Berkshire-based D-Day troop transporter close to flying again
The C-47 known as 'Night Fright' is being restored so it can return to its wartime base at Membury airfield on the Berkshire-Wiltshire border
Last updated 11th Jan 2022
An aircraft which flew in every major airborne operation of WW2 from an airfield in Berkshire is expected to fly again later this year.
'Night Fright', as the US air force C-47 is called, was tracked down and saved from the scrap yard by west Berkshire businessman Charlie Walker ten years ago.
From March 1944 it operated out of Membury airfield - and Membury was where Charlie spent much of his childhood and latterly where his family business Walker logistics Ltd was established.
Charlie - who is a qualified pilot - says fuelled by a passion for history and aviation he began a project to find out more about what went on at Membury airfield during the war:
"So after digging further into that and looking specifically at the various squadrons, reading books and talking to various local experts it was really the C-47 that was most synonymous with Membury, and I guess that's what kickstarted my specific interest in the C-47"
Originally Charlie and his team set out to find an aircraft that flew from Membury in the war which could act as a monument at the gates of the airfield but that all changed once they found 'Night Fright'
"We actually managed to produce a spreadsheet of every C-47 across the four squadrons that operated from Membury across the four squadrons and we narrowed it down to finding 'Night Fright' in a scrap yard in Arkansas after a trail that saw her fail to sell on e-bay in late 2012."
Charlie admits that buying the aircraft was the cheapest part of the project. Plans to restore it in the US were abandoned and in 2017 it was shipped to Coventry where it's now being meticulously returned to flying condition.
Having missed the 75th Anniversary of D-Day last year Charlie says he hopes the aircraft will fly later this year or as he puts it "sooner the better". Returning to its home in Berkshire may have to wait until next year.
"Bringing the aircraft back to land at Membury for the first time since 1945 I think is going to be pretty special I mean there's going to be a hanger and museum at Membury that people can come and see and we want 'Night Fright' to be like a time warp so if school children come to look around the aircraft they will know exactly what it felt like on 6 June 1944."
If all goes well 'Night-Fright' could become a regular star of air displays from the summer of 2023 and Charlie says it'll be "the most authentic flying C-47 in the world".
With the amount of hard work, determination, and passion that has gone into the project it'll be hard to argue with that claim.
Read about 'Night-Fright's' service in WW2 here
Read more about the restoration project here