A rare World War II glider with Henning ties has become the focal point of a new military and veterans museum at Camp Ripley north of Little Falls, Minn.

Hanging above the World War II exhibit, those who visit the new museum will see an 800-pound training glider dangling from the ceiling with yellow wings spanning 54 feet and a blue fuselage wrapped in a snug fabric skin. The glider was donated to the museum approximately five years ago by Juanita Swanson, whose late husband swapped a Continental A65 airplane engine in the 1980s for the glider. The training glider was hanging, and all-but forgotten, for nearly 35 years at the Henning airport where it was being stored in one of the hangers, although in a much different state than it was today. 

“I just love it and I’m so glad to learn it’s being restored for the museum,” said 92-year-old Chuck Bruder, a Korean War veteran and retired barber who lives in Nekoosa, Wis. During his days as a barber in Tomah, Wis., Bruder purchased the busted-up glider from a guy’s barn in Sparta, Wis., around 1969 for $100.

The 27-foot-long Schweizer TG-3A training glider was used in World War II after Adolph Hitler captured a Belgian fort in 1940 using only 10 gliders and 78 troops. After Pearl Harbor, the US Military had hoped to mimic Hitler’s glider idea, but airplane makers were more interested in building high-speed modern combat aircraft. As a result, private companies in the Twin Cities stepped up to the plate, including the Ford Motor Co. plant, a Steinway Piano firm and the Villaume Box and Lumber Co. more famous for the exquisite wood paneling in St. Paul’s downtown courthouse began working on the gliders. 

All told, Twin Cities workers going around the clock between 1942-44 put together more than 10 percent of the 14,000 U.S. gliders used in the second World War. Some were large so-called “flying boxcars” big enough to transport troops and a jeep. Others, like the restored trainer glider, had only two seats — front and back, not side by side.

The gliders were towed by a rope behind larger planes and sent aloft. By D-Day, 500 gliders joined the invasion of France and were silently dropped behind enemy lines, as well as war-torn jungles in Burma. 

After trading for the glider in 1981, Doug and Juanita Swanson initially brought the glider to their home in Eden Prairie—starting a four-decade residency in Minnesota. The Swansons, like previous owners of the glider, had hoped to restore the rare aircraft. However, other projects took priority and the glider began to get into a dilapidated state. From 1987-2021 the rusted steel tubes of the old glider’s skeleton and its broke Sitka spruce wings hung from the wall of Hanger No. 4 in Henning. 

Doug passed away in 2013 and the glider continued to collect dust until it was eventually donated to the military and veterans museum group who wanted to restore the glider once and for all. It is estimated there are maybe a half dozen or so of the gliders displayed in museums and very few of them still remaining in private ownership today. 

The glider can be found at the new Minnesota Military and Veterans Museum. A group of local residents recently toured the new museum, which just opened this fall, to see the new-look glider in its new restored state.