Second World War aviation art prints of the Dakota aircraft. Our collection of prints and original paintings of the Dakota aircraft of World War Two.
DOUGLAS DAKOTA, Transport aircraft with three crew and can carry 28 passengers. speed 230-mph, and a altitude of 23,200 feet. maximum range 2,100 miles. The Douglas Dakota served in all theatres of world war two, The Royal Air Force received its first Douglas Dakota's in April 1941, to 31 squadron which was serving in India. These were DC2, later DC3 and eventually C-47 Dakotas were supplied. The Douglas Dakota was developed from the civil airliner of the 1930's. The Royal Air Force received nearly 2,000 Dakotas, But many more than this served in the US Air Force and other allied countries. The last flight of a Douglas Dakota of the Royal Air Force was in 1970. You can still see Douglas Dakota's in operational and transport use across the world.
Douglas C-47s of the 439th Troop Carrier Group, 94th Troop Carrier Squadron, approach the Drop Zone above Normandy on the night of 5th / 6th June 1944 at the start of Operation Overlord.
Item Code : B0475
Drop Zone Ahead by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Dodging heavy flak and anti aircraft fire in the skies above Normandy, Douglas C-47s of the 91st Troop Carrier Squadron, 439th Troop Carrier Group see the 101st Airborne Division away on the night of 5th/6th June 1944 at the start of Operation Overlord. D-Day had arrived.
Item Code : B0478
Leap of Faith by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
As the Allied armies dashed across France after victory in Normandy, they remained reliant on one thing - supplies. With Cherbourg the only port in use, everything depended on trucks to deliver enough fuel, food and ammunition to keep the momentum going. But there was a problem. Too few trucks, and too few drivers. The invasion was in danger of stalling, and if it did, the Germans might just regain the initiative. Action was needed, and quickly. Montgomery argued that all resources be channeled into a single, powerful thrust into Germany, but Eisenhower disagreed. the Allies would advance on a broad front. But he did give Montgomery the First Allied Airborne Army to try and capture the major bridges in Holland on the road to the Rhine, ahead of the Allies advance. For the men of the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles, their task was to seize the bridges at Eindhoven. The 82nd would do the same at Nijmegan, and the British 1st Airborne would capture the farthest bridge, at .........
Southern England, D-Day, 6th June 1944. U.S. Paratroopers of 101st Airborne Division awaiting H-hour, and the call to board their DC 3 Dakota transports.
Item Code : DP0223
Boarding Call by David Pentland. - Editions Available
The Douglas C-47 Skytrain – or Dakota, as it was known in RAF service – saw extensive use both as a glider tug and troop transport throughout World War 2, most notably for delivering paratroops to their designated drop zones over Normandy in June 1944 and over Arnhem in September the same year, often in the face of extreme anti-aircraft fire and attacks from enemy fighters. Here, C47s of the 81st Troop Carrier Squadron, 436th Troop Carrier Group drop paratroops above Holland as part of Operation Market Garden.
Item Code : B0498
The Ubiquitous Dakota by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
The Douglas Dakota was undoubtedly one of the most important allied aircraft of the Second World War. The aircraft served in a variety of roles including paratroop-dropping, glider-towing, casualty evacuation to transporting all sorts of materials from food to weapons of war. It did it all and in doing so, helped win the war.
Item Code : DHM2677
Together we Stand by Philip West. - Editions Available
Dakota KN442 lands again at Gatow during the autumn of 1948 at the height of the Berlin Airlift as Yorks and Hastings wait to take off for the return. Each print is autographed by the pilot, navigator and signaller who flew KN442 on the airlift. KN442 is rare among airlift aircraft in that it still flies today as G-AMPZ for Air Atlantique more than 50 years on.
Item Code : DHM2506
Perpetual Motion by Robert Tomlin. - Editions Available
Paratroopers of the 1st Battalion sort their kit out and get ready to enplane the waiting American Dakota C-47s of the 14 and 59 Squadrons/61st Troop Carrier Group. The paratroops took off simultaneously from Saltby and Barkston, commencing at 1121. All planes were in the air by 1155. A relatively uneventful trip over the northern route to the Netherlands resulted in not a plane being shot down; only five were slightly damaged. The 1st Battalion were dropped at 1403, 2nd Battalion at 1353 and the 3rd Battalion at 1356, all at DZ-X, west of Wolfhezen some eight miles west of Arnhem. The Battalion orders were for three different routes to the Arnhem Bridge. 1st Battalion took the Leopard route, 2nd Battalion Tiger route and the 3rd Battalion Lion route. Only the 2nd Battalion, commanded by Lt colonel John Frost managed to fight their way to the bridge.
