D-Day pilot flies back to Normandy in same type of plane he flew 75 years ago. 'We had a great time and they gave me the privilege of going in the cockpit, sitting in the right seat...We had a great trip.'
Joe Enzminger craned his neck to the sky over Normandy, France, on Wednesday, waiting to see one of the 14 World War II-era Dakota planes carrying veteran Dave Hamilton, now in his mid-90s, on the same route he flew 75 years ago.
"They did something great when they were young, and then everybody kind of forgot about them and now we bring them back to life," Enzminger said."We can’t do it for them, we can only make sure their memories don’t fade away, but this airplane we brought back, and hopefully 75 years from now, it will still be flying; I’ll be back in Normandy celebrating the 150th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
"[My feelings], they’re very nostalgic, the apple comes up quite often when I start thinking about things and tomorrow at Colleville, at the cemetery, is going to be tough for me," Hamilton said."But I’ll make it, I’ll make it." Discovered by a historian in 2007, the Commemorative Air Force became aware of it eight years later and decided to acquire the aircraft.
The plane took a six-week trip, with four crews, in order to make it over to the U.K. It left from Oxford, Connecticut, went to Goose Bay, Newfoundland; Greenland; Iceland; and eventually Scotland.
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