AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - September 2019 - 66

Remembering the day
View additional compelling
photographs of the D-Day
commemoration online.
aopa.org/pilot/dday

Montana, in 1949. Fire overran the group
on the ground, and 13 firefighters died.
Eventually the airframe was retired
and parked in a hangar at the Museum
of Mountain Flying in Missoula as a tribute to the smokejumpers. But Komberec
and others at the museum decided she
should fly again in honor of D-Day (see
"First Look: 'Miss Montana' Debuts,"
June 2019 AOPA Pilot).
They rolled her out for the AOPA
Fly-In at Missoula in June 2018 and at
that event unveiled their name for the
aircraft-Miss Montana. From then on it
was a mad dash to refurbish the airplane
and get it into flying condition with only
a year to go-and raise the funds to do it.
Jeff Whitesell, a Delta Air Lines pilot and
veteran of several DC-3 projects, signed
on to help and ultimately became chief
pilot for the project. Meanwhile, dozens
of volunteers from the Missoula community just showed up to help. "We'd come
out early in the morning to get started and
there would be people waiting outside to
get in to help," Komberec said. "At night,
we'd almost have to kick them out so we
could get some rest. We'd have 30 to 50
people working on a weekend; we worked
seven days a week. Our membership in the
museum went from about 150 to more than
500 as we progressed."
Each of the volunteers sig ned a
Montana state flag that flew daily over the

AOPA's coverage of the events leading up to and during the D-Day
anniversary commemorations generated a number of comments
and reflections from members, including this poignant one:
Dear Tom,
Thank you for writing about D-Day, June 6, 1944. It is important that people know
about it and never forget.
I was a boy in France at that time-young, but only in name. My parents, three
brothers, and I lived in the small village of Ramecourt in northeastern France when
we heard the allies had landed in Normandy that morning. We were happy and hopeful, but also fearful, because we were still under German occupation; however, every
time we saw a wave of American bomber and fighter airplanes, we became filled
with comfort and hope. We were liberated by the American army August 30, 1944.
Years later, I moved to America, served in the U.S. Army in the Third Armored Division, and was sent to Germany for a year. At Fort Knox, before being sent overseas,
wanting to learn more about my division, I did some research at one of the post
libraries. It was there I learned that the division that had liberated our French village
was the very one in which I was now serving: the Third Armored Division. At that
time, it was under the command of General Maurice Rose.
It was an honor for me to serve in the same division that liberated me. I am thankful I got to give something back.
Sincerely,
Maurice Baroni

airplane as it sat on the ramp at Duxford.
The flag was carried by the lead parachutist departing the airplane over Normandy.
Miss Montana even inspired her own
jump team, with many smokejumpers and
military airborne crews from Montana
and across the country hearing about the
project and signing up specifically to jump
from the old airplane. Like the crew and
numerous Missoula volunteers, the jump
team members funded their own way to
Europe to participate in the events.
The volunteers used every minute of
that year to complete the project. In fact,
Miss Montana missed training events in
New York the week before the formation
left for Europe. Her first flight after restoration occurred just days before leaving
for the crossing.
With newly overhauled engines, new
propellers, and a host of revitalized systems, the old airplane was mechanically
sound, but there was little time left over
for cosmetics. Her elevator trim tab was
unpainted-someone's cellphone number still penciled on it-and her airframe
was not polished to the mirror finish of
Miss Virginia, for example, but she stood
proudly with the 22 others on the ramp
at Duxford waiting for her chance to fly
across the English Channel-to honor
those who made that great sacrifice 75
years earlier.
A month after the flight, the significance of it all still hadn't completely sunk
in for Zipkin. "I hope it means people
will think long and hard about history. It
wasn't just the greatest generation in the
United States. It was the greatest generation in the world. They made the world
a better place than it was in 1935. I hope
people understand how far we have come
and don't squander it. What we did as a
planet in ending the war, and the prosperity that resulted for many-and the
harmony for a large portion of the world
in the second half of the century. I hope
we can find a way to move beyond war
and our individual petty country foibles
and unite as they did back then."
Zipkin believes the C-47s and DC-3s
flying today, some only as a result of the
anniversary, will continue to inspire and
educate people for years to come-not just
of the battles they won, but of the peace
that resulted.
AOPA
EMAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org

66 | AOPA PILOT September 2019

http://www.aopa.org/pilot/dday

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - September 2019