Restoring a Junkyard D-Day C-47 Plane [ALL PARTS] | That's All Brother | Spark

June 1944 the second world war had reached a critical moment the only way to stop Hitler in his tracks and to reclaim lost territory was to launch the largest Seaborn invasion in history the moment that became known as D-Day you are about to Embark upon the great Crusade toward which we have striven these many months the eyes of the world are upon you the hopes and prayers of Liberty loving people everywhere march with you the D-Day invasion was spearheaded by paratroopers leaping into the unknown their job was to prevent enemy reinforcements without their actions Allied victory in the west would not have been possible I have to tell you everybody says we're heroes and that isn't true we volun ered to do this we're trained to do it we were paid to do it that does not make you a hero there could have been no spearhead and no paratroopers without the workhorses of the sky the Douglas c47s the airplanes that flew in their hundreds across the English Channel to Normandy charged with delivering the Airborne divisions to their rendevu with Destiny one airplane had to lead the way it seemed totally Beyond Comprehension that the airplane that led the D-Day invasion this incredibly important artifact would be in a scrapyard there's just no way that that can be true I just had a feeling there's something special about this airplane and he said well that airplane was a lead plane into Normandy this is the story of The Men Who found and who were determined to restore this iconic aircraft of the plan's part in one defining moment in history and of a dream that that she should fly again back to the coast of France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day that's all brother the plane that led the D-Day invasion at the end of May 1944 the whole of Northwestern Europe was under Nazi control but that was about to change before any Invasion could take place the Allies needed air superiority and in the weeks leading up to D-Day the RAF and the US Army Air Forces combined in a concerted series of attacks on the German Aviation infrastructure they bombed factories they attacked airfields and aircraft storage depos new tactics Unleashed Fighters to sweep the Skies of Europe so that when dday came aerial Supremacy would be in the grip of the allies and the troops landing on the beaches Under The Shield of Allied fighter protection suffered minimal interference from the Luft waffer for The Invasion to stand any chance of success it was imperative that the Allies first secured strategic objectives Behind Enemy Lines the only way to achieve this was to drop troops in from the air this was a new tactic only fully developed in World War II and the c47 sky Train was derived from this Vilan Douglas DC3 airliner to fulfill this role it was a great airplane to fly I thought they should make one in gold and put it on top of a mountain I've got about 2,000 hours in c47 yeah but I love the airplane it's the most forgiving airplane in the world and uh well you know it wasn't made by mistake we let the c47 you don't have any paratroopers uh we are not very emotional but most of us are emotional about a c47 I can't explain it most of them would give the right arm to ride in c47 today over 10,000 47s were built between 1943 and 1945 and it proved to be one of the most durable and successful of All Transport planes when the war came along the inventory was studied to see what was available and with the Douglas commercial transport you had an aircraft that could carry paratroopers far more effectively than any other aircraft of the time I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required as a civilian transport plane it left behind the corrugated fabric covered aircraft of the era it took air travel in America a Leap Forward people could fly in Comfort with speed with heat and a lot more safety because the aircraft was designed to be able to fly on one engine many twin engine aircraft of the era could not if you lost an engine you were done for with the DC3 and the later c47 you lost an engine you could keep flying just as these planes were being built new shock troops had to be trained in this new form of combat and so in time were born the paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions they were going to have a special unit such as the Army had never had before and it was going to be run by a guy named Colonel sink 6,500 people applied and were accepted he didn't want old army people in there at all because they had over ways he wanted all new people straight out of civilian life the discipline was instantaneous and terrible the least miscalculation of any problem you're out they sent you to 27th Infinity division the food was awful and if you didn't get in line the last three or four guys may not get anything and that was by design it was so bad that he had a had us all sit on a hillside one day and said I hear you people aren't happy happy yeah you don't like the food no you think I'm too hard on you yeah he said well I'm going to tell you it's going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better then he walked away and that was it now we hated him during that training absolutely hated that man but when we got to combat and saw how he operated there isn't a man wouldn't have followed him to Hell back but what of the plane that led the Invasion the very tip of the bearhead she was neither remembered nor accounted for had she in fact been lost to history apparently no one knew then by chance two military historians Matt scales and Ken Tilly found themselves in possession of some key evidence that might help to resolve the mystery of the missing plane I heard a rumor that a member of our Squadron had flown the lead c47 on dday and I thought and I knew who the pilot was John John Donaldson he had been a member of my Squadron since 1924 and so when I hear this rumor I said no that's the wrong kind of plane it's the wrong part of the world so where's this coming from so in the summer of 2007 I had the opportunity to go to the Air Force historical research Agency on a temporary assignment actually at the time and I've met up with another historian named Ken Tilly and he's also from Alabama and we're actually from the same small Hometown up in the northern part of the state and because of that I told him because John Donaldson was from Alabama so I said you know can we figure out you know where this rumor is coming from he said yeah let's look it up so and looked into the Pathfinders those were fairly well documented saw okay he didn't fly a Pathfinder aircraft okay well what's the main wave the lead wave behind the Pathfinders find out that it's the 438 Troop Carrier Group and so Ken takes me up to the the third floor of the uh archives and we pulled the 438 history and there's a picture of John Donaldson as the commander of the group and so like wow okay so he is there and we pulled the June history and we look at it and it says Colonel John donalson along with Lieutenant Colonel David Daniel took off in c47 42928 47 and we were floored because it's very rare for even partial tail numbers to be listed in histories it's unheard of for full tail numbers to be listed in histories and so when we saw that we were just my attention at that point immediately shifted to the aircraft having established that John Donaldson had indeed transferred squadrons and flown the aircraft that led the invasion Matt then set about tracing the serial number 429 2847 to his surprise he discovered that the plane still existed but her fate was uncertain she was in the Boneyard at Basler Turbo Conversions at Oshkosh Wisconsin where many airplanes are given a new life but only after major irreversible modification I chill Rand down watch vine when I saw that it went to Bachelor I was familiar with Bachelor I knew uh you know what they did and and I thought don't get me wrong Bachelor is a great company you know and and I like their product I really do I think it's I think it's cool what they do and a way they breathe new life into these airplanes but at the same time all I could think was there's so many dc-3s and c47s out there want this one you know and so I actually called Bachelor and said hey I don't know if you know but this airplane L the invasion of Normandy and they were very nice very very nice and uh they thanked me for the information and and again I understand they got a job to do they got a business to run and and I don't fault them for that and uh and I said you know just just thought I'd let you know and they said okay thank you and uh so I just thought well you know that's uh you know that's all I can do some years later Matt as a proactive member of online warbird communities discovered that the lead plane thought to be named in Wartime Bell of Birmingham and usually assigned to Donaldson and his crew might be up for sale this could only mean that she was still intact by Good Fortune a member of the commemorative Air Force the world's largest flying War Bird collection was then alerted to the story I distinctly remember a few weeks after joining the CAF I read a Blog article from Whitman Regional Airport and it caught my attention because it was where I used to live and work in Oshkosh and it seemed to be saying that the airplane that led the D-Day invasion was sitting in theat B yard at basa and that really caught my attention because just for for my own history I I knew that Boneyard and I knew the kind of stuff that was hanging around there and the idea that um an airplane that had a significant place in history had been basically rediscovered really captured my attention and now I'm working for the CAF the world's leading World War II Aviation preservation flying Museum and I'm thinking wow this could be a great opportunity this is the the kind of airplane that this organization should aspire to to own Doug rosendal the chairman of the CAF as well as an experienced c47 pilot knows the value of preserving these aircraft for future Generations so the CIF was founded over 50 years ago by some crop dusters in South Texas who quite frankly were uh probably most honestly trying to figure out a way to uh make their uh fund World War II fighter airplanes tax deductible it's grown into a lot more than that um you know we've been in existence for over 50 years we're the largest flying Museum in the world uh have the largest collection of flying World War II airplanes with approximately 170 uh planes that we operate they're scattered all across the country and in some foreign countries and and we use those airplanes as a tool to tell a story and we use those stories to inspire Young people to U realize that they can overcome adversity that there was a time in our history not really that long ago when our way of life was really in Peril The Mystery of the missing plane appealed to the CAF and it fell to Keegan to try to prove the provence of the aircraft uh one of our CAF staffers who is from Wisconsin sort of keeps track of his hometown news stories and uh he kind of brought it to me with the can this really be true it seemed quite unbelievable in reading the materials that were assembled there was a number of sort of factual inaccuracies that sort of made it believable that the whole story was in fact false um the name of the airplane for instance was identified as Bell of Birmingham because this had been the name of of Colonel Donaldson's aircraft mind you the story of bell of Birmingham was known that airplane was was cut up it was well documented so there was this name there was a serial number referenced um but there wasn't a real clear link between the two and so it lent itself to some questioning and skepticism around the claim that that Matt was making so I I originally set out to disprove it first came the need to sort out fact from fiction Keegan began with the serial number and cross refer refen in it against the aircraft's record card he discovered that it had departed for England he also confirmed that as part of the 9th Troop Carrier command she belonged to the Squadron of planes that was to drop the first regular troops into Normandy what Keegan needed now was one further piece of evidence confirming Matt's findings that this was the lead plane one afternoon while we were searching we stumbled into a company that has been digitizing films possessed by the National Archives here in the United States and in one such search we did find the serial number so clicking on the film reel we learned that the film was shot on the night of June 5th right before the D-Day invasion began and so we watched the film reel and realized only a couple minutes in that we were looking at 42928 47 as the lead ship the film showed the airplane showed the general sending it off the film actually allowed us to confirm that the airplane had led the D-Day invasion so how did this detailed archive footage shot the day before D-Day at the air base from which the first planes left come to be filmed greenham common England when Eisenhower came here on the 5th of June he was accompanied by a retinue the Press Corp the media members of the publicity and Psych olical Warfare section he'd helped establish this he knew the value of propaganda the publicity and psychological warfare section was established to disseminate both black and white propaganda black would have course be like fake news today to disturb and disrupt and confuse the enemy white propaganda would be nearer the truth it would be for the folks back home to help sell war bonds cameramen filmed a relaxed Eisenhower with the troops they also filmed in detail the aircraft being prepared and paratroopers boarding including the aircraft that would be leading the operation that day with confirmation of the plane's serial number there still remained the question of her name as Keegan had confirmed the bell of Birmingham was no more so what was her identity as the cameras zoomed in on the airplane and panned around it there was a great deal of attention paid to this aircraft it was obvious that the cameramen knew the historic significance of what they were looking at and as the camera panned past the nose the name that's all brother appeared on the screen and at that one instant in time we realized wow this is its name this is the story this incredible airplane has been lost and we're sitting here and it's been found and at the same moment the thought entered our minds that what if we can't save it we knew that it was at Basler and we knew that Basler has a a degree of efficiency about converting these airplanes and we sort of leapt from that office into action because we had to be able to find out what had happened to this airplane we had to know if it was something that was in our power to save if there was anything that we could do and it turns out that there was finally the correct name for the serial