Assault glider built in Shropshire begins its final journey
A full-sized replica of a Second World War assault glider which was built in Shropshire by volunteers as a tribute to the exploits of the airborne forces is on the move to Holland – having failed to find a home in Britain.
The non-flying replica of an Airspeed Horsa has languished for the last five years in a hangar at RAF Cosford, which provided welcome storage in the absence of a permanent home.
The massive wooden glider was today, Wednesday, due to start a journey which will see it go on display in September as part of a major Dutch event marking the 75th anniversary of the Arnhem operation.
Afterwards it will move to its final home at a museum at Overloon, 60 kilometres south of Arnhem.
Deteriorating
Martin Locke, of the Assault Glider Trust, which built the glider at RAF Shawbury between 2001 and 2014, said: "We are very pleased we have a solution, although it isn't perhaps the one we would have preferred.
"We would have preferred somewhere in the UK, but it was never going to happen, as far as we can see, at least in the short term.
"We have waited for five years to find somebody in the UK to take on the glider for permanent public display and although we have had approaches from several people, it hasn't come to anything.
"The Horsa has been steadily deteriorating in one of the storage hangars at RAF Cosford on the far side of the airfield."
The glider was due to be disassembled and then leave by road this morning for the port of Hull on the first leg of its final journey.
The troop-carrying Horsa gliders were used in the epic airborne operations of the war, including D-Day, Arnhem in September 1944, and the crossing of the Rhine in 1945.
Some wartime Shropshire airfields were heavily involved in glider training, and RAF Cosford also played its part in assembling Horsas.
Initial hopes by the Assault Glider Trust's volunteers that the replica would go on display at the RAF Museum at Cosford – which is separate from the RAF Cosford air base – were dashed when the museum said it did not have enough space.
