Sangamon County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois


Phil Davis



World War II Reenacting
The 325th Glider Infantry
Part 1 - History of the 325th
Part 2 - Weapons & gear of the 325th

 Phil Davis, SCRA
August 2009 GunNews




Above:  Phil Davis, in the WWII uniform of the
325th Glider Infantry, a unit of the 82nd Airborne
Division.  

Part 1- History of the 325th
Those of you have been coming to these meetings and reading GunNews for a while know that Davis does World War II and Civil War reenacting.  The last time we saw Davis in uniform it was a World War II uniform but it was for a different country, it was British.  His British unit sort of dissolved.  Some of the guys got sent over to Iraq and Afghanistan and others dropped out of reenacting altogether.  There were a bunch of local guys who were putting together a US unit and they were doing something rather unique.  They were after Davis for three or four years to join.  Finally last year he agreed.  Several thousand dollars later he has all his equipment.

The patch on his sleeve says 82nd Airborne but he is not a paratrooper.  His pin glider wings are for the 325th Glider Infantry.  Davis gave a little history of the 82nd Airborne and the 325th Glider Infantry.  The 82nd Infantry Division was founded during World War I.  Predominately it was supposed to be for men from the deep south.  However, as they formed the unit they brought people in from all the US and they declared this isn't just a regional unit anymore.  This is an all American unit.  That's what the double AA stands for, the All American "AA".

At the beginning of World War II the US, like it is in most of its wars, was worefully behind on recruiting and equipment. They sent the 82nd Division to Camp Claiborne, La. where they were training as regular line infantry.  A new military doctrine came down in 1942 that they wanted to emulate what some of the Germans were doing and have an airborne division.  The Germans called them Fallschirmjager, Sky Warriors, Flight Warriors, paratroopers.  They also wanted to use gliders to deliver troops.

For those of you who have never seen a picture of a glider, this is a drawing of a CG4A, also called a Waco.  The British called them a Hadrian.  This would hold thirteen troops and two pilots.  It was usually towed behind a C46 or C47 transport aircraft maximum towing speed of 150 mph.  That is the speed of which you go to 151 the wings fly off.  They are made out of canvas, aluminum and plywood.  Their average coasting speed is about 70 - 75 mph.




This glider had a wing span of eighty-six feet and a length of forty-eight feet.  It glides at 75 mph. and it has a glide ratio of 10 to 1 which means it goes ten feet forward for every one foot down as opposed to an F4 Phantom without it's engines on which is at 1 per 1.









A drawing of a Waco Glider that carried the
325th into battle.

The 325th Infantry was trained as glider infantry.  They had an advantage over paratroop infantry which did not become apparent until June 6th 1944.  The first time the Infantry Regiment saw combat was at Salerno in Italy in support of the Anzio Invasion. They did not take the gliders.  They took landing craft.  They landed on Salerno seasick but they had combat experience. That was one thing none of the other airborne troops had which Normandy came around.

When you think of the 82nd AirborneDivision you think of the jump jacket.  The jump jacket is basically like the modern field jacket bt they had canvas reenforcement on the elbows.  The pants had reenforcement on the knees.  Lots of big pockets to put gear in.

When D-Day came along, before the landing crafts hit the beaches, before the first big guns had fired on Omaha Beach and Utah Beach and Sword Beach and Gold Beach, paratroopers and glider men were landing behind the lines.

The gliders had the advantage of landing all of their troops in one spot.  The 325th Glider Infantry landed actually later on D-Day and D-Day plus one to reinforce the rest of the 82nd Airborne Division.  They fought for thirty days to secure the Cotentin Peninsula and open up the bridgehead. Then they were sent back to England to refit.  Every time they got ready to take off for another mission for the next three months, Patton's army had already overrun that area that they were going to land in anyway.  So they just waited.

Then a great military strategist (sarcasm intended) Sir Bernard Law Montgomery came up with a plan to take Holland with airborne troops.  Operation Market Garden was a disaster;  the  82nd took their assigned bridges, but overall the ground troops were too slow, and many airborne troops paid the price.

