Combat Aircraft
1 primary work • 2 total works
Book 66
C-47 is an aircraft that remains a popular favourite and an acknowledged classic design, carrying out missions every bit as strategically important and as dramatic for the aircrew as those of the fighters and bombers. The C-47's wartime operations paved the way for post-war military air transport. It also demonstrated how the USAAF was able to invest in and carry out a mission that it had not devoted much time to preparing for in terms of doctrine pre-war (in contrast to strategic bombing). In addition to linking theatres (by flying across 'the Hump'), it showed how vital it was to operations within a theatre like New Guinea, proving that even if massed airborne invasions were not carried out in the PTO/CBI, all air arms need transports like the C-47. This book examines these popular and vital units.
The C-47 units of the USAAF were an integral part of some of the most dramatic episodes of the European war: the airborne assaults in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, southern France, Operation Market Garden, and the crossing of the Rhine. The mass fratricide off Sicily, the night drop for D-Day, and the Bastogne supply missions are also covered, along with more typical accounts of training, formation flying, airdrops and casualty evacuation missions. This book details an aircraft that remains a popular favourite and an acknowledged design classic, carrying out missions every bit as strategically important and as dramatic for the aircrew as those of the fighters and bombers.