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A recent visit to the Pegasus Bridge museum near Caen in Normandy, France brought back memories of an experience with a HORSA glider in either the autumn of 1943 or the spring of 1944.
Peterborough was surrounded by aerodromes and it was commonplace to see RAF and USAAF aircraft going on or returning from missions to occupied Europe.
As the preparations for the invasion of Europe advanced, we began to see formations of aircraft with towed gliders on a regular basis and it was, according to the adults, only a matter of time before one of the many gliders would have a problem.
It was, therefore, no surprise to learn from one of my classmates, Toby Jarvis, that a glider had become separated from its towing aircraft and had landed, undamaged, in a field near the village of Marholm.
At the first opportunity, I went to Marholm to see the glider, which was a HORSA, and we spoke to the solitary RAF guard who was on duty to prevent damage from, I suppose, souvenir hunters.
Toby and I convinced him that we would not do any damage and we were allowed to inspect the glider thoroughly. Over the following days, we spent many hours at the site, both in the glider and also roasting potatoes on the open fire that the RAF guard had built. If the potatoes came from a local field, it is likely that the landing took place in the autumn of 1943 but I can’t remember where we obtained them.
We found out that the glider was to be taken away by being snatched into the air instead of being dismantled and removed by road. The procedure would use an aircraft trailing a hook that would engage with an elasticated rope attached to the wings of the glider and draped over two poles about the same size as Rugby football goalposts.
When the day came to carry out the snatch, a lot of children and adults assembled at a specified distance from the glider and waited in eager anticipation for the tow aircraft to appear. Eventually, a Douglas DC3, or Dakota, appeared and carried out a couple of practice runs. The rear door had been removed and we could clearly see the crewman standing inside, presumably passing information to the pilot.
Then came the actual snatch. As the hook engaged, the rope was pulled off the two upright poles that then fell in the direction of take-off. The slack was quickly taken up and then came the tremendous jerk of the glider as it was pulled away from standstill. The Dakota seemed to momentarily stop its forward motion but then the glider accelerated rapidly as the rope stopped stretching.
The glider only travelled a few feet before it became airborne and then the Dakota started to climb in order to provide sufficient height for the glider to clear the row of trees that marked the end of the field. All seemed to be going to plan and then came disaster.
The securing mechanism for the hook became detached from inside the Dakota and the towrope fell away. The glider pilot immediately put the glider into a dive that brought it back to earth only a few tens of feet short of the trees that should by then have passing under the glider. Would it be stopped in time?
There was absolute silence from the people on the ground as they saw the glider responding to the pilot’s efforts to do all that he could to prevent what seemed to be an inevitable collision with the trees. Then, finally, the forward motion of the glider stopped — just short of the trees. Everyone cheered as the pilot emerged but we were too far away to see his facial expression.
Perhaps the experience stood him in good stead if he was one of the brave pilots who crash-landed their gliders at the Pegasus Bridge or Arnhem — who knows?
The HORSA glider? A few days later it was dismantled and taken away, piece by piece, on an RAF transport trailer.

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