Carriers such as Australian National Airways (ANA),  Qantas(QF) the airline which is an acronym of Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited, Trans-Atlantic Airlines (TAA), and ANSETT-ANA. Armyaircorpmuseum.org, Copyright 2025, Army Air Corps Library and Museum, Inc., All Rights Reserved. We also accept monetary donations to support our operations and long term plans. After World War II, the C-54 continued to serve with the USAF and other military and civilian operators around the world.

The Bear: TU-95 Strategic Bomber and Reconnaissance Aircraft

• The C-54 returned to combat during the Korean War, at first evacuating 851 American civilians from South Korean, and then as a transport and casualty evacuation aircraft.
• The engines were later changed to four 1,450 hp Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp (R-2000) 2SD1-G fourteen-cylinder radials (after talk with the aforementioned airlines).
• The first had been judged to be too complex by the airlines, and in 1939 American, Eastern and United Air Lines got together with Douglas to draw up the specifications for a simpler machine.
• So, it was decided that all essentials would be airlifted to Berlin.
• In the quest of great knowledge, humans have leapt to the skies with airplanes and we’re heading towards unchartered skies with space vehicles.
• Previously, ATC transports had been forced to go northward out of their bases in India’s Assam Valley before turning eastward for their off-load points in China to avoid the threat of Japanese interception.
• The C-54 was the result of a prewar civilian design that the Douglas Aircraft Company developed as a successor to its highly successful DC-3.

A General Order could be an award document that contains information on many servicemen. It was used for transporting troops, cargo, and medical evacuations across the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. The aircraft featured a tailwheel landing gear configuration and was typically operated by a crew of four to six members, depending on the mission profile. The DC-4 had proven itself in military service, and the type was seen as the vehicle to open up international routes to Europe and South America and across the Pacific to Hawaii and Australia. Troop carrier C-47s had begun transporting patients in New Guinea in 1942, but the advent of the C-54 allowed movement of wounded soldiers, sailors, and airmen from overseas combat zones to hospitals in the United States. Their wheel loading was such that the weight of the airplanes tore up the pierced steel planking runways that were laid down by engineers at forward locations.

Douglas C-54 Skymaster: An iconic aircraft in American history

The need for four-engine transports was so great that the War Department ordered large numbers of B-24s converted to the transport role as the C-87 Liberator Express. They were also adopted as a means of delivering dispatches and transporting high-level personnel to and from England. A new need that developed just before the war was to return Army ferry pilots to the United States from overseas delivery points.

• This aircraft that was stylized militarily, first took to the skies on 14th February from Clover Field.
• The C-54 was used on the long range routes that linked the continental United States with the various theatres of war, while the shorter ranged C-47s did much of the work in-theatre.
• Overall, the Douglas C-54 Skymaster’s combination of range, capacity, and reliability made it a cornerstone of post-war airlift operations and a significant contributor to global aviation history.
• Lieutenant Gail S. Halvorsen, a Utah native, alongside his fellow airmen, earned fame for dropping candy tied to parachutes out of their C-54 for the children of East Berlin.
• Later came the C-54A, the first military variant, a heavy-lift aircraft type that had a more robust floor and an increased fuel capacity.

South Korea

The C-54E saw another change in the fuel arrangement. On the C-54B two of the auxiliary fuel tanks were removed, and were replaced maniacasino by tanks built into the outer wing panels. The C-54 was used on the long range routes that linked the continental United States with the various theatres of war, while the shorter ranged C-47s did much of the work in-theatre.

🇺🇸 C-54 Skymaster

The aircraft were sold to airlines around the world. They also served as the main airlift during the Korean War. The C-54 was also used by the Royal Air Force, the French Air Force, and the armed forces of at least 12 other nations. With the introduction of the Tri-Service aircraft designation system in 1962, all R5Ds were re-designated C-54. It was one of the first aircraft to carry the President of the United States, the first being President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. Dozens of variants of the C-54 were employed in a wide variety of non-combat roles such as air-sea rescue, scientific and military research, and missile tracking and recovery.
Howard Hughes had designed a pressurized four-engine transport called the Constellation, but the military version had seen only limited use before the war ended. By 1945, there was an abundance of military pilots, and the military’s aircraft needs were being met with new deliveries, which allowed the airlines to return to their commercial role. Even though the C-54 had not become the prime transport in the airlift to China, it had become a familiar around the rest of the world. Previously, ATC transports had been forced to go northward out of their bases in India’s Assam Valley before turning eastward for their off-load points in China to avoid the threat of Japanese interception. Throughout their Burma operations, Merrill’s men were supplied entirely by air by transports assigned to Tenth Air Force Troop Carrier Command.

Berlin corridor attack (

While the British force would soon be withdrawn the same way they had come in—by air—Merrill’s men were ordered to continue eastward to capture the Japanese-held airfield at Myitkyina. In early 1944 the Allies commenced an operation that would change the fortunes of war in the China-Burma-India Theater and that would greatly improve the efficiency of the airlift to China and allow the introduction of the C-54 to the China ferry. Initial C-54 operations were in support of the war in Europe, as the first airplanes went to work ferrying personnel and dispatches from Miami to Natal.

The first C-54 to operate over the Pacific was an airplane that had been drawn off of the Atlantic route for a special airlift of B-24 stabilizers to Australia in response to an urgent requirement. In December 1942 ATC assumed the role of ferrying supplies from airfields in India to China, a mission that required operations at high altitudes over the eastern reaches of the Himalayas in order to avoid interception by Japanese fighters. The Douglas transports were very reliable—only three would be lost at sea during the entire war, and one of those was an intentional ditching.