A Life Aloft
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Aboard Betsy’s Biscuit Bomber — The restored C-47 World War II military plane flew in formation over the Hudson River under bright skies, flanked by other aircraft, passing the New York City skyline and Statue of Liberty — a picturesque sight, unlike the strife of 75 years ago.
On Sunday, the fleet of restored aircraft, known as the D-Day Squadron formed by the nonprofit Tunison Foundation, will depart from the Waterbury-Oxford Airport for Normandy, France, to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, stopping along the way at refueling stations in Greenland, Iceland and Scotland that were used during the war.
Seventy-five years after dropping airborne troops into Nazi-occupied France, vintage warplanes bearing the black and white invasion stripes of Operation Overlord are set to take off from Connecticut on Sunday for a return flight to Europe.
Placid Lassie, D-Day Doll, That’s All, Brother and other planes of the D-Day Squadron are to depart from Waterbury-Oxford Airport and leapfrog across the Atlantic to take part in Daks Over Normandy. The international gathering of volunteer pilots, crews and historic planes is to culminate on June 5 with a jump by about 250 paratroopers into the same drop zones used in the June 6, 1944 invasion.
Organizers say the event is meant to honor the citizen soldiers of World War II who liberated France and fought on to victory over the next year.
“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to honor our veterans and to teach new generations about America’s place in the world,” Placid Lassie pilot Eric Zipkin of Middlebury said.
Along with D-Day veterans, the star of Daks Over Normandy will be the C-47 Skytrain, the military version of the Douglas DC-3. The plane debuted in 1935 as an airliner and quickly proved tough and reliable. Transcontinental trips could be made in about 15-17 hours, and the DC-3 established the airplane as the best method for long distance travel.
When the war started, C-47s began rolling out of Douglas Aircraft’s Long Beach, Calif. plant in huge numbers, according to a Popular Mechanics magazine article — Why the DC-3 Is Such a Badass Plane. Carrying 28 fully armed soldiers or 6,000 pounds of cargo, the planes acquired many nicknames, including Gooney Bird, Dakota (Dak) and Vomit Comet.
Powering the plane were two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial engines, producing 1,200 hp each. To honor the men and women who made those engines, six planes of the D-Day Squadron flew over Pratt’s East Hartford and Middletown plants on Wednesday.
Planes of the D-Day squadron are all privately owned, and the organizations behind each aircraft raised money for the flight to Europe and participation in Daks Over Normandy, Zipkin said. Funds also were provided by more than 35 industry partners, D-Day Squadron spokeswoman Lyndse Costabile said.
In addition to honoring veterans, the squadron’s goal is to inspire young people to learn about U.S. history and aviation and explore careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), Costabile said.
Profiled at The Mighty Fifteen - The American Contingent Flying to Normandy | D-Day Squadron, most D-Day Squadron planes are storied combat veterans. In addition to service in Normandy, Placid Lassie, D-Day Doll and others among the 15 squadron aircraft also carried paratroopers in Operation Market Garden over the Netherlands in September 1944, in the relief of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and in Operation Varsity, a drop into Germany in March 1945.
Accepted into service in September 1944, Betsy’s Biscuit Bomber earned her name for participation in the Berlin Airlift in 1948, when American and allied aircrews dropped tons of food and other supplies into West Berlin to thwart the Soviet Union’s attempt to isolate and starve city residents.
Pan Am was one of 300 C-47s built for the China-Burma-India theater of operations and was used to supply U.S. and Nationalist Chinese forces from 1944 to 1945. Flabob Express, whose name during the war was Orion, served as personal transport for British Gen. Claude Auchinleck, then serving as Commander in Chief of the Indian Army.
The first destination for the 10 planes departing from Oxford on Sunday morning (five others are departing from other areas) will be Goose Bay Airport (CYYR) in Newfoundland, Canada; then a refueling at Narsarsuaq Airport (BGBW) in southern Greenland; another stop at Reykjavik Airport (BIRK) in Iceland; and onto Prestwick Airport (EPIK) on Scotland’s western coast.
The images of troops storming the beaches are iconic, but they only tell a small portion of the story. Before they came ashore, 13,000 paratroopers leapt from their C-47s into total darkness behind enemy lines to secure bridges and exit routes. This task was one of the most difficult – landing at night in hostile territory, scattered off their targets and missing much of their equipment. 5,000 additional men arrived in gliders later that day to reinforce the paratroopers. Although many were killed or badly injured, their bravery and fierceness in battle paved the way ahead of the 156,000 troops that would storm the beaches.
From June 2-9, 30 DC-3 and C-47 planes will come together at Duxford Airfield in the United Kingdom and at Caen Carpiquet Airport in Normandy, organizers said. The actual anniversary of the invasion on June 6 is to be a quiet day of remembrance, so planes, pilots and paratroopers are to re-enact the airborne operation on June 5, flying across the English Channel to release jumpers wearing period uniforms.
Preceding the historic beach landings, airborne operations early on June 6, 1944 involved 13,000 paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions along with British paratroopers — a total of about 23,000 combat jumpers.
C-47s and gliders towed by the planes dropped the soldiers behind the Germans’ main lines. Their mission was to take the town of St. Mere Eglise and secure key approaches to the beachhead. D-Day casualties among U.S. paratroopers totaled about 1,500, including 338 killed and 1,257 missing.
