{"id":22533235,"date":"2026-09-15T14:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/operation-thursday-broadway-glider-landing-burma-1944\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T14:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:50:46","slug":"operation-thursday-broadway-glider-landing-burma-1944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/operation-thursday-broadway-glider-landing-burma-1944\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation Thursday: The Night Gliders Landed in Burma"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n<p>At half past four on the afternoon of 5 March 1944, a photographic officer landed at Lalaghat in Assam with a three-foot-square print under his arm and ninety minutes to spare. Captain Charles Russhon had flown over Burma that morning in a B-25 without telling the man whose operation depended on what he found. He handed the blow-up to Colonel Philip Cochran and said that the Japanese had caught on to them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The photograph showed Piccadilly, one of two jungle clearings where 77 Indian Infantry Brigade was to land by glider that night. It was covered in teak logs laid out in rows. Anything touching down among them would be destroyed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 22px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#1a1a1a\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Operation:<\/strong> Operation Thursday, the fly-in of Wingate&rsquo;s Chindits into Japanese-held Burma<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Date:<\/strong> Take-offs from Lalaghat, Assam, from 18:12 on 5 March 1944; landings through that night<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Landing zone:<\/strong> Broadway, a clearing in the Kaukkwe Chaung valley, roughly 160 miles behind Japanese lines<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Waco CG-4A gliders towed by C-47s, two gliders per tug on a 350-foot nylon rope<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>First wave:<\/strong> 61 gliders launched, 35 reached Broadway<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Landed first night:<\/strong> 539 men, three mules and 29,972 lb of stores<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>Cost:<\/strong> 23 killed and around 30 injured on the strip, with a further 66 men lost in gliders that never arrived<\/p><p style=\"margin:5px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.6\"><strong>By dusk on 6 March:<\/strong> A 4,800-foot runway with lights and a control tower built inside a wrecked glider<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The decision nobody wanted<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Radio silence had stopped Russhon reporting from the air. So the first anyone at Lalaghat knew of it was that print, and by then the gliders were loaded and the crews were standing by their aircraft.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Two decisions followed, and they belonged to different men. Whether to go at all fell to Lieutenant-General Sir William Slim, commanding Fourteenth Army. Major-General Orde Wingate told him the decision was his. Slim later wrote that he would have given a great deal for someone to relieve him of it, and then gave the order: the operation will go on.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Where to land was Wingate&rsquo;s, and it was driven by Brigadier Michael Calvert, who flatly refused to have his brigade split either side of the Irrawaddy. Everything would go into Broadway alone. The contemporary Special Force report records it in one dry line: after a conference with the army commander and the brigade commander, Wingate decided to use Broadway only.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>A footnote worth having, because it kills a good conspiracy: patrols later found that Burmese loggers had laid the teak out to dry. Nobody was setting a trap. And the same logging industry was about to do far more damage at Broadway than it had done at Piccadilly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;Nothing you&rsquo;ve ever done, nothing you&rsquo;re ever going to do, counts now. Only the next few hours. Tonight you are going to find your souls.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Colonel Philip G. Cochran<\/strong> &mdash; Commander, 1st Air Commando Group, addressing his aircrews at Lalaghat on 5 March 1944<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Two gliders per aeroplane<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The double tow was not an act of desperation. Cochran and his deputy Colonel John Alison had built the 1st Air Commando Group around it, and trained for it in North Carolina, for the simple reason that they had 26 C-47s and needed to move a brigade. Twenty-six tugs pulling two Wacos each meant the whole first wave went in one lift.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/waco-cg-4a-glider-with-jeep-loaded.jpg\" alt=\"A Waco CG-4A glider being loaded with a jeep\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Waco CG-4A with a jeep aboard. Nominal payload was 3,750 lb; on the night of 5 March every glider was carrying at least 4,500. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>What nobody had trained for was the weight. The Chindits remembered going short in 1943 and had quietly stowed extra ammunition and rations, and the airborne bulldozers alone weighed 4,230 lb apiece. Every glider was over its limit. The tugs then had to climb to 8,000 feet at full power to clear the Chin Hills, in turbulence, at night, flying blacked out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Overweight gliders wander. A wandering glider lets the rope go slack, and slack rope either fouls the other glider or snaps when it comes taut. Seventeen broke loose. Cochran broke radio silence in the air to order position lights on and the safer high-tow position, then abandoned double tow partway through the first wave and sent the rest out one glider per tug.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Of 61 gliders launched, 35 reached Broadway. Eight came down in friendly territory, nine in hostile, and the recall caught seven more. Those figures come from the Special Force report; you will see other numbers in other accounts, and they do not reconcile.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uwDHfs8dCMY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin-top:-10px\">WW2TV on the 1st Air Commando Group and the glider operation in the China-Burma-India theatre.