Any Dakota experts out there?

[TokenTaff]

I'm hoping my comrades in arms on BM can help me out here! After several months lurking in the background on this fantastic site, I've decided to blow the 12 year old cobwebs off my stash and build Italeri's 1/72 C47 Skytrain.

The airframe I'd like to depict is Dakota III FL652 of 1383 (formerly 109) (T) OTU at RAF Crosby on Eden. This is the aircraft my father made his final RAF flight in on 25 September 1945, after converting from Halifaxes. Now, here come the questions!

1. What colour scheme would these aircraft have had? I have seen photographs of Daks in standard RAF green/brown but understand that the USAAF scheme was also encountered on British marked aircraft.

2. There appears to be some mystery over squadron codes. 109 OTU used 'GY' but were disbanded and reformed as 1383 OTU in August 1945. According to what sources you're looking at, 1383 OTU used 'CU' or 'GZ'. All well and good, but how quickly were 109 OTU aircraft re-coded?

3. Are there any late 1945 photographs knocking about of Crosby on Eden Dakotas? Lots of high resolution colour ones of FL652 with squadron and aircraft codes would be really nice. Who am I trying to kid???

Many thanks for your help!

Quentin

[Paul J]

I'll have a look in my Arthur Pearcey book. It deals with quite a bit of info on Late war RAF Daks. But not much on colour schemes but useful for unit codes etc.

[TokenTaff]

Many thanks Paul. Any help will be gratefully received!