Cornelius Ryan, who wrote "The Longest Day" about the D-Day invasion, also wrote "A Bridge to Far" about this disastrous operation, and Davis said that book is abut as accurate as it gets.  Davis' favorite line in the entire movie is by a Brit.  The 1st British Airborne Division is surrounded the the Sixth SS Panzer Army and a German comes up in a scout car waving a white flag.  He said, "My commander says this slaughter is futile.  In order to stop the further slaughter we would like to speak to you about surrender."  "Sorry, we haven't the provision to take you all prison there.  Have a nice day."

They fought in Holland for a little over a month.  Then they got pulled back to outside of Paris to rest.  This was in late Novermber or early December 1944.  In the middle of their rest Hitler got froggy.  He launched what is called operation Wacht am Rhein.  We Americans call that the Battle of the Bulge.  They sent their SS Panzer Divisions, SS armored infantry divisions, all their battle hardened eastern front troops, and they pulled them all out in one last push to try to knock the allies back right through the Ardennes Forrest in Belgium.

In the middle of the night, still with the equipment that had left over from Holland, they trucked the 101st and the 82nd Airborne Divisions into Belgium, dropped them off and said, "Good luck.  Have a nice day."

They also went across the Rhine in gliders in Operation Varsity and when the war was over they went to Berlin and the 82nd Airborne Division was the American honor guard batallion for Berlin after the war during the rebuilding process.  The 82nd Airborne was also in charge of a lot of the guarding of the prisoners at Nuremberg during the war crimes trials.

Davis said they chose that because nobody was doing glider infantry.  You say glider infantry and people will look at you and go, "Heh.  They used little gliders like we play with when we were kids?"  No big gliders.  Controlled crashes is what they were.

A member commented that a lot of the gliders didn't land the way they were supposed to.  Instead they nose dived into the ground and killed the whole crew.  Davis passed around pictures of the design of the gliders that showed they had almost no ground clearance and they had skids of them.  It was buttocks over apple carts straight up into the air.

If Hitler had paid attention to General Irwin Rommel, D-Day would have looked a whole lot different.  Rommel knew the value of gliders.  So much so that Rommel planted what was called "Rommelspragen", Rommel's asparagus.  What he would do is he would stick telephone polls every twenty feet in every open field and string wire between them.  Gliders land in the middle of the night going 75 mph.  There is no, "wave off, do again."  As soon as that rope is cut loose, you are going to go to the ground.  Most of the 325th that were killed on D-Day and D-Day plus one were killed by Rommel's asparagus.

The 325th Glider Infantry came home in 1946 after the war was over after serving as the honor guard regiment in Berlin.  The last glider regiment was decommissioned in 1948.  The 325th was deactivated only to be reactivated a few years later after Vietnam.  It is currently an active unit again, the 325th, but now they're called the Airborne Infantry Regiment.  They did not take PIR, parachute infantry regiment like the other regiments of the 82nd just out of honor because of their origins not as a parachute regiment but as a glider regiment.

Davis had the privilege last weekend of meeting an original member of C Company, 325th Glider Infantry.  He was down at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis and they had a USO dance there the night of their reenactment.  When Davis was walking through he saw a guy who had their unit crest on his VFW and American Legion cap.  He also had a pair of glider wings pinned on his cap.  Davis stopped and said, "Excuse me sir, were you a member of the 325th Glider Infantry?"  He said, "Yes I was.  I started out as a paratrooper but they they asked if anybody wanted to volunteer for the glider troops after Normany.  And I never asked why they needed more glider troops.  Anything to keep me from having to jump out of another one of those damn planes."  So he joined the 325th Glider Infantry.

He actually landed on a boat in Salerno, he jumped on D-Day, and he went to all the major combat operations.  Davis sat and talked to him for forty-five minues.

His first name was Phil as well.  Davis got a book with his signature and an original set of glider wings.

