to 6,000 by June 1942. After Barringer was lost at sea on a flight to Africa in January 1943, the program came under direction of Richard C. du Pont. Bigger gliders, such as the 30-troop Waco CG-13A and the 42-troop Laister-Kauffman CG-10A were designed later. The most widely used type was the Waco CG-4A, which was first used in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and participated in the D-Day assault on France on 6 June 1944, and in other important airborne operations in Europe, including Operation Market Garden in September 1944 and the crossing the Rhine in March 1945, and in the China-Burma-India Theater. The CG-4A was constructed of a metal and wood frame covered with fabric, manned by a crew of two and with an allowable normal cargo load of 3,710 lb, allowing it to carry 13 combat-equipped troops or a jeep or small artillery piece. The CG-10 could hold 10,850 lb of cargo, such as two howitzers, at a time. The final glider mission of the war was at Luzon on 23 June 1945. By the end of the war, the United States had built 14,612 gliders of all types and had trained over 6,000 glider pilots. The designs of the Waco Aircraft Company were also produced by a wide variety of manufacturers including Ford Motor Company and Cessna Aircraft Company as well as furniture, piano and coffin manufacturers. Following World War II, the United States maintained only one regiment of gliders. Gliders were used in military exercises in 1949, but glider operations were deleted from the United States Army′s capabilities on 1 January 1953. However, the United States Air Force continues to use sailplanes at the United States Air Force Academy to train cadets in the fundamentals of flight. United States Navy and Marine Corps In April 1941, United States Navy officer Marc Mitscher proposed that the Navy develop amphibious gliders with flying-boat hulls with a goal of deploying an amphibious glider force capable of delivering an entire United States Marine Corps brigade of 715 men to a hostile beachhead, the gliders to be towed by Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina amphibian aircraft. The Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics developed specifications for two types of amphibious glider, a single-hulled type which could carry 12 passengers and a twin-hulled type that could carry 24 passengers. Two companies, the Allied Aviation Corporation and the Bristol Aeronautical Corporation, received contracts to