Today, March 24th, is the anniversary of Operation Varsity, the largest single-day airborne operation, at a single location, in 1945. More than 16,000 paratroopers of the American 17th Airborne Division and British 6th Airborne Division participated. In total, over 1,700 planes (C-47, C-46, and C-54) and more than 1,300 gliders (Waco CG-4, Horsa and Hamilcar) were used. The “sky-train”, as it was called, stretched more than 200 miles (322 km) in the sky and took 2 hours and 37 minutes to pass any given point. While considered successful, and meeting all mission objectives, the Rhine crossing resulted in more than 2,500 casualties. (Killed, wounded, captured). The European war would end just more than a month after this action, so it received limited publicity. This was the last recorded use of gliders in combat.
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I just noticed that Next Level Training (one of our long-time advertisers and writing contest prize donors) is running a sale on their excellent Refined Savage G-Spot Fire Starting Kits. These cleverly fit in the bottom grip “tunnel” of your Glock pistol, so that you’ll never be without a fire-starting kit. What a great way to take advantage of otherwise wasted space!
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Today’s feature article is by SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.
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Read the full article here