Miss Montana is traveling in distinguished company, including That's All Brother – believed to be the first C-47 in the main wave of the D-Day invasion – and Placid Lassie, another D-day veteran who almost ended her days in a Florida weed patch
The D-Day Squadron travel together on what’s known as a Blue Spruce Route, “island-hopping” from Nova Scotia to Greenland to Iceland to Scotland and then London
This flight plan traverses the North Atlantic, allowing for fuel stops and guidance from ground-based navigational aids on the landmasses located along the route. Each site was selected because of its history as an active airfield during World War II that would have been a stopping point for these historic aircraft.
For Miss Montana, this is a chance for valor that was denied her by timing. She was built in 1944, but by the time she was ready to go into battle, the war ended.
Shortly after the war, this plane crashed into the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh and sank. After she was raised from the bottom, she flew for years for the Johnson Flying Service, https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/09/johnsons-flying-service-if-youve.html taking firefighters to remote blazes in Montana forests so they could parachute out to extinguish the flames, including being the plane that dropped the ill-fated Mann Gulch Fire smokejumpers who were killed in 1949.
The plane was restored in a year-long volunteer effort by the Museum of Mountain Flying, both engines had to be rebuilt, and there were countless other fixes large and small.
After spending the past couple of days in final practice jumps, the planes that are part of the “D-Day Squadron” flew across the English Channel to drop their main “invasion force” of jumpers over the French coast.
Miss Montana, the restored C-47, was the sixth plane in formation, only 5 of the 15 planes to have a static line for jumpers, dropping its paratroopers, including a number of Montana Smokejumpers
The aircraft will be on tour after returning from this mission, in a tribute to the contributions of the thousands of Montana veterans of WWII and other campaigns, as well as pilots, crew, mechanics, as well as the thousands of smokejumpers who have come out of the sky to face the flames.
10 percent of the population of Montana enlisted during WW2, the most per capita of any state.
https://kpax.com/news/missoula-county/2019/06/05/miss-montana-on-historic-d-day-flight/
https://missoulian.com/news/local/miss-montana-s-biggest-day-dawns/article_8f4496d3-aaf0-58b9-9783-e3134c26dbff.html
https://www.vp-mi.com/front_page_slider/20190523/miss_montana_drops_paratroopers_gives_plains_a_thrill
https://missmontanatonormandy.com/
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