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What was waiting at Broadway<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The clearing had been photographed and looked clean. It was not. Years of dragging teak logs out by elephant had cut ruts across the whole field, sixteen inches deep and up to four feet wide, baked hard and completely hidden under four-foot elephant grass. From 8,000 feet they were invisible. From a glider on short finals they were unavoidable.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;From the air it was impossible for us to see large trenches overgrown with grass which crossed the entire field. They formed perfect glider traps, and there was no way of avoiding them. The gliders began immediately to arrive overhead in large numbers, and when a glider starts down there is no way to stop it. As each glider would hit the trenches, the landing gears would come off, and down the gliders would go in a heap.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Colonel John R. Alison<\/strong> &mdash; Deputy commander, 1st Air Commando Group, who ran the landing zone that night<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Alison was not even supposed to be in charge. Lieutenant Colonel Arvid Olson had been given Broadway; his glider went down on the way in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Captain Neville Hogan, a Chindit officer who had never flown before and had never seen a glider until that week, remembered everyone smiling too much on the airfield, all wearing the same bravado grin. On the ground he heard men screaming in the dark as more gliders arrived and piled into the wreckage of the ones already down. His own glider clipped another. The mule aboard broke both front legs, and his first act in Burma was to shoot it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/chindits-column-burma-jungle-wingate.jpg\" alt=\"A column of Chindits moving through the Burmese jungle\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Chindits on the march. Operation Thursday put 9,052 men, 175 horses and 1,283 mules into Burma by air. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Soya Link, then Pork Sausage<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>At about half past two in the morning Calvert sent the code word Soya Link, which meant stop, send no more. Nine gliders of the second wave turned back.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Then came one of those moments that sound invented. A glider carrying a Clarkair bulldozer had swerved to miss a wreck and gone into the treeline at sixty miles an hour. The trees tore both wings off. The fuselage kept going, and the dozer broke its moorings and shot forward &mdash; but the Waco&rsquo;s nose was hinged, designed to swing up when a jeep drove out, and it swung up now. The bulldozer passed underneath the two pilots, who were thrown clear and landed unhurt. Calvert, who had watched that glider go into the jungle like a charging elephant, then heard an engine start, and a working bulldozer drove out of the trees. He sent Pork Sausage: success, keep coming.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>By dusk on 6 March the engineers had a 4,800-foot runway with landing lights and a control tower improvised inside a wrecked glider. Brigadier General William Old flew the first C-47 in himself at ten past seven that evening, landing south to north against instructions and getting away with it. Sixty-odd Dakotas came in over the following night.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;We heard the distant, growing throb of the C-47s &mdash; a full, round sound, soft-edged and with a slow pulse. We heard it many times before, but this night we first heard it, to know it from any sound, for ever. The black wings swept across the moon, and at the roots of the wings I saw the red glow of the motors. For a long time they passed, eastward.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Major John Masters<\/strong> &mdash; 111th Indian Infantry Brigade, watching the transport stream pass over Imphal, from The Road Past Mandalay<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What it bought<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Across the whole operation, Broadway and the second strip at Chowringhee together took in 9,052 men, 175 horses, 1,283 mules and 509,083 lb of supplies. Air Vice Marshal John Baldwin, who commanded Third Tactical Air Force, said afterwards that nobody had seen a transport operation until they had stood at Broadway under a Burma moon and watched Dakotas landing and taking off in opposite directions on a single strip at the rate of one every three minutes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Six RAF Spitfires flew into Broadway on 12 March with a mobile radar. Forewarned the next day, they shot down four attacking Japanese fighters for the loss of one. The detachment did not last a week.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Wingate&rsquo;s Order of the Day on 13 March did not undersell it. Every man who took part, he wrote, might feel proud one day to say &ldquo;I WAS THERE&rdquo; &mdash; and the capitals are his, on the original typed sheet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Gliders suffered an 85 per cent loss rate over the operation, most of it in those few hours at Broadway. The transport force, flying hundreds of sorties into a jungle strip at night, lost exactly one C-47 &mdash; and it was lost on the ground, colliding with a water buffalo.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FAuyyoMCxO4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin-top:-10px\">Period newsreel footage from the Burma campaign of 1944.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MXHwqMI8Ics\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was Operation Thursday?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Operation Thursday was the air assault that landed Orde Wingate&rsquo;s Chindits deep inside Japanese-held Burma in March 1944. The first wave went in by Waco CG-4A glider on the night of 5 March 1944 to a jungle clearing codenamed Broadway, after which engineers built an airstrip and transport aircraft flew in the rest of the force.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why was the landing zone Piccadilly abandoned?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A last-minute photographic reconnaissance on the afternoon of 5 March 1944, flown by Captain Charles Russhon in a B-25, found Piccadilly covered in rows of teak logs. Radio silence meant he could not report it until he landed, about ninety minutes before take-off. Patrols later established that Burmese loggers had laid the timber out to dry; it was not a Japanese trap.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why did one C-47 tow two gliders?