Wartime HISTORY RETURNS to Dunkeswell & Upottery airfields! D-Day 80th anniversary remembered 🇺🇸 🇬🇧

A historically significant week at two of Devon's original wartime airfields for many reasons!
We begin on Friday 31st May, when the gorgeous PBY-5A Catalina ‘Miss Pick Up’ G-PBYA / 44-33915 headed from Duxford - Dunkeswell Aerodrome, landing at 11.00am to fuel there, before it headed over to Exeter Airport for the weekend in preparation for its starring role at the English Riviera Airshow.
Fast forward to 5th June 2024, marking the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord, which saw tens of thousands of soldiers embark from Portsmouth to cross the Channel, establishing a foothold across the French coast in order to begin the advance to liberate northwest Europe.
As dawn broke on the morning of 6th June 1944 thousands of Allied Warships made their way towards the coast of Northern France. D-Day had finally arrived. Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare was underway, heralding one of the most decisive campaigns of WWII. More than 150,000 troops would land on five beaches in Normandy.
We attended an event hosted by Aero legends at Upottery Airfield, steeped in history, the last of three wartime airfields to be built on the Blackdown Hills. During the war, it was used primarily as a transport airfield and for antisubmarine patrols.
In April 1944, the USAAF 439th Troop Carrier Group arrived from Balderton airfield, Nottinghamshire bringing four Troop Carrier Squadrons each, with around twenty Douglas C-47 transport planes in preparation for the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.
Shortly after over 1,300 American paratroops from the 1st & 2nd Battalions of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, moved down from Aldbourne, Wiltshire together with over 1,000 American glider troops of the 325th and 401st Glider Infantry Regiments, 82nd Airborne Division. Aircraft and personnel were prepared for the invasion here and Upottery was also the departure field for the well known men of ‘Easy Company’, 2nd battalion the 506th PIR, who were famously featured in Stephen Spielberg's TV series ‘Band of Brothers’.
A pair of C-47 Skytrains paid homage to those brave pilots, conducting parachute drops and landing their aircraft at Upottery for the public to get up close and personal.
Shortly after departing Upottery, the two Douglas C-47's KP220 Pegasus and 42-100882 'Drag 'em Oot' had one final formality to complete before their channel crossing to participate in the Normandy D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations.
Civil Aviation Authority rules dictated that the organisers couldn't emplane the parachutists at Upottery due to UK regulations that require the team to utilise a licensed airfield with any aircraft above 5,700KG. As Upottery is now no longer an active airfield, this meant that once the parachutists jumped at Upottery, they were then transported up the road to Dunkeswell and the planes lifted empty for the short flight across to another of Devons historic wartime airfields.
Dunkeswell Airfield was built between 1942 & 1943 by George Wimpey and Co and was initially occupied by the USAAF 479th Anti Submarine Squadron and then by the US Navy and was the only US Naval Airbase in Europe who undertook U boat hunting in the Bay of Biscay using specialised B-24 Liberator bombers.
We made the short trip across to see the paratrooper reenactors making final preparations ready for their jumps over Normandy, adjusting their parachute equipment and flight suits and studying the maps over the jump point drop zones during a briefing, while the C47’s were fuelled up in preparation for the channel crossing to participate in the Europes D-Day commemorations. The atmosphere here, seeing the teams walking up and posing for their final group photos before boarding the aircraft and watching the aircraft roll out for departure was very special and really felt like being a part of living history by being there watching this happen, thinking about the bravery it took to liberate Western Europe!
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[@107nthGalaxy]

what an awesome day at upottery that was big thanks to aero ledgends for making that day possible