73rd Airlift Squadron history Published June 26, 2009 By Master Sgt. Brady Kiel 932nd Airlift Wing historian SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- By April 1944, the 434th Troop Carrier Group (TCG) and 73rd Troop Carrier Squadron (TCS) had completed weeks of practice dropping the Army's 101st Airborne troops in England. The units then turned to perfecting glider-towing operations. The 434th and its parent wing collectively logged nearly 7,000 hours practicing with gliders. The exercise Operation EAGLE on May 11 and 12 revealed continued glitches in these difficult processes. The flyers spent the remainder of the month diligently working to resolve their problems. Their haste was not without reason as an historic day lay directly on the horizon. Until the Normandy invasion, allied aircraft had never flown into combat with a force larger than a reinforced regimental combat team. In the Normandy operation, however, American troop carrier units transported two reinforced airborne divisions. (British transports flew in another division.) In view of its enormity, importance and difficulties of the task, it is not surprising that so much time was given over to plans, preparations and training. The 434th TCG, being the first of the IX Troop Carrier Command units to reach the theater, trained for some seven months for an operation that was over in a matter of hours. The Group's D-Day mission was to tow gliders, which carried reinforcements to the 101st Airborne Division troops who had been dropped a few hours earlier. At 1:19 a.m., June 6, 1944, 52 of the Group's planes, each towing a Waco Glider, began taking off from Aldermaston. Their cargo consisted of 55 troops, sixteen 57mm anti-tank guns, 25 vehicles, 2.5 tons of ammunition, and 11 tons of miscellaneous freight. Shortly after take-off, one glider broke loose and landed four miles from the base. This glider carried the radio with which the 101st Airborne Division was to have communicated with higher headquarters. The remainder of the formation reached Cherbourg peninsula in France encountering sporadic small arms fire, that downed one aircraft and glider. Forty-nine planes reached the release area at 3:54 a.m. and turned back toward England. All of them landed shortly after 5:30 a.m. The 434th had successfully performed the task for which it had been trained. The airborne troops who plunged into France on D-Day depended, to a certain extent, on aerial resupply and reinforcement. The 434th TCG participated in those follow-up missions. Later, during the afternoon of DDay, the Group sent 32 of its planes, which were each towing a Horsa Glider, back to the 101st Airborne Division area. That payload consisted of 157 troops, 40 vehicles, six guns, and about 19 tons of other equipment and supplies. The mission proved to be an easy one. The planes encountered no enemy aircraft, virtually no ground fire and they sustained only a few nicks on one plane. In the early morning hours of DDay plus one, the 434th flew its last mission in conjunction with the Normandy landing with 50 planes. Each were towing a Waco Glider transporting reinforcements to the 82nd Airborne Division. (The 73rd Airlift Squadron is part of the 932nd Airlift Wing at Scott Air Force Base, flying the C-9C and C-40C planes.)