It was designated the CG-4A by the United States Army Air Forces,[2] and given the service name Hadrian (after the Roman emperor) by the British.

In an effort to identify areas where strategic materials could be reduced, a single XCG-4B was built at the Timm Aircraft Corporation using wood for the main structure.

[3] From 1942 to 1945, the Ford Motor Company's "Iron Mountain Plant" in Kingsford, Michigan, built 4190 units of Model CG-4A gliders for use in combat operations during World War II.

One night-shift worker in the Wicks Aircraft Company factory in Kansas City wrote, On one side of the huge bricked-in room is a fan running, on the other a cascade of water to keep the air from becoming too saturated with paint.

The wings are first covered with a canvas fabric stretched on like wallpaper over plywood then every seam, hold, open place, closed place, and edge is taped down with the all adhesive dope that not only makes the wings airtight, but covers my hands, my slacks, my eyebrows, my hair, and my tools with a fast-drying coat that peels off like nail polish or rubs off with a thinner that burns like Hell.

Although not the intention of the Army Air Forces, gliders were generally considered expendable by high-ranking European theater officers and combat personnel and were abandoned or destroyed after landing.

[citation needed] Despite this lack of support for the recovery system, several gliders were recovered from Normandy and even more from Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and Wesel, Germany.

In addition, by using a fairly simple grapple system, an in-flight C-47 equipped with a tail hook and rope braking drum could "pick up" a CG-4A waiting on the ground.

The CG-4As were used for getting personnel down to, and up from, floating ice floes, with the glider being towed out, released for landing, and then picked up later by the same type of aircraft, using the hook and line method developed during World War II.