Issue Date: August 30, 2004

The Lore of the Corps
Skymaster hauled Marines in style

By Robert F. Dorr
Special to the Times


Many longtime and former Marines will remember traveling as passengers on the R5D Skymaster, which the Corps flew from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The plane was a handsome, four-engine transport known in the civilian world as the Douglas DC-4 and called the C-54 by the Army. The Navy and Marine Corps designation — R5D — identified it as the fifth transport (“R”) built by Douglas Aircraft Co. (“D”).

It was the largest aircraft piloted by Marines during World War II.

“This was the plane that gave us long-range reach,” said retired Lt. Col. Gerald Dethier, a Marine aviator during the war.

Douglas manufactured 1,244 Skymasters. They were the first large military transports with tricycle landing gear. Powered by four 1,200-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2000 radial engines with a fuel capacity that permitted transoceanic flights, military Skymasters hauled people and cargo all over the world.

The first plane in the series, an Army C-54, made its initial flight at Clover Field, Santa Monica, Calif., on Feb. 14, 1942, with John F. Martin at the controls.

Production was well underway when 56 of the planes were transferred from the Army to the Navy and Marines as R5D-1 models. These were followed by 30 R5D-2s, 86 R5D-3s, 20 R5D-4s and 13 R5D-5s, all with only minor differences. When the Pentagon’s airplane naming system was overhauled in 1962, these became the C-54N, C-54P, C-54Q, C-54R and C-54S, respectively.

Marine pilots and crews operated many of the R5Ds that flew all over the world with the Naval Air Transport Service from 1943 to 1948, and subsequently with the joint-service Military Air Transport Service.

Most Marine crews operated the planes on assignment to Navy transport squadrons. Only a relative few of the Skymasters were painted with Marine Corps markings.

During the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift, 22 Navy and Marine Corps R5D Skymasters joined 204 C-54 Skymasters from the Air Force to fly the hazardous supply missions that broke the Soviet blockade of the German city.

During the Korean War, Marine R5D Skymasters frequently appeared close to the front lines. One R5D belonging to Marine Transport Squadron 152 was hastily fitted with communications gear to function as a flying command post during the battle of the Chosin Reservoir in November 1950. An R5D became the first transport to deliver aircraft to a combat zone when it brought four Bell HTL helicopters into Korea in 1951. Many R5Ds ferried troops between Korea and Japan on leave.

Skymasters continued to serve with the Marines well into the 1960s, when the R5D designation changed to C-54. A former Marine R5D-3 (C-54Q) has been restored for outdoor museum display at March Air Reserve Base, Calif. Another is at the Flying Leatherneck Museum at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.

Robert F. Dorr, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He is the author of numerous books on Air Force topics, including “Air Force One.” His e-mail address is robert.f.dorr@cox.net.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/stor...PER-272551.php


Ellie