Original U.S. WWII Waco CG-4 A Glider Front Seat & Window Grouping with Wing Panel - Window used in Museum Display Donated by Lieutenant Donald E. King, 53rd Troop Carrier Squadron

Original Items. One-of-a-Kind Grouping. This is a fantastic grouping of items off of a Waco CG-4 A Glider, including an entire front seat and cushion, a strut, and a window which has been turned into a museum display, with 9th Air Force, Troop Carrier, and Glider Airborne patches and some photos. The window assembly, and likely everything in the group, was donated to the museum by Mr. Don King, who we found to be Lieutenant Donald E. King of the 53rd Troop Carrier Squadron. There are some diaries of his published on the Mid-America Flight Museum’s website.

The grouping includes:
- Original Waco CG-4A pilot/co-pilot’s seat with cushion. There are various faded markings on the seat, including GLUE 2920 on the side, and 28609 on the bottom, possibly a serial number. The back of the seat is a bit bent back, and there are some very light cracks in the wood. The seat measures 17 x 24 x 16½” overall.
- Original Waco CG-4A Glider Window Assembly, which has been mounted to sit upright as a display. There are four photographs of the glider and the interior with a veteran in the pilot’s seat. There are 9th Air Force, Troop Carrier, and Glider Airborne patches attached as well, with a plaque reading Donated by Mr. Don King. The window measures 14½ x 23¾ x 3”.
- Original Waco CG-4A wooden wing panel, measuring 30 x 6 x ¾”. Metal covering on one end, and the other end is broken off. A very interesting look into its construction.
- Original WWII Waco CG-4 Glider Instructor’s Guide, published by the Office of the Director of Training. 6½ x 9¼” and has some great diagrams on how to use the Glider. A great addition! 

This is a fantastic group of Glider parts, ready for further research and display!

The Waco CG-4 was the most widely used American troop/cargo military glider of World War II. It was designated the CG-4A by the United States Army Air Forces, and given the service name Hadrian (after the Roman emperor) by the British.

The glider was designed by the Waco Aircraft Company. Flight testing began in May 1942. More than 13,900 CG-4As were eventually delivered. Sedalia Glider Base was originally activated on 6 August 1942. In November 1942 the installation became Sedalia Army Air Field, (after the war would be renamed Whiteman Air Force Base) and was assigned to the 12th Troop Carrier Command of the United States Army Air Forces. The field served as a training site for glider pilots and paratroopers. Assigned aircraft included the CG-4A glider, Curtiss C-46 Commando, and Douglas C-47 Skytrain. The C-46 was not used as a glider tug in combat, however, until Operation Plunder (the crossing of the Rhine) in March 1945.

CG-4As went into operation in July 1943 during the Allied invasion of Sicily. They were flown 450 miles across the Mediterranean from North Africa for the night-time assaults such as Operation Ladbroke. Inexperience and poor conditions contributed to the heavy losses. They participated in the American airborne landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, and in other important airborne operations in Europe and in the China Burma India Theater. Although not the intention of the Army Air Forces, gliders were generally considered expendable by high-ranking European theater officers and combat personnel and were abandoned or destroyed after landing. While equipment and methods for extracting flyable gliders were developed and delivered to Europe, half of that equipment was rendered unavailable by certain higher-ranked officers. Despite this lack of support for the recovery system, several gliders were recovered from Normandy and even more from Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and Wesel, Germany.

The CG-4A found favor where its small size was a benefit. The larger British Airspeed Horsa could carry more troopers (seating for 28 or a jeep or an anti-tank gun), and the British General Aircraft Hamilcar could carry 7 tons (enough for a light tank), but the CG-4A could land in smaller spaces. In addition, by using a fairly simple grapple system, an in-flight C-47 equipped with a tail hook and rope braking drum could "pick up" a CG-4A waiting on the ground. The system was used in the 1945 high-elevation rescue of the survivors of the Gremlin Special 1945 crash, in a mountain valley of New Guinea.

The CG-4A was also used to send supplies to partisans in Yugoslavia.

After World War II ended, most of the remaining CG-4As were declared surplus and almost all were sold. Many were bought for the wood in the large shipping boxes. Others were bought for conversion to towed camping homes with the wing and tail end cut off and being towed by the rear section and others sold for hunting cabins and lake side vacation cabins.

The last known use of the CG-4A was in the early 1950s by the USAF with an Arctic detachment aiding scientific research. The CG-4As were used for getting personnel down to, and up from, floating ice floes, with the glider being towed out, released for landing, and then picked up later by the same type of aircraft, using the hook and line method developed during World War II. The only modification to the CG-4A was the fitting of wide skis in place of the landing gear for landing on the Arctic ice floes.