Flying Coffins

Restored Waco CG-4A

Since I mentioned them yesterday, I figured I would put together a post on WACO gliders. The Waco CG-4A was probably one of the worst ideas the U.S. Army Air Force had in World War II, but they were designed, and some were built, by the WACO Aircraft Company in Troy, Ohio, so they are a part of local lore.  A little information on the gliders:

The CG-4A fuselage was 48 feet long and constructed of steel tubing and canvas skin. Its honeycombed plywood floor could support more than 4,000 pounds, approximately the glider's own empty weight. It could carry two pilots and up to 13 troops, or a combination of heavy equipment and small crews to operate it. The nose section could swing up to create a 5 x 6-foot cargo door of Jeeps, 75-mm howitzers, or similarly sized vehicles.
With a wingspan of 83.5 feet, the Waco maxed out at 150 mph when connected to its tow plane. Once the 300-ft length of 1-inch nylon rope was cut, typical gliding speed was 72 mph.
The Waco Aircraft Company of Troy, OH, a niche manufacturer of civilian airplanes, won the contract to design and build America's first combat glider. Big names like Ford, along with a dozen or so smaller firms, also won glider contracts, but only if they weren't already producing powered aircraft for the war effort. With more than 70,000 parts to assemble and with little or no standardization, some manufacturers produced a few duds, with sometimes tragic results.
The wide range of expertise among these contractors, as well as an early lack of standardization of the 70,000-plus individual parts, caused pilots and mechanics no shortage of headaches and more than a few tragedies.
MacRae recalls an incident that nearly scrapped the glider program less than a year before its D-Day triumph. In August 1943, a Saint Louis-based contractor invited the city's mayor and other dignitaries to experience the excitement of a glider flight before an airshow audience of 5,000. Aghast spectators watched as a glider abruptly lost a wing at 2,000 feet and crashed in front of the grandstand, killing all onboard. After ruling out sabotage, investigators traced the cause of the crash to a faulty bolt provided by a subcontractor in the coffin business.

That story about the St. Louis airshow is pretty apt.  Many soldiers also perished in the terrible-to-fly glorified boxes. In spite of this, they were somewhat successfully used for several missions in World War II:

Glider pilots who participated in the Normandy landings were awarded the Air Medal for their role in the Allies' early successes on D-Day. Their role in Operation Market Garden was lauded, even though it was overshadowed by the mission's overall failure to take the key bridge at Arnhem. Gliders were also central to Allied invasions of Sicily, Burma, Southern France, Bastogne, and the crossing of the Rhine into Germany in March 1945.

Design Drawings of Waco CG-4A

Glider production data:

From 1942-1945, the Ford Motor Company's Kingsford plant built 4,190 Model CG-4A gliders for use in combat operations during World War II. The Kingsford plant built more CG-4A gliders than any other company in the nation at much less cost than other manufacturers. The primary builders of the Model CG-4A gliders were located in Troy, Ohio; Greenville, Michigan; Astoria, New York; Kansas City, Missouri; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Kingsford, Michigan.
The 16 companies that were prime contractors for manufacturing the CG-4A were:
Babcock Aircraft Company of Deland, Florida (60)
Cessna Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas (750) The entire order was subcontracted to Boeing Aircraft Company's new Wichita plant.
Commonwealth Aircraft of Kansas City (1,470)
Ford Motor Company of Kingsford, Michigan (4,190 units at $14,891 each)
G&A Aircraft of Willow Grove, PA (627)
General Aircraft Corporation of Astoria, L.I.,NY (1,112)
Gibson Refrigerator of Greenville, Michigan (1,078)
Laister-Kauffman Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri (310)
National Aircraft Corp. of Elwood, IN (one at an astronomical $1,741,809)
Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation of Minneapolis (1,510)
Pratt-Read of Deep River, Connecticut (956)
Ridgefield Manufacturing Company of Ridgeville, New Jersey (156)
Robertson Aircraft Corporation of St. Louis (170)
Timm Aircraft Company of Van Nuys, California (434)
Waco Aircraft Company of Troy (999 units at $19,367 each).
Ward Furniture Company of Fort Smith, Arkansas (7)
The factories ran 24-hour shifts to build the gliders.

At my previous job, I frequently met with a supplier who was a paratrooper on D-Day, and jumped from a WACO glider.  He hated the things.  His comment was that we lost a lot of good men in those "damn flying coffins."