"Vertical Envelopment!" A story about
"Operation Varsity" based on the eyewitness account of Lt. Col.
Robert E. Thomas, USAFR (ret.)

     Ever heard of the
term "vertical envelopment"? Maybe. Know what it means? No.
Well, neither did twenty-year old Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Robert
E. Thomas, a native of Anderson, Indiana, when informed to expect
immediate transfer to another air base for combat training of an
unspecified nature. Neither the location of the base nor the makeup of the
new unit was revealed to him, but he was told that an overseas combat
assignment would follow shortly. After departing his duty station and
spending two miserable days aboard a crowded troop train, Thomas, with
another group of pilots, arrived at South Plains Army Air Field in
Lubbock, Texas. There, they were confronted with a sight that turned their
blood to ice water: an airfield inhabited by huge numbers of box-like Waco
CG-4 troop Gliders! And the sandy-haired, boyish-looking pilot learned for
the first time what "vertical envelopment" meant: Landing an
attack force behind enemy lines by airborne means, which included not only
paratroops but large assault gliders carrying artillery, heavy weapons,
munitions, supplies, and other troops onto the battlefield.
     Like so many
American boys who grew up in the Depression-wracked 1930s, Bob Thomas
dreamed of one day becoming a pilot. Out of this ambition, he built model
planes from IO-cent balsa wood kits, read Flying Aces, Popular Aviation,
and the G-8 pulp stories, and was enthralled by movies like Dawn Patrol,
Ceiling Zero, and I Wanted Wings. His first plane ride occurred at age 12,
a 10-minute excursion in a surplus Curtiss Condor airliner biplane, which
happened . . . . .