Douglas C-47 Skytrain
The Douglas C-47 Skytrain was the military transport developed from the DC-3 airliner, first flown on 23 December 1941. Douglas built 10,174 of them and the design was license-produced in the Soviet Union; in British and Commonwealth service it was the Dakota. C-47s served with all the Allied air forces carrying cargo and troops, dropping paratroopers, towing gliders and evacuating casualties, and they went on to fly in the Berlin Airlift and, converted as AC-47 gunships, in Vietnam. Many remain in operation and on museum display today.
Why It Mattered
The C-47 Skytrain was the military development of Douglas's DC-3 airliner, a design that had already made passenger flying reliable and profitable. The first Army C-47s arrived in 1941, and the type went on to serve with all the Allied air forces and in every combat theater of the Second World War. Smithsonian Magazine calls the C-47 the most important transport of the war. After the fighting, General Dwight Eisenhower named it among the four weapons he credited with winning the war, alongside the bazooka, the Jeep and the atomic bomb.
Design Notes
Douglas kept the DC-3's basic form: a twin-engine, low-wing monoplane built of light metal alloy, its control surfaces covered in fabric. For military service the company fitted more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines, a stronger rear fuselage, large cargo doors on the port side and a reinforced cabin floor for heavy cargo. The cabin could carry 28 paratroopers, freight, or 24 patients on stretchers with two attendants. Douglas built 10,174 C-47s, and the type was also license-produced in the Soviet Union. In British and Commonwealth service the same aircraft was known as the Dakota.
Operational History
The type's first large-scale airborne work came in 1943, over Sicily in Operation Husky, followed quickly by Operation Avalanche, the landings at Salerno. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, more than 1,000 C-47s carried United States paratroopers into Normandy. The C-47 became the mainstay of the airborne role: more than 1,400 aircraft took part in Operation Market Garden, and 836 in Operation Varsity in March 1945. When German forces surrounded Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, C-47s flew resupply missions to the troops inside the perimeter. In Asia, C-47s flying from India over the Himalayas, on the route called the Hump, delivered most of the supplies that reached China by air. The type was still at airlift work after the war: United States Air Force C-47s unloaded at Tempelhof during the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949, while the city was blockaded by the Soviets. In the 1960s, C-47s were used as close air support platforms with three Gatling guns firing through the port-side windows. Vietnam brought a last combat conversion: 53 C-47s became AC-47 Spooky gunships.
Afterlife
The United States Air Force retired its last operational C-47 on 30 June 1975 and flew it to the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Many DC-3s and C-47s remain in operation today, often with newer engines, frequently in remote parts of the world. Preserved aircraft carry the type's history: the National WWII Museum's C-47, which carried pathfinders into Normandy, hangs above its Louisiana Memorial Pavilion, and an American C-47 that took part in the Berlin Airlift stands on the apron at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport. The National WWII Museum reads that long life as a testament to the design's durability and utility.