Item Code : DHM1453
Market Garden. Arnhem by Graeme Lothian. - Editions Available
Douglas C47 Dakotas fly into the landing and drop zone at Renkum Heath, September 17th 1944. Douglas C47 Dakotas fly into the landing and drop zone at Renkum Heath, September 17th 1944.
Item Code : VAR0317
Arnhem Op Market Garden by Geoff Lea. - Editions Available
Almost every major invasion that took place in Europe in World War II began with para drops, and in almost every case the C-47 was the aircraft that delivered these elite fighting troops. Few C-47 pilots had more combat experience than Sid Harwell, seen flying his Dakota in this typical action scene, dropping airborne troops into occupied Europe soon after D-Day. No matter what resistance he encountered, the good C-47 pilot put his aircraft right over the Dropping Zone, every time.
Item Code : DHM2440
Invasion Force by Nicolas Trudgian. - Editions Available
Douglas C-47s of the 439th Troop Carrier Group from Upottery, East Devon, try to hold steady amid a barrage of flak and anti aircraft fire as troops of 101st jump into the unknown above Normandy on the night of 5th / 6th June 1944. These aircraft are of the 94th Troop Carrier Squadron.
Item Code : B0474
Hell Below Us by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Douglas C-47s of the 91st Troop Carrier Squadron, 439th Troop Carrier Group deploy the 101st Airborne Division above the drop zone on the night of 5th/6th June 1944 at the start of Operation Overlord.
Item Code : B0462
Into the Unknown by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Dakota G-AMPZ (formerly KN442) of Air Atlantique resplendent in the commemorative livery of RAF Transport Command heads out across the English coast, back to Berlin? Still flying more than 50 years after serving valiantly on the Berlin Airlift, this aircraft carries out the bulk of the airlines passenger charters. These prints are signed by the current crew.
Item Code : DHM2507
Perpetual Motion II by Robert Tomlin. - Editions Available
Rare Pair of D-Day prints by Robert Taylor - Into Battle by Robert Taylor and Crash Landing by Robert Taylor.
Into Battle - Piling out of their C47 Dakotas, US paratroopers decent into the Drop Zone inland from Utah Beach D-Day 1944. Crash Landing - A Glider Pilot brings his fully laden CG Glider into the Normandy battlefield - D-Day 1944.
Item Code : AX0038
Rare Pair of D-Day prints by Robert Taylor - Into Battle by Robert Taylor and Crash Landing by Robert Taylor. - Editions Available
At 3.30am on the 23rd June 1945, a Dakota of 357 (special duties) Squadron took off from Mingaladon airfield nr. Rangoon , to travel the 600 miles, 300 of them behind enemy lines, to rescue a downed American Liberator crew deep in the jungles of Siam . The Dakota was flown by pilot Fl Lt. Larry Lewis, who already held the DFM awarded to him for 33 ops as a rear gunner on Wellingtons in 1941. Two crews had already failed when Lewis was asked to attempt this hazardous mission. Flying between 5,000 - 6,000ft he flew over The Hump, a ridge of mountains running down the spine of Burma . Local villagers had cleared a rough airstrip 800yds long with Lewis finding it by the time dawn broke. With monsoon clouds gathering, the Liberator crew aboard and the Dakota sinking in the wet ground, he managed, just, to get airborne. Flying at zero feet and looking out for Japanese Zero fighters Lewis took a different course back. Although being fired on from the ground they managed to make it.........
At 23.45 on the night of 5 June 1944, the 101st Airborne's most legendary unit of combat paratroopers – the notorious 'Filthy Thirteen' – jumped into France near the village of Sainte Mère Église, in the final hours before the D-Day landings. They were the Screaming Eagles' most notorious unit, a small bunch of raw, tough, ruthless young men. Hard drinking and savage fighting - and that was only in training - with scant regard for authority. And if the reputation of this unique bunch of renegades within the ranks of the 101st was formidable, for the Germans it became one of sheer terror. Officially they were the First Demolition Squadron, HQ Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne. Unofficially they were the 'Filthy Thirteen'. Superbly crafted in his unique blend of pencil and paint on tinted paper, Robert Taylor's classic new Master Drawing captures the moment on the night of 5 June 1944 when the 101st Airborne's legendary squad of elite paratroopers .........
101st Airborne en route to Normandy by Ivan Berryman.
A Douglas C-47 of the 91st Troop Carrier Squadron, 439th Troop Carrier Group gets away from the Devon airfield of Upottery on 5th June 1944 carrying paratroops of 101st Airborne Division. The company departed from Upottery airbase in Devon, England, and dropped over the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, France in the early hours of the morning of June 6th, 1944 at the start of the Normandy invasion.
