Operation Torch: WW2’s first Paratrooper Missions Were On One-Way Flights With Drops Into Total Darkness

Summary: The December 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the<br>United States into World War II. Just six months later in May 1942,<br>flying new C-47 transport aircraft, the 60th Troop Carrier Group led<br>the way as the first U.S. TCG to deploy to England and the European<br>Theater of Operations in World War II. Leading the way to victory,<br>the 60th TCG’s first mission—dropping U. S. paratroopers outside of<br>Oran, North Africa—was not only the first combat airborne mission<br>in U.S. Army history, but also the longest airborne mission of the<br>entire war. This drop spearheaded Operation TORCH, also known as<br>the Invasion of North Africa, by taking key Axis airfields just inland<br>from the amphibious landing zones. The 60th TCG went on to fly some of the first combat aeromedical evacuation missions and the first combat mission towing CG-4A “Waco” gliders during Operation HUSKY—the Invasion of Sicily. As the new airborne, air land,<br>aeromedical evacuation, and glider missions matured in World War<br>II, the 60th TCG continued to play a major role, paying in blood for<br>valuable lessons learned in the school of hard knocks. The group later<br>flew dramatic missions into Yugoslavia, supporting Partisans as part<br>of the secret war in the Balkans, an episode of World War II history<br>still all but unknown today and dropped British paratroops in the<br>airborne invasion of Greece. The Group was inactivated at the end of<br>the war. Today’s guest is Col. Mark C. Vlahos, author of “Leading the Way to Victory: A History of the 60th Troop Carrier Group 1940-1945.” We look at the group’s battles, adversity, hardships, and triumphs from inception through the Allied victory in Europe.