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Because only 26 C-47 tugs were available and a whole brigade had to move in one lift. The 1st Air Commando Group had trained for double tow from the outset, using a 350-foot nylon rope. It failed on the night because the gliders were badly overloaded, the tugs had to climb to 8,000 feet in turbulence to clear the Chin Hills, and slack ropes snapped. Seventeen gliders broke loose and the technique was abandoned partway through the first wave.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How many gliders reached Broadway?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Thirty-five of the 61 launched, according to the contemporary Special Force report. Eight came down in friendly territory, nine in hostile territory and seven were recalled. Other published accounts give different figures, ranging from 54 to 67 launched and 32 to 37 arriving.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What went wrong on the landing zone itself?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The clearing was crossed by deep ruts left by elephants dragging teak logs, up to four feet wide and sixteen inches deep, hidden beneath tall elephant grass and invisible from the air. Arriving gliders lost their landing gear in them and piled into one another in the dark. Twenty-three men were killed and about thirty injured on the strip.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Who commanded the air side of the operation?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Colonel Philip Cochran commanded the 1st Air Commando Group, with Colonel John Alison as his deputy. Alison ran landing zone Broadway on the night because Lieutenant Colonel Arvid Olson, who had been given the job, went down in a glider on the way in.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How much did Operation Thursday deliver in total?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Across Broadway and the second strip at Chowringhee, the operation flew in 9,052 men, 175 horses, 1,283 mules and 509,083 lb of supplies, roughly 227 tons. On the first night at Broadway alone, 539 men, three mules and 29,972 lb of stores were landed.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was Operation Thursday?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Operation Thursday was the air assault that landed Orde Wingate\u2019s Chindits deep inside Japanese-held Burma in March 1944. The first wave went in by Waco CG-4A glider on the night of 5 March 1944 to a jungle clearing codenamed Broadway, after which engineers built an airstrip and transport aircraft flew in the rest of the force.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why was the landing zone Piccadilly abandoned?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A last-minute photographic reconnaissance on the afternoon of 5 March 1944, flown by Captain Charles Russhon in a B-25, found Piccadilly covered in rows of teak logs. Radio silence meant he could not report it until he landed, about ninety minutes before take-off. Patrols later established that Burmese loggers had laid the timber out to dry; it was not a Japanese trap.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did one C-47 tow two gliders?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Because only 26 C-47 tugs were available and a whole brigade had to move in one lift. The 1st Air Commando Group had trained for double tow from the outset, using a 350-foot nylon rope. It failed on the night because the gliders were badly overloaded, the tugs had to climb to 8,000 feet in turbulence to clear the Chin Hills, and slack ropes snapped. Seventeen gliders broke loose and the technique was abandoned partway through the first wave.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How many gliders reached Broadway?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Thirty-five of the 61 launched, according to the contemporary Special Force report. Eight came down in friendly territory, nine in hostile territory and seven were recalled. Other published accounts give different figures, ranging from 54 to 67 launched and 32 to 37 arriving.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What went wrong on the landing zone itself?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The clearing was crossed by deep ruts left by elephants dragging teak logs, up to four feet wide and sixteen inches deep, hidden beneath tall elephant grass and invisible from the air. Arriving gliders lost their landing gear in them and piled into one another in the dark. Twenty-three men were killed and about thirty injured on the strip.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who commanded the air side of the operation?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Colonel Philip Cochran commanded the 1st Air Commando Group, with Colonel John Alison as his deputy. Alison ran landing zone Broadway on the night because Lieutenant Colonel Arvid Olson, who had been given the job, went down in a glider on the way in.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How much did Operation Thursday deliver in total?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Across Broadway and the second strip at Chowringhee, the operation flew in 9,052 men, 175 horses, 1,283 mules and 509,083 lb of supplies, roughly 227 tons. On the first night at Broadway alone, 539 men, three mules and 29,972 lb of stores were landed.\"}}]}<\/script><p><em>Sources: Christopher L. Kolakowski in Army History 121; Mason, Bergeron and Renfrow, Operation THURSDAY: Birth of the Air Commandos (USAF); Special Force report, UK National Archives WO 203\/25; William Slim, Defeat Into Victory; John Masters, The Road Past Mandalay; John T. Correll in Air Force Magazine; The Chindit Society; Burma Star Memorial Fund.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/operation-jericho-mosquito-amiens-prison-raid\/\">The Raid That Blew Open a Gestapo Prison<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/operation-halyard-1944-airmen-rescue-pranjani-serbia\/\">Operation Halyard: Rescuing Airmen From Occupied Serbia<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/khe-sanh-1968-airlift-lapes-gpes-c-130\/\">Khe Sanh: The Airlift That Kept a Siege Alive<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sixty-one gliders launched into Burma on the night of 5 March 1944. Thirty-five arrived, most of them wrecked, and by the next evening there was a 4,800-foot runway behind Japanese lines.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":22532668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22533235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Operation Thursday: Gliders Land in Burma, 1944 | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Operation Thursday put 61 gliders into Japanese-held Burma on 5 March 1944. 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