File:Douglas C-53D-DO Skytrooper ‘268830 - CU-R’ “D-Day Doll” (N45366).jpg

English: c/n 11757.

Built 1943 with the US military serial 42-68830. Sold off in August 1945 and became NC45366 with Penn Central Airlines and then Capitol Airlines, until 1959. After a series of civil operators she became part of the Commemorative Air Force in 2001 and was one of several ‘Daks’ to fly to Europe from the United States in 2019 to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of D-Day and the 70th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. Seen at the ‘Daks over Normandy’ event. Caen-Carpiquet Airport Normandy, France 7th June 2019

The following info is from the D-Day Squadron website:-

“D-Day Doll was built at Douglas Aircraft’s plant in Santa Monica, California in July 1943 and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Corps soon afterwards. She was assigned to the 434th Troop Carrier Group, 72nd Troop Carrier Squadron at RAF Aldermaston, England, and is a veteran of Operations Overlord (D-Day, Normandy France), Market Garden (Holland), Repulse (Bastogne, Belgium) and Varsity (the crossing of the Rhine, Germany). The aircraft had many civilian owners as an airliner and cargo transport following WWII. She has been owned by the Commemorative Air Force since 2001, and flies regularly at air shows in the western US with the CAF’s Inland Empire Wing from their home in Riverside, California”