Marine Glider Pilot

Trained at Page Field, Parris Island to fly Schweizer LNS-1 gliders for hypothetical amphibious airborne assaults — 100 takeoffs and landings to qualify.

The Story

The Marines stood up the glider program in 1941 after watching the Germans take Crete by air. They killed it 19 months later when somebody compared a glider runway requirement to an aerial photo of an enemy-held coral atoll. Not one Marine glider saw combat.