Silent Wings Museum Tells Lubbock's WWII Glider Story

Out by the Lubbock airport, in the old terminal and tower building, sits a piece of World War II history many residents never expect. The City of Lubbock's Silent Wings Museum preserves and promotes the story of the WWII Military Glider Program — the engineless aircraft towed into combat to land troops behind enemy lines.

The local reason it lives here is the ground itself. The museum stands on the site of the wartime South Plains Army Airfield, where glider pilots trained from 1942 to 1945. Roughly 80 percent of the Army's glider pilots came through South Plains Army Airfield for advanced training and earned their 'G' wings here, drawn by Lubbock's dry climate, clear skies, and wide-open plains.

The collection is anchored by a rare, fully restored CG-4A glider and the story of the American pilots who flew them on combat missions. It's an unusual, quietly moving thing to find in a Panhandle city, and it sits where part of the history actually happened.