On the whole, I have to report that I found this book somewhat disappointing. This unease began from when I started where one is presented with McGaugh's apologetic for what he is not going to deal with in this work, which includes the minutiae of how American military units work. I'm most concerned though with what McGaugh may not recognize himself, as I'm not sure that he has any appreciation for operational military history. This sense was locked down when I ran across McGaugh's seeming assertion that Operation "Neptune" only referred to the airborne assault on D-Day in Normandy, not the whole naval operation, with its airborne adjunct. From that point on I really didn't trust anything McGaugh had to say, unless I could cross-check from my own studies.

This is a shame, in that it's been decades since there have been studies that touched on the glider pilots, and I really expected more out of this book. It also doesn't reflect well on the publisher, as Osprey is almost always at least workmanlike and trustworthy. Call this a missed opportunity, and a commentary on the pitfalls of writing with too narrow of a focus, as McGaugh certainly seems to have done the footwork. ( )

I finished Scott McGaugh's, Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: The Glider Pilots of World War II.

A very interesting book on a subject that I had only peripheral knowledge of. Those of us read on World War II know about the gliders and the glider pilots, but mostly that that were used for dropping supplied and pathfinders on D-Day.

A short book at 256 pages, I found it be an strong 4 star read. The focus of the book dealt with the development of the glider program after if was effectively used by the Germans in their invasion of Western Europe.

Gliders was a scratch and largely a crash program, the U.S. Army Air Corps, differentiated glider pilots from pilots in the motorized flight program and logistics, manpower and training requirements largely evolved separately. The United Stated went through various models of gliders before they settled largely on CG-4A glider. The glider went through multiple design changes during the course of the war, mostly to make them easier to land and stronger for the survival of the pilots and passengers.

The gliders were used largely 5times during the war. The invasion of Sicily which was considered a poor example of glider usefulness with such high casualty rate that the program was almost scrapped. Ultimately General Hap Arnold and General Eisenhower went forward with the program and with more training and design evolution were successfully used with a much lower than projected casualty rate in the "Operation Neptune" in the invasion on Normandy. The 3rd major deployment was in Operation Market Garden which was less then stellar use of the program often finding the pilots to engage as infantry after the landing until Market Garden was ended. The 4 significant deployment was augmentation tool to get much need supplies and personnel to the troops in Bastogne until the 3rd Army under Patton was able to break through. The last significant usage was in bridging the Rhein towards the end of the war. The glider program while successful was largely finished after World War II.

I would strongly encourage any interested in this under studied topic to to pick this up for greater understanding of the men who served and the mission they fulfilled. ( )