After D-Day, Italy, Market Garden, the Ardennes and Operation Varsity Douglas / Dakota C 47 transport plane found in Bosnia, restored & displayed France




The Douglas C-47 Skytrain, better known as Dakota, was the most commonly used transport plane during World War II and was developed from a passenger plane Douglas DC-3. Apparently, the same two planes differ in that the C-47 has a large loading door on the rear of the carcass. By the end of the war, more than 10,000 copies were delivered. After World War II, many of these planes representing war surpluses, processed in passenger planes.

Douglas/Dakota C 47  in Rajlovac, Sarajevo, Bosnia


The first C-47 came in the Yugoslav air force service in 1944, when a group of Yugoslav mechanics repaired and enabled for flying a USAF C-47, forced landed at Ljubovia. After the war, as the aid of the UNRA, the JAT received several C-47s, which were converted to passenger version DC-3. and in 1953 started introducing C-47 in the YAF, which had in inventory 41 planes at all. 



The plane carried 25 soldiers or paratroopers, or up to 2000 kg of cargo. The last military version C-47 planes were withdrawn from operative service by the end of 1976, and the last C-47, used by aeronautical authorities for calibration of navigational equipment, was wiped off the register 1986 and sold abroad. Yugoslav airmen memorized the C-47 as reliable, easy to maintain and fly.



Members of the restoration team inaugurate the restored WW2 transport on June 7, 2008, in Merville-Franceville-Plage, northern France. Aviation and history passionates managed to bring back the plane from Bosnia to Normandy to restore and exhibit it at the Debarkation museum. The Douglas C-47, called Dakota by the British and bearing the number 43-15073, participated in June 1944 in the allied landing in Normandy, then in Provence in August, before parachuting supplies and ammunitions in the Belgian Ardennes in December.

The most fortunate Dakota from these parts is of course 71248, now restored, in a proper aviation museum in Merville, France. Quite a famous machine, 71248 was originally the "SNAFU special" of the 440th Troop Carrier Group, the 95th Troop Carrier Squadron, USAAF 9th Air Force, and has a combat record that makes for some very impressive reading - D-Day, Italy, Market Garden, the Ardennes and Operation Varsity, the last large-scale paratroop operation of the WW2.


Retired U.S. World War II pilot, lieutenant Henry Moreland, aged 90, waves American and French flags from the cockpit of the Dakota 43-15073 in Merville, in Normandy France, June 7, 2008. Moreland and retired pilot Eugene Noble, aged 87, attend a ceremony where their restored Dakota, recovered from a landing strip in Sarajevo where it was abandoned in 1992, was presented near Caen.

Sold to the French Air Force after the war, by the early 70s it found its way into the Yugoslav armory and survived the breakup of Yugoslavia as a sad, neglected derelict, sporting the locally-famous "May Be Airlines" sign.



former British pilots, pose in front a restored C-47 on June 7, 2008, in Merville-Franceville-Plage, northern France.Aviation and history passionates managed to bring back the plane from Bosnia to Normandy to restore and exhibit it at the Debarkation museum. The Douglas C-47, called Dakota by the British and bearing the number 43-15073, participated in June 1944 in the allied landing in Normandy, then in Provence in August, before parachuting supplies and ammunitions in the Belgian Ardennes in December.

Found in 2007 by enthusiasts from France. Reporting to France and the director of the museum in Normandy comes to determine the authenticity of the aircraft. The registration confirms that it is really a plane that took part in the day D operation.., it was donated to the "SNAFU team" by the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, In Bosnia, they split into parts and transported to Normandy on three trucks.  And is now - after a year's restoration and invested € 90,000 euros - gracing the grounds of Normandy looking better than new!


Bosnia's  president, Zeljko Komsic, French  Michel Bart and US ambassador to France, Craig Roberts Stapleton, inaugurate a plaque, on June 7, 2008, in Merville-Franceville-Plage, northern France, to celebrate the restoration of the D-Day transport. Aviation and history passionates managed to bring back the plane from Bosnia to Normandy to restore and exhibit it at the Debarkation museum. The Douglas C-47, called Dakota by the British and bearing the number 43-15073, participated in June 1944 in the allied landing in Normandy, then in Provence in August, before parachuting supplies and ammunition in the Belgian Ardennes in December

Sources:
muzejvazduhoplovstva.org.rs
muzejrv.mod.gov.rs
paluba.info
achtungskyhawk.com
aero-farm.com

forum.klix.ba

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