It’s not every day that you see a historic aircraft chop through the skies above Ceres to descend into the Modesto Airport for static display. But last week aviation buffs had a rare treat to see and walk through the C-47a, dubbed “That’s All, Brother,” the lead plane to drop paratroopers onto Nazi occupied France during the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. With its tail number of 292847, the plane was parked on the tarmac of the Modesto Airport for a three-day display.
“Considering it’s Modesto and it’s a weekday and school’s back in we haven’t had a whole lot of people come see it,” said James Wyatt Ellis, one of the crew chiefs of the Central Texas squadron of the Commemorative Air Force. “We had the Navy ROTC come out but otherwise it’s just been a couple of home schooled children and mostly retirees.”
Because there were no pilots on hand, no rides were offered while in Modesto.
The group’s Central California Valley Squadron, a non-profit organization, sponsored the Modesto stop.
The historic plane was rescued from a boneyard in 2015, thanks to the Commemorative Air Force which raised and spent about $3.5 million for an extensive restoration to flying condition. Today it looks like it did during World War II.
In June 2019, the aircraft returned to England and France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, flying over Omaha Beach on June 6. The aircraft plans to return to Europe for the 80th anniversary of D-Day commemorations in June 2024.
The invasion at Normandy, France marked the beginning of the Western Allies’ (American, British, and Canadian forces) retaking of Western Europe from Nazi forces. A critical part of the mission was the night time delivery of over 13,100 American paratroopers behind enemy lines in advance of the beach invasion at Normandy. The largest paratroop drop in history consisted of two waves of over 800 C-47 aircraft, with the “That’s All, Brother” leading the way.
Paratroopers were tasked with blocking reinforcements by German troops into the vicinity of the amphibious landing at Utah Beach. They also captured causeway exits off the beaches and established crossings over the Douve River at Carentan to assist the American V-Corps in merging the two American beachheads, Utah and Omaha.
Germany surrendered 11 months after the D-Day invasion.
Because of the requirement for absolute radio silence, the thousands of Allied aircraft flying on D-Day had to be identifiable in order not to be targeted as enemy aircraft, so black and white stripes (referred to as Invasion Stripes) were added. To maintain security, stripes were painted hastily days before the invasion, resulting in less-than-perfect stripes as seen on “That’s All Brother.”
The plane rolled off the assembly line at the Douglas Aircraft facility in Oklahoma on March 7, 1944 and was delivered to the 438th Troop Carrier Group (TCG), 9th Air Force, England, during the second week of April 1944. It was outfitted with primitive ground-mapping radar to aid in navigation.
The plane left Modesto on Friday morning for a short flight to Mather Airport for the weekend Capital Air Show in Sacramento. It will return to its home base in San Marcos, Texas.
According to Ellis, the C-47 is not a rarity these days, with a couple of hundred still flying today.
“There are companies that take these air frames (and) put turbo prop engines on them … to fly into locations where they can’t bring in jets like Alaska, up in Canada. They still do them in Africa and South America, so any place with unimproved air strips where they can’t bring in jets.”
Parts are still available for them but are a premium.
