The HISTORY of the GLIDER PILOT REGIMENT

Signed at the 50th Anniversary lunch in 1992 by

Claude Smith ~ author & glider pilot D-Day/Arnhem
General Sir John Hackett ~ Soldier, historian & wrote the foreword
Staff Sergeant Alan Richards DFM ~ illustrator & glider pilot Arnhem/Rhine crossing
Staff Sergeant Sidney Bland ~ Glider Pilot Arnhem
Staff Sergeant Ron Watkinson DFM ~ Glider Pilot Arnhem
Staff Sergeant Bernard Black ~ Glider Pilot Arnhem

Leo Cooper First Edition 1992.  184 pages and very well illustrated with photos, maps and illustrations

Fine Condition hardback book in a Fine condition dustjacket. The book has a previous owner label and signature showing that the book belonged to Gordon & Frieda Gumn, the latter was a Dutch woman who grew up in Nazi Occupied Holland. The presentation says ‘With grateful thanks for all you have done for the Glider Pilot Regiment Association’. The book comes with a menu from the 50th Anniversary Luncheon.

The Glider Pilot Regiment, having been raised as the first element of the new Army Air Corps in 1942 and disbanded in 1957, can probably claim the dubious distinction of having been the smallest and shortest-lived Regiment ever to form part of the British Army.

Nevertheless, in those few years the Regiment gained as much distinction as it has taken other units hundreds of years to achieve. Yet, strangely enough, the story of these heroic men who piloted their flimsy gliders to most of the important battlefields of the Second World War has never before been told. It is indeed a remarkable story and no one is better qualified to tell it than Claude Smith, who himself served with the Regiment and took part in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and later in the ill-fated landing at Arnhem, where he was taken prisoner. 

Claude Smith tells the story of these supremely brave men, factually and unemotionally, but it is impossible to read this book without being moved by their heroism. As General Sir John Hackett says in his foreword: ‘Those who went to battle in gliders and above all those who got them there, the Glider Pilots, deserve our enduring esteem’

Enhanced by a great collection of signatures, this is a highly collectable WWII aviation reference book.