Wants Aircraft For D-Day Museum

A dilapidated Douglas C-47 located in Bosnia with a colorful history from World War II, might get a reprieve from a rotting death if French enthusiasts can thwart politics to remove the aircraft from the country before December, according to Reuters.

"This plane is like a hero for me. She has had an astonishing history and deserves respect. She must not be left to die," said Beatrice Guillaume, who manages a D-Day museum in Melville, Normandy. Guillaume wants to restore the aircraft for her museum.

A team has been on stand-by for weeks to crate up the plane and truck it out of Bosnia, where it was machine-gunned on an airfield near Sarajevo in 1994 during the Yugoslav civil war to ground it for good.

But due to politics, bureaucracy and blunders which have kept the Bosnian president from signing a release, the aircraft sits rotting. Guillaume says they until November 14, or they will miss their chance to get the aircraft.

In a strange twist of fate, the C-47 used against Nazis will need the help of German troops stationed at the Bosnian airfield to load the aircraft onto waiting trucks. The Germans mission there terminates December 1, when they return to their country for good.

"If the memorandum of understanding is not signed now, it is finished. This is our last chance. We have tried to do everything we can. We are just waiting now," said Guillaume.

Guillaume and her friends began searching for a Douglas C-47 years ago, they recognized the hefty transport plane as a symbol of the 1944 D-Day landings, when hundreds of thousands of allied troops hit the beaches and entered Normandy to liberate France from the Nazis.

A French soldier and a plane enthusiast, who had negotiated a one hour cease fire to see the plane up close and in safety, told her he had spotted one such plane while serving as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in the 1990s.

A check of its registration numbers revealed that it had taken part in the Normandy landings, as well as the Arnhem 'Market Garden' operation, the siege of Bastogne and the last parachute invasion of the war in Europe in March 1945.

Its air crew painted its nickname under the cockpit -- "The SNAFU Special" which meant "Situation Normal -- All F----- Up." The C-47 was seriously grounded by enemy fire on June 6, 1944, the start of D-Day, again at Arnhem and later, on December 27, 1944, when its main tires were shot up, the wings and props shredded with bullet holes.

Each time it was repaired and put back in service. After the end of WWII, it was sold to Czech Airlines, then to the French Air Force and finally in 1972 to Yugoslavia.

After digging up the aircraft's history, Guillaume's team began searching for its air crews, finding just two survivors in the United States, plus many relatives of the airmen, including Sally Harper, the daughter of the D-Day pilot, Lieutenant James Harper.

"I was shocked when they contacted me. I had no idea what my dad did. He rarely talked about his war experiences," Sally Harper said.

D-Day pilot James Harper died in 2005. Harper’s daughter said it was important for the plane to be brought to France and refurbished.

"It's insane to think such a unique plane might not be rescued because of missing paper work. Saving it would be an amazing tribute to my father and to all the GIs who were there."

FMI: www.faqs.org/docs/air/avc47.html, www.batterie-merville.com/reddevils_uk.asp