Look at this crisp combat footage from Operation Varsity, the huge airborne operation that leapfrogged gliders and paratroopers across the Rhine River and into Germany on 24 March 1945. Concentrated pre-invasion bombing of German airfields and areas surrounding landing zones helped secure the skies for the Ninth Troop Carrier Command. As a result, their 2,046 aircraft and gliders sent on Varsity missions logged an overwhelming 2,029 successful efforts, according to U.S. Air Force historians.
More than 9,000 members of the U.S. 17th Airborne Division collaborated with more than 7,000 members of the British 6th Airborne Division. On the American side, in addition to the C-47s and CG-4s depicted in this film, C-46 Commandos participated.
Varsity is generally cited by historians as a success, and the pinnacle of such airborne operations of World War II, although some critics have suggested the crossing of the Rhine might have been accomplished without the aid of an airborne armada. One thing that can't be disputed is the professionalism and courage of those who flew in Operation Varsity.
In the film, notice how each glider tow rope, wrapped with a loose intercom wire, is carefully placed on the runway to feed out easily and untangled before going taut, and tugging the CG-4 glider awkwardly forward.
Some of the gliders look brand-new for Varsity; others have ghostly remnants of earlier invasion stripe paint faintly evident, as the invasion force needed all the gliders it could muster.
Films of C-47s landing after Varsity appear to show some aircraft that landed nearer the combat, and brought back wounded soldiers, a classic back-haul efficiency for airlift aviation. Other landing C-47s have lanyards and remnants from under-fuselage cargo parapack airdrops.

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