The C-47 “Skytrain” (known to the Brits as the “Dakota”), the military transport variant of the Douglas DC-3, a civilian airliner, was used extensively by the Allies in World War II, with over 16,000 being put into service during the conflict.
Most veterans who remember it still call it the “Gooney Bird.” The stories of how it got that name are as varied as its uses. Some say the name originated in the South Pacific, where small atolls were homes to the albatross, the giant seagull-like bird noted for its powers of flight, and sometimes clumsy takeoffs and landings. Some GIs said the C-47 looked like the bird, with a heavy body and long wings, and struggled just like an albatross to get into the air and back down again. An albatross, aerodynamically speaking, should not be able to get off the ground. The bird is thought to be so dumb, it doesn’t realize this and flies anyway.
Others say “Gooney Bird” comes from the definition of stupid, or goon. Pilots called the C-47 stupid, because they said it didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be able to do the things it did.
Source: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b05587
For more information, visit The Museum of Flight’s page on the C-47 here.
The Operation Market Garden C-47 takeoff sequence in Richard Attenborough’s “A Bridge Too Far” (1977):
And the Skytrain takeoffs on the evening before D-Day as depicted in the HBO miniseries “Band Of Brothers” (2001):