When Colonel Gavin, later General Gavin wanted to get the gliders approved, he got a whole bunch of army Air Corp and US Army big brass inside of this big tent with an open back on it in the middle of the night.  He shut off off the lights outside and he talked about how effective gliders could be to deliver equipment and men exactly where they wanted to be all at one time.  All of a sudden there was a strange sound out in the field.  He turned on those big klieg lights and there were five gliders, two jeeps, two pack howitzers and three squads of men pointing their rifles at all the guys in the tent and nobody heard them come in.

Davis said if you're interesting in joining you don't have to go stupid like he did and bu all this stuff.  You can buy an HBT uniform set for under a hundred bucks.  Davis will loan you a set of lug gear.  He went and bought three or four sets of it.  He will loan you a weapon for your first year.  Davis even makes his own blanks.

They do casualties and they have a couple of vehicles, they can use a driver for the.  They can use guys who just want to sit around camp and talk to the spectators and guard their stuff while they are out on the battlefield.

Talking to Phil McKnight, the original member of the 325th Glider Infantry, he looked at Davis group and said, "You're just like guys that I knew in 1943 and 1944."  Davis said, 43 and 44?"  He said, "Yes, most of them were dead by 45."

Davis took that as a great compliment when he said, "You remind me of guys I knew back then."

Part 2 - Weapons & gear of the 325th
The weapons carried by the 325th were the standard infantry weapons, the M1 rifle, the US rifle caliber .30M1.  This is the weapon Davis carried last weekend when he was not being a fool and volunteering to carry the 60 mm. mortar base plate. Davis will not do this again.  He thought it was a replica of a mortar base plate made out of stamped sheet metal.  It was not.  It was cast iron and lead and it was very much heavy.

Weapons & gear of the 325thThe M1 Rifle
The M1 rifle is what Patton called the greatest battle implement ever devised.  It is also the greatest thumb smasher ever devised if you don't know what you're doing.  Even if you do know what you're doing, in helping a friend out you will still get zapped.  Davis got his first M1 thumb at the Abe Lincoln Gun Club when he was twelve years old.  He was shooting an .03 Springfield and he forgets whether it was Dick Roth or who it was that said, "Why don't you just use my M1?  It will beat the crap out of you a lot less than that Springfield will, but you've got to watch that thing cause it'll.."  "OOOH!"  Davis was halfway through the slope fire string where you have to close the bolt every time and it was cold, like a November shoot.  And Davis slammed his thumb in there and it slapped shut. He was sitting there thinking, "How am I going to get my thumb out of here?"

Everybody was just watching him to see what this twelve-year old was going to do.  They were waiting to see if he was going to cuss.  Davis didn't disappoint them.  He figured out that if he could take his other hand and push it back and get his thumb  out, and he thinks it was either Dick Roth or Doc Richards who said, "Now what's important son, is are you going to finish the match?"  And he did.

The M1 Carbine
The other weapon that was used was a weapon that never was designed as a main infantry weapon, US Carbine, caliber .30M1.  Most of the World War II carbines that are World War II are not the ones that you see out there today.  Most of them have been refitted after the war.  The original carbine had this type sight on it, a flip side.  They didn't have the click adjustable sight like the .03A3 Springfield had on it.  They also had a push button safety much like your 870 or 1100 Remington has on it.  This was thought to be confusing because it was a push button right behind the push button that kicks the magazine out.  Bad idea if you're real nervous.

Most of the World War II ones with the exception of some of the late, late, late war ones, 1945, that were sent to the Pacific did not have a bayonet lug.  This is the M1 Carbine.  This is not designed as a main battle rifle.  It weighs five pounds.  It was designed as a replacement for this.  It was designed to give the person carrying it more range and more firepower without having to carry a full size rifle.

Model 1911 Pistol
This is a model 1911A1 semiautomatic pistol. 45 caliber.  This is the pistol that everybody says when you read gun articles and its just as good as the 1911.  Who don't you just buy a 1911.  That's what it is being compared to.  It works, it's reliable.  Now getting one of these to work with blanks, howver, is another story.

