“Mighty to behold shall we ever forget that mighty armada of the skies that passed over our heads on Saturday morning; that vast airborne army that filled the heavens and set our ears throbbing with the roar of the great four-engined machines that carried our parachute troops and towed gliders.

I do not think in all of my life I have seen a sight that so stirred me. As the great winged army passed in steady procession across the skies it seemed as if a veritable canopy had been placed over this England of ours, a canopy that moved along and yet seemed never to be completely ended…”

So wrote the editor of the Folkestone, Hythe & District Herald a week after Operation Varsity, history’s largest
single-lift airborne operation. The ‘mighty armada’ was made up of aircraft from the RAF and US IX Troop Carrier Command. En route it was joined by more aircraft from the latter to make a total of 2,694 paratroop transports, tugs and gliders. On board were some 17,000 men of the British 6th and US 17th Airborne Divisions, many of whom had only recently been in the frozen hell of the Ardennes. Ahead of the flew more than a thousand fighters.

The RAF had been stretched to the limit of its resources and had found it necessary to pull in pilots who had only recently become proficient in flying bombers and keep tour-expired pilots on strength. IX TCC provided C-47 ‘Dakotas’ for 6th Airborne’s paratroopers and many of its glider tugs had two WACO CG-4As on tow; a technique that had been tried in Burma the previous year with mixed results.

The flight passed without note. The situation changed dramatically as the aircraft approached the Rhine. Their pilots saw that the operational area was obscured by smoke from a screen laid down to protect the ground troops coming across the river. As the pilots steered towards their dropping and landing zones their troubles increased as anti-aircraft fire roared up from the ground. The pilots gritted their teeth and flew on.

Minutes later paratroopers were dropping from their transports, some of which were engulfed in flames. The enemy continued to pour fire skywards so that ‘hitting dirt’ had never been a more wished for ending. Even on the ground many paratroopers found their zone criss-crossed by firing thus forcing them to seek any cover they could.

The sight of burning aircraft coming towards them was a sobering moment for the pilots of the glider tugs. The smoke lay thick to 200 feet, which meant the gliders, once released, would be on final approach before their pilots could pick out a landing spot. Consequently, the gliders suffered terribly from ground fire. Those on a coup de main bridge assault were literally blown apart by point blank fire.

And yet, within a couple of hours, all objectives had been taken, secured and held on to tenaciously. It seemed like forever to the airborne troops, but was in fact only a matter of hours before the ground troops linked up with them. Skirmishes occurred up and down the front through the night but the Germans were already preparing to withdraw deeper into the Fatherland.

On the 27th, Major General William M Miley, CO 17th Airborne Division, gave the order, “Advance to Dorsten. This is a pursuit.”

The ‘Last Drop’ was over.

– Steve Wright

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This year will be the 70th anniversary of Operation Varsity, the largest single-lift airborne operation of all time and, the last major airborne operation of the War.

Author Steve Wright documented this monumental operation in his book ‘Last Drop‘ and will be at the Operation Varsity Commemoration at Marks Hall Arboretum and Gardens on 24th March signing copies of his book.

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