D-Day C-47 found in Bosnia

[Marmite!!]

Before 88-year-old Joseph "Buck" Buckner died in 2003, his son gave him the perfect Christmas gift.

 

It was a model of the Douglas C-47 on which the Baytown man had flown as a U.S. Army Air Force radio operator during World War II.

 

"It even had the tail number painted on it," recalled Buckner's son, Chris, also of Baytown. "My father could recite that number, without hesitation, as if it were his driver's license number."

 

Now, an actual plane with the identical registration number has been found abandoned at an air base near Sarajevo in Bosnia.

 

The plane, nicknamed the "SNAFU Special," has not flown since being riddled with bullets during Bosnia's war for independence 13 years ago.

 

The story behind the plane built in 1944 is an epic tale of heroism and survival, said Beatrice Guillaume, the administrator of a museum in the small French town of Merville, Normandy. She is a member of a Merville team that traveled to Bosnia last weekend to save the plane from obscurity. The aircraft had been instrumental in rescuing her town from the Nazis.

 

The team plans to transport the C-47 by trailer to the Merville museum, where it will be restored and put on display in June.

 

The museum, which opened nearly 25 years ago, is housed inside a concrete battery built by the Germans in the early 1940s.

 

Anyone approaching the heavily armed battery during World War II had to contend with barbed wire, a minefield, anti-tank ditches and flooded marshes.

 

"The battery was believed to be an impregnable fortress," Guillaume said.

 

In 1944, the SNAFU Special was among a fleet of unarmed cargo planes dispatched to Normandy to dispel that myth.

 

In the dark of night, the planes battled strong winds and dodged heavy anti-aircraft fire to drop paratroopers whose mission was to silence the battery for the D-Day invasion.

 

 

Daring flights

Chris Buckner recalled what his father said about that day: "He remembered doing nothing but fly, drop troops, come back, refuel, fly and drop more troops before the main body of soldiers hit the beaches."

 

By the day's end, the plane's wings and fuselage were shot so full of holes that it could not get off the ground one more time. Two other C-47s fared worse, crashing in flames into Merville's sand dunes, Guillaume said.

 

The mission, however, was a success, though it came at a high price: Only 75 of the 750 paratroopers who got the green light to jump survived.

 

The SNAFU Special is a symbol of those daring flights that helped liberate France, Guillaume said.

 

"We want to restore this plane to its original glory," she said. "To explain the story of her crew members and how difficult it was for them to risk their lives to save a country they didn't know."

 

The SNAFU Special's flight log shows that Sgt. Buckner flew more missions on the plane than anyone else.

 

One other Texan was listed as part of the crew — the late Sgt. Lafette Nerren, a crew chief who later owned and operated a Houston cafe called Juniors.

 

Nerren had earned the nickname "Lucky" because his plane always made it back , said a longtime friend, Sammy Basey of Lufkin.

 

The C-47 was heavily damaged, however, during a mission in the Netherlands, when it dropped paratroopers to capture a bridge in an operation immortalized by the film A Bridge too Far.

 

One squadron leader wrote: "It was a flying wreck. Both the main tires had been shot off, and it landed on bare wheels, losing one completely during the rollout."

 

During a Belgium mission in which eight C-47s dropped supplies to surrounded Allied troops, the SNAFU Special was one of only three planes to survive.

 

Chris Buckner said his father talked about abandoning the radio to take over the flight controls during that excursion.

 

The pilot had been killed and the co-pilot incapacitated.

 

 

Many owners

For the French, finding a plane that had participated in the Merville Battery drops was not easy.

 

Merville officials began an international hunt last January and at first came up empty. Then a French soldier heard of their quest on the Internet and provided the key.

 

This soldier had served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in the 1990s and remembered seeing a C-47 there, officials said. The plane had been grounded since being machine-gunned to prevent it from flying during the Bosnian war.

 

The French soldier, who was a plane enthusiast, viewed the C-47 up close.

 

"He gave us its registration number," Guillaume said. "We researched it and found it was one that had participated in the drops here."

 

Records showed that the plane had been sold to Czechoslovakia after World War II for use as an airliner. In 1960, the French military bought it for its air force. Yugoslavia acquired it for its military in 1973.

 

All but one of the crew members who served on the SNAFU Special have died, but many of their family members plan to attend the dedication in June, officials said.

 

 

[Jack]

Folks - have been speaking to one of the organisers of this and will post up in the news section next week...... :-D

[Dakman]

 

 

Well Jack, when I was flying DC-3's in the 70's, we had a short, wizened, perfectly charming Czech pilot called Joe Rechka flying with us. At the outbreak of war, he bundled his girlfriend, his co-pilot and his wife, into a DC-2 that he was flying for a local airline, and defected to England, where he joined up and flew for the duration. After the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia and flew again commercially.

