliders , carrying 85 Pioneers under Leutnant Rudolf Witzig , landed on the roof of the fort in the early hours of May 10 , 1940 . There had been no declaration of war , and they achieved surprise . Using the new shaped charge s , they disabled the fort ' s guns and trapped the garrison inside . The assault cost only 21 casualties . In the aftermath of this episode , the Allies formed their own glider forces , as part of their airborne force s . Before they could see action , the Germans had made their largest airborne operation , the attack on Crete . Their glider troops and paratroops suffered heavy casualties , and the Germans decided that this mode of warfare was too costly . In 1942 , Winston Churchill decreed the formation of a British glider force of 5000 gliders . American plans were on a similar scale . Allied organisation . The gliders which were most widely used by the Allies were the American - designed Waco CG - 4A , which could carry 13 passengers , and the British - designed Airspeed Horsa , which could carry 25 passengers . Both of these aircraft used plywood extensively in their construction , with the CG - 4A also using aluminium to provide greater strength in its framing . To deliver especially heavy loads , the British General Aircraft Hamilcar could carry up to eight tons ( 8 , 000 kg ) of equipment . Much like conventional gliders , these aircraft were towed behind a powered aircraft , usually a C - 47 ( or the Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle in British units ) , and were then released near the designated landing area called the Landing Zone ' or ' LZ ' . The crews of these aircraft landed their aircraft in circumstances which would challenge the most seasoned pilot . They had but a few moments to pick a likely landing spot , avoid the other gliders making similar approaches and those already on the ground , avoid incoming enemy fire and then land the aircraft without crashing into any trees or ditches and do so softly so as to ensure that the aircraft and / or cargo were not damaged in the process . Prior to the Battle of Normandy , Allied command feared that the losses suffered by glider groups would be as high as 50 - 70 % before even encountering the enemy . This fear was based on expectations for high numbers of crash landings and encounters with anti - aircraft defences . The actual losses were less than the estimates and were comparable to the losses of associated parachute units ; interestingly , the losses suffered by certain Glider Artillery battalions ( e . g . , the 319th and 320th of the 82nd Airborne ) were higher than the losses of the associated Glider infantry ( i . e . , the 325th ) primarily because the two artillery battalions landed in the evening hours of D - Day and the landing zone ( LZ - W ) near St . Mere Eglise was not secure with many casualties occurring from enemy anti - aircraft and machine gun fire in addition to crash landings . In contrast , the 325th landed on D - Day plus 1 and faced less intense enemy fire ; while more than half of the 327th GIR landed by boat on the third day at Utah beach because of the lack of gliders to carry them into Normandy . Initially the American Glider Infantry Regiments ( GIR ) had only two battalions , but later in Europe , the two battalions of the 401st GIR were divided in March 1944 to act as the 3rd battalions of the 325th & 327th GIRs . In March 1945 the 401st was disbanded and the battalions formally became part of their new regiments . In both the British and American armies , there was a sense that the glider infantry were poor cousins to the more glamorous paratroopers . In the British Army , whereas paratroops were volunteers , airlanding units were line infantry units converted without any option ( although they were entitled to wear the same maroon beret as the Parachute Regiment ) . In the US Army , glider troops did not receive the extra pay awarded to paratroopers until after the Normandy invasion ( where glider troops provided essential support to the parachute regiments and fought on the front - lines alongside their parachute brethren ) . This blatant inequality of treatment came to the attention of U . S . Airborne High Command and from that point forward the glider troops were issued the same jump boots and combat gear as paratroopers ( including the M1A1 carbine with folding stock ) and earned the same pay until the war ended in Europe . There are numerous examples of glider troops volunteering as replacements for paratroop units but very few , if any , examples of paratroopers volunteering for the gliders . In one respect the American and British armies differed . The British Glider Pilot Regiment were not only trained aircrew , but also well - trained infantry , most of whom would have been junior or senior NCO ' s in other units . By comparison , the American glider crews were treated as mere drivers . Usage and doctrine . Firstly , glider infantry are loaded into gliders which are attached to towing aircraft by a cable . The loaded gliders are then towed through the air by towing aircraft and flown to a release point usually just beyond the hearing range of enemy troops . The tow cables are then released and the gliders would be piloted , without engine power , to a designated landing zone . Once the gliders landed , the troops and equipment would disembark and enter combat . Glider pilots were often organized together after landing to fight or be extracted to safety . Compared with paratroops , alongside whom they would operate , glider - borne troops had several advantages : However using gliders as a method of insertion also had serious drawbacks : Later history . Sicily . The Allies first used gliders in the invasion of Sicily in 1943 . This first experiment was disastrous . Poor planning and bad weather resulted in the gliders being scattered in the air . Several landed in the sea and 200 men drowned . Few gliders reached the intended landing zones , and only 73 men ( from most of a brigade ) reached the intended target , the Ponte Grande bridge south of Syracuse . Normandy . With better intelligence and planning , the glider landings in The Battle of Normandy were far more successful . In particular , one coup de main force in six Horsa gliders seized vital bridges over the River Orne by surprise . The British 6 Airlanding Brigade were in action early on following concentrated landings , and prevented early German attempts to counter - attack the Allied landings . American landings were more scattered , but still more successful than many planners had hoped for . Arnhem . In Operation Market Garden , the British 1 Airlanding Brigade were landed on the first day of the operation . The landings took place in daylight and were unopposed , but the only landing and drop zones thought suitable for such a large force were a considerable distance from the vital bridge which was the objective . No attempt was made to mount a coup de main attack by glider ( although this was largely due to the haste with which the operation was mounted ) . A jeep - mounted reconnaissance squadron brought in by glider failed in the mission . In the subsequent fighting , the airlanding brigade and the Glider Pilot Regiment suffered heavy casualties . Rhine crossing . The last major operation involving gliders was the crossing of the Rhine in 1945 . To avoid the long delay in relieving the airborne troops which had been a major cause of the failure of Operation Market Garden , the landings were made close to the German front line defences . The landings took place in daylight once again , and heavy German anti - aircraft fire took heavy toll of the vulnerable gliders . Most Allied casualties were incurred by the glider pilots . Far East . The Chindit s , a large force operating behind Japan ese lines during the Burma Campaign , were flown by the 1st Air Commando Group to landing zones which had been secured by advance guards landed by glider on March 5 , 1944 . This operation , although successful , also incurred heavy casualties . This was partly because the intended landing ground was changed at the last minute . Also , the distance flown and the loads towed by the tug aircraft were greater than anything met in Europe . Many gliders had to be released over enemy territory or mountains . Others crashed on landing on the unfamiliar landing zone . However , enough construction equipment was landed to make the landing ground fit for transport aircraft . Later German operations . 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 . Post war . Glider infantry did not survive long after the close of World War II . The German glider infantry units were disbanded . The U . S . Army Glider Infantry School was closed in 1948 and remaining glider units were eventually converted into parachute infantry . About the same time the British Glider Pilot Regiment was subsumed into the Army Air Corps and the Airlanding brigades were disbanded . However the Soviet Union continued to train and use glider troops well into the 1960s . A convergence of factors led to the rather quick displacement of glider - borne infantry by regular paratroops . Larger capacity post war cargo plane designs enabled paratroops to carry heavier equipment . High speed four engined transports made the former wooden glider unsafe . Improvements in parachute infantry training and tactics reduced the scattering when paratroops disembarked . Newer anti - aircraft technology like radar and radar directed guns made gliders readily detectable . The concept of using aircraft to forcibly insert infantry , however , never completely died and was eventually revived in the late 1950s with the advent of helicopters and air assault infantry .