number had been found alleviating Keegan's earlier doubts about the plane's Providence the CAF were now driven by the need to acquire that's old brother and in time they struck a mutually satisfactory deal with Basler for her purchase and restoration I bought this airplane probably more than 10 years ago and I just had a feeling there was something with this airplane so we never brought it through for conversion I always moved it to the back of the line every time it came up for conversion I pushed it to the back just because I had this gut feeling there's something special about this airplane and I'm glad we did because now had we not done that this airplane would have been flying somewhere else in the world as a bt67 with turban engines on it so we're bringing it in and bring it back to the day it left the the Douglas Factory back in 1942 we're going to put it back to all original specifications as the day it left and we're ecstatic you know without the CAF this airplane wouldn't uh wouldn't last or wouldn't be kept uh in the condition that it was without them it turns out the Doug's history of flying c-47s was linked to this very plane also this particular airplane was purchased by a friend of mine um probably 20 years ago 50 20 years ago and uh he called me and asked me to check him out in it I trained him checked him out we flew it together quite a bit and uh he just didn't have the time to campaign the airplane on the air show circuit like he would want he was trying to sell the airplane he was trying to convince me to buy it and I just didn't have need for a DC3 or the ability to take care of it so ultimately he sold it here to Basler Turbo Conversions and uh called me and asked me to fly it here with him so we flew the airplane up here parked it out on the ramp just outside the building and uh I admit unashamedly that when I walked away from it I had a tear in my eye knowing that this airplane's days as a DC3 were over um fast forward I think 7 years and it became known that this airplane was that's all brother the airplane that led the D-Day raid and uh fortunately we at the CAF were able to acquire this airplane and bring it back to its former glory and preserve this iconic piece of American History I think the first time that I saw the airplane up in Oshkosh there was no nose art anything like that and there really wasn't wasn't anyone around and it was profound to look up at this airplane and realize a string of Lucky Chances kept this airplane and kept it for us waiting for us um you know it was over at Basler and had it had it been a few aircraft ahead in the line would have already been gone I guess the gravity of the whole thing was actually that it had survived and uh what really struck home was I climbed up inside the airplane and I stopped and stood in the doorway and realized for whatever else that may have changed about the airplane that door threshold hadn't that was the door that those 101st Airborne paratroopers jumped out of and a thought passed into my mind that when the 101st was established their founding Commander pointed out to the men while they were all assembled in a field that their division the 101st Airborne Division had no history but that they were a division that had a Rendevous with Destiny and at that moment I realized this is the door this is where those men stepped out to attend that rendevu with Destiny and that was a powerful thought it's just sort of stopped me in my tracks and it's still something that that when I reflect on that moment um takes me back to to this whole story and the excitement of finding the airplane January 1944 as the date for Invasion Drew closer there was an urgent need for more c47s that old brother was being built along with some 400 others as part of a rush contract she was accepted into the Army Air Force on March the eth a mere 3 months ahead of D-Day the immediacy of her Mission meant that the plane flew via the Atlantic Bridge directly to the UK Europe was at War aircraft were vitally needed the Atlantic airbridge was a vital Supply supply chain for aircraft essential for the RAF and the United States Army Air Forces in Europe flying from North American factories through Canada to Greenland to Iceland over the treacherous icy wastes and the Seas coming in to Scotland and then to the Frontline operations in England nowadays you can board a jet airliner in Europe and fly non stop over the Atlantic in those days the aircraft did not have the range to do it by the time she reached greenham common in the south of England there were mere weeks of preparation until her defining moment a defining moment for everyone at the time this happened World War II happened most kids had never been out of their own County you didn't travel none of us had ever been in an airplane over the Midwest many of them had never seen an airplane and all of a sudden all of the things you read about Europe all the big cities all the big churches and everything we're going to go see all that stuff for free we get to see that we get to live some of the history that we read about and all the battles that were there at that time yeah can you imagine what that's like for a bunch of kids that never been any place I have told many people I gotten much more out of my service than than I ever put into it at basla the restoration work is [Music] underway well we take an original seat and we get these same dimensions and and then uh we proceed to try and roll this to the same shape and then we uh put the brackets on WE generally use the original brackets but we generally changed the skin because the original seats were made out of uh magnesium and magnesium had a tendency to crack so what we see is a lot of patching over patches over patches and eventually you have so many patches that doesn't do any good right here is one of the seat bottoms and it's it's kind of a complex shape we got a lot of radius and stuff and uh so we've actually made a fixture that we could take this particular part and we can press this out and it's the same as the original and uh as you can see there's a quite bit of work involved in [Music] him thankfully the folks here at Basler because of their work on the bt67 Turbo Conversions they have all of these parts in stock and so uh there is nothing uh on a on a c47 that they can't do relatively easily and it's wonderful to see you know what uh 30 years ago you could find all across America um it's really exciting to be in a place like this and see the hands and the minds and the talent that exist in this restoration process having saved the aircraft the af's plan in the light of her historical importance is to return that old brother to France in 2019 as part of the D-Day anniversary celebrations to achieve this ambitious goal she must be in perfect flying condition to fly the arduous Journey over the Atlantic retracing her former steps this was the airplane that led the raid there were some airplanes that went ahead of this airplane that were called Pathfinders but when the actual we're going to go this very airplane that we're sitting in today was the airplane that launched out and it came back and made two or three more trips later that day as well sometimes we get a little wrapped up in the provenance um at the end of the day that provenance is important but what's really important is the story that this airplane and others like it have to tell our audiences those that would ask what kind of an airplane is that and what did it do and why is it important but it's always better more exciting more intriguing to have the real thing and in this case we have that and that's really special well certainly the ultimate goal is to take this airplane back to D-Day to uh the coast of France in 2019 for the 75th anniversary of the uh of the invasion So the plan is clear albe it ambitious but already time is at a premium and the pressure is on once it was found out that uh the history of it and the process that took place uh it's now a very unique experience for me to be looking for parts to restore it that uh something that normally we haven't dealt with new surplus is the way we describe it and uh yes we have a warehouse that where the company has whenever available we have purchased the parts for the c47 and we do have a large uh Reserve that we draw from uh on a regular basis and uh it does make the process much easier and uh more complete I've got the the hydraulic landing gear pressure gauge here and it was uh packaged in March of 45 and is remains unopened so sort of early Christmas each time we get to do this they packed it with a [Music] desicant we're looking for a a serviceful gauge to use on that all brother [Music] uh this one I'll have to go out and look again for another one those are gauges to hand it is by no means certain that an intact serviceable replacement is amongst them on such small but vital details to these Restorations and ultimately lives depend if we can find one that there no corrosion or anything we'll have it sent in to make sure that it is serviceable gauge and uh then we'll be able to install that onto the aircraft [Music] now this one looks in uh better shape than the first one that I had opened don't have the corrosion on it so this would be a good candidate for to send in and have it tested and certified the planes that preceded the main paratroop drop were called Pathfinder aircraft their mission was to drop Pathfinder units to establish the Drop Zones and set up radar systems to guide the main paratroop Force they told us everything about the Airborne operation what time they were hitting the beaches we knew pretty well a whole scheme of what was programmed and it's just as well we did we only lost one plane in Normandy and we got the whole crew and all the parachutes back cuz the plane ditched it got hit by anti-aircraft fire put out an engine but from the is island of Sark and they landed in the water right next to a Canadian Corvette they've got their feet wet but they stepped off onto the Nets was off the side of the Corvette the Corvette had to sink the airplane because it was a hazard to navigation but I saw it as the beginning of the end yeah but then I I thought it would be sooner than it was but no it wasn't following the Pathfinder units came the first wave of paratroopers however by then the weather and enemy activity had significantly worsened we went across the channel there was high Cyrus clouds so you could still see the Shadows on the water below and of course you got all this equipment on you and you know in your pockets and everything and it's it's pushing into you and very uncomfortable and then you you've got bullets coming up through the floor and going out the ceiling and you see that going on and you think you know you know should I should I should I get up and move here how about over there I don't know and somebody gets shot laying on the floor and you look at the guy and you think God damn let's get it everybody says let's get the hell out of here come on let's get out of here that's what they did they said hey we want out let's go let's go what's holding it up your adrenaline is running and if you can't swad that adrenaline it it ruins you it's hard on you mentally and physically and so you you you're sitting there and you can't do anything about it and so you the Instinct then is to get away from the position you're in getting out that door looks better than staying there and that's the the feeling of [Music] everybody we're at the American cemetery in Normandy and amongst the thousands of graves young men resting here we found one William D cross from the 101st Airborne but he died on June the 6th 1944 in that first wave William cross was one of those 101st Airborne the Screaming Eagles the young men that leapt out of the aircraft including that's all brother so she as we move on in history we'll take that story forward and we honor and remember the young men that leapt from that c47 this is humbling there aren't words really that you can use you just feel it you look at this and you look at the cost and you think of the lives it's very powerful and it's powerful in the sense also that what the CIF are trying to do with that's all brother is to keep that story alive so that the thousands of young men here aren't forgotten Freedom isn't free and this makes that point more clearly than anywhere else you will ever [Music] find at the end of the war and as anticipated many of the c47s were destroyed or disposed of in theater however some survived luckily including that all brother she was declared Surplus to requirement by the Air Force transported back to the US and sent to Walnut Ridge Arkansas an established Boneyard from there she was fortunate to be sold into civilian hands to undertake a wide variety of jobs transporting both people and cargo and undergoing several modifications this airplane at some point in his life had an executive interior in it an insulation was fitted between these uh uh Bell forers here and then an interior was put in and when it was somewhere along the line it was converted back to a freighter and they put a cargo liner in here and failed to take out the insulation and that insulation trapped water so from the floorboards to the uh to the ceiling uh the entire airframe that we're sitting in right now was riddled with corrosion and much of these formers and stringers that you see here have been replaced already following further inspections the corrosion in the aircraft's fuselage was found to be significantly worse than they had originally thought huge sections had to be replaced vital work doing nothing to relieve the time pressures okay here we have a part that's came off the aircraft and it's been inspected and we found some corrosion on it this just we can't clean this up and reuse it we definitely have to make a new one we've got some it's cracked there it's got some corrosions cracking in here and we we just can't repair that part so we're going to make a brand new one we don't happen to have these in stock at all so we have to produce this again so this is another example where we have to take this original part we'll put it on a piece of finic we'll trace it out we'll grind it out we'll grind all the correct angles on it we'll make another template and then we'll form it and then it'll go through our inspection process and then we'll go on our [Music] airplane um the next major attack is to uh take on the wiring this airplane when when I was flying it previously was an incredibly good running well operating airplane in every respect except Electric electrical and the electrical system in it was kind of a nightmare and um we're going to tear out all of the electrical wiring in the airplane and start from scratch so we're going to uh solve that problem in this restoration so the engines will come off shortly that's a relatively straightforward process they'll