Part 3 – Willibald
Waco
All the Tiny
Visitors hatched in Germany, but only one of them – Willibald Waco – is a
foreigner. During the war producers of toys
switched production from regular children’s playthings to, inter alia,
Recognition Models.
Recognition
Models may need an explanation these days.
Our parents and grandparents would need no such explanations, but since
they are either dead or don’t read my blog I shall have to explain what they
are. When in a state of war it is
prudent to watch out for airplanes, partly so one can dive into the nearest
bunker when an enemy one is sighted, and partly to avoid shooting down one’s
own and allied aircraft.
To the
uninitiated one airplane looks pretty much like another, so some training was
needed to teach the general public which aircraft belonged to the enemy and
which were friendly. To this end
‘Recognition Models’ of both the enemy’s and a country’s own aircraft were
produced and distributed, and quite often hung under the ceiling of
meeting/training rooms – after all, usually one sees only the underside of an
airplane as it flies overhead, so that’s the view most often seen when trying
to identify what sort of plane one is dealing with.
There were also
little booklets produced, with silhouettes of airplanes, again to enable the
public to distinguish between friendly and enemy aircraft. I say ‘the public’, but although everyone
sought to became acquainted with these matters to some extent, there were also
designated individuals who received special training and were in the forefront
of looking out for airplanes – as for example in Britain the famous ‘Doodlebug
Spotters’.
These little gliders get so dusty!
Most of the Tiny
Visitors were either recognition models or used for that purpose, and I shall
discuss this matter more fully when I relate their adventures later on. Willibald Waco is the model of a USAmerican
transport glider, and had been produced to enable German anti-aircraft gunners
to identify and shoot down his big brothers.
This nasty use of what ought to be a charming toy lies at the heart of
the adventures of the Tiny Visitors, and especially their Great Escape.
After the
conquest of Eban Emael by German gliders all sorts of people got terribly
excited about using gliders for purposes of war. Winston Churchill was one example, apparantly
he kept nagging the Royal Air Force to create a glider corps and train glider
pilots, and eventually he got his wish, much against the inclinations of the
leaders of the RAF. In the US it was the
newspapers who kept reminding the commander of the Army Air Corps, General
Arnold, that the Nazi use of gliders needed an approriate response, so
eventually he instructed Major Barringer to come up with a glider programme.
Barringer had his
work cut out for him. At that time
flying gliders was not popular in the US, and there were neither many gliders
nor pilots he could draft. He actually
turned some light training airplanes into gliders by having the engines removed
and the noses rebuilt! Then he had to
recruit pilots. Just like in Britain,
who faced similar problems, the response was overwhelming! Men in their droves applied to become glider
pilots. The main reason seems to have
been that the regular airforce were extremely picky as to who they took, so
everyone who had applied and been rejected to become a bomber pilot tried their
luck with the new glider corpses.
These Glidermen
were a breed apart. They showed little
interest in military discipline and rarely bothered to salute their commanding
officers. They loved flying and had
little interest in or respect for anything else. They got away with this, I guess, because
they were cannon fodder and knew it.
They were expected to fly badly made, insubstantial gliders which were
highly likely to crash-land in enemy territory, and if they survived that
experience they would often have to fight on their own without backup from
regular troops. Their death toll was
terrible.
Take for example
the ‘Invasion of Sicily’ – of the 144 gliders that set out, only 54 landed in
Sicily, and only 4 of them in their designated landing zones. All the others were blown off course, fell
into the sea, crashed – one of them got stuck in a tree, with a jeep and a dead
driver still inside. Another smashed
against a cliff, killing both pilot and co-pilot.
But I
digress. As mentioned above, the USA had
precious few gliders, so decided to embark on a huge building programme. Barringer was told to build 10,000 gliders in
six months, a tall order since at that time there was not a single company in
the USA who had ever produced a military glider. But General Arnold was adamant, saying that
his sons had built their own glider in just one summer, so surely the US could
come up with something? They came up
with the Waco CG-4A.
Many of the
companies that built these gliders by the thousands had no previous experience
of producing aircraft; one used to make refrigerators. None had ever built so many so quickly. One can imagine the sort of gliders they
turned out! One of the Waco gliders lost
a wing while the mayor of St Louis and assorted other VIPs were on board for a
demonstration flight, crashed and killed all on board. Despite these teething problems the Waco became an important aircraft for the US forces.
The Waco had very
few instrumentation: vertical speed, airspeed, turn, and bank indicators were
all the pilots had while being towed and for landing. Since the glider – like its pilots – was
considered expendable, it was built as cheaply as possible. Compared to the Messerschmitt Gigant the Waco
was a quite small transport glider; it was able to carry 13 troops and their
equipment plus two pilots. Almost 14,000 of them were
built, and although most of them were broken up after the war, a few were used
to supply scientists with supplies in the arctic until the 1950s.
Maximum towed speed: 150 mph
Span: 83 ft. 8 in.
Length: 48 ft. 4 in.
Height: 12 ft. 7 in.
Weight: 7,500 lbs. loaded
As usual, I post
a few links below for further study, if anyone feels so inclined.
