506TH PIR Easy Company "Band of Brothers" C-47 Markings

[Graham Boak]

I have Ottery (Upottery in RAF parlance) as a base for the 439th, and that is what was quoted as the base for Easy Company in BoB - my son just left me the DVDs, and I watched them over the weekend. Chilbolton I have as P-47s not C-47s, of the 368th FG. Action Stations 6 says nothing about any D-Day transport operations from Chilbolton. The 438th flew from Greenham Common, with the first wave. The 439th was following (second wave?), which wasn't quite the impression given, and the book states that the 101st was dropped on target, Col Sink himself landing within 200 yds of the aiming point, despite a lack of pathfinder lights. Three aircraft were missing from the 439th, there is a picture of another (D8-coded) with flak damage to the outer wing. Overall, despite some scattering, only one unit of the 82nd was "badly dropped". Again, not quite the impression given in the film.

References in Rust to other units has the 434th with gliders from Welford Park, and the 437th with gliders. Freeman in The 9th Air Force in Colour has the 437th at Ramsbury, the 436th at Membury. There is a photo of gliders at Chilbolton for Market Garden, and this is mentioned in Action Stations 6. Does your reference to Membury and Chilbolton apply to Market Garden not Overlord?

Young's aircraft had radar - by implication so would the other formation leaders. Does anyone have information on what this would look like?

[DavidIsby]

There are several color profiles (including one of Young's aircraft) and photographs of C-47s with belly radomes in my Osprey on Gooney Birds in the ETO.

Sink sent Young -- by way of an evacuated wounded officer -- a ten pound note that had been the bet that Young would get him to the DZ.

[Graham Boak]

Thanks David, but I don't think it was the belly radar. Following a posting on Hyperscale, I've come to believe it was Rebecca/Eureka. The receiver aerials can be seen on your profiles, and yes there are several photos/profiles in there of interest to BoB followers. Sorry I was a bit slow not to look in there earlier.

Can I say what a pleasure it is to see the non-combat types represented in series such as Osprey.

1 hour later - just in case anyone has read this while I've been watching Horizon. David's book does include a profile of Young's aircraft with Rebecca and the belly radar. I was in too much of a rush to post before, and maybe I didn't look into the fold of the page......

[Mark Copeland]

Thank you very much everyone for your wonderful and enlightening information. Excellent feedback from everyone!! Thank you all very much and have a splendid Holiday Season!!

Mark Copeland

[dp_burke]

Check out Patrick Elie's site:
http://www.6juin1944.com/assaut/aero....php?page=para

he is trying to account for indiviual aircraft on his site:

regards

Dennis

[patelie]

Mark

As your original question was for operation Market Garden, on 17th september the 506th PIR was carried by three serials : 45 planes from the 442nd TCG and 90th planes from the 436th TCG
I don't have more information about which squadron carried E Co but the squadron code was one of these:
- 442nd TCG : J7 - V4 - 4J - 7H
- 436th TCG : S6 - 7D - U5 - 3D