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The Dakota (more correctly the Douglas C-47 Skytrain) was one of the foremost transport aircraft of World War Two. The Dakota had an excellent reliability rating and many thousands of Dakota were built and they flew in most theatres of war.
The Dakota started life in the shape of the DC-3. This was a commercial airliner and was a success with pilots who found it easy to fly and very reliable. The US military also saw the DC-3 as the answer to a problem that it had faced – how to modernise its transport fleet of aircraft. The first Dakota was the C-41A, which was a command transport plane with VIP accommodation and military communications gear. By late 1939, it had developed into the C-47 and it was to have a variety of roles from the time America joined World War Two in December 1941.
The Dakota was an all-metal light alloy construction and the cantilever monoplane wing was set low on the fuselage. The fuselage itself was nearly circular in shape in the cross-section. The Dakota was powered by two Pratt and Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial piston engines that produced 1,050 hp. Not only were the engines highly reliable, they were extremely easy to maintain even in the most difficult of environments. The crew consisted of a pilot, co-pilot and radio operator who did his work in a separate compartment.
The Dakota was a ‘trash-hauler’. This was a term of endearment as the Dakota could do just about anything that the military required it to do. The maximum load the Dakota could carry was 6,000 lb. The aircraft could be fitted out to carry 28 paratroopers. A Dakota could also act as an air ambulance with places for eighteen stretchers on board. A medical team of three people could be carried. The Dakota was also used for drops behind enemy lines and carried racks beneath the fuselage for such operations that benefited the likes of the Chindits in the campaign against the Japanese. General Eisenhower stated that the Dakota was one of the four most important weapons of World War Two.
The Dakota saw action in most of World War Two’s campaigns – Burma, D-Day, the invasion of Sicily where C-47’s dropped nearly 4,000 paratroopers and at Arnhem. On June 6th 1944, over 1,000 Allied Dakotas were flown in a variety of uses and in the first 60 hours of D-Day, over 60,000 troops had been airlifted to Normandy. At the Arnhem drop, a Dakota pilot, Flight Lieutenant D S A Lord was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.
Few criticised this most versatile of aeroplanes – but it did have its weaknesses. The visibility from the cockpit was always a bone of contention for some pilots and throughout World War Two, the size of the cargo bay created problems. It did not have the ‘roll-on roll-off’ features that gliders had and parking many Dakotas in one area was problematic because of the aircraft’s tail plane configuration. However, its virtues far outweighed these issues. The Dakota could be flown even if it was heavily damaged during an operation and it was its ability to fly despite ‘heavy abuse’ that made it so popular.
The Dakota saw service throughout the Cold War including in the Berlin Airlift and the Vietnam War. The fact that thousands were produced is testimony to the enduring success of the aircraft.
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