go out and they'll be overhauled and uh brought back and put on uh you know there's still U still a lot of uh radial engines and service both in the commercial service and in the museum slair show warber Community so U we have good access to good overhauler and and that piece is fairly straightforward again the most challenging part is money not all the c47s that survived were sold into civilian service some were retained by the military and took part in the Berlin airlift and the Korean and Vietnam Wars in this latter conflict it became clear that thank thanks to their slow speed and their stability c-47s were ideally suited to ground support roles many guns were mounted in the fuselage and deployed by the pilot as the plane banked around a Target on the ground once again the c47 was proving adaptable and versatile versatile indeed but still subject to the ravages of time the team at basa were hoping simply to recover the original Aeron but after removing the old Fabric and having cleaned the metal they discovered they needed a much more thorough and time intensive restoration the team set about replacing corroded Parts reusing as much of the original structure as possible and recovering with new fabric employing the same skills she would have recognized when first built so um here we have a c47 Aeron and uh one thing that when you see it off you get a sense of the scale of of it you know the control surfaces on most World War II airplanes were fabric covered because fabric was a non-strategic material aluminum was in short supply and they also knew that lighter control surfaces uh flew better and were less susceptible to flutter and so uh many many of the World War II airplanes up to and including the high-speed Fighters had fabric control surfaces on it so fabric is a uh you know an old skill some would say a Lost Art but it's obviously alive and well here in Wisconsin meanwhile the engines have returned after being fully overhaul and the CAF are one step closer to their dream of returning that old brother to Normandy now this is an 1830 Bratton Whitney's uh powered 1830 uh of course we're looking at a 14 cylinder twin roll radial engine um producing uh a little over a th000 horse uh this engine has been through the uh over haul facility completely overhauled to zero time we have procured a new exhaust for this engine uh the old exhaust has been too many years of uh wear and tear the dish pan itself is new uh will be though the original engine mount you can see we have uh completely uh overhauled the engine mount so the airf frame when it came to us has been modified several times um this exhaust tunnel that we're seeing in here was completely removed skinned over it had a short exhaust stack uh put on it uh we have gone back to the original um the plumbing had been modified horribly on this airplane we've gone back to original Plumbing of course you can see all the controls linkages that go in here are all removed I'm currently waiting on new bearings the bearings were froze solid this airplane needed a lot of TLC and we're putting a lot of love into this girl so she's getting new bearings put into it everything in this thing will be back to the way it was when it was flying coming out of the factory uh it's gone from a serviceable airplane to an overhauled airframe I love this project it's been great I'm really excited to see this thing get finished and get up and [Music] flying uh we're very close to uh installation of the remaining cockpit items control column connecting up uh flight control cables we're in the process of doing the hydraulic and engine uh fuel Plumbing uh following that we'll have to run the control cables and uh engine control cables as well as flight control cables the engine has proven itself to be a a Workhorse and this engine is uh expensive nowadays to overhaul or maintain but it is uh really amazing if you stop to consider the engine itself that it was designed in a time before computers and all that so the men that not only flew it but designed it was was a great generation of men this engine was built in great numbers during the war indeed it was the most widely used Aviation engine of its day it was used not only on the c47 but also on the most prolific bomber the B24 America had refined the mass production process and thanks to the abundance of fuel and raw materials the us became the fastest as well as largest manufacturer of arms during the war they manufactured planes tanks and warships as well as Small Arms ammunition and field supplies and consequently the US was one of the best equipped wartime armies I carried about 125 lbs on the and I weighed 132 and some guys carried more than that some of the bigger guys we carried a mine everybody carried a a tank mine we carried about six grenades we all carried U about 50 ft of primac cord most of it wrapped around our helmet we carried 12 blasting caps in our pocket now in civilian life you can't even have those in the same vehicle when you go to buy them you can't carry caps and explosive in the same thing we carried them on right on us we also carried C2 which was a very powerful new type of explosive but I carried an M1 rifle all the noncoms carried a folding stock carbine 30 caliber carbine and uh we carried three days ration that means 9k rations uh and whatever else we wanted in way of equipment we're supposed to carry socks but nobody did I didn't take my boots off for the Whole 30 days and when I took them off there was no socks it was like jello and I just took it like that and slued it off my feet back at basla and just in time attention turns to the wings along with the engines these are the final major components to be f Ed and consequently allow the team to focus more closely on her authenticity in every detail in in in the sort of landscape of War Birds it's really interesting to observe where people's attentions and where their interests lie um you know if you're restoring a P-51 Mustang you can find out the exact proportion of lamp black that was applied to the zinc chromate at North American in Englewood so that your Mustang can come out as a Concor or winning Mustang you know and you can do a similar thing with a B7 but it hasn't been done with a c47 they're sort of the Forgotten warhorse of the War years um They Carried all these men They Carried all the Air Cargo they fed the wounded back out of Normandy in the specific case of thel brother it participates in every major Allied Airborne operation um in the remainder of the war following D-Day and what you can't find anywhere is any of that information uh there's no book written on on how to put the airplane back together or how it looked during the war they were so ubiquitous they went through a dozen different cockpit configurations they soldiered on for so long after the war that there isn't one out there that survives truly unmodified you know out there flying and so for us surveying the scale of the task and the importance of the airplane it became really evident um that if there ever was an airplane that needed to be showcased in its D-Day configuration uh this would be that airplane and that it was high time that a c47 was restored to its wartime configuration as a tribute to the men and women who flew them the young Airman sitting in the cockpit of a c47 faced fear they faced the fear of anti-aircraft fire they were at low altitude light AA fire could hit the aircraft pierce the thin fuselage and the pilots could sense the agitation of the paratroopers of the rear who wanted to get out to get out and fight and as the aircraft disgorged its parab bundles and paratroopers the center of gravity shifted the weight altered the aircraft would rise they had to keep the plane in formation and under control and adjust and react to trim the C40 7 as it shed its load over the Battle Zone many young men were lost c47s could be seen going down but their job was to focus to make sure that they got their aircraft over the Drop Zone a few weeks later and that's old brother is preparing for an important milestone in the restoration the testing of her engines though every precaution has been taken these are always anxious moments the engines are freshly overhauled uh it's a absolutely critical time when all of the mechanics and the people who've been in charge of the restoration have been finishing the different systems on the airplane verify that all of those things are functional before we put pilots in the airplane and attempt to take off [Music] clocks are noted you checked on the Run y aircraft and area clear gear Lock Pins installed installed wheels are chalk wheels are chalk here wheel quantity 15 Gallons minimum that was checked before we left the hanger I got mixtures are cut off through at idle and props are forward we are ready for an engine [Applause] start on [Music] you need more hydraulic fluid taking pictures of my mask the team can never foresee every eventuality proving the need for such tests but the problem is very swiftly identified and resolved uh we did have a bit of a false start a hydraulic fitting broke loose and we suffered quite a significant leak uh but within just a few short minutes the problem was traced to the hydraulic panel to an original component and uh with a quick replacement the airplane is now back ready the second engine run was conducted and the airplane was run up successfully Dave are we ready to make history again so 3 6 9 [Music] 12 [Music] [Music] 15 history is coming alive it is absolutely outstanding um we still need to put the engine cowling on it hasn't been CED cowling has to be adjusted um we haven't got a full uh ground run as far as pulling all the power that these engines will pull to make sure that they're going to hold together um greaty confidence that they will we just haven't quite got there as soon as we get the rest of the engine indications up and running uh we'll be pulling power on them we really uh need to get a gear swing in we haven't got the gear swung yet but uh there really is not a lot of uh maintenance left to be done we really close for first flights as uh as anybody in the aviation industry knows not till the paperwork's done perhaps the most special thing about it was as the aircraft approached Full Throttle on the engines you could see it just sort of Shake in the chalk so you could see lift forming under the wings and under the tail and as the airplane sat there jumping up and down I don't think there was anyone among us who couldn't imagine how exciting it was going to be to see this airplane fly uh the sentiment is that it wants to fly at this point after 3 years of restoration and more than 22,000 man hours the airplane is ready and uh we are very nearly ready to let it fly the plane wants to fly but can she will she make it back to Normandy her second defining moment awaits her June 1944 the second world war had reached a critical moment the only way to stop Hitler in his tracks and to reclaim lost territory was to launch the largest Seaborn invasion in history the moment that became known as dday you are about to Embark upon the great Crusade toward which we have striven these many months the eyes of the world are upon you the hopes and prayers of Liberty loving people everywhere march with you the D-Day invasion was spearheaded by parat Troopers leaping into the unknown their job was to prevent enemy reinforcements without their actions Allied victory in the west would not have been possible I have to tell you everybody says Heroes and that isn't true we volunteered to do this we trained to do it we were paid to do it that does not make your hero there could have been no spearhead and no paratroopers without the workhorses of the sky the Douglas c47s the airplanes that flew in their hundreds across the English Channel to Normandy charged with delivering the Airborne divisions to their rendevu with Destiny one airplane had to lead the way it seemed totally Beyond Comprehension that the airplane that led the D-Day invasion this incredibly important artifact would be in a scrapyard there's just no way that that can be true I just had a feeling there's something special about this airplane and he said well that airplane was a lead plane into Normandy this is the story of The Men Who found and who were determined to restore this iconic aircraft of the planes part in one defining moment in history and of a dream that she should fly again back to the coast of France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day that's all brother the plane that led the D-Day invasion so far in the dramatic story of that old brother we've learned how the lead plane on D-Day was lost abandoned in a Boneyard how she was rediscovered by military historians and her identity confirmed by the commemorative Airforce how the CAF were determine to restore her so her part in dropping the very first paratroopers on D-Day could be fully recognized and honored how the plane's restoration at Basler Turbo Conversions was undertaken repairing Decades of neglect and corrosion and how crucially after a faltering start the engines were coaxed wearily into life now thoughts turn urgently to her star turn and most important mission to date her return to Normandy for the anniversary of D-Day itself but will she fly in the brief interim that old brother has been fitted with vital new engine cowlings and her landing gear has been satisfactorily and thoroughly tested Ed with the new cowlings in place it has been possible to run the engines at full power the signs are good but still her team anxiously await the plane's most demanding test her first flight well it's uh really exciting to be here uh you know for me personally to close the loop the last time you know this airplane flew I got to fly it in here and to be honored to be the guy selected to fly today is uh humbling and exciting um you know this airplane represents a u big step in the commemorative Air Force uh you know when I started flying warbirds uh CAF and other War Birds you know over 30 years ago the difference between a warbird and a freighter was a paint job and this airplane represents How Far We've Come both as the the commemorative Air Force and as the warbird industry that we now have uh these examples of flying warb birds that are truly Exquisite I mean this airplane is a Smithsonian quality restoration and uh and we're going to be able to take it out and fly it so uh that's really a uh a big step for the CAF and I'm really excited to uh be part of an organization that is committed to preserving assets like this but not just sticking them away in mothball somewhere but uh taking them out on the road so people can see them and uh taking them to Normandy so the airplane that led the raid can fly over Normandy again and uh you know that's a big deal and um you know the big gotes on any First Flight in an airplane are the propellers going to govern