operations After the heavy losses at Crete the Germans made no more large-scale glider assaults. They did make several coup de main attacks against targets which were not protected by anti-aircraft guns. One of these was Unternehmen Eiche ("Operation Oak") a landing on the Gran Sasso in Italy on September 12, 1943, in which the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was rescued from house arrest. Another was an attack (codenamed Operation Rösselsprung) on the headquarters of Marshal Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia in March 1944. Glider troops landed above Tito's headquarters. This was in the middle of a large concentration of Yugoslav partisans, and the glider troops once again suffered heavy casualties, while Tito escaped. The last German glider attack was on the liberated Free French redoubt of the Vercors in July 1944. This attack from an unexpected direction drove the resistance fighters from the plateau, but the conduct of the operation was marred by the brutal behaviour of the glider troops. Post war Glider infantry did not survive long after the close of World War II. The German glider infantry units were disbanded. The U.S. Army Glider Infantry School was closed in 1948 and remaining glider units were eventually converted into parachute infantry. About the same time the British Glider Pilot Regiment was subsumed into the Army Air Corps and the airlanding brigades were disbanded. However the Soviet Union continued to train and use glider troops well into the 1960s. A convergence of factors led to the rather quick displacement of glider-borne infantry by regular paratroops. Larger capacity post war cargo plane designs with stern loading ramps enabled paratroops to carry heavier equipment. It was unsafe to tow wooden gliders at the high cruising speeds of four engined transports. Improvements in parachute infantry training and tactics reduced the scattering when paratroops disembarked. Newer anti-aircraft technology like radar and radar directed guns made gliders readily detectable . The concept of using aircraft to forcibly insert infantry, however, never completely died and was eventually revived in the late 1950s with the advent of helicopters and air assault infantry. References External links 325th Glider Infantry Association National WWII Glider Pilots Association, Inc. Tribute To The American Combat Glider Pilots Of World War II Infantry Infantry