The C-47 casts a distinct silhouette. Its rounded wings and teardrop fuselage make it recognizable even from space, where a satellite captured one sitting on a parking apron in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas.
Charlie Walker and his business partners couldn’t believe it. They had scoured the internet for a plane that had flown from Walker’s property, Membury Airfield, during World War II. And here, after an eBay auction led them to Google Earth, they were looking at a C-47 that had done just that.
Walker was ready to bring the aircraft home.
The Aircraft
President Dwight D. Eisenhower said four assets helped the allies win World War II: the jeep, the atom bomb, the bazooka and the C-47.
Originally built by Douglas Aircraft as a civilian transport aircraft, the DC-3, the twin-engine design was modified with a cargo door and reinforced floor to become the military C-47.
“It’s curious to think the DC-3 wasn’t designed for combat, it was pressed into military service through needs rather than anything else,” said Charlie Walker, an aviation enthusiast whose family owns the Membury Estate in southern England.
During World War II, Royal Air Force Membury hosted many airframes for many operations, but none more impactful than the C-47.
The transporter carried troops across enemy lines on D-Day and in Operation Market Garden. It also towed gliders into combat.
The C-47 became the most-produced airlifter ever. Over 16,000 units were manufactured across multiple variants, with the vast majority being military C-47’s.
“It’s got a lot to do with the modular design of the aircraft,” Walker said. “It was able to withstand a lot of the flack of the mission.”
He added that its tail section, wings and engines are easily removed and replaced for necessary maintenance.
Night Fright
The plane Walker spotted was tail No. 42-100521—its first two digits designate the year it rolled off the production line in Long Beach, California. By 1944, the plane had made its way to Membury with the American 436th Troop Carrier Group.
Its pilot, William “Bill” Watson, was accompanied by copilot Frank Bibas and three other crew members. Bibas’ cocker spaniel, Hap, flew with the crew for the until the European campaign’s end.
In the spring of 1944, Watson named the plane after a favorite book, “Night Flight,” by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Due to the aircraft’s daring mission, transporting gliders and troops across enemy lines often under the cover of darkness, Watson bestowed the name “Night Fright.”
Squadron artists painted the name on the front of the fuselage with a simple depiction of the C-47 towing a glider. Such nose art was common among combat aircraft of that generation, though most depicted names and images far lewder than one inspired by French literature.
On June 3, 1944, crews were instructed to paint black and white stripes on the rear fuselage and atop the wings to identify allied aircraft. Such “invasion stripes” would hopefully preclude friendly fire from causing fratricidal casualties.
In the early hours of June 6, over 900 C-47’s dropped over 13,000 allied paratroopers across the English channel.
“They’re young kids, 17, 18, 19-year-olds. They got 80 pounds of gear on their back,” said Col. Malcolm “Mitch” Mitchell, a Commemorative Air Force pilot, of the D-Day jumpers.
“It’s dark, you’re bouncing around, you’re being shot at. The door opens up, and there you are, you’re looking down. You’re gonna jump into the dark, and you don’t know what’s gonna happen.”
Night Fright survived D-Day and the later Operation Market Garden, a September campaign to push closer to Germany through the Netherlands.
In July 1945, the squadron flew back to the United States. And by October of that year, following the Japanese surrender, Night Fright retired to Walnut Ridge, Arkansas for “sale or disposal.”
That’s why, in 2012, after scouring the internet for a Membury C-47, Walker was in disbelief that Night Fright had come “full circle” to the same airfield it retired to after the war. In the intervening years, Night Fright had logged over 50,000 flight hours in service of several American carriers and the French Navy.
Restoration
Night Fright is now undergoing restorations in Coventry, England at Heritage Air Services.
Walker’s goal is not only to restore Night Fright to its D-Day specifications—nose art and all—but also restore the runway at Membury. Doing so would make Night Fright the only C-47 to operate from its original World War II airfield.
The novelty of the project, and COVID lockdowns, have caused Night Fright’s restoration to prolong beyond any original estimations.
“If I had a pound for every time I said the aircraft would be finished, I probably could have paid for it a couple times over,” Walker said.
In late 2023, he said the project had cost over seven figures. But time and money are a mere inconvenience for the gravity of the project. Walker’s team is leaving no stone unturned.
“This is just one bracket, and all the screws are lined up properly,” said Andy Blackford, an aviation enthusiast who visited Night Fright in 2023.
He pointed to the mount for a guide wire, which supports paratroopers’ carabiners as they line up to exit the aircraft.
“That’s the sort of level of detail the whole thing’s been done to.”
But the end is in sight, he promised, eight years after he shipped the plane to England.
Walker hopes to have Night Fright flying, and dropping paratroopers, by the 80th anniversary of D-Day, in June 2024. Beyond that, he envisions building a museum at Membury to enshrine its wartime history.
“Yes of course it’s about the aircraft, but it’s about more than that,” he said. “It’s about honoring and it’s about education.”
“Are we mad? Probably. But it will be worth it.”
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