Come the Polish/Czech post-war uprisings, he did the same thing again, this time escaping in a DC-3, and THIS time, he did NOT go back for fear of reprisals (like for pinching a DC-3 for starters!).

I was in charge of training in Jersey, and this 26-year old was having great difficulty in getting him to do things according to our "book", and after consulting our Chief Pilot, (another amazing grizzled veteran, Bill Stuart), it was decided that as this was the 70's, and he had been flying DC-2's BEFORE war broke out, it was probably safe to assume that his way worked, and that HE was probably teaching the DC-3's a thing or two, and as long as he could still tick MOST of our boxes, he was best left alone. To fly with him as a F/O was priceless, a real privilege even.

Like a lot of gentlemen of his era, he wouldn't speak much about his experiences other than what I have outlined above.

A year after he retired from us, he died, back in the UK. He was accorded a full military funeral, and it was revealed that he was indeed a hero of epic proportions, and had been awarded, amongst other things, the Croix de Guerre for his wartime exploits.

I well remember walking out to our Dak one winter's morning, him muttering something in his (still) broken English. "What's that?" I asked.

"Bloody aeroplane, following me around, can't get rid of it!" he replied.

And I really DID know he was joking.

 

[abn deuce]

Without the internet and people wanting to share information How much poorer would we all be .

Some amazing stories of survival , unless they are shared events and people will go unknown .

[LeeEnfield]

Before 88-year-old Joseph "Buck" Buckner died in 2003, his son gave him the perfect Christmas gift.

 

It was a model of the Douglas C-47 on which the Baytown man had flown as a U.S. Army Air Force radio operator during World War II.

 

"It even had the tail number painted on it," recalled Buckner's son, Chris, also of Baytown. "My father could recite that number, without hesitation, as if it were his driver's license number."

 

Now, an actual plane with the identical registration number has been found abandoned at an air base near Sarajevo in Bosnia.

 

The plane, nicknamed the "SNAFU Special," has not flown since being riddled with bullets during Bosnia's war for independence 13 years ago.

 

The story behind the plane built in 1944 is an epic tale of heroism and survival, said Beatrice Guillaume, the administrator of a museum in the small French town of Merville, Normandy. She is a member of a Merville team that traveled to Bosnia last weekend to save the plane from obscurity. The aircraft had been instrumental in rescuing her town from the Nazis.

 

The team plans to transport the C-47 by trailer to the Merville museum, where it will be restored and put on display in June.

 

The museum, which opened nearly 25 years ago, is housed inside a concrete battery built by the Germans in the early 1940s.

 

Anyone approaching the heavily armed battery during World War II had to contend with barbed wire, a minefield, anti-tank ditches and flooded marshes.

 

"The battery was believed to be an impregnable fortress," Guillaume said.

 

In 1944, the SNAFU Special was among a fleet of unarmed cargo planes dispatched to Normandy to dispel that myth.

 

In the dark of night, the planes battled strong winds and dodged heavy anti-aircraft fire to drop paratroopers whose mission was to silence the battery for the D-Day invasion.

 

 

Daring flights

Chris Buckner recalled what his father said about that day: "He remembered doing nothing but fly, drop troops, come back, refuel, fly and drop more troops before the main body of soldiers hit the beaches."

 

By the day's end, the plane's wings and fuselage were shot so full of holes that it could not get off the ground one more time. Two other C-47s fared worse, crashing in flames into Merville's sand dunes, Guillaume said.

 

The mission, however, was a success, though it came at a high price: Only 75 of the 750 paratroopers who got the green light to jump survived.

 

The SNAFU Special is a symbol of those daring flights that helped liberate France, Guillaume said.

 

"We want to restore this plane to its original glory," she said. "To explain the story of her crew members and how difficult it was for them to risk their lives to save a country they didn't know."

 

The SNAFU Special's flight log shows that Sgt. Buckner flew more missions on the plane than anyone else.

 

One other Texan was listed as part of the crew — the late Sgt. Lafette Nerren, a crew chief who later owned and operated a Houston cafe called Juniors.

 

Nerren had earned the nickname "Lucky" because his plane always made it back , said a longtime friend, Sammy Basey of Lufkin.

 

The C-47 was heavily damaged, however, during a mission in the Netherlands, when it dropped paratroopers to capture a bridge in an operation immortalized by the film A Bridge too Far.

 

One squadron leader wrote: "It was a flying wreck. Both the main tires had been shot off, and it landed on bare wheels, losing one completely during the rollout."

 

During a Belgium mission in which eight C-47s dropped supplies to surrounded Allied troops, the SNAFU Special was one of only three planes to survive.

