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The C-47 transport, commonly referred to as "Gooney Bird," was one of four weapons singled out by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as the most instrumental in helping the US win World War II. (The others were the bazooka, the jeep, and the atomic bomb.) The C- 47 (also next C-53, C-84, R4D) was adapted from the DC-3 Dakota commercial airliner and was used to carry personnel and cargo, tow gliders (usually one Waco CG-4A), and drop paratroopers.
Having great longevity, it was also used in Korea and in Vietnam, where it took on additional roles of attack as the AC-47 "Spooky" gunship and for psychological warfare missions. The need to take supplies over the Himalayas led to the C-47B version with higher horsepower engines. Among the unusual variants of the C-47 was one where the engines were removed and it was converted into a glider and another that was equipped with floats. The C-47 towed gliders and dropped 4,381 paratroopers in the invasion of Sicily on July 10, 1943; C-47 crews dropped 60,000 paratroopers and towed several thousand CG-4 gliders at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
C-47s were used extensively in the Berlin airlift. In one notable action in Korea, C-47 crews flew 4,689 casualties out of the Chosin Reservoir area in five days. In Vietnam, the AC-47 gunships effectively suppressed enemy ground forces and picked up the secondary nickname of "Puff, the Magic Dragon." On February 24, 1969, while flying in a AC-47, A1C John L. Levitow, stunned and wounded by shrapnel, flung himself on an activated, smoking magnesium flare, dragged himself and the flare to the open cargo door, and tossed the flare out of the aircraft. For saving his fellow crew members and the gunship, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
AC-47s were replaced by AC-119s and AC-130s, and the last C-47 was retired from the Air Force in 1975.

Jirka Wagner