Ever wonder why in the movie "Sergeant York", Seargeant York is carrying a Luger  as a pistol?  Because Lugers are real easy to convert to shoot blanks.  You ust thread the end of the barrel and go pop, pop, pop.  Not with these.  Davis thought that was all you had to do so he threaded the end of the barrel and put a plug in the end of it and he walked outside and bang.  The slide didn't move.  He thought, "Okay, apparently I need a smaller hole in the plug."  He had the hole down to where it was .015 inches.  Everybody says it should be .152.

Davis called up a friend who does these things for Hollywood movies.  He said, "So, did you grind the locking lugs off?"  Davis, said, "Heh?"  "Locking lugs, you've got to make it a straight blow back action rather than a delayed blow back action."  "No."  "There's your problem."

So Davis ground all the locking lugs off of this barrel and he tapered the shroud that goes over the top of the barrel.  Davis thought his friend was smoking crack when he said this.  "Take the barrel link out of it."  Guess what, it runs like a house of fire now.  Davis can shoot blanks like crazy.  

Weapons & gear of the 325thField Gear
As far as the field gear they carried, they carried the Mark II hand grenade.  Davis showed members a fake one made out of plastic.  It does have a cute little fuse on the bottom and when you light that, you've got about five seconds until it goes "bang" and it shoots a big thing of smoke out of the botom.

Davis did his best to make certain everythiing he carries is authentic.  He even went so far as to reproduce the cigar tubes for the victory cigars.  They say, "Victory cigars for our boys in the 82nd Division" from the Dunham Tobacco Company, Fayetteville, North Carolina, 1943.

He also got the G1 dog tags of that period that have the notches on them.  He went on line and there's a place you can go to and it will show you what your World War II service number is by where you are from, how old you are, when you enlised, etc.  So he is Davis, Phillip D., 16488251.  The later guys are their social security numbers but the guys who had actual army, service numbers.

In th early war they still wore the short boots with the canvas leggings.  These are a pain in the neck.  In 1943 they came out with the two-bucks boot which gives you a cuff around the top to keep your pants blouse down plus all the ankle support of the long quarter boot.  Davis has these and also a set of the actual jump boots because he can wear either one.  These are actually very comfortable, durable boots.  You don't have to polish these because they are rough side out.  You just take a wire brush and brush them up, no hour and a half of spit shine.

Weapons & gear of the 325thDavis showed us a 1910 pack, 1910 pattern shovel, 1923 pattern cartridge belt, and a Carlisle bandage.  You can carry the ten a half or the fifteen inch bayonet. Davis chose the fifteen inch bayonet just because it's more awkward and makes his life a living hell carrying it around all the time.

Canteens came in a variety of types.  At the outbreak of World War II they tried to go with the stainless steel and realized they couldn't make enough of them.  Some genius came up with the idea in 1942, "Well gosh, we'll just  make them out of tin and we'll metal plate em."  This is great til you get chips in them, then they turn into rust balls.  You not only have lick but you also had something to chew.  They came up with the idea to use plastic.  Their plastic technology in 1943 was not at the level of ours.  They found out that their plastic back then was very porous.  It was so porous that the chemicals the plastic was made out of tended to leach into the water in heat.  The chemical it was made out of was formaldehyde.  Lovely tasking stuff.  They made them out of all kinds of stuff.  The ones that were made out of actual ceramic didn't work real well the first time you laid them down real hard.  They went back to aluminum.  Aluminum was actually first.

Uniforms
The uniforms they wore were either the HBT which was carrying loads well.  Davis likes his because he doesn't sweat to death in it.  They are very durable, they wear like iron and they have big pockets to put things in.  You could have had the mustard wool pants and shirt which is what he is wearing with his class A uniform.  Or you could have had the jump uniform.  Basically in the 82nd Airborne and the parachute and glider regiments, anything you asked for, if they could procure it, you got it, because they figured you were a dead man anyway.  You were going to be dropped behind enemy lines and told to hold til relieved.  "Sir, when is that going to be?"  "Shut up, hold til relieved."


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