correctly anytime you're flying a brand new engine there is a chance of an initial failure uh and so we got two new engines You' always choose to overhaul engines one at a time now we got two brand new engines which is not what you'd want in a perfect world but uh uh initial failures on new engines are always a threat but uh typically they're not catastrophic failures they're uh chronic failures and so uh the first 20 hours on a new engine you're always paying very close attention and so no need or cause for any undue concern first of all it's an incredibly simple airplane and uh and by virtue of the restoration that it's been through it's simpler because most c47s have been around for 75 years and all these things have been modified this airplane's been totally Dem modified back to its very basic simple bones and we have what this airplane was really intended to be which is a simple airplane that was easy to fly for 19-year-old kids who with 200 hours total time who were immersed in this thing we called World War II and so uh from an aviation perspective yeah it's a big deal but it's really not a big deal I'm quite certain we'll have a short list of things that need to be looked at when we get back but uh as with every flight in an old airplane you're prepared for the worst and expect the best and uh that's what I expect [Music] today all right welcome everyone to the first flight thank you everyone for being here uh we're going to start off the safety briefing with the pilots um so Doug Tom are you guys ready to go all right aircraft from maintenance aircraft is ready to go as far as the weather goes we've uh kind of checked multiple sources the weather is about as good as we're going to get in January in Wisconsin uh so the snow that's out there right now is going to let off in the afternoon so we should be able to get a good flight in this afternoon with adequate ceilings the winds are 14 gusting to 20 but they're coming down the runway uh based on the direction we plan on using the West Runway uh and we'll go with that so uh on the first flight our objective is just put some time on the airplane we're not going to be expanding the envelope anything just make sure nothing's coming out of the airplane smoke uh oil anything like that we'll fly around for uh 15 20 minutes and uh uh then we'll land take a look at the airplane and um and make sure everything's clean and dry and we'll have press availability at that point and uh give some interviews and then our plan will be to go fly again for the second flight any questions yes they are as prepared as they can be and yes every conceivable precaution has been taken nonetheless there's no disguising the tension felt by everyone as the moment of takeoff [Music] arrives [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] than it is a piece of American History very important and U it has to be treated as such with respect and a lot of care we look at temperatur pressures uh leaks anything like that is it making power and just overall shake down the airplane we expect to fly 30 minutes the first time just to be sure that everything's working correctly we'd like to get three flights on it today but uh daylight may be an issue later this was the airplane the very airplane that led the raid and I'm so proud of our organization the commemorative Air Force that we've been able to uh bring it to this place there's a lot of work to do a lot of money that's got to be raised um a lot of volunteer work that's got to be done you know this is the beginning not the end as you can see she needs a paint job all the interior fitments need to be done and uh the volunteers back at sentex wing and uh San Marcus are going to get to work on that just as soon as we get it out of here and uh look forward to having you know the queen of the c47 fleet as a member of the [Music] CAF after being in the air for 20 minutes all happily without incident that's all brother successfully completes her maiden flight and returns for the necessary and thorough ground checks that [Music] [Music] follow it's a magnificent flight great airplane we have a winter here he only had one job and that was not to let me screw up and he did his job L of DC3 is like putting on an old pair of Tony llamas it just they fit good and uh you know I've been flying this airplane you know c47 dc-3s for 32 years and it's always uh a great thrill to get back in one and uh and this one especially on behalf of the commemorative Air Force I'd like to give a big thank you to all the employees at Basler um you guys have done a great job it's been a real thrill for me to watch your your team get behind and get engaged and get excited about this project this is a big story and you guys have played a pivotal role in it and the folks at the centx wing who uh were instrumental in raising this money and getting behind this project you know and this airplane is going to lead you to a new place and to the thousands of men who uh bailed out of c47s and walked on the beach in Normandy on June 6th of 1944 here here here here here that's old brother began the vital events of D-Day and D-Day itself was to become the beginning of the end as far as World War II was concerned it was the day on which troops of the Allied Forces landed in Normandy kickstarting The Liberation of important cities and strategic ports and towns throughout northern France it wasn't by any means the last mission for that old brother who was to complete many more before the war finally ended but it was by far her most significant her time at Basler now completed that's old brother is flown well over a thousand miles from Wisconsin to the Central Texas wing of the CAF in San Marcos the crew at sentex eagerly await the arrival of their new star aware of her historical importance and their role in helping to preserve her heritage uh we're excited to have that's all brother back here in Texas she's flying great I mean overall uh she flies like a dream uh everyone who's flown a lot of c47s who's had the opportunity to fly this one will claim that it's like it's a brand new airplane so as with any plane especially one that's nearly 75 years old there's always a couple things we got to work out uh we have a little bit of oil we're working on uh oil leakage we're working on on the left engine and we're working with the engine overhauler to to address all that well as you can see if you look up here there's some of these tubes and one of these tubes comes from the uh the blower section of the of the engine and every time we're shutting the engine down you can kind of see all these drops down here that uh get scattered about that that just means that when it was Dripping it was the wind was blowing but sometimes it'll make a tight puddle sometimes it'll uh leave oil in drops like that but that's something we we really want to look at it's not a tremendous amount of oil or quantity of oil that keeps us from being able to fly safely uh but the big challenge is every time we go somewhere and park on their ramp uh we kind of leave a maybe an unwelcome present for them so we'd like to get that addressed to uh you know be a little bit more professional in how we uh arrive and and work with the place venues we go to we're uh fortunate to have just lined up uh a paint supplier uh polyfiber is going to be donating all the paint and we also have the paint labor lined up as well which will be done here in Texas which we're really excited about and we're also working with the aircore folks up in Minnesota and they are the foremost experts on the the very detailed lettering and Insignia that would be on the plane they go through all of the tech orders uh and manuals from the airplane and come up with exactly every last letter so they'll be making over 300 masks and placing them on the airplane uh as part of the paint uh process so that we have um an extreme authentic c47 both on the inside and out I think probably the thing I'm most excited to see uh happen with the project is going to actually happen in the next few months uh for me and my perspective as a historian uh what we have now is a mechanically sound airplane that's structurally been tested proven but we still don't have our complete historic interior in the airplane we've been quietly sourcing Parts over over the last 18 months to stock the airplane with its correct vintage radios with the correct drinking fountain for the paratroopers everything down to the smallest detail including the lavatory are are facets of the restoration that remain to be completed and made functional uh much of that work is going to be done by Volunteers in the Tulsa area which is where the airplane was originally accepted for service in the spring of 1944 by the US Army Air Forces following the restoration and what we're calling phase two of the restoration the historic interior we'll also have to paint the airplane The Invasion Stripes another characteristic marking that'll be on the airplane is something else we're looking forward to because we intend to put them back on the way they were applied during World War II the men of the 87th Troop Carrier Squadron found out on a Sunday that they had to paint all of their airplanes with these Invasion Stripes before the mission and having not enough white and black paint on the base they decided to break into local English hardware stores take the black and white paint leaving IOU notes for the shopkeeps going back to the field and painting the airplanes with mops clearly the stripes were there for a purpose but what was it and why now the basis for the story starts at greenham common from where that's old brother took off on D-Day and where she and many other aircraft were given their Invasion Stripes approach ing June the 5th an order was issued to paint Invasion stripes on the aircraft because the Allies had learned from the parachute drops in Sicily many aircraft had been destroyed by Friendly Fire Army and Navy Gunners were not good at aircraft recognition and to help them big bold black and white stripes were hastily added to the aircraft as an identification Aid so they wouldn't be suffering friendly fire when they Flew Over The Invasion Fleet now of course we recognize from the photographs these are iconic symbols of the invasion the black and white stripes they date that critical moment in history unpainted it wasn't D-Day painted it was D-Day overnight the ships blossomed out in their new war paint on D minus 2 Invasion markings were applied another lesson from Sicily the aircraft were prepared the lead plane chosen but she needed an experienced pilot one to offer the leadership required for this crucial Mission John manolin Donaldson the man selected to Pilot that old brother was an inspired and inspiring Choice he was born in 1901 in Alabama he he joined the Alabama Air National Guard and swiftly Rose to the rank of base commander a role he performed at several usaaf bases Across America he was subsequently promoted to commander of the 438th Troop Carrier Group Training in Northern California prior to departing for England he had shown in training great Precision in group formation flying and critically the accuracy of dropping paratroops less certain is quite why he changed from his original Squadron flying anti-submarine patrols to Flying c47s instead donlon's a really really interesting character he actually um became a pilot in 1924 so he's a he's a Pioneer in aviation and that's really the mystery that remains today is why did he go to c47s and I I just don't know I have a theory uh because early in the early in the war my Squadron flew anti-submarine patrols off the coast of Miami in unarmed 0 47s and so I don't know if he just didn't like that and he wanted to be more involved D or if they saw hey this is a pilot with almost 20 years of flying experience when there's very few Pilots out there that have that much flight experience and here we are we're needing to boost the um you know the Troop Carrier levels and stuff so we need an experienced pilot to be able to not only train these guys but lead them and so I don't know if it's that I don't know what it is but yeah he's a fascinating guy um flew tons of U of different airplanes and after the war came back reestablished my my Squadron back to State control for the state of Alabama and um retired as a Major General well I had the opportunity to meet his daughter actually um before she passed away and um right after I found the airpl in 2007 we thought that it was Bell Birmingham because newspapers of the time say B of Birmingham uh General Lewis Baron commander of the ninth Air Force uh his journal which I have a copy of um it listed as Bell Birmingham and yeah that's because Donaldson and Daniel normally flew B Birmingham they were both from the same Hometown uh we later found out Bell Birmingham was likely uh Daniel's Plane we can't confirm that it may have been done but we don't know so how come Bell of Birmingham didn't lead the mission one likely reason lies in the requirement for raar being fitted to the c-47s which necessitated a hole being cut in the bottom of the fuselage it may be that Donaldson was wary of bell of Birmingham undergoing this surgery so a recently arrived c47 was selected and subsequently named Donaldson's daughter is the one that told me yes um he didn't want to cut the holes in Bell Birmingham and so he got this new one and he's the one that named the airplane that's all brother um and yes there's a song at the time a lot of people have said his named after the song according to her it's not uh according to her it was a message to Hitler just like the end of a Looney Tunes where Porky Pig says That's all folks uh he you know that's all brother and because and that's the other thing that's sort of intriguing to me as someone from Alabama because that's you know sort of a southern thing of of you know if you're leaving somewhere hey see you later brother or uh Hey Brother how's it going you know and something like that and so it's a it's a term of endearment but it's it can also be as we famously do in the South politely put you down and so uh and so uh you know to to say that as he would have said it uh or anybody from Alabama like that's all brother you're done in other words go go away you you're you're you're no longer welcome here and so uh and so I personally I like that as a as a southern as an alabaman I like the sort of Southern connection there that uh he kind of puts in a little Southern you know slang to to name the airplane so [Music] yeah we had been working uh with L3 Aerospace Technologies for a number of months we took the airplane to them uh a couple weeks ago uh on a visit a meet and greet visit and uh left with uh when are you going to bring it back to get painted can it be here next Thursday and so we uh shuffled the schedule around got the paint got got the airplane to Waco and uh they started