We’re hugely thrilled about the BBMF flypast we’re having on Sunday 28th June but some of you might not be so familiar with the aircraft which is taking the place of the mighty Lancaster which is undergoing maintenance this summer. So a few facts about the Dakota:
The C-47 is a military version of the DC-3 airliner, which first flew in 1935. Under the lend lease programme, nearly 2,000 Dakotas, as the aircraft became known in RAF service, were delivered to the UK starting in 1942. Dakotas served in every theatre of the war, most notably in Burma and also during the D-Day landings and the airborne assault on Arnhem in 1944.
C-47 Dakota III ZA947 is the last of its type serving with the RAF. This Dakota was constructed as a C-47A by Douglas at Long Beach, California, USA in 1943.
During WWII, it served entirely in Canada. After the War, Dakota ‘661’ operated in support of the Canadian forces in Europe from 1965 until 1969, when the aircraft was declared surplus to requirements and sold to Scottish Aviation at Prestwick. It was then adopted by the BBMF in 1993.
ZA947 is now painted in the markings of a 31 Sqn Dakota (FD781) which operated from India and over Burma in 1943 and ‘44. This Dakota, flown by pilot Fg Off Mike Vlasto, landed on a short jungle strip in Japanese-occupied territory in April 1943 to rescue wounded and sick Chindit soldiers. It was later given the South East Asia Command (SEAC) pale-blue and dark-blue roundels and fin flash, applied to Allied aircraft to avoid confusion with the Japanese ‘Hinomaru’. In these markings ZA947 commemorates all those who served in the “forgotten war” in the Far East