The June 5 commemorative flight, according to organizers of Daks Over Normandy, “will most probably be the very last large commemoration of this historic day.”
On Sunday, the fleet of restored aircraft, known as the D-Day Squadron formed by the nonprofit Tunison Foundation, will depart from the Waterbury-Oxford Airport for Normandy, France, to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, stopping along the way at refueling stations in Greenland, Iceland and Scotland that were used during the war.
Seventy-five years after dropping airborne troops into Nazi-occupied France, vintage warplanes bearing the black and white invasion stripes of Operation Overlord are set to take off from Connecticut on Sunday for a return flight to Europe.
Placid Lassie, D-Day Doll, That’s All, Brother and other planes of the D-Day Squadron are to depart from Waterbury-Oxford Airport and leapfrog across the Atlantic to take part in Daks Over Normandy. The international gathering of volunteer pilots, crews and historic planes is to culminate on June 5 with a jump by about 250 paratroopers into the same drop zones used in the June 6, 1944 invasion.
Organizers say the event is meant to honor the citizen soldiers of World War II who liberated France and fought on to victory over the next year.
“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to honor our veterans and to teach new generations about America’s place in the world,” Placid Lassie pilot Eric Zipkin of Middlebury said.
Along with D-Day veterans, the star of Daks Over Normandy will be the C-47 Skytrain, the military version of the Douglas DC-3. The plane debuted in 1935 as an airliner and quickly proved tough and reliable. Transcontinental trips could be made in about 15-17 hours, and the DC-3 established the airplane as the best method for long distance travel.
When the war started, C-47s began rolling out of Douglas Aircraft’s Long Beach, Calif. plant in huge numbers, according to a Popular Mechanics magazine article — Why the DC-3 Is Such a Badass Plane. Carrying 28 fully armed soldiers or 6,000 pounds of cargo, the planes acquired many nicknames, including Gooney Bird, Dakota (Dak) and Vomit Comet.
Powering the plane were two Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial engines, producing 1,200 hp each. To honor the men and women who made those engines, six planes of the D-Day Squadron flew over Pratt’s East Hartford and Middletown plants on Wednesday.
Planes of the D-Day squadron are all privately owned, and the organizations behind each aircraft raised money for the flight to Europe and participation in Daks Over Normandy, Zipkin said. Funds also were provided by more than 35 industry partners, D-Day Squadron spokeswoman Lyndse Costabile said.
In addition to honoring veterans, the squadron’s goal is to inspire young people to learn about U.S. history and aviation and explore careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), Costabile said.
Profiled at The Mighty Fifteen - The American Contingent Flying to Normandy | D-Day Squadron, most D-Day Squadron planes are storied combat veterans. In addition to service in Normandy, Placid Lassie, D-Day Doll and others among the 15 squadron aircraft also carried paratroopers in Operation Market Garden over the Netherlands in September 1944, in the relief of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and in Operation Varsity, a drop into Germany in March 1945.
Accepted into service in September 1944, Betsy’s Biscuit Bomber earned her name for participation in the Berlin Airlift in 1948, when American and allied aircrews dropped tons of food and other supplies into West Berlin to thwart the Soviet Union’s attempt to isolate and starve city residents.
Pan Am was one of 300 C-47s built for the China-Burma-India theater of operations and was used to supply U.S. and Nationalist Chinese forces from 1944 to 1945. Flabob Express, whose name during the war was Orion, served as personal transport for British Gen. Claude Auchinleck, then serving as Commander in Chief of the Indian Army.
The first destination for the 10 planes departing from Oxford on Sunday morning (five others are departing from other areas) will be Goose Bay Airport (CYYR) in Newfoundland, Canada; then a refueling at Narsarsuaq Airport (BGBW) in southern Greenland; another stop at Reykjavik Airport (BIRK) in Iceland; and onto Prestwick Airport (EPIK) on Scotland’s western coast.
The images of troops storming the beaches are iconic, but they only tell a small portion of the story. Before they came ashore, 13,000 paratroopers leapt from their C-47s into total darkness behind enemy lines to secure bridges and exit routes. This task was one of the most difficult – landing at night in hostile territory, scattered off their targets and missing much of their equipment. 5,000 additional men arrived in gliders later that day to reinforce the paratroopers. Although many were killed or badly injured, their bravery and fierceness in battle paved the way ahead of the 156,000 troops that would storm the beaches.
From June 2-9, 30 DC-3 and C-47 planes will come together at Duxford Airfield in the United Kingdom and at Caen Carpiquet Airport in Normandy, organizers said. The actual anniversary of the invasion on June 6 is to be a quiet day of remembrance, so planes, pilots and paratroopers are to re-enact the airborne operation on June 5, flying across the English Channel to release jumpers wearing period uniforms.
Preceding the historic beach landings, airborne operations early on June 6, 1944 involved 13,000 paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions along with British paratroopers — a total of about 23,000 combat jumpers.
C-47s and gliders towed by the planes dropped the soldiers behind the Germans’ main lines. Their mission was to take the town of St. Mere Eglise and secure key approaches to the beachhead. D-Day casualties among U.S. paratroopers totaled about 1,500, including 338 killed and 1,257 missing.
The June 5 commemorative flight, according to organizers of Daks Over Normandy, “will most probably be the very last large commemoration of this historic day.”
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