Dakota Flew In D-Day Invasion

ANN is pleased to report what appears to be a happy ending for a group of airplane enthusiasts hoping to salvage an historic Douglas C-47 from Bosnia, and display it in a French museum. This week, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed to give the plane to the D-Day Museum in Merville-Franceville in Normandy.

Bosnia's state presidency voted to hand over the aircraft, spokesman Jovan Maric told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

As ANN reported, the now-dilapidated C-47 Dakota has a colorful history. Built in 1944, the aircraft was one of hundreds used during the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. It was later used in the Arnhem 'Market Garden' operation, the siege of Bastogne and the last parachute invasion of the war in Europe in March 1945.

As World War II drew to a close, the plane was sold to Czechoslovakia to be pressed into service as an airliner. It remained there until 1960, when it was bought by the French air force. The aircraft flew under the French flag until 1972, when it was sold to Yugoslavia.

It was there a French soldier stumbled across the plane at the Rajlovac air base near Sarajevo, while serving as a peacekeeper in Bosnia the 1994. The aircraft had been subject to heavy machine-gun fire during the Yugoslav civil war, to prevent it from taking flight.

The soldier, also a plane enthusiast, negotiated a one-hour cease fire in the Yugoslav civil war to see the plane up close; a check of its registration number -- 43-15073 -- verified its background.

The aircraft is expected to be trucked out from Rajlovac in the coming weeks... prepped for the trip by the German troops now stationed there. In fact, seeing the C-47 off will be one of the final acts for the troops at the base... as the troops, stationed there since the end of the civil war in 1995, are preparing to leave themselves on December 1.

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