Hello All,

I am a member of a foundation that has just acquired a C-47. Our intent is to restore her to her WWII colors and configuration.

We are looking to find as much as we can about the history of this aircraft. We have the info from the Individual Aircraft Record Card, but are lacking any info about what individual units/squadrons she served with.

General WWII history:
17 Dec 1944- Aircraft departed US for first time to MTO joining the 15th AF on 23 Dec 1944.
23 Dec to 13 Jan 1945- Spent 20 days at unknown unit based around Bari, Italy.
14 Jan 1945- Aircraft joined 12th AF Sqdn unknown. With this unit until 11 Sep 1945.
11 Sep 1945- She made 6 day trip back to US carrying G.I.'s back home from war front.

We would like any info that you folks could supply about this aircrafts unit history so correct paint scheme/insignia can be applied.

You can check out our foundations website for additional info:/www.aafgroup.org/

Thank you for your help.

David Myers
American Aeronautical Foundation
C-47/B-25 Maintenance Team Member

David, the 1984 edition of Gradidges book "The Douglas DC-3 and its predecessors" says that c/n 15347/26792 43-49531 was delivered on Nov 30th 1944. Then 12th AF Italy January 14th 1945. It's sister ship 43-49532 with same delivery date seems to have joined, as she is listed at Bari December 27th 1944. A hypothesis is that your C-47 might have been part of XII Troop Carrier Command: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Air_Force

51st Troop Carrier Wing (C-47) (Nov 1942 - May 1945)
Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily, Italy ;

• 60th Troop Carrier Group => 10th TCS; 11th TCS; 12th TCS; 28th TCS
  
• 62nd Troop Carrier Group => 4th TCS; 7th TCS; 8th TCS; 51st TCS
  
• 64th Troop Carrier Group => 16th TCS; 17th TCS; 18th TCS; 35th TCS

Bari was HQ for 15th AF during WWII after what I found on the www. There is a newer edition of Gradidges book at Air-Britain ( http://www.air-britain.com/ ) Will see if there are more info in that edition. Have now checked latest edition, and no additional info listed.

Dakota Norway Foundation where I'm a member operates a 1943 C-53D-DO of 8th AF. The a/c came to England in October 1943.
 
PS. Bari in Italy is listed as 12th AF base. Among a/c listed in use for the above mentioned Troop Carrier Squadrons the nearest serial listed is 43-49530 (4th TCS) and 43-43-49539 (7th TCS). 43-49530 was delivered on Nov 30th 1944 as were 43-49539. 49539 arrived in Italy on January 14th 1945, and 49530 on January 6th 1945.

<message edited by deefeater on 06/07/2008 03:35:21 PM >

Deefeater,

Thank you for the info. This will help narrow our search even more! Hopefully as we dig further into it we can come up with an individual unit. This is a great starting point.

Once again thank you for the help.

David Myers
American Aeronautical Foundation
C-47/B-25 Maintenance Team Member