Outskirts Press, INC.

They said it couldn’t be done.
They were almost right.

2021 Readers Favorite Gold Award Winner
The mission seemed simple enough. Completely restore a 75-year-old historic DC-3 and fly her from Montana to France for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Starting with no volunteers and no money. In under a year. With a crew that had only a few hours of experience flying one. Ride along with author and pilot Bryan Douglass, the rest of the flight crew, the volunteers, paratroopers, World War II veterans, and others on this inspirational story of an impossible dream that almost didn’t come true. The underdog of the D-Day Squadron faced insurmountable odds, constant delays and a shortage of nearly everything except determination. The idea of crossing the north Atlantic in a 75-year-old, newly restored airplane only a few hours after her first flight would terrify most, but you’ll meet the people who believed it could be done. The transatlantic journey of the D-Day Squadron’s “Mighty Fifteen” was an incredible feat, but the story of Miss Montana is the best of them all. Laugh, cry, and be amazed as you get the entire inside story from a pilot who was there.

“The transatlantic journeys of the ‘mighty fifteen’ American C-47s and DC-3s of the D-Day Squadron alone ranks as one of the greatest feats in historic aviation to date, let alone their upcoming return to Normandy alongside the European contingent.” Vintage Aviation Echo June 2, 2019

“While I was working to get the D-Day Squadron across the Atlantic, an army of volunteers in Montana—with almost no DC-3 experience—was working to get one off the ground. But if anyone could pull it off, they could.” Eric Zipkin, Founder of the D-Day Squadron

Introduction

I wrote this story because a few of you told me I must. There are two parts to that: that it must be written and that I ought to be the one to write it. You get to decide if either is true. That I ought to write it makes a bit of sense because I was in the story from the beginning—at least the most recent one. That it must be written at all becomes clearer every day. As the events of 2018 and 2019 fade into history, many of you continue to tell us how much it all meant to you. In that respect I hope this story brings you along, makes you feel like you were there, and that maybe you find your connection with us, our history, and with this remarkable airplane. I hope you will find the inspiration to try something worthwhile that seems impossible. Mostly, I hope you enjoy the story, because we sure did.

Fair warning, though. This is my first book, and only time will tell if it will be my last. You will have a say in that, whether you think it’s worth recommending to your friends or giving to others. In one sense, I don’t much care whether you like it or not because I don’t pretend to be a real author, or expect to earn a living as a writer. This story just demanded to be told. In another sense, I very much hope you like it, and if my telling of it makes you feel like you were there, then I will have done my duty. Sometimes the best you can hope is to do your duty.

There are many details in this story: dates, times, people, numbers, airplanes, places, and events. They are as accurate as possible based on my recollection, the collective memory of The Crew, our notes, photographs, and interviews with others who were there. Any mistakes in recounting the details are entirely mine. I’ve also tried to credit everyone who helped make this story happen. If I neglected someone, I am sorry.

This story is about much more than an airplane, but in it you will experience the world of aviation…and aviators. Like any people with a common passion, we have our own jargon. I could have avoided aviation jargon but chose not to because it was used during the actual doing of things and it seemed inauthentic to change it. I do, however, try to make sure you don’t get lost when the story involves IFR, VFR, and TFR.

There is one thing about aviators that is consistent in my experience. We have a reputation for being stoic, tough, emotionless, fearless, and intently focused on our jobs. This is true of most of us. Yet we do have emotions like normal people. If you catch us just right, which usually requires a tale involving great danger or courage (and aircraft), tragic death (by aircraft), or beautiful women or little children (with or without aircraft), we will cry like babies and not care if anyone sees us do it. The hard part is knowing when it will happen and what will be the right tale.

Last, there were some funny and salacious things as well as some drama and conflict that actually happened but are not in this book. As the saying goes, What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland. Pilots are typically an irreverent lot, prone to all sorts of unruly behavior, profanity, and activities not fit to talk about in church. This may come from the early days of aviation when your odds of returning from a flight were truly about fifty percent; early pilots were not living for the future. Even so, pilots are also mostly an honorable bunch. If we say we’ll do something, we will strive to do it. And I committed from the beginning that this book would be suitable for all audiences and not a tell-all, so you don’t get to know everything. Sorry.

Chapter 1.    The Beginning

If this airplane could talk, the stories she could tell. In her seventy-five years she has seen work and service, tragedy, and glory. She worked at blue-collar jobs, like cargo and transport. She served the country that created her by carrying smokejumpers into harm’s way. She transported athletes to ball games and GIs home for Christmas leave. She worked hard for fifty-four years and 25,000 flight hours. Then the people who had flown her and loved her brought her home to Montana.

She sat idle for eighteen years, admired by visitors as she collected dust in a museum hangar. We like to think she was patiently waiting to be resurrected for new flights, new glory, and making new history. While so many of her kind sat rotting in weed patches around the world, this plane was destined for a return to greatness.

This is the story of N24320, a Douglas C-47 with a long and unique history. In the end, hers is far more than the story of an airplane. Like many famous airplanes, she has touched people and places that will forever be bound to the old girl. And out of a chance encounter between pilots in a small-town Georgia café, she was restored to flight, made new history, and is informing a new generation of all that she and her kind accomplished.

All good stories have a good ending. The best stories have a good beginning and middle as well. This is one of those. In fact, this story has four beginnings, lots of middle, and two near endings. The final ending is not yet written. We will do our part to make sure we don’t live to see it.

The first beginning was when N24320 was born as a C-47 on May 4, 1944, at the Douglas factory in Long Beach, California. She was given Douglas serial number 20197, accepted by the U.S. Army Air Force, and assigned Army serial number 43-15731. She was one of over 10,000 C-47s built for U.S. operations during World War II. Douglas Aircraft Company first built the DC-3 in the 1930s, and it became a revolutionary design in the booming commercial airline race. “DC” stands for Douglas Commercial, and the DC-3 was third in a long line of “Douglas Commercials” that ended with the DC-10.

However, the DC-3 is the greatest of the Douglas Commercial line, having actively served from the 1930s to the present. The DC-3 is widely considered the most successful airplane design in history. Whether or not it was the best, its efficiency, versatility, brawn, reliability, and long history of active use firmly establishes it among the best.

DC-3 and C-47 are used interchangeably in this story. Technically the C-47 is a DC-3 modified with different engines, a cargo door, reinforced cabin floor, glider-tow capability, and other enhancements for military service. Nicknames for the DC-3/C-47 include Skytrain, Gooney Bird, Dakota/Dak (British and French), Doug, Dumbo, and Skytrooper. There were many variants produced for different military branches and missions. General Eisenhower credited the bulldozer, the jeep, the half-ton truck, and the C-47 for helping win World War II. There have been many books written on this incredible machine, so that is all you get here.

We don’t know what N24320 did for her first two years, which probably means she didn’t do much. She was built too late in the war to be needed overseas, so she never served the military in Europe or the Pacific. She could have ended her days rotting in a boneyard or remote foreign field as so many did—except for a man from Missoula, Montana, named Bob Johnson.