Operation Varsity: The Reluctant Volunteer

March 24, 1945. The largest single-day airborne assault in history is about to begin.

Lieutenant Bill "Mac" McCallister expects to pilot his twin engine C-47 troop transport carrying paratroops across the Rhine River into Germany. Instead, last-minute orders put him in the co-pilot seat of a fabric-covered Waco glider-what airmen grimly call a "flying coffin." No power, no armament, no protection.

Loaded with two tons of troops and artillery, McCallister's glider is part of Operation Varsity. Thirteen hundred gliders are towed into Germany delivering thousands of Allied soldiers and armament behind enemy lines to secure bridges and crossroads from the retreating Germans. Surviving the flak-filled skies over Germany is only the beginning. After successfully landing the glider, the reluctant pilot must become an infantry soldier, facing snipers, tank crews, and execution squads in a desperate fight to survive and return to base.

Based on the account of an actual glider pilot, this gripping story reveals the history of the glider pilots who flew WWII's most dangerous missions-and the ordinary men who discovered extraordinary courage to do their duty when everything depended on it.