WACO CG-4 Glider

Few people realize that alongside the paratroopers dropping into Normandy, there were gliders and thousands of them.  Carrying additional troops, jeeps, artillery, ammunition, gasoline, food, and everything else that you can think of.  Aside from a few British gliders, the vast majority of those used were designed by the WACO Aircraft Company in Troy, Ohio.

Prior to the Second World War, WACO primarily made small one or two seat civilian planes, but when the call for glider designs was put out by the Army.  The Germans had successfully used gliders early during the war and the United States decided to follow suit.  WACO submitted a design and out of hundreds of others, it was chosen. 

The CG-4A prior to take off, September 1944

Officially called the CG-4A, it was better known as the 'Hadrian.'  The Hadrian would be towed by a C-47 until the glider pilot pulled a lever and released the cable from the tow plane.  At that point, the glider would sail until it made an often crash landing.  It could carry up to 13 troops and a vast array of non-human cargo.  The CG-4A was used in every American airborne invasion of the war including Sicily, Normandy, Southern France, Holland, and Germany as well as making emergency supply drops during the Battle of the Bulge.  

Three glider pilots after the invasion of Normandy

While the design was their own, WACO only made around a thousand gliders.  Ford built the most of any company, producing over four thousand by the end of the war out of a total 14,000.  The CG-4A never saw service after World War Two.  Very few exist today, but there is a very god example at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, hanging just above the C-47 in the World War II gallery.