WW2 TV - live February 19th 2:00 PM ET

The First Air Commandos and the Glider Pilots of the CBI

Although I seem to have been absent on this site, I have actually been buried deep in research to broaden my knowledge of the glider pilots in the China Burma India Theater who operated within the 1st Air Commandos. Compared to their counterparts in the ETO the CBI glider pilots are rarely discussed and yet they were an incredibly dynamic group.

I will be introducing information on these glider pilots on the February 19th on WW2TV, and then will be starting a series on this Substack page next week to do a deeper delve into these men, their missions and their successes.

They are not an easy group to research and I suspect that is why so little has been written on them. In short the First Air Commandos operated as a mini Air Force and record keeping was not on the high priority list. Weeding through conflicting reports and numbers is very time consuming and has been occupying me for these past few months.

An additional issue is the few reports written at the time may have been by Joint Intelligence Command, the Medical Division and very little by Troop Carrier. While these sources add an additional viewpoint, which is missing at times in the ETO, there is sometimes information missing or conflicting with other reports. The official reports at the time often give numbers of missing or the casualties which are revised later.

Careful and methodical research is starting to answer some of the many questions about this group of glider pilots and I look forward to sharing my findings with you all!