2 Jul '39: TOS USAAC. 7 Jul 39: Fairfield Air Depot, Patterson Field, OH. 10 Jul 39: 1st Transport Squadron/10th Transport Group, Patterson Field. 31 Jul 42: Bowman Field, KY. For the next nine months the plane was assigned to numerous airfields. 9 Mar 43: Middletown, PA, Air Depot, then the 496th Air Base Squadron. 1944: Air Transport Command, Cincinnati, OH, for use as a ferry aircraft. 2/45: SOC with over 5,000 flight hours. Beginning 2/44 passed through several hands. 19 Sep 49: Crashed with fatalities. Repair with more owners as well as aerial application. 1970: USAFM. By 1977: Restored

USAAC aircraft from new. Arrived in Australia in April 1942. Mainly operated between Brisbane and Papua New Guinea. Handed over to the airline ANA to operate while retaining the Directorate of Air Transport Allied Air Forces radio callsign VHCCF. Force landed March 9, 1944 near Molesworth, Victoria by which time the camouflage had been removed. ANA bought the wreck and VH-ARA was allocated postwar. However it was not rebuilt and used for spares instead. Photo from: State Library of South Australia

This camouflaged C-39 (we called it warpaint then) was taken in September 1941. This was close to the end of the red center national insignia use. The aircraft was from the Sacramento Air Depot and was plane number 20 of the 62nd Transport Group which had been activated in December 1940. The serial of the aircraft is not known. For that you would need to walk up close and inspect the data block below the cockpit. A C-39 has a DC-2 fuselage and wings, and a DC-3 tail unit, centre-section and landing gear. Thirty-five C-39s were built.

The C-39 was a DC-2 with DC-3 tail, wing centre section and landing gear. 38-0532 to Fifth Air Force in Australia in March 1942. Loaned to Australia National Airlines in 1943 for military transport duties. Purchased by ANA as VH-ARC in 1946. To MacAir in December 1947. To Guinea Air Traders in June 1948. Damaged in hard landing at Kerowagi , PNG on 16 March 1949. Shipped to Australia and scrapped at Essendon in 1951. Photo from: Leiden University Libraries

Part DC-2 (fuselage and wings) and part DC-3 (tail and centre section). XA-DOT crashed Iztaccíhuatl Volcano on August 11, 1945. Photo from: Civil Aviation Historical Society, Melbourne, Australia

Three CMA C-39's are in the background. The C-39 had the DC-2's slab-sided fuselage and nose lights, combined with the DC-3's larger fin. XA-DOQ (right) was built in July 1939 for the USAAC as 38-520. Sold to CMA in November 1944. Crashed in Mexico on 27 November 1951. From CMA 60 years ago.