Item Code : B0454
101st Airborne en route to Normandy by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other fronts, you will bring the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. These were the final words of Supreme Commander Eisenhower to the huge force assembled in June of 1944 on the eve of D-Day. Parachute infantry units would play an important role on D-Day. Although Billy Mitchell had contemplated forming airborne military forces during WW I, it was not until May of 1939 that the United States commenced a study regarding the feasibility of creating an air infantry. By 1940 an all-volunteer test platoon had been organized at Ft. Benning, Georgia. As the threat of War continued, the Army began experimenting with gli.........
As part of Operation Overlord in June 1944, it was necessary to deploy large numbers of troops quickly and accurately to the fields and bridgeheads of Northern France. No aircraft was better suited to dropping paratroopers and their equipment than the ubiquitous Douglas Dakota, these examples being of No.271 Squadron from Down Ampney near Gloucester.
Item Code : B0010
6th June 1944 (Dakotas) by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
It began in pitch darkness. June 6, 1944 was only a few minutes old when the Airborne Pathfinders drifted silently down from the sky above the fields of Normandy. At first their seemed nothing untoward about the drone of aircraft in the night sky. The German garrisons in Northern France were used to the noise of aircraft overhead after dark, but this night seemed particularly busy. Looking skyward a German sentry caught sight of parachutes floating down, clearly visible as the moon fleetingly broke through the clouds. For an instant he thought it was the crew jumping from a damaged bomber, but when he saw the mass of canopies floating earthwards, he knew it was no ordinary event. Within moments of raising the alarm the crackle of automatic gunfire confirmed his worst fears: The Invasion of France had begun. The first assault upon Hitlers Fortress Europe came from the sky. Shortly after midnight waves of aircraft and gliders delivered three Divisions of elite airborne troops into Norm.........
Clifford R Barraclough received his pilots license in 1940, and a commerical rating a year later at Bettis Field in Pittsburgh. In 1943 Clifford was hired by All American Aviation - later to become Allegheny Airlines - as an instrument instructor based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter Barraclough joined the US Army Air Corps, and was stationed at New Castle Army Air Base as a service pilot for the Ferry Command. Initially stationed in Nashville and later Reno, Barraclough was reassigned to Misamar, India in early 1945. For the balance of the war Clifford flew the Hump in the C-46 from India to Kunming, China. In 1946 Barraclough was recalled by All American Aviation, and flew SR-10s and Beech D18-Cs for air mail pick-up. All American then entered the passenger business flying DC-3s, and changed its name to Allegheny - later to become part of US Air. Barraclough remained with the airline until his retirement in 1977. He captained a number of aircraft including Convair 340s, 440s, 540s and 580s. Also, on September 1st 1966, Clifford piloted Alleghenys first scheduled jet flight in a DC-9.
Navigator Dick Denison's first combat missions were flown during the D-Day invasion, flying C47s towing gliders into the Normandy bridgehead, and making casualty evacuations. He transferred to the 552nd Squadron, 386th Bomb Group flying the Martin B26 Marauder, before converting over to the Douglas A26 Invader. Dick completed a total of 40 combat missions during his tour.
Flight Lieutenant Bernard Walter Brown was accepted for a short service commission in 1938, and after being accepted arrived in England in September, training at 5 E&RFTS, Hanworth and in late January 1939 he was posted to 5FTS, Sealand. He then went to No 1 School of Army Co-Operation at Old Sarum for a course on Lysanders in August 1939, and soon after joined 613 Squadron. Bernard Walker Brown was flying one of six Hectors detailed to dive-bomb gun emplacements near Calais. On the way to the target, he test-fired his forward gun but a fault caused the muzzle attachment to fly off, penetrate the fuselage and hole the main fuel tank. He jettisoned his bombs and turned back and make a forced-landing. In August 1940 he volunteered for Fighter Command, converting to Spitfires. He joined 610 Squadron at Biggin Hill. In late September he went to 72 Squadron, but on the 23rd was shot down by a Bf 109. He bailed out of the aircraft, badly wounded. Returning to active duty in November 1940, he was posted to 8FTS, Montrose for an instructor's course, after which he went to Rhodesia, subsequently instructing at Cumalo. In 1943, he trained with Transport Command, becoming a ferry pilot. He flew between the United Kingdom and the Middle East. He transferred to the RNZAF in January 1944 and by the end of the year was flying Halifaxes. He was released in 1945 to fly Dakotas with BOAC and later joined BEA, flying with the airline until his retirement in 1972.
