Today, March 24th, is the anniversary of Operation Varsity in 1945, the largest single-day airborne operation, at a single location. More than 16,000 paratroopers of the American 17th Airborne Division and British 6th Airborne Division participated. In total, over 1,700 planes (C-47, C-46, and C-54) and more than 1,300 gliders (Waco CG-4, Horsa and Hamilcar) were used. The “sky-train”, as it was called, stretched more than 200 miles (322 km) in the sky and took 2 hours and 37 minutes to pass any given point. While considered successful, and meeting all mission objectives, the Rhine crossing resulted in more than 2,500 casualties. (Killed, wounded, captured). The European war would end just more than a month after this action, so it received limited publicity. This was the last recorded use of gliders in combat.
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I just noticed that Next Level Training (one of our long-time advertisers and writing contest prize donors) is running a sale on their excellent Refined Savage G-Spot Fire Starting Kits. These cleverly fit in the bottom grip “tunnel” of your Glock pistol, so that you’ll never be without a fire-starting kit. What a great way to take advantage of otherwise wasted space!
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I’ve started a big one-week sale at Elk Creek Company. We’ve put all of our pre-1899 Mausers and Carcano sporters as well as all of our Pietta percussion revolvers on sale. This sale will end on Monday, March 31st. Also, take note that I’ve boosted our pre-1965 silver divisor to 24.9 times face value, if you’d like to pay in pre-1965 junk silver.
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Today’s feature article is by SurvivalBlog’s Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.
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We are in need of entries for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 117 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.