work on it and uh within about a week they had the aircraft stripped and a week later they had it painted and um flew her home and she looks fantastic we tried to get as many of the details correct as we could I mean our our our source material or grainy you know black and white photographs and Technical orders you know that were written in 1943 and 1944 um aircore went through all of those and did their best to come up with the color spe spefications and marking placements uh for all the detail on the airplanes and then of course you know the the big one which was the detail on The Invasion stripes and uh the story is those stripes they weren't Mass they were painted on with mops and brushes and so our goal was to kind of Honor that history and so at L3 uh we actually had them paint the stripes on by hand without masks so the lines aren't perfectly straight um you know nothing is perfect if you get close and look um you'll notice the detail is much like it would have looked again on June 6 1944 so we got what we were going for resplendant in her new paint and sporting her authentic Invasion Stripes that's all brother is beginning to look very much the part however a few elements are still missing including one important one the radar system hey this is Joe insinger I'm with that's all brother in San Marcus Texas and uh I was G how are you I was giving your contact information cuz I was told you may have a a very specific piece of equipment we're looking for to complete the restoration of that's all brother that's right so we're we're looking for the rown for the the SC 717 radar that was on that's all brother on D-Day and they're pretty tough to find and we heard you might have something that might work okay well two two is definitely better than one what kind of condition are they in right well we'll we'll definitely measure it but the the good news is is that it's not something we're going to fly with so it would be for static display only so as long as we can kind of fit it up correctly and make it look right that'll be great well that's I I I think that's fantastic news I mean this is something that we've been searching for it's in all the photographs it was on the airplane uh when it flew on D-Day and and so I think I think it'd be a great addition to be able to have something like that so I feel like we're we're pretty lucky we were able to hook up with you and we'll definitely try to get a crew out to visit you to take a look at it and see if we can make it work all right well that's fantastic we'll we'll be in touch and again we appreciate it this is exciting news for us with the CAF team fully occupied in the states uk- based historian Ian mclin volunteered to visit flixton Museum to get the necessary measurements Ian I'm really pleased to meet you good to meet you too I understand that you've spoken to the CAF yes Joe rang me a while ago or Joe eninger that's right and you've got something here that they're really excited about I can now show you oh great come on let's have a look behind an f00 [Music] cop the things we do for that's all brother hey down here she goes very gently well it's seemed better days that's for sure I mean you could say it's like a whacking great dinosaur egg but um it's it's fragile yet when it was built it had to withstand the the temperatures uh at altitudes of 20 25,000 ft it would have to withstand the contractions and the temperatures there at minus 40 or 50° but this certainly wouldn't take um much by way of damage from Trap wall and Flack and stuff like that and what's it made of when we were filming at um Cambridge recently we were looking at drop tanks M bow water and spice of Cen made the very early drop tanks and it was a sort of paper maché composite yeah and I'm looking at this and I'm sort of thinking well I'm know plastic expert but it doesn't look like fiberglass but could it be the same sort of stuff they made the early drop tanks from I'm wondering that as well cuz where it's actually broken you can almost see two layers but like you I don't think it's fiberglass yeah you can't see anything on the inside that says made by whoever may have made this thing and normally you'll find a serial number or an ID plate on it somewhere but nothing the radar Dome or rayome was fitted to the underside of an aircraft to protect the radar equipment from the elements experiencing not only very considerable wind resistance but huge differ differences in ambient temperature on D-Day only the Pathfinder and Lead planes were fitted with radar the others had to follow in order successfully to reach their Drop Zones for them therefore visibility was a key factor well we had airplanes that were about $100,000 value with a half a million dollars worth of radar in them radar altimeter PPI scope which the b7s used on a different deal but we used it for low-level mapping canals pick up high tension lines roads separate trees from grass unbelievable Carl Jones is my navigator on angeliz my c47 so we always knew where we were or he did and he would tell me technology was leaping ahead Leaps and Bounds during the second world war and the British having had a fairly disastrous campaign of bombing trying to find Targets had developed ground Imaging radar called H2S the Americans with their greater production capacity took it over and it was called h2x and it could distinguish fairly clearly major cities and features in major cities but very good for Imaging the difference between Land and Sea now ASV air to surface vessel radar anti submarine radar of various species including the scr 717 fitted to that's old brother seems to have been an attempt to give you a clearer radar image to support the Eureka ground module and the Rebecca air module already fitted to that t brother which would guide the aircraft into a position within a couple of miles of the DZ the Zone but this out in the slipstream on a c47 would have given you fairly uncomfortable era Dynamics quite apart from the already well-laden aircraft on its way to the kentin peninsula Donaldson the pilot after his flying in that's all brother he reverted to the bell of Birmingham which did not have this fitted and had in his opinion far better flying characterist istics without this corrupting the airf flow for this very reason modern flying regulations would not permit that's all brother to take to the air with a radome nonetheless the CAF wished to create a replica housing in order to add authenticity when the plane is on display on the ground for this accurate measurements are required I think it's the same as the one we in the in the museum proper here we are what we got here we've got 110 in correct which translates into whatever that is in 2.8 2.8 significantly the other element still missing from the freshly painted plane is the all important nose art back at sentex the attention to detail is exhaustive the drive to replicate the original art takes both time and skill the only thing I can think is if anything some of the letters up top might need individually twisting but I think this is looking pretty [Music] sweet I started painting noseart in 2007 and I was given the opportunity to work with the CAF on their B24 project painting noseart on Vintage aircraft is extremely rewarding for me because I grew up going to air shows with my dad and my uncle uh both in the Air Force I really became obsessed with the history you know full in around 2000 1999 2000 just that whole era has become so important to me and so to see like this plane when it's done on the ramp and flying and in the magazines it'll be pretty special to know that I had a piece of you know all the people working together on this plane to bring it back to what it is today and it's such a historic plane that's it's really an honor we made sure the lettering was correct I drew it all up on the computer based on the historic photos and we made little tweaks and adjustments uh projected it on the plane to get it in the right location based on the historic photos and even from there up on the scaffold we were making adjustments to the individual letters to try and get it as close as we could to being the accurate nose art that it wore in 1944 and once we got it drawn onto the plane um I started painting in the yellow uh then switched sides did it all over again and what's unique about this aircraft is we have photos of both sides a lot of times you would only get a photo of one side when you're doing your research so we're really fortunate in that respect it takes a lot longer than people would think uh you have to do your brush Strokes smooth everything out and a lot of the times the colors may not take on the first go through so you have to do a second coat and then there's the lead time for the drying uh it's it's a timec consuming process everybody here has been really nice really helpful uh wanting to make my job as easy as possible and and that's really nice it helps me you know feel confident and relaxed and be able to put out you know quality product that they'll be happy with but just the opportunity in general to work on such a historic aircraft is amazing and it's special as the details fall into place thoughts now turn to the practicalities of her anniversary mission back to France the route is confirmed but what support will she and her sister aircraft require while they are away it's been 74 years since D-Day and there are not a lot of people alive today that actually remember it being there you know they were actually you know part of D-Day there are a lot of people that that that have heard stories But as time passes those memories fade and what's cool about this project to me is that it's almost a rebirth in some ways of a D-Day veteran so we're taking something that was old and forgotten and we're bringing it back to life and making it real again um and we're taking it back to where you know it had its greatest Challenge and its greatest its greatest accomplishments going to Normandy in 2019 is kind of the ultimate goal of this whole project to get there is pretty challenging I mean it's challenging operationally we got we have to cross the Atlantic twice um we're going to be operating a long way away from our support system for a long time we're planning on being over there from anywhere from 2 to 3 months um and then we've decided as as an organization the commemorative Air Force has that we're going to send three airplanes over um so we're sending this airplane obviously that's all brother is the lead airplane and then two other airplanes that belong to the CAF uh D-Day doll and blue bonnet Bell are going to join us so we've got to be prepared for any contingency we obviously you know don't want to get the airplane stuck overseas for any length of time and so so we want to make sure that we have a spares kit and that includes spare engines and you know engines for this airplane are $770,000 um but you know we need to know that if we're over there and something happens to one of the engines that you know it's just labor to get it removed and replaced and get the airplane operational again um the engine's the big spares item but there's hundreds of other things that we have to make sure we have put together tires you know um all kinds of consumables spare radios those types of things the trip across the Atlantic and back and and operating in Europe it is you know daunting but at the same time you know airplanes like this flew across the Atlantic hundreds of th hundreds and thousands of times you know in in 1944 and this airplane is is as close to brand new as you can get a c47 right now so I don't think anybody's worried about you know the the hazards of Crossing you know the but but we do worry about the logistics and we want to make sure we're prepared and we don't have have something happen that gets us stuck somewhere well we are going to take the shortest possible route but it's a lot of stops and so the great cicle route you know we're going to leave out of here travel to um the Northeast Connecticut and then go to Newland Greenland Iceland and then over to the UK with all those being stopped and you know we have to get fuel and the trip you know when you when you fly uh American Airlines or British Airways you know over you're flying at 530 mph we'll be doing if we're lucky 130 mph so it's a it's going to be a long trip there's not going to be another 75th anniversary of D-Day and frankly Unfortunately they not going to be a lot of opportunities to have living D-Day veterans uh participate and um and be able to actually see this airplane back there but I do think we can re rebirth their memories so to speak we can kind of reignite interest in what they did and the sacrifices they made and this airplane will just be a vehicle for us to do that Oshkosh Air Show 2018 after great diligence and research undertaken in particular by Matt scales the CAF have located many relatives of those who flew in that old brother in Wartime to Mark her official relaunch the families have been invited not only to see the plane for the first time but to participate in an emotional Memorial flight my dad was a piece of history and we didn't really even know about it until about 3 years years ago when we found all his photographs and and his medals I mean we knew he was in the war and uh but he really didn't talk about it and when we would ask questions he would just say well I was in the war um he just briefly would say oh I went on leave to England I went to France but other than that he really didn't seem to want to talk about [Music] it officer was Squadron Navigator while overseas flying flying and lead position in combat missions participated in the paratroop and glider drop invasions of Nory southern France westle Germany and Holland has flown as navigator on flights using dead reckoning pilotage radio Celestial and radar navigation one of the few things he said was you know basically I was a navigator and the story ended at that point so you know being a kid I say okay well that's I guess that's what we did but I mean and he never went into it in much detail he did a little did a little more so with my sister I think in in his latter years but we uh strangely enough we we knew very little about his service and it was not until my mother passed away that uh my sister and I were look looking through a lot of uh the old war memorabilia and what have you and we started piecing together you know his involvement in the war and we had you know photographs of him in the regular airplane that he flew on which was the bell of Birmingham and strangely enough about 2 and a half years ago uh my company got hold of me and said we've got an odd email that we received addressed to you and it's referencing it's some Air Force historian and um it's referencing uh somebody named John shellcross so I said we'll send it on over we'll take a look at it and ends up that uh gentleman