Glider Pilot Regiment The Glider Pilot Regiment was a British airborne forces unit of the Second World War which was responsible for crewing the British Army ' s military glider s and saw action in the European Theatre of World War II in support of Allied airborne operations . Established in 1942 , the regiment was disbanded in 1957 . Formation . The German military was one of the pioneers of the use of airborne formations , conducting several successful airborne operations during the Battle of France in 1940 , including the Battle of Fort Eben - Emael . Impressed by the success of German airborne operations , the Allied governments decided to form their own airborne formations . This decision would eventually lead to the creation of two British airborne divisions , as well as a number of smaller units . The British airborne establishment began development on 22 June 1940 , when the Prime Minister , Winston Churchill , directed the War Office in a memorandum to investigate the possibility of creating a corps of 5 , 000 parachute troops . On 21 June 1941 , the Central Landing Establishment was formed at Ringway airfield near Manchester ; although tasked primarily with training parachute troops , it was also directed to investigate the possibilities of using gliders to transport troops into battle . It had been decided that the Royal Air Force and the Army would cooperate in forming the airborne establishment , and as such Squadron Leader Louis Strange and Major J . F . Rock were tasked with gathering together potential glider pilots and forming a glider unit ; this was achieved by searching for members of the armed forces who had pre - war experience of flying gliders , or were interested in learning to do so . The two officers and their newly formed unit were provided with four obsolescent Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers and a small number of Tiger Moth and Avro 504 biplanes for towing purposes . Around this time the War Office and Air Ministry began to draw up specifications for several types of military gliders to be used by the unit , which would eventually take the form of the General Aircraft Hotspur , General Aircraft Hamilcar , Airspeed Horsa and the Slingsby Hengist . These designs would take some time to be designed and produced , however , and for the time being the fledgling unit was forced to improvise . A Glider Training Squadron was formed , and the first test - flights were conducted using British Aircraft Swallow light aircraft which had their propellors removed to simulate the flight characteristics of a glider ; they were towed by the Whitley bombers using tow - ropes of varying number and length for experimentation purposes . Appeals were made throughout the United Kingdom for civilian gliders to be donated to the squadron , and the first four arrived in August ; three of them had been manufactured in pre - war Germany . Within a short period of time several more were donated , and these were put to use training instructors , glider pilots and newly formed ground crews . Accidents were quite frequent in these early months , primarily due to the hemp tow - ropes breaking during flight ; these problems were only solved with the introduction of nylon tow - ropes imported from the United States of America . The first demonstration of the squadron ' s abilities took place on 26 September , when Prince George , Duke of Kent witnessed a demonstration of the fledgling airborne establishment ' s capabilities ; four parachute - drops were conducted , and then two gliders were towed by civilian aircraft . This was followed on 26 October by a night exercise being conducted by the squadron , with two Avro 504s towing four gliders , and on 13 December five gliders were towed to Tatton Park , where they landed alongside sixteen parachutists dropped from two Whitley bombers . There was a certain carefree atmosphere present in the squadron in the first few months of its existence ; new recruits were not obliged to pass a medical test to join the squadron , and it attracted a number of adventurous - minded men with a passion for flying , including a sergeant who had flown a Messerschmitt during the Spanish Civil War . These first pilots had been volunteers recruited from all of the branches of the armed forces , primarily the Army , but as the squadron began to conduct training exercises , arguments broke out between the RAF and the Army over the pilots . In the view of the RAF , gliders were aircraft and were therefore in their jurisdiction and should be controlled by them ; the Army argued that as the glider pilots would subsequently be fighting alongside the troops they were transporting after the gliders had landed , they should therefore come under Army control . After much debate , a compromise was brokered between the two services : the pilots would be recruited from the Army , but they would be trained by the RAF . Volunteers were sought from the Army and these had to be passed by RAF selection procedures before entering training . Once qualified as light aircraft pilots after a 12 week course , they were given further training on gliders : another 12 week course to qualify on the General Aircraft Hotspur glider . After a period they would then go to a Heavy Glider Conversion Unit for a six week course so they were qualified for the Airspeed Horsa . Higher formations . In 1942 the Glider Pilot Regiment came under a newly formed administrative corps , the Army Air Corps , alongside the Parachute Regiment and wartime Special Air Service , and the Air Observation Post squadrons of the Royal Artillery . In 1949 , the AAC was broken up and the regiment formed part of the Glider Pilot and Parachute Corps . In 1957 the Glider Pilot Regiment and the Air Observation Post squadrons of the Royal Artillery amalgamated to form the current Army Air Corps . Battle honours . The regiment was awarded the following battle honours for its service during the Second World War :