A museum in Merville, France is planning to move a C-47 Dakota, aka Gooney Bird, from ravaged Bosnia back to France for restoration to remember all those who liberated France from the Nazi yoke of oppression.
SNAFU Special, as the plane was known, participated in dropping paratroopers the night before troops came ashore for Operation Overlord. It also participated in Operation Market Garden which went into the history books as A Bridge Too Far because it was such a failure that cost the British so many paratroopers along with Polish paratroopers at a place called Arnhem.
If it was not for a French paratrooper, who saw peacekeeping duty in Bosnia, SNAFU Special would have probably remained a forgotten bullet-riddled hulk rotting in Bosnia. Luckily he jotted down its serial number and its story is now known as the plans go forward to restore the plane for display and to remember all those who died to make France free again.
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