who had tried to get hold of me God knows how he how he was able to do so his name was Matt scales and he's an Air Force historian and he went on we've been corresponding back and forth for some some time and he says well you know your father was the navigator on the lead plane that's all brother and I said no I think you're mistaken uh he uh he was on the bell of Birmingham and he says well yes he was but and then went into the whole story about this and at that point in time it started making a little more sense what with all the photographs and looking through his war records and medals and stuff like that it started the picture started coming together a little more you know the the World War II generation is you know largely gone now you know I guess we probably have maybe 10 15 years at the most until the very last one uh passes away and so the airplane is will be will be all that's left uh to tell the story and and you take it a step further and those those family members there's many people that come to air shows like oskosh and they walk up to these b-25s or p-51s or whatever and they say that's the kind kind of airplane your father flew or your grandfather flew or whoever and very few people in this world can go to an airplane and say that's the airplane that your actual relative flew or in this case that's all brother jumped from and those and those individuals can and and all of them all of the crew members and paratroop members have long since passed away uh the last one passed away in 2009 so almost 10 years ago now and um so for them to have a physical connection to their to their family member just means the world to me uh I've gotten way too much credit way too much notoriety and all this whole process and and it's it don't get me wrong it's fun and that's nice but truly honestly the the biggest thing for me is being able to connect those families matad and I started working on this in 2007 and here it is 2018 and it's flying and we've been able to meet the wing that's flying it being able to meet the ones who restored it the calf staff that help with the fundraising the families of the crew the families of the uh paratroopers who jump uh Matt has done most of the research on who the paratroopers were there is no manifest so we do not know the entire number that were on the plane we don't know if it was 13 14 or 15 somewhere in that area so we've reached out to those that we do know and some of those descendants now know each other and they have gotten together and they actually came here to oshar in in 2018 and they were able to fly together as families on the uh I guess the maiden flight for it for the families and also Mt and I because of our roles in it we were able to uh go on that flight also and it was very emotional for the families to know that it's the same plane that their ancestor either flew or was a crew member of or jumped out of on dday and uh it was pretty emotional for all of us we're going to be up for about 30 minutes and what we're going to do is once we're airborne and cruising a level altitude I'm going to give you a signal disconnect your seat bels you can walk up to the uh cabin or the cockpit if you do that would you just please know every we got 30 uh 13 people to get through uh get through that as fast as you can maybe we can do a second one anybody's going in the back no more than two in the back at a time and when you sit back down please put the seat belts on in case we have a a bump or something okay now when we get up there we get everybody seat beled in then I'll give you where the emergency exits are located how they get out if if we have an incident we probably won't but we want to make sure everybody understands where to get out just like we do in the Airlines and we're going to have a good flight I believe the Tom Travis is going to tell you how and where we're going to go I'm just going to turn him over to him we're going to check off go south go right over the top of oskosh and uh so get your cameras ready it's a magnificent site today lots of airplanes lots of activity and U so we'll go down south of V turn around and come back we've up at uh 2,000 ft above the ground so we should be able to get some good photos we appreciate you flying with us again and uh welcome aboard he wants we can work that out [Music] [Music] Matt scales and I started this in 2007 and of course we initially wanted to get the plane saved that was the initial effort trying to find someone to save this plane and commemorative Air Force are the only ones that stepped up I would have never imagined in a million years that we'd ever be sitting in this airplane exactly like it was flying at this point I don't think it's emotional anymore it's almost just funny really it's like I I can't believe it how could we I would have never imagined we'd ever get here but here we are right on the other side of this wall would have been where my father was sitting and uh it's it's just a neat feeling to be that close to [Music] [Music] it [Music] [Applause] between my military flying my civilian flying I've flown a lot of airplanes and a lot of lot of time in the air and this is definitely the most special I've ever special flight I've ever been a part of that's for sure and again all because of the family members all goes back to them very smooth flight uh beautiful restoration job engines purred like kittens it was incredible they've done a fantastic job restoring this airplane so well worthy of the uh effort for 11 years now on this project it was very emotional for me to be on the plane today and actually I actually sat down where he was sitting when when we were flying and it was very emotional for me I broke down and just to know that he was sitting there so long ago and that exact spot was phenomenal feeling it was it was a culmination of something something that both my sister and I have been waiting to do for a while of course we uh we joined or we donated to the cause uh starting 2 and 1/2 years ago and have been keeping up on the restoration of the aircraft ever since and uh we were we basically we were told uh three and 1/2 weeks ago oh by the way if you'd like to come out to ashkash we got this big thing going on and so we scrambled and uh scrambled got everything together cuz we wouldn't have missed it for the world and uh going up on the in the in the plane today and being able to sit in my dad's navigation chair and just imagine what it would have been like for those guys was just [Music] fantastic following the success of the flight and to round off the official relaunch an event is held in the evening to which relatives friends and supporters are invited and celebrated however for the CAF it is a Bittersweet moment on behalf of the entire organization I am so glad that you are here tonight now next is just a really special treat tonight to have the family members of the crew and the paratroopers for that's all brother they have special guests in ribbons as well if you are a family member of a paratrooper or a crew member of tab please raise your hand thank you very much now I'd like to take just a moment to talk about a very serious situation that many of you have heard about the mission to Normandy was planned to have three CAF aircraft make the historic journey across the Atlantic as all of you know Blue Bonnet Bell had an accident on takeoff Saturday [Music] morning I'm sure you share my thankfulness that all of the occupants were able to exit the aircraft successfully it is with great sadness to share that the blue bonnet Bell is destroyed I will never forget even my own personal memories of crewing on the aircraft during the aftermath of hurricane Harvey the loss of the aircraft is no doubt heartbreaking and I've spoken with the crew and I'm happy to share that all are recovering from the accident Mark Davis the squad leader since his regrets on not being able to join us tonight and that the Highland Lake Squadron will not be able to participate in the mission to Normandy next year the loss of this particular aircraft is a reminder to all of us of the dwindling numbers of these historic aircraft that we must honor and tell the stories of those who served in World War II and this makes tonight all the more important [Music] as if the loss of blue bonnet Bell were not enough of a setback for the CAF there is soon further bad news potentially given all that is at stake worse news the problem with the oil leak on that's all brother's left engine has escalated considerably after the extra hours of flying time and consequently the engine urgently needs attention you got it the plane is returned to Basler Turbo Conversions and the engine is removed while the complex maintenance is carried out that's all brother remains grounded and crippled in her hanger the date with Destiny in France in June 2019 cannot be changed but now the fears grow that she won't make it at [Music] all June 1944 the second world war had reached a critical moment the only way to stop Hitler in his tracks and to reclaim lost territory was to launch the largest Seaborn invasion in history the moment that became known as dday you are about to Embark upon the great Crusade toward which we have striven these many months the eyes of the world are upon you the hopes and prayers of Liberty loving people everywhere march with you the D-Day invasion was spearheaded by parat Troopers leaping into the unknown their job was to prevent enemy reinforcements without their actions Allied victory in the west would not have been possible I have to tell you everybody says we're heroes and that isn't true we volunteered to do this we trained to do it we were paid to do it that does not make you a hero there could have been no spearhead and no paratroopers without the workhorses of the sky the Douglas c47s the airplanes that flew in their hundreds across the English Channel to Normandy charged with delivering the Airborne divisions to their rendevu with Destiny one airplane had to lead the way it seemed totally Beyond Comprehension that the airplane that led the D-Day invasion this incredibly important artifact would be in a scrapyard there's just no way that that can be true I just had a feeling there's something special about this airplane and he said well that airplane was a lead plane into Normandy this is the story of The Men Who found and who were determined to restore this iconic aircraft of the plan's part in one defining moment in history and of a dream that she should fly again back to the coast of France to commemorate the 75th th anniversary of D-Day that's all brother the plane that led the D-Day invasion continuing the story of that all brother from her Discovery and early stage restoration to the success of her first flight she was installed at her new home at sentex dedicated teams completed her interior fittings and ex interior paintwork including the faithful reproduction of her nose art relatives of the former crew and paratroopers took part in an emotional relaunch at Oshkosh Air Show there was distressing news of the sudden demise of her sister aircraft Blue Bonnet Bell and renewed concerns that an oil leak in that's all brother's left engine had become noticeably worse now the pressure to return that old brother to France is beginning to mount significantly after so many long days weeks and months The Horizon of Normandy is finally coming into view as the work on that's all Brothers stricken engine continues the CAF are reminded that such occurrences were not uncommon during wartime many new c47s had similar engine problems before they reached the combat theater Pathfinder pilot David Hamilton recalls one such event in North Africa going overseas we flew the southern route and I came up and lost an engine trying to get through the pass in mares so I went to agader on the coast of Morocco figuring oh they'll send an engine down when we notify him from the air material up at Casablanca uh Homestead field Florida they sent the engine took me them 10 days to get to me my crew chief my radio operator my co-pilot and I and two guys from the pby naval school cuz same engine in the pby we changed the engine got it to work fine I eventually got in checked in the castle blanket the air material cuz I have to have it cleared and Bob Hoover was the captain clearance officer and he said is the airplane flying fine I said yes just going great no problem he said sign here boom have a good trip and I went to England the engine suppliers and the team at Basler had been hard at work to everyone's great relief the engine repair was completed successfully and once again the Pratt and Whitney power plant was reunited with that's all brother the process requires Great patience as well as skill the team take all the time required to carefully position and reattach the repaired engine it is vital to keep to the schedule and to ensure the success of her mission that this all goes according to [Music] plan you're looking exactly the same Central to the events that led up to D-Day and to events marking the 75th Anniversary greenham common stands as witness to all that went Before greenham Common England when Eisenhower arrived here on June the 5th 1944 he had with him a retinue of press call the media he had made a famous uplifting speech for the morale of the men but Eisenhower had the weight of the world on his shoulders and he knew beyond that morale boosting speech everything might fail in the event of it going disastrously wrong eisenh had prepared a letter to be issued accepting full responsibility for the failure of dday Happily that version of History did not happen not far from where I'm standing stood that all brother Donaldson and Daniel were doing their pre-flight checks the aircraft had been readied by the ground crew working hard to make sure everything was as prepared as it could be for the vital Mission being flown that night the men were anxious ly waiting to board they wanted to get on get on and get it over with they knew they were going into combat and they had been waiting and preparing for hours last let us home checking the pouches sharpening the bayonets once more and getting the haircuts the mahikan haircuts competing with one another for those blacken faces with red or white stripes who who could look the most ghoulish and then waiting to take off as the sun set on June the 5th 1944 the history and importance of greenham common is not lost on the CAF team as they too come to see where the events of D-Day began well right now we're headed out to Green of common and this is where that's all brother and the of uh the 438 launched from on on the night of dday and it's interesting to see the countryside it's very pretty um Rolling Hills here and um you know it had to be a lot a lot different for all the people who were serving over here uh you know coming from various places across the US Donaldson came from