Reportage "Le DC3 et le Douglas C-47" (Partie 4/4)
Video from the channel Théo Aviation about Douglas DC-3, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:30. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
The last of four parts of a documentary about the DC-3 and the C-47. It focuses on the Berlin Airlift and the aircraft's legacy.
Historical background
With the start of the Cold War, the Soviets cut off land and water access to the Allied sectors of Berlin, a city still in ruins whose main power sources were on the Soviet side. The Allies responded with an unprecedented airlift whose mainstay was the C-47, which could carry more than three tons. The documentary includes the testimony of a Berlin woman who was 16 when the blockade began and who, against her parents' wishes, went to Tempelhof airport to watch the planes land.
Key facts
The first C-47 landed in Berlin on 26 June 1948. After that, a plane arrived every 30 seconds carrying coal, milk, soap, food, drinking water and medical supplies. On 25 July 1948 a C-47 crashed into a building, killing its two American pilots. The airlift lasted almost a year, until the Soviets lifted the blockade in May 1949, with the C-47s and later the C-54s. The C-47 also served in Korea and Vietnam. After the war, several attempts to replace the DC-3 failed. The documentary presents it as the starting point of mass air transport.