After joining the RAF in 1940 he was called up in early 1941 and entered OTU where he qualified as an observer and was then posted operationally to 466 Sqn at Leconfield on Wellingtons. At the end of 1942 he joined 35 Sqn as a Navigator at Gravely as part of the Pathfinder Force, initially on the Halifax and later converting to Lancasters. He remained with the Pathfinders until 1944 when he was posted to Stoney Cross to convert back to Wellington 1C's as a way of becoming reacquainted with two engined aircraft. he spent the remainder of the war flying Dakotas in the Far East and left the RAF in mid 1946.
Robert Souter joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force in February 1941, and after training was posted in 1942 to the Middle East, joining No.108 Squadron then flying Wellingtons. He first flew operationally in June of that year, in the Western Desert campaign, and the last operation of his first tour was in Nov 1942 with the battle of El Alamein. After a period with No.26 OTUWing, Robert undertook a second tour - this time flying Lancasters with No.49 Squadron, up to the end of the war. He had completed a total of 47 operations by that time. After the war he flew Dakotas and Liberators with RAF Transport Command.
Joined the RAF in March 1942 and after initial training, went to Terrell, Texas, USA for his flying training, where he gained his wings in May 1943. He returned to the UK and joined the Special Operations No. 101 Sqdn. in May 1944, going on to complete 32 Ops. over Europe. After his bombing tour he converted onto Dakotas, joined No. 238 Sqdn. and flew out to India and Burma, then on to Australia and the South Pacific. After the Japanese surrender he joined 1315 Flight and flew up to Japan with the occupation forces.
Joining the RAF in 1941 he trained as a wireless operator and completed his ops training at Lossiemouth on Wellingtons where he formed up with a crew that was to stay together for his entire operational career in Bomber Command. In 1943 he was posted to 466 squadron at Leconfield on Wellingtons before converting to the Halifax. He and his crew volunteered for the Pathfinder Force and joined 35 squadron on Halifax's and then Lancasters. In 1945 having completed a total of 63 operations he moved to Transport Command flying Dakotas in India with 238 squadron and then Calcutta with 52 squadron. He left the RAF in 1946.
Flew Dakota 214 of No.96 Squadron on December 8th 1945. Here are Ken's own recollections of his time with the Dakota : I volunteered for aircrew towards the end of 1942 and was called up in January 1943. I trained in Canada and qualified as a Navigator early in 1944 and was posted to the Far East early in 1945 and to 96 Squadron in August 1945. We flew Dakota aircraft operating in Burma on many sorties in support of the 14th Army who were fighting against the Japanese. Supplies and personnel were flown in and the return trip often included casualties. At the end of the month we were recalled to Bilaspur in India and were told that we were to take part in an airborne operation on Penang halfway down the coast of Malaya. I had done all the flight planning for this operation and two days later we were called to attend what we thought was the final briefing. Imagine our surprise when it was announced that it had been called off because the Americans had dropped atom bombs on the Japanese mainland resulting in a complete surrender. We were told that the following day we would go back into Burma and be based at Hmawbi some thirty miles north of Rangoon and take part in flying out the ex prisoners of war who had been in captivity for some three and a half years and had suffered extreme hardships and brutality. We lived under canvas for the next few months and when this job was completed our crew were fortunate to be posted to Kaitak, Hong Kong, mainly to fly for the British Embassy, which was being moved from Chunking, which was the wartime capital of China, to Nanking, which was to be the future peacetime capital. (Of course this did not take place because the communists took over and Peking, now known as Beijing, became the new capital) During this time we flew a wide variety of cargoes including passengers such as Kings Messengers and the occassional VIP as well as troops, military personnel, casualties and ex pows. We carried diplomatic mail, jeeps, aero engines and tyres, ammunition, aviation fuel, food and rations, medical personnel, and a great deal of mixed freight. The Dakota was a truly wonderful aircraft and was wel liked by all its crews. It was said that General Eisenhower when listing the foru weapons which did most to win the war included the jeep and the Douglas Dakota. To quote an unnamed pilot - You might wreck a Dakota, but you will never wear it out. After nearly a quarter of a century of faithful service it was retired from the RAF in April 1970. The crew I usually flew with consisted of the following : Pilot - Flt Sgt Ridley, Navigator - (myself) Flt Sgt Moon, Radio Operator - Flt Sgt Robson. All were later promoted to Warrant Officer. Also 2nd Pilot Sgt Bamber or Sgt Gough. At the end of 1946 I was demobbed and returned home realising how fortunate I was having had such experiences - sometimes dangerous, sometimes exciting but always interesting.
