Built in 1942 for the USAAF and transferred in 1946 to the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force, ended up as a commercial aircraft with Royal Dutch East Indies Airlines, KLM, Air France and Transeuropa who operated it from 1966 to 1975. After retirement it was used as a discotheque named Club D-3 at Porto Cristo, in the East of the Island of Mallorca but it was finally abandoned and destroyed by a fire in September 1983.

Having arrived on the schedule from Le Bourget, F-BELP is towed to a wartime dispersal pan for the night, still 'flying the flag' from its cockpit windows. Passengers from a domestic flight walk unescorted along the apron edge as the port engine of BEA Viking 1B G-AMNJ is revved up. All was delightfully easy going in those long past days!