The Hamilcar was a cargo-carrying glider developed for British Airborne Forces.
It could carry up to 8 tonnes, usually vehicles that were too large to be flown in any other way. 34 Hamilcars were used on D-Day, 6 June 1944. They carried anti-tank guns, Universal Carriers and Tetrarch tanks into France. The rest of the British airborne operation included paratroopers and infantry carried in smaller Horsa gliders.
They were later used during Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands in September 1944, and Operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine, in March 1945.
The Tank Museum’s Hamilcar
In 1990 these pieces of a Hamilcar, serial TK718, were recovered from a farm in Christian Malford, Wiltshire, where they had been used as a shed.
