ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 340588
| Date: | Monday 8 November 1943 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  Douglas C-53D Skytrooper (DC-3) |
| Owner/operator: | United States Army Air Force - USAAF |
| Registration: | |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 30 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed, written off |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | within Albania -
 Albania
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | Catania-Fontanarossa Airport (CTA/LICC) |
| Bari Airport (BRI/LIBD) |
A violent storm and pursuit by German Messerschmitts led to a crash landing of the C-53 transport plane in a remote part of Albania. There were 30 people on the plane: a pilot, a co-pilot, a radio operator, and a crew chief, plus 13 nurses and 13 medics. In a long ordeal the whole group managed to travel, with help of the Albanian population, in sixty days through Nazi occupied Albania to finally cross the Allied lines. The long journey was depicted in several books and a movie.
Sources:
Q&A: Last Survivor of a Dramatic World War II Rescue (National Geographic 23-5-2013)
Albanian Escape : The True Story of U.S. Army Nurses Behind Enemy Lines / The True Story of U.S. Army Nurses Behind Enemy Lines, 1999
Revision history:
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