from Birmingham and uh other members of the group from Alabama as well and must have just been you know quite a quite a shock to come to such a different place uh to do you know such an important task good afternoon G good afternoon great to meet you Chris boltson Andy mag nice to meet you hello Jim hi good to meet you Jo great to meet you Joe hi great to meet you well welcome to greenham control tower so it's recently been refurbished uh it fell into a state of disrepair from when the air base was was uh sort of became unoperational and uh over a period of years a lot of people put together a campaign to restore it as greenham trust we gave £250,000 towards restoration um it's about a million pound project so we'll go and take a walk inside oh that would be great here we are to see you here welcome this is where it all happened this is where the air controllers sat right and guided in the planes the building wasn't in fact used very much because in the the cold era there weren't really that many planes they were just constantly on alert and the planes arrived in 90day Cycles right so often it was empty uh obvious the gamma site the former missile side you can see there now young people here they don't know anything about the air base they don't know it was an air base either sure right yeah there's no real connection because you go and talk to local groups of school children of course they they don't know what the Cold War was even no right no it's great when you can preserve history in a way way that is accessible to the community and people will use well uh we're out on greenham common we're kind of walking toward the runways and this used to be a a sack base but before it was that it was um it was a base that was used uh by the US Army Air Corp in 1944 and so we're going to kind of walk to the middle here where there's a little pad of concrete from the old concrete Runway yep but where that lies is also where the grass runways intersected there were three runways here in 1944 so we're just going to go take a look at it and see what it looks like well it's neat to think that you know almost 75 years ago you know the the the plane we operate today is you know took off right right from here and to uh you know go off to such an important Mission not only that's I'll brother but how many other c47s left here that same morning yeah I mean it was at least 50 took off from this base and they actually took off from many different bases and then formed up a little ways away from here uh but all all told it was you know over 800 c47s involved in in the uh main paratroop drop I bet it would have been something to see that would have been that would have been pretty neat to see well yeah I mean if you look around here if you were here in 1944 Not only would you have you know had the runways and the base and all the facilities there but there would have been so many aircraft here just off to the sides between c47s uh cg4 Horsea gliders as well it was uh you know quite an operation cuz after the Airborne invasion they ran another nighttime glider Mission and then the next day they ran even more glider missions as well from here I mean for for me it's it's always just trying I it's an opportunity to put yourselves in the shoes of an 18-year-old kid or a 21y old pilot or and you know I always think about sort of the just the the courage to keep taking another step forward into the aircraft you know it that had to be a pretty a pretty big thing for them so every time I'm at one of these places it kind of brings you a little closer to that you realize wow that that was a a huge thing that those solds people for us what we get to do is a luxury and what they did was a necessity and you know it was a very Risky Business and many aircraft were lost and many lives were lost on dday yeah so I think that's the primary thing is it's not really a I mean fun is not the word I mean it's it's this is an honor to be able to do this yeah um but you always have to be respectful of of what it really was I mean it was men going off to fight a war y many of them going off and not coming back not coming back but because of what they did we're standing here we're standing here and you know we get to do the things we do today and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude just as the CAF are paying a poignant visit to greenham Common to pay their respects Matt and Ken in Alabama find an appropriate moment to pay their respects too this time at the grave of the man who played such a crucial part this whole story starts with him ad been for him we wouldn't have found the airplane we never set out to find the airplane was strictly researching his life so it all goes back to him he kind of goes away in the 60s um he retires you know especially at that point not a whole lot of people want to hear about you know War at all much less you know uh that time he's a major general and so uh no he just one of those stories it kind of Fades away and um I don't know you know hopefully with the new with the airplane being restored and coming back here to Alabama in a couple months maybe that'll kind of renew the interest in it but uh but no very few know about it and I'm sure if they did obviously they'd be proud to have a native son doing such an important being in such important part of History I think Ken and I would both agreed the day we talked uh with like to see it restored to the way it was the day it flew on D-Day and and let it continue flying that's that's happened so uh you know I think our greatest hopes have already been realized I mean I don't think we would have even thought about taking it back to France and so the fact that it's going back to Normandy and flying over you know the exact same route that it flew before dropping paratroopers again that's all icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned the CAF have returned home with a heightened sense of their mission as we learned before the trip across the Atlantic cannot be undertaken without a significant number of spares not least of these is a minimum of one backup engine what we've had arrive here is a spare engine for our c47 an and uh that'll get us through any problems that we've got of any [Music] engines [Applause] uh this one came from Idaho Anderson air motive I've got to take a look and make sure that everything looks like it's undamaged and everything's there so let's take a look and see what they sent us that's a pretty engine this one is what we call an Iran engine inspect and repair as necessary or replace as necessary so it hasn't been had a full overhaul but it's a complete engine that's been built uh is ready to run and uh we can just bolt it on the plane and go if we need to this would more likely be an emergency engine if I had a problem in the field with uh the plane and I had to replace an engine I can put this one on there and it will reliably get me back here where we can send the other engine off for overhaul and uh get the plane back where we can actually work on it we're really kind of shaking it out right now with the test flying that we're doing I say test flying we're taking it to shows our Pilots are getting qualified we're putting hours on it we've got about 50 hours on it since March when the plane was delivered to us uh we're working hard the caf's working hard and all of the vendors that are working with us uh everybody's really pitching in to get this done just right the logistics are every bit as demanding as they are important the CAF calls a meeting to refine the plans the airplane is going to start in San Marcus we're flying to New Orleans uh Lakeland Florida uh Birmingham Alabama Atlanta and do Delaware and then we're going to end up at Oxford Connecticut and then from there that's when the trip starts and so on the 18th we're going to go from Oxford to I believe us bay and then across to nor sasak I think that's how you pronounce that and then to rck and then across to preswick and then we'll park in presswick for a week or so and then move down to duckford we'll be doing a lot of airsh show stuff at duckford it's actually uh a little short for our sop but we're going to make an exception for it how long is it 4800 ft I think what we're doing some flyovers of some strategic areas on the way uh we crossed the channel this is about a 2hour flight and we're going to be uh Landing it in C the part on the 18th of May come back around the the last week of June well and maybe the first week of July all the while in Wartime France the resistance had been on standby for many weeks awaiting word of the forthcoming Invasion at last D-Day was imminent the resistants were working with the Allies communication was going backwards and forwards across the channel and the resistants were waiting for a particular message and that message came on the evening of June the 5th the second part of a message that told him the invasion was on immediately they started to disrupt German Communications telephone lines cut Telegraph Poes destroyed train tracks blown up trains misdirected anything to disrupt and prevent the Germans bringing through reinforcements to assist the Allies on greenham common ahead of the invasion Force the very first wave was leaving the Pathfinder planes carrying troops capable of setting up strategic radar beacons needed to guide the main wave to the predetermined Drop Zones at long last D-Day proper was underway we had a final briefing and relaxed went through the sand tables again the drop procedure then we slept and ate a little and then we went out to the planes that around oh I'd say maybe 7:30 or 8:00 and then we took off and uh three ship formations the 101st took off first they had a little further to go and the 82nd planes nine of us we took off later the last two planes were the Drop Zones for the glider Landing there was a fog Bank unreported over the drop area and nobody broke radio silence to let us know but amazingly we stuck in formation and drop zone T te had three planes drop in there and the drop was perfect the Flack was intense but small arms and I had lots of holes in my airplane but mostly 25 caliber schmeiser machine pistol which will give you an idea of how low I was after I got rid of my Troopers cuz I dropped my Troopers starting at 800 ft got down to about 680 then they pulled in the static lines and I hit the deck and we had to lift our right wing to go by by the church steeple of Sam Mary GLE and the only 101st had one drop zone where the plane had to do a 360 and go back but it eventually every Pathfinder landed in his drops up when the day came every air base in the Southeast and Beyond had a full part to play The Fighter squadrons of Mustangs for example providing cover and protection as well as causing as much disruption as was possible to enemy forces were fully engaged this is botam Airfield y so what units were based here this was the home to The 375th Fighter Squadron of The 361st Fighter Group yeah flying Mustangs on D-Day they were flying combat air patrols they took off before Dawn and landed after dusk basically just stopping any enemy Fighters getting through to the Airborne forces they didn't want they didn't want the German Fighters tangling with the doas they they would have massacred them they they would yeah so it's very important to provide that safety net so it was a shield this was part of a big Allied Shield then the yeah Eisen how put all his fighter groups in a umbrella around the beaches to stop anything getting through and this is the actual room that the briefing occurred that morning so the tension here must have been palpable then as those as those young men came in knowing that something really big was going down yeah I can't begin to imagine people sitting in this room learning the news that you're going to be landing in France and you're providing that umbrella and you're going You're expected to be in the aend nearly the whole day and and land um a Mustang at night um you know it have been a it must have been a fairly hectic day where was The Briefing screen then where was the stage there been huge basically we've got a photograph of the SC Commander standing a couple steps behind you big map of Europe on this wall here he's got a pointer he's showing the guys where the targets are um where they where their destinated are is to fly and there's a status board here on the wall behind you tell them what flights they're in what machines they're flying that day um so yeah this is this is where they' have learned what they were doing and here we're in the heart of East Anglia and the skies would have been very very congested on that morning then I guess I can't begin to imagine every Fighter Group was in the air most bomber groups were in the air and you've got transport command flying the Airborne forces in I mean it must have been hectic yes I think from uh from an historian's Viewpoint you can only imagine the sound that must have been shaking this building that morning as the as the aircraft thundered out you can imagine 70 Mustangs starting up at once the noise that must have made I mean he when did they put the stripes on the aircraft I think it was on the evening of the 5ifth so they were busy so they would have seen all the hubub going on of painting the their beautiful nicely polished Mustangs with these ghastly black and white stripes yeah and they were just quickly thrown on cuz they they had to do 60 70 aircraft in about 3 or 4 hours so it wasn't it wasn't a Precision job did they fly more than one mission that day they did they flew six missions that day yeah six missions six missions yeah the group up into two halves and they kept one group in the air all day good gracious so they were did they have any uh engagements with enemy aircraft they certainly did yes they shot down I think there was one claim destroyed and they also quite they shot up quite a lot of tanks and enemy patrols of course trying to prevent enemy forces getting through to the beaches so they would strifing anything yeah anything that moved [Music] yeah in the closing minutes of June the 5th the first wave of c47s with the paratroopers aboard led by that old brother and Donaldson took off on route to Normandy by now though the enemy forces were on full alert and their passage over was anything but smooth going across it was um you could look down and see all those ships down there and you realize that this was the largest Armada ships that anybody has ever seen people have asked me if we were afraid no we were not afraid there was a little apprehension because we'd never done this before but that also worked in the fact that we weren't afraid because we didn't know what to we' never done it we didn't know how bad this was going to be so we came close to the coast then the clouds rolled in we were flying in seral of nine planes the first planes the in each serial was the only one that