Gliders - the whooshing death.

The British military thinking in 43 and 44 was that Gliders would form a key component in the D-Day invasion in June 44. To this end a training unit was established to train soldiers (not airmen) in flying a glider under tow and landing. The first intake of trainee 'pilots arrived at the base, unsure of what they were getting into. The were lined up on the runway, waiting the arrival of the Commanding Officer who was responsible for their training and whose wisdom they relied upon to give them the best chance of survival. The CO arrived in a big, troop carrying glider ( I think it was a Horsa )

To make the glider behave like a combat aircraft it was loaded with sandbags. All eyes watched the glider as it turned to approach the airfield. They didn't know it, but something was terribly wrong. His speed was too high, he touched down too late, something was very wrong. It overshot the end of the runway and crashed into a house, the sandbags smashed through the bulkhead behind the pilot and killed him. The new CO was dead before he had even arrived on the base. The men watched the scene with horror and imagined that it would be their fate too. They were formed up and marched back to the barracks to await a new CO. Some of them shrugged it off, others were a little worried and some, I suspect most, decided that they were already dead, so they just enjoyed the time they had left. Not one requested a transfer.

And some did die in the early hours of June 6, 1944. Several were completely destroyed on D-Day, with all occupants killed outright, but at least one was lost to stupidity. A glider reserved for a general and his headquarters staff held a Jeep as well as a dozen or so men and all the supplies they could fit. Some idiot decided that the general was valuable so he got a large steel plate and fixed it to the bottom of the glider, hoping to minimise the danger from small arms and light flak. Unfortunately he told no one what he did, even the pilot was in the dark. As soon as they were towed into the air it was clear something was wrong. The extra weight changed the flying characteristics of the glider and made it all but unflyable. As soon as the release light went on, the glider dropped the cable and then it dropped too, it's airspeed was way too high but the pilot had no choice but to land as best he could. He landed much like the CO crashed, with the General, his staff Jeep and supplies all crashing through the bulkhead, killing everyone.