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D Day Waco CG 4A USAAF Assault Glider 2013 6 5
D Day Waco CG 4A USAAF Assault Glider 2013 6 5
D Day Waco CG 4A USAAF Assault Glider 2013 6 5
D Day Waco CG 4A USAAF Assault Glider 2013 6 5

“Machine Guns Concentrated”

Technical Sergeant Arthur L. Perez submitted the following brief testimony: “I saw Glider cut off normally, taking a 45 degree left turn and pushing nose into a steep glide. Machine guns concentrated on this Glider (LJ 161) after puncturing our right wing.”

The glider carried a crew of two, as well as two infantrymen from the 82nd Airborne Division. But the glider’s cargo, in military eyes, was just as important, if not more so.  The equipment on board LJ 161 when it went crashed on June 6, 1944, near Blosville, France, was:

  • 1 Jeep
  • 1 Net
  • Phone and wire
  • Gun tools
  • 15 rounds 57mm ammunition
  • 1 57mm gun
  • Pioneer tools
  • Tow Rope
  • Loading Equipment
  • 1 Radio

The pilot and one of the passengers were killed.  The pilot was Captain Norman L. Aigner, of Roxbury, VA. The passenger killed was Corporal Anthony Apicella, of Belmont County, OH.  The copilot, Flight Officer Dominic Salemma, of West Haven, CT, survived the wreck, only to be shot down and killed over Holland on September 17, 1944, during the airborne operation “Market Garden”.

The other passenger, PFC Harry K. Lamb, survived the crash.

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