have Navigator there was on the ground a thing called a Eureka it would send a beam up to the plane they had a Rebecca there were those in every area they had a guy on the ground with the Eureka and you're supposed to home in on him what happened when they got into this Cloud Bank we were flying almost propeller to tail so the first thing they did self-preservation scatter or we're going to wreck in doing that they lost the Navigator so they the eight planes behind him had no idea where they were because the Navigator was gone they were so certain because of the time element that they had flown that they were dropping people in the right place and they were not it was good and bad it was bad because our plan fell apart it was good because it confused the Germans they they just had no idea of how many people there were all they knew was that every place they looked there was paratroopers and as far as actual fear I stood in the door and looked out and I felt no fear at the time and I've talked to the other guys and none of them have said the same thing it was fascinating you could see all of those heavy caliber tracers coming up every fifth shell that was coming up was a tracer but it looked solid they were hitting the planes next to us there were planes blowing up uh they were coming up through hitting people in the plane and the we were so low that the ground fire for machine guns was coming up on through the planes and all we could think of then was let's get out of here despite the thickening fog Banks and the associated challenges for the rudimentary radar Donaldson found his way to the Drop Zone well studying the map we think we're now pretty much on the spot where that old brother deposited the paratroops on board her aircraft she put through Donaldson's Carriage her men where they were meant to be and that was the time the green light and out they were helpless they feared as they leapt out of the aircraft and descended from the skies here that they would be machine guned and many were in the darkness they were trying to find one another they had their little clickers was it somebody friendly hopefully you got a responding click it would be one of your men then 1 2 three others gathered around 75 of them made a a tech next book attack on samarie Deon they positioned machine guns to inflate the enemy and they went in almost leap frogging building to building and in a brief Fierce combat there they took the church and within hours many objectives had been achieved which made it possible then for the troops coming up from the beaches to proceed to some extent as planned and through the night into the early hours of the morning that bitter vicious combat went on but slowly slowly but surely the Americans gained the upper hand our objective for my Battalion or my company was two bridges near bons one was a pedestrian bridge and one a vehicle Bridge those were built a few months before we went over to funnel reinforcements down to the beach forces that was critical that we had to stop that we did take the brides the first day the 82nd and1st Airborne divisions were in action 33 and 24 days respectively the 82nd having captured s Mar and secured the bridge head across the M River destroyed other River Crossings protected the flank of the seventh Army Corp and drove West to the DU River the 101st seized the area has assigned it destroyed Bridges and drove on to kanton to establish a defense area there we were supposed to be in there 3 days that's what shock troops do they are not defensive people ordinarily but they had nobody else to put in it was harder than they thought so uh they decided to keep us in and we were in it for 33 days before we went back to England dropping the paratroops and their part in preparing the way proved vital for the wave after wave of ground troops who landed amid such heavy fire on the beaches though many Pilots had not found their predetermined Drop Zones due in large part to the fog the paratroops role proved crucial in opening up lines through which the Allied Forces could Advance as part of her preparations that's old brother regularly takes to the air not least of all to put time on her fresh repaired engine today she adds extra purpose to her flight this time to Dayton Ohio to reconnect with a familiar face and one of the original paratroopers Jim Peewee [Music] Martin good flight here thank [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] so today we are flying that all brother up to Dayton Ohio to meet uh with Peewee Martin Peewee was one of the original tocoa band The Brothers he jumped at uh on dday with 101st Airborne and he actually jumped at the 70th anniversary of D-Day when he was 92 years old uh he helped a lot in the initial fundraising and getting together for that's all brother when we made the initial presentation and all so uh we are taking that's all brother to Dayton Ohio today and his family is going to bring bring him out here we're hoping that he's going to be in good enough help that he's going to be able to get in and take a ride with us we'll take he and his family for a ride in the airplane that he jumped not the airplane but the type of airplane that he jumped out of uh 75 years ago next month on dday there were 800 airplanes that took off carrying paratroopers carrying gliders and um they all followed this airplane there are a lot of War birds out there that are painted up like famous airplanes but they're not really the airplane this is the air frame that was uh that led everything at D-Day this trip we're on today really provides us with a great opportunity to uh take the airplane on some very long legs and we can validate our fuel Burns and our oil consumption and U there's been a lot of things that have come up on this trip that have just been good good pointers and it's a little chilly today so we're getting in a little experience with how the airplane operates in the cold um because you know in about 6 weeks we're going to uh launch out to go across the North Atlantic on the same Blue Spruce routes that c47s flew to uh flew to Europe by the thousands in World War II I think um this airplane really has been a defining airplane for the CAF uh you know we've got 100 70 airplanes scattered all over across the country and uh you know most of our airplanes have never went overseas and uh don't have a lot of historical provenance um this airplane uh hands down is the most historically significant airplane uh that we have in the CAF Fleet and because of its historical significance it it allowed us the opportunity to raise money in a much uh more effective way than we typically are able to do that allowed us to bring this airplane up to an incredibly high standard terms of restoration so um I really think that's U that's something new and really exciting for the CAF on the approach to Dayton it is clear that the weather is worsening as that old brother comes into land there's no disguising the onset of a snowstorm there 7° 2500 snow from building getting pretty marginal right there then it's clear 3,000 overcast is what this shows two concerns now are the temperature and visibility despite these the crew are Keen to put that old brother through her wintertime Paces with the upcoming Atlantic Crossing very much in mind hey P how are you good good to see you hello sir how are you all right very good h on what do you think yeah that's [Music] true [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w after a short but emotional flight that's old brother returns to the Airfield and with visibility mercifully improved lands [Music] safely we have heard people over and over and over and say thank you for your sacrifice I have never considered my service a sacrifice I have always considered it an honor and a privilege to have been a part of history and I've sincerely mean that because I'm just a little guy a country bumpin and all of a sudden I'm thrust in the lon light because I went to Normandy see and what's important now about all of this restoration and what you are doing right now is that we're going to be gone and you're going to be the last people to have talk to somebody that's actually been there and you're going to preserve that you think about that there is no glory in combat believe me there's no glory there is afterwards but not while you're doing it I'm not usually emotional but whatever looks good thank you I thank all well thank you Jim clearly cherished his brief flight although he had originally jumped from a different c47 that's all brother though has plenty of stories of her own dads uncles grandfathers the men that flew this airplane had touched people's lives the photos were still out there the family albums the archives the information and stories like chappie Hall and you know his role as Jumping Jesus this airborne paratrooper chaplain who jumped with the men um he had been noticing that paratroopers weren't attending his masses and his services and he he figured out that it was because there was a reticence to visit his Services because he himself wasn't a jumper um so he decided to go and receive jump training and he noted that there was a massive increase inre in the number of men who came to his services and his masses after he came back with his jump wings now Hall was interesting not only for the fact that he went and became jump qualified as a Chaplain which at that time wasn't required but that he chose to accompany the men to Normandy on the D-Day Mission now a chaplain could be argued to be not necessarily a central Personnel in that first wave but he felt strongly that as Shepherd to those men that he should endure the same challenge that they do and basically go over there with them so he joined the unit on board that's all brother and he basically jumped right behind old Mo Mosley who was uh the unit's commanding officer and in the Airborne there's a culture of you know the the officer is always leading the way he's always the first one out of the airplane and Mosley was no different um they weren't the only unique characters on the airplane in fact David Daniel the command commander of the 87th Troop Carrier Squadron to which that's all brother belonged brought along his Scottish Terrier now we had this sort of obscure reference to there being a Scottish Terrier on board the airplane sat upon a stack of flack jackets um from from the Memoirs of chappie Hall but it would be some months later during the crowdfunding campaign that we were actually shown a picture of the dog the crew when it when they returned to England was photographed and we were all looking at it really interestingly thinking wow this is the crew as they return look at the load of stress that's off their shoulders and but they're also weary from a long Mission and we had the picture in our hands for a couple of days before someone finally said did you guys see the dog in the middle of the picture and sure enough this black Scotty is in David Daniel's arm and you can see his eyes reflecting The Flash and that's basically the only way you see him but he's he's cradled right there and in his arm Wings Over Dallas the air show provides the final opportunity to run a full dress rehearsal for the that's all brother crew and paratroopers full period uniforms round shoots and perfect flying conditions with luck exactly what they will find When jumping in France in June [Music] last eff was 10 minutes so right now I'm uh 5 hooking up all my communications I have a a R so that I can talk to the Drop Zone safety officer and then I've got um a helmet that I'm going to wear with Communications with the air crew and all the radios for the air show so I've got to get myself wired up uh to be ready for the communications I'm also going to me uh making sure that my safety uh hookup is uh secure in this case today I'm wearing a parachute rig instead of a just a safety harness so if there's an if there's a problem I'll be able to go out the aircraft uh with by parachute instead of having to stay with the [Music] [Music] airplane despite the perfect weather conditions there are many matters for the jump Master to consider wind strength Direction and the speed of the aircraft must be finally judged the jump only goes ahead on his command an air show inevitably means a very crowded airspace too and more than ever SA considerations are [Music] [Applause] Paramount [Music] [Music] head up head up wome wome the okay all your M up and [Music] [Music] [Music] coming up [Music] [Music] when you stumble into a story as big as that's so brother is is the airplane that led the invasion having gone missing and been found that airplane is fundamentally important the D-Day narrative the experience of the men who fought in that battle and the importance of this Relic are connected with what it means to be an American um these airplanes represent or specifically this airplane represents an incredible piece of the cultural Commonwealth of America a part of what makes us who we are today uh is is wrapped up in this machine uh those men who were on board flew over willing to risk their lives knowing full well they wouldn't all make it back in the cause of global Freedom this airplane has already lasted longer than any of the men who flew it that night or who jumped from it that night and that is a small taste of how important it is because for generations to come this airplane will represent the only real link to that time this airplane will be a time machine that reminds people that it was real that those challenges were there that tyranny was a problem and that people were willing to stand up and and sort of fight for what was right at last the day has come that soul brother has completed her astonishing restoration from Boneyard to very soon Battlefield She's undergone Every form of preparation and proved herself worthy in all tests and under all conditions now she is ready for her return to France but first the arduous Atlantic Bridge Crossing must be [Music] negotiated [Music] [Music] every Journey begins with a single step for that's all brother on route to France that means a trip from Texas to New Orleans she will have to visit five other states before leaving us airspace before realizing the dreams of the CAF and all those who have brought her this far before revisiting her defining moment 75 years on and [Music] Counting [Music] [Music]

Channel: Spark

Views: 579,784

Keywords: Aircraft preservation, Aircraft salvage, Aviation technology, C- Skytrain, Historical exploration, Historical rediscovery, Historical research, Memorialization, Military engineering, Military history, Restoration project, Salvaged aircraft, Spark, WWII aircraft salvage, WWII remnant, WWII veterans, War artifacts, War history, Warplane history research, Warplane restoration, World War II aircraft

Id: KFANRe3ORPE

Length: 157min 5sec (9425 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 15 2023