GAL-49 Hamilcar World war 2 glider
The General Aircraft Limited GAL.49 Hamilcar was a large British military glider used during World War 2 and was designed to carry heavy loads such as light tanks to specification X.26/40. The GAL company was chosen to develop the design as they had already been developing a glider to carry a light tank. Such a large glider had not been developed before so a half scale prototype was built, this crashed during its first flight but the flight was still seen as successful and a prototype was completed in March 1942 and made its first flight from RAF Snaith in Yorkshire on 27th March 1942. There were many issues during production and the rate was very slow mainly due to material shortages with only 344 built of the 800 ordered by the end of the war.
The Hamilcar depicted here, HH934 was Chalk 502 during Operation Tonga, the airborne element of Operation Overlord. HH934 was flown by S/Sgt H.Dent and Sgt P.Rodgers from RAF Tarrant Rushton, landing at LZ “N” between Ranville and Amfreville in Normandy as part of wave 3 at 03:30 on 6th June and was towed by a Halifax Mk.V of 298 Squadron flown by Flt Lt Enson.