A D-Day Plane Is Flying Again

On Wednesday afternoon, for the first time in years, “That’s All, Brother” took to the skies.

The aircraft, a C-47 military transport plane, was the leader of the formation that dropped thousands of U.S. paratroopers into Normandy on D-Day — June 6, 1944 — paving the way for the liberation of northern France from Nazi Germany.

In the decades since, the plane cycled through a series of private owners and eventually landed in an aircraft bone yard in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Its historical significance was in danger of being forgotten.

With the help of two Alabama historians and a little bit of luck, the Commemorative Air Force, an organization based in Dallas that collects and restores historical aircraft for flight, bought “That’s All, Brother” in 2015 and began a restoration with help from the technicians at Basler Turbo Conversions. (Theirs was the bone yard where the plane had been found.)

And shortly after 1 p.m. local time Wednesday, the historical treasure finally lifted off from the runway at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh.

Doug Rozendaal, the pilot in command for the test flight of “That’s All, Brother,” said every C-47 is unique. “It’s not really an airplane — it’s kind of a person, and you come to know each one,” he said in a video recorded before the flight.

His co-pilot, Tom Travis, agreed. “I think we’ll figure it out,” he said. “Thank God the switches have labels.”

Andy Maag, a member of the Commemorative Air Force, used a smartphone to livestream the event on Facebook on Wednesday afternoon. Hundreds of people tuned in from all over the world. “Airplane’s on the roll!” Maag said as the plane roared down the runway. Seconds later, for the first time in years, the wheels were up.

Onlookers smiled as “That’s All, Brother” soared into the distance. The plane swung back to do flybys overhead, then came back down for a smooth landing on the runway.

“The first flight was successful really on all counts,” said Keegan Chetwynd, curator for the Commemorative Air Force, adding that the C-47 made two more successful flights Wednesday.

For the next phase in its restoration, “That’s All, Brother” will move to the Central Texas Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, which is in San Marcos.

“We still have to paint the airplane and to finish out the interior,” Chetwynd said. In the end, it is intended to look just as it did when it flew over Normandy 74 years ago.

The hope is to get the job done in time for June 6, 2019, so “That’s All, Brother” can fly over Normandy for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

The flight Wednesday was “uplifting, but bittersweet,” Chetwynd said Thursday. “You kind of also find yourself looking at the road ahead and reminding yourself that there is still plenty of work which remains to be done.”

“Yesterday we got ourselves a sound flying airplane,” he added. “Now we turn it into a flying museum.”