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thedrifter
10-10-06, 02:20 PM
October 16, 2006
The lore of the Corps
DC-5s made valuable cargo, troop carriers

By Robert F. Dorr
Special to the Times

Not many remember the obscure DC-5, a high-wing, twin-engine transport of the 1930s that was one of the first transports with tricycle landing gear.

Only a dozen DC-5s were built by Douglas Aircraft Co. They never succeeded as airliners, but three went to the Navy as R3D-1 transports and four were delivered to the Marine Corps in September 1940 as R3D-2 troop carriers.

Rene J. Francillon described the Marine version in “McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Since 1920.”

“Fitted as cargo transports,” Francillon wrote, “they had a reinforced cabin floor and a 5 ft 6 in by 6 ft 8 in door on the port side of the rear fuselage, enabling the handling of complete aero-engines on their shipping stands. Alternately, the R3D-2s could be fitted with twenty-two bucket seats for paratrooper transport.”

The ease with which leathernecks could leap from the airplane in midair was an important factor behind the R3D-2 purchase. According to “Silk Chutes and Hard Fighting: U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II,” by Lt. Col. Jon T. Hoffman, the Corps was impressed with the speed and effectiveness of German airborne forces and began fielding its own parachute troops in October 1940.

R3D-2s dropped Marines of the 1st Parachute Battalion near Fredericksburg, Va., in July 1941 — smack into the middle of an Army maneuver. This “demonstrated the disruption that parachutists could cause to unwary opposing units,” Hoffman wrote.

The R3D-2 was powered by two 1,000 horsepower Wright R-1820-44 nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engines. Douglas documents show that the R3D-2 had a wingspan of 78 feet, weighed 21,000 pounds and had a maximum speed of 221 miles per hour.

For a plane used in only sparse numbers in the Corps and elsewhere, the DC-5 or R3D-2 got around.

The Japanese seized a Dutch-owned airliner version when they invaded Java, and the Japanese Army Air Force later test-flew it. Three DC-5s initially operated by a Dutch airline were brought into the U.S. Army and became C-110s, serving with a troop carrier unit in the Pacific. Curiously, a civilian DC-5 became the personal transport not for Donald Douglas, whose company built the plane, but of competitor William Boeing.

The Marine versions appeared regularly from the Virgin Islands to California, and reached the Pacific — although long-range, over-water navigation of the relatively small transport had to be a real test of airmanship.

Francillon wrote that two Marine R3D-2s were in Hawaii during the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack and that one was later shot down near Australia by a Japanese submarine. According to Francillon, the last three R3D-2s left the Corps’ inventory Oct. 31, 1946.

Corporate names outlasted the men associated with these planes. In 1966, James McDonnell purchased Douglas, creating the McDonnell Douglas conglomerate. In 1995, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas.

Today, there is no surviving example of this aircraft. Aviation experts agree that the plane would make an excellent museum display — if only one had been saved.

Robert F. Dorr, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He can be reached at robert.f.dorr@cox.net.

Ellie