Douglas DC-3 Dakota / C-47 Skytrain

My dad was casevaced on a USAAF C47 in Burma, dad was in fact the only British soldier on board. Apparently when they landed the captain said "white boys out first on my ship".

And supposedly Dakots stands for Douglas Commercial Transport.

DC3 restoration in the news over here, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/d-day-airpl...r-montreal-1.4945443

interesting reference about dropping bombs.

Interesting article thanks, kebecker. We watched Ice Pilots a couple of years ago - amazing work the Yellowknife guys do with their fleet of older aircraft. They have a lot of experience operating the DC-3/C-47. I'd never heard of any dropping bombs during ww2 before - transporting them, yes - maybe a misinterpretation of the log entry?

The article says they were 20 pound bombs so they were probably Fragmentation bombs tossed out by hand through the cargo door after pulling out the safety wire. There was a parachute retarded version used by USAAF that permitted low altitude dropping with reasonable safety:



Image courtesy of Fold3 showing USAAF attack on Japanese aircraft in New Guinea using parachute retarded 20 pound fragmentation bombs.

IIRC there was a bomber version of the DC3 called the B18 or something like that.

Ive checked and in fact the B18 was based on the DC2.

The Bolo had a very similar wing to the DC-2, being just a bit longer, and the tail was the same. The major change was obviously the fuselage so that it could carry a bomb load and gun turrets.
A few pics of the example on display at Castle AFB -

In 1967 I remember that it was being proudly announced that Cambrian Airways were operating Dakotas fitted with BEA Trident seats.

The "new" Buffalo DC3 is featuring in a series of youtube , the first one is a little shaky but episode 2 is here.