 

Chris Buckner said his father talked about abandoning the radio to take over the flight controls during that excursion.

 

The pilot had been killed and the co-pilot incapacitated.

 

 

Many owners

For the French, finding a plane that had participated in the Merville Battery drops was not easy.

 

Merville officials began an international hunt last January and at first came up empty. Then a French soldier heard of their quest on the Internet and provided the key.

 

This soldier had served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in the 1990s and remembered seeing a C-47 there, officials said. The plane had been grounded since being machine-gunned to prevent it from flying during the Bosnian war.

 

The French soldier, who was a plane enthusiast, viewed the C-47 up close.

 

"He gave us its registration number," Guillaume said. "We researched it and found it was one that had participated in the drops here."

 

Records showed that the plane had been sold to Czechoslovakia after World War II for use as an airliner. In 1960, the French military bought it for its air force. Yugoslavia acquired it for its military in 1973.

 

All but one of the crew members who served on the SNAFU Special have died, but many of their family members plan to attend the dedication in June, officials said.

 

 

 

 

 

What an amazing story,...................

 

Many Thank's, Lee for posting.

[Tony B]

Thinking of Dackman said, Iwas what 16/17 at the time, wish I'd known who was around me. Our neighbour, Wing Commander Pickford, then chief instructor at Jersey Aero Club, he had many decorations, the only time I had the temerity to ask the reply 'Oh nothing more than most of the others'. Dackman will remember he tried to land a Cessna 152 on the top of a car at the air disply one year. It was also a Dak that flew into the ground at jersey in the 1960's I think 64 on a foggy Friday night. 27 killed the stewardess survived. I also used to fly from jersey on Cambrians Dacks to the Mainland for summer holidays. In those days Unaccompanied minors were often dumped in the cockpit to keep them out of the way. Oh happy memories, all leather metal and needles going round.

[da bomb]

i wonder where on the airfield it was laid up, i went to the airfield on a number of occasions during the height of the fighting, when the sarajevo air bridge was in operation from Ancona in italy, and from the land side when i was with UNPROFOR.

The only aircraft i can recall seeing was a big Ilyushin 72 transport which had run off the runway and crashed, it was there for a long time, plus a number of Migs etc in battle damage state piled up on one side of the field, never got a chance to have a good look, if you stood still too long you drew sniper fire!!

[Jack]

i wonder where on the airfield it was laid up, i went to the airfield on a number of occasions during the height of the fighting, when the sarajevo air bridge was in operation from Ancona in italy, and from the land side when i was with UNPROFOR.

The only aircraft i can recall seeing was a big Ilyushin 72 transport which had run off the runway and crashed, it was there for a long time, plus a number of Migs etc in battle damage state piled up on one side of the field, never got a chance to have a good look, if you stood still too long you drew sniper fire!!

 

 

Amazing story in itself Adam.

 

I do have some picture of C47 that I will post up in the news item.

[chipper]

ADAM

HERE is a few pictures of the LI 72 & the MIGS

i got there just as we went green " IFOR "

& spent a yr in sarajevo !

do you remember that T62 with the blade on the way

to the airfield.....?

chipper

[Joris]

Great stories all and good to know another dakota is being saved and put to good use.

 

One small comment on the original story:

 

"Only 75 of the 750 paratroopers who got the green light to jump survived."

 

Casualty numbers were a lot lower then this..

[da bomb]

ADAM

HERE is a few pictures of the LI 72 & the MIGS

i got there just as we went green " IFOR "

& spent a yr in sarajevo !

do you remember that T62 with the blade on the way

to the airfield.....?

chipper

 

 

Always wanted to go and have a closer look at that, but at the time booby trapping points of interest was rife, so decided to give it a miss!

Good pictures though! the Migs look in a more parlous state than when i seen them!

I spent 4 months based in the UNPROFOR HQ in Tito's residence, the UN were losing control of the situation around that time, and it was getting quite hairy!

[RattlesnakeBob]

A bit of a departure from the main thread so apologies in advance...........

I visited the Merville Battery Museum in 2004 and was very impressed by it......

.....especially so when looking at all the photos they had on the wall in the one room of the young Paras/Airborne Brigade boys that had assualted the battery back in June 1944

....I spotted amongst the pictures a very young lad named 'Arthur Cooper'.........

Arthur had been a mate of my Dads for many years and postwar had been a well respected local businessman eventually ending up as the chairman of our local council....

..... I don't think many folk in our area knew of his service during the war though.....

.........Sadly Arthur had passed away quite a few years before 2004 but at least when the new ring road was constructed around our town in about 1990 it was named 'Arthur Cooper Way' in honour of his service to the district.............