Deep in the heart of Texas sits the city of College Station. While the city is known for being the home of Texas A&M University and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, it is also the home of the Museum of the American G.I., which has just acquired a Douglas C-53 Skytrooper for permanent display at its facility.
The aircraft now in College Station was originally built at Douglas Aircraft’s Santa Monica, California plant as construction number 11672 and delivered to the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) on April 7, 1943, becoming C-53D USAAF #42-68745. Upon receiving modifications at Daggett Field in Barstow, CA, 42-68745 remained in the continental United States, with assignments at Cincinnati and at Brookley Army Airfield in Mobile, AL. By December 16, 1944, the aircraft was deemed surplus and at the disposition of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). On January 28, 1945, it was leased by the RFC to United Airlines with the civil registration NC49543 and took on the name Mainliner New Jersey. On August 1, 1949, the aircraft was bought outright by United and renamed Mainliner Youngstown. Flying in United’s distinctive bare metal, red, white and blue scheme, it plied the nation’s airways, carrying passengers from one destination to the next.
But as United and other national carriers such as TWA began to invest in airliners that could cross the country nonstop, such as the Lockheed Constellation and the Douglas DC-6, the old DC-3 soon became sought after as executive transports. Such was the case for Mainliner Youngstown, which was sold to IBM on February 11, 1955, and re-registered as N705M. Eventually, the aircraft was later used by Freeport Sulfur Company as N400S and Pan Air Corporation as N4003 in 1965. By 1976, however, the aircraft was deregistered from the FAA and left behind at New Orleans’ Lakefront Airport, where it remained until it was acquired by Mordaunt W. Hamilton of Petal, Mississippi, just outside Hattiesburg.
Having been a mechanic, electrician, contractor, and later the owner of a local general store, Hamilton also had ties to aviation since he learned to fly in 1924 under the tutelage of Mississippi aviation pioneers Al and Fred Key. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, he began acquiring aircraft to stand alongside other mechanical implements as part of the Mississippi Machinery Museum, located on Main Street in Petal, just across the street from the town’s library and civic center. Among these was N4003, now classified as a DC-3A. Hamilton purchased the surplus airplane alongside a former Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) B-25 Mitchell, RCAF 5212 (USAAF #44-30947) around 1976 and had them trucked from New Orleans to Petal, where they were on display at the Mississippi Machinery Museum.
Following Hamilton’s passing in 1990, the museum slowly closed, and its planes were scattered across the South, with the nose section of the B-25 being used in the ongoing restoration of the Sandbar Mitchell, and the museum’s TF-9J Cougar going on display at the James Clemens High School in Madison, AL (see article HERE). By 2010, the last airplane standing on the old property was N4003, with no engines and its wings lying in the grass nearby. The son of M.W. Hamilton, M.W. Hamilton Jr., stated that so long as he was living, the aircraft would not be scrapped. In 2023, the Museum of the American G.I. announced that they were raising funds to bring the C-53 to Texas and restore it for outdoor display at their museum, just off Texas State Highway 6. To do this, they set up a fundraising campaign through local fundraiser Brazos County Gives.
The aircraft was disassembled and loaded onto a wide load truck to head to College Station, where it arrived on November 21. With the aircraft being offloaded from the truck, the C-53 will soon undergo a surface level restoration and be placed on permanent display at the museum, standing as a memorial to the thousands of service members who flew, maintained, and were transported by aircraft such as this. To learn more about the Museum of the American G.I., visit the website.
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Raised in Fullerton, California, Adam has earned a bachelor's degree in history and is now pursuing his master's in the same field. Fascinated by aviation history from a young age, he has visited numerous air museums across the United States, including the National Air and Space Museum and the San Diego Air and Space Museum. He volunteers at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino as a docent and researcher, gaining hands-on experience with aircraft maintenance. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of aviation history, he is particularly interested in the stories of individual aircraft and their postwar journeys. Active in online aviation communities, he shares his work widely and seeks further opportunities in the field.
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