The Airspeed AS.51 Horsa was primarily a wooden troop-carrying assault glider, designed and built by Airspeed (1934) Limited, specifically for use during the Second World War.
Following the lightning ‘Blitzkrieg’ advances made by German airborne troops in the initial months of the Second World War, and realising the need for the allies to develop equally adept airborne forces and tactics, the Air Ministry issued a number of specifications for military gliders. This included Specification X.26/40 which called for a large glider aircraft, capable of accommodating up to 30 fully-equipped paratroopers, destined for operations in Northern France. Amongst the particulars was the instruction that the aircraft should make use of wood as its main construction material, in order to conserve critical supplies of metals.
Airspeed was amongst the companies receiving the specification and produced initial designs at Hatfield, under the leadership of Alfred Hessell-Tiltman, aircraft designer, and co-founder of Airspeed Ltd. The war production was in full swing at the parent de Havilland Aircraft Company, which had recently acquired a controlling interest in Airspeed, so the glider team had to utilise the classrooms of the de Havilland Technical School as their initial base. This was never an ideal situation, compounded by the constant risk of air raids on the factory site, and so the Airspeed team relocated to Salisbury Hall, at nearby London Colney, which was also the home of the DH.98 Mosquito design team, led by Ralph Hare and Ron Bishop. The final design for the new glider was completed in just 11 months, an extraordinary achievement given that Britain was at the height of its conflict with Germany at the time and the Battle of Britain was being fought in the skies of southern England.
With the designs complete, the first two prototypes were built at Salisbury Hall before being transported to the Fairey Aviation Works at Hayes, near the Great West Aerodrome, where the first prototype (DG597) was first flown on 12th September 1940 by George Errington. It was first towed into the skies over West London and Berkshire by an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley then released and, after a short period, landed with very little difficulty. Allocated the Airspeed designation AS.51, the type was christened ‘Horsa’, after the legendary fifth-century conqueror of southern Britain. Five additional prototypes were then quickly assembled and test flown at the Airspeed Works in Christchurch, Dorset.
As soon as production began, a number of suggested improvements and refinements were made by expert subcontractors, some with decades of wooden furniture experience. These resulted in the Airspeed AS.58 Horsa II. This was a modified design featuring a reinforced floor, together with a hinged nose section in order to accommodate military vehicles for both transport and combat roles. Another significant upgrade was fitting a stronger twin nose-wheel, plus a modified tow attachment. All of these added to an increased all-up weight of 15,750 pounds (7,140 kg). It should be noted that although Airspeed was responsible for most aspects of the Horsa II, they never manufactured or assembled any of this marque.
Perhaps the most famous event involving the Horsa was the use of six gliders to deliver a small force of troops from the 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry into enemy held territory in Normandy on the eve of D-Day. Just after midnight on the 6th June this small force landed on French soil, some four miles inland from the Normandy coast. Their task was to secure two bridges as part of a wider airborne operation, known as Operation Tonga, involving Allied airborne troops – with an overall aim to seal the area immediately around the invasion beaches to prevent or delay German reinforcements arriving to the area when the main landings began. That the troops were successful in capturing the two bridges over the Caen Canal and Orne River owes much to the Horsas themselves and the Glider Regiment pilots who operated them – allowing most of the force to be delivered almost on top of the targets, taking the German troops stationed there completely unawares. It can be no surprise that one of the bridges is now known as Pegasus Bridge after the shoulder emblem worn by the British airborne forces, while the other is called Horsa Bridge in recognition of the Horsa gliders that had carried them there.
The Horsa was a major factor in a number of other operations that followed the successful Normandy assault. These included Operation Dragoon and Operation Market Garden, which involved 1,205 gliders in 1944. A year later, Horsas were involved in Operation Varsity (March 1945) when 440 aircraft carried soldiers of the 6th Airborne Division across the Rhine, in the type's final operation of the war.
After the conflict, a few Horsa IIs were acquired by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) for evaluation trials at a Canadian Air Force Base in Manitoba. Three of these aircraft were subsequently sold as surplus in the early 1950s and ended up in Matlock, Manitoba, until eventually scrapped.
All told, nearly 3,800 Horsas were built, with extensive subcontracting to furniture manufacturers. Airspeed built some 700 (695 at Christchurch), the Harris Lebus group adding around 2,700 others and Austin Motors Ltd a further 365. Due to the dispersed manufacturing of the subcomponents before final assembly at various RAF Maintenance Units around the UK, it is difficult to confirm a total production number but some estimates vary from 3,799 to 4,000 aircraft. Despite this, only one complete original example survives today, although several replicas and cockpit/fuselage sections are also on public display in Britain, France and the Netherlands.