Airborne available through Lend-Lease, the British switched to that highly capable and purpose-built airborne delivery aircraft The C-47 was slow and unarmored, but it was a highly reliable transport for airborne troops heading to drops zones And it allowed men to jump from a side door designed to accommodate fast drops with bulky equipment British wooden glider types also evolved until, in combination, the Hotspur, Horsa, and Hamilcar far exceeded the lift capabilities of the small German DFS-230 Where the early Hotspur carried just men, the Horsa carried 32 The still larger Hamilcar achieved a carrying capacity of 40 parachutists or seven tons of equipment, jeeps, or even a light tank Over 4,000 of the two larger glider types were built A powered version of the 40-seat Hamilcar was designed for the Pacific War but never went into action The first effort to carry out a large-scale airborne assault out came with Operation TORCH, the Western Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942 British 1st Airborne Division next jumped into Sicily in 1943 during Operation HUSKY, flying from North African bases British 1st Airborne was joined in the order of battle by 6th Airborne and dropped into hard fighting in Normandy at the outset of OVERLORD late on June 5, 1944, and into D-Day (June 6, 1944) British airborne jumped into total disaster around Arnhem during MARKET GARDEN that September The experience shattered an entire airborne division and badly shook command confidence in the practice of exposing paratroopers and lightly armed glider troops deep behind enemy lines It should be noted that British airborne divisions were multinational Dropping or airlanding alongside British troops in Normandy and again in the Netherlands were paratroopers of several nationalities, including a Polish Parachute Brigade and a battalion of Canadians with the Red Devils of 6th Airborne Free French also served The British also recruited a brigade of paratroopers from the Indian Army and another of Gurkhas from Nepal Chindit glider airlandings were carried out in Burma with the aid of the U.S Army Air Force in March 1944 The 50th Indian Parachute Brigade was used on the ground as light infantry, not as airborne, during the Imphal campaign The Gurkha airborne brigade dropped near Rangoon in May 1945 The United States began development of a large-scale airborne capability in 1941 Until then its only operational airborne unit was the 501st Parachute Battalion By the end of 1944 the U.S Army trained and fielded five full airborne divisions Each had an authorized complement of 8,505 men, comprising a parachute regiment and two glider regiments U.S airborne troops dropped in front of the first assault waves that carried out HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily They were heavily engaged in perimeter defense against German and Italian counterattacks General George S Patton then called upon 2,000 more to jump as critical reinforcements behind the American invasion beach A terrible friendly fire incident led USN and U.S Army anti-aircraft gunners to shoot down 10 percent of the reinforcements, with significant loss of both aircraft and lives But the airborne troops who landed were crucial to holding off a German armored counterattack that pressed hard against the narrow beachhead Two U.S airborne divisions jumped or glided into the Côtentin peninsula in Normandy on D-Day: the 82nd “All American” and 101st “Screaming Eagles” landed behind UTAH and OMAHA beaches They were 18