OH-LCE Douglas DC-3
(c/n 12970)
This image came from a post card
and was not a true photograph, but a rotorgravure reproduction.
It does, however, illustrate another of Finnish Air
Lines' ex C-47s, this one a C-47A-20-DK Sky-
train with an illustrious
history. It carried the 82nd Airborne Pathfinders on D-Day, and
was the
17th aircraft into
Normandy. It later flew on a resupply mission to the 101st
at Bastonge and
carried the 506th Pathfinders into Holland
for Operation Market Garden. It was civlianized in
1946 as OH-LCE and flew with the
airline until into the 1960s, as evidenced by the image of it
(below) taken at Copenhagen's Kastrup Airport in 1961 by Air Britain
member George Trussell.
(This image is presented courtesy of
"GeorgeTrussell/www.abpic.co.uk"). As can be seen, by this
time the airline had begun
calling itself Finnair. When the Convairs began replacing the
DC-3s,
OH-LCE went to the Finnish
Air Force as DO-12. It was sold in the US in the 1980s as N58NA
and somewhat restored to D-Day markings.
It is, I believe, still flying with Saber Cargo Airlines
out of Charlotte, NC.