Charlie Forty Six, Some Exploits Told, Part 1
The least glamorous events of aviation history involving man-machine relationships, concern the stodgy lumbering transport airplane. In WWII, transport aircraft hauled cargo, priority freight, mail, soldiers and performed medical evacuations, all necessary to sustain and win
battles.
Since WWII, reluctant participants in disasters, despotic regime changes, resistance fighters, and military troops surrounded and assaulted by enemy forces, greatly appreciated the transport aircraft, knowing that rescue or extraction plus supplies were being
delivered.
In WWII Europe, C-47, LB-30, Lysander and other aircraft dropped
commandos, delivered and extracted agents, retrieved German V-2 rocket components and air-dropped vital supplies to the French Maquis, Norwegian Milorg, the Dutch Onderduikers, and Belgium’s well-organized Group G and Armee Secrete resistance forces. To resistance groups, transports were greatly appreciated since they were often their only means of
support.
In the China Burma India (CBI) Theater, General Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group (AVG), popularly known as the "Flying Tigers," later part of the 14th AF and other in-theater operations were supplied by cargo transports. The effort following the Japanese seizure of the Burma Road, left a trail of wreckage and dead airmen lost to the treacherous turbulence and cloud-hidden peaks of the
Himalayan Mountains. (Himalaya is Sanskrit for "abode of snow").
Pacific-based USAAF and Marine Commandos delivered essential personnel, provisions and equipment to soldiers engaging the enemy in the hard-fought ground war. They also flew seriously wounded combatants to major medical care facilities far from the front
line.
Throughout its service in World War II and the early post-war years, "Charlie Forty-Six" earned
. . . .
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Curtiss CW-20, C-46 prototype
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