A mirror image of the patch worn by enlisted personnel, the Paraglider Officer patch features the Waco CG-4A combat glider facing the viewer’s right superimposed over a parachute. Dubbed “Flying Coffins” by Soldiers, the CG-4A gliders were nearly 50 feet long, manufactured out of steel tubing overlaid with a canvas skin and capable of carrying more than 4,000 pounds. Although the technology seems primitive today, gliders were successfully employed on more than one occasion in World War II, most notably during Operation Market Garden and Operation Varsity.
Glider operations were not used as frequently in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) because the jungle terrain where much of the fighting occurred did not lend itself to glider landings. But the PTO was the setting for Operation Gypsy, the last glider operation of the war. Launched on 24 June 1945, it was an airborne assault on the island of Luzon combining seven Waco CG-4A gliders carrying Soldiers from the 511th Parachute Infantry with a paratroop force, also from the 511th; their mission was to cut off the line of retreat of what was left of Japanese General Yamashita’s 14th Army.
After a few days of fighting, the paratroopers and paragliders linked up with the 37th Infantry Division. Although Yamashita had evaded this force, Japanese defeat on Luzon was a foregone conclusion long before the Japanese general surrendered on 2 September 1945.