Page 28 - May 23

In the wake of the president’s Lend-Lease initiative, a flood of orders for military Model 17s arrived on Walter Beech’s desk. Among these was a special Staggerwing to be built to specifications for Crown Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands, whose government had relocated to England after the Nazis conquered the Low Countries in 1940. The Crown Prince was an avid and competent pilot, and in May contributions received from Dutch Americans allowed the Netherlands Purchasing Commission to order the D17S and its 420-hp Pratt & Whitney static, air-cooled, nine-cylinder radial engine.
The airplane was shipped to England and was delivered to the Royal Air Force (RAF) in October 1941. Painted in standard camouflage using a pattern and colors dictated by the RAF, including roundels and fin flash on the vertical stabilizer, the colorful Staggerwing aircraft was flown by Bernhardt to visit Dutch squadrons and for diplomatic missions involving the exiled Dutch Government.
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, by the Imperial Japanese Navy Dec. 7, 1941, plunged America into a two-front war that would last nearly four years. Production of commercial aircraft quickly came to halt as manufacturers of aircraft engines and airframes retooled their facilities to support the war effort. Beech Aircraft Corporation was no exception and delivered its final four civil biplanes to customers in January 1942, bringing total prewar production to 353 airplanes.
Although many military Staggerwings built from 1942-1945 were produced for Lend-Lease to America’s British, Chinese and South American allies, a majority were manufactured for service with the U.S. Army and Navy. These airplanes were built in a separate facility located south of the main factory, which was dedicated to producing military versions of the twin- engine Model C18S. To help meet the costs of escalating contract obligations, Walter and Olive Ann Beech ordered
26 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
A factory-fresh UC-43 flies over the Kansas countryside on a test flight before delivery to the U.S. Army Air Forces. More than 400 UC-43s were built during the war. (Special Collec- tions and University Archives, Wichita State University Libraries)
expansion of the second facility, known as Plant Two, in order to accommodate a much higher rate of production to meet demand. In addition to significantly expanding floor space, money from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was used to increase size of the airfield by 320 acres and increasing length of the north-south runway to nearly 5,000 feet.
By the end of the war in 1945, the company had built 412 C/UC-43 and GB-2 aircraft. Of these, the Army Air Forces and the Navy took delivery of 270 ships, but various batches of these were soon reassigned to Allied air forces through provisions of the Lend-Lease Act. A total of 122 GB-2s were accepted by the Navy, and the remaining 20 airplanes were acquired by the Brazilian government for its air force. Great Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy received 105 aircraft that were designated Traveller Mk. 1, including 74 that were assigned to the Fleet Air Arm land bases.
These airplanes were flown extensively within England transporting high-ranking officers of the British Admiralty and Allied forces. The RAF shipped 18 Traveller Mk. 1s to the Middle East, but all were lost at sea when the transport S.S. Argurmonte was sunk by a U-boat May 29, 1943, off Cape Province, South Africa. The RAF eventually operated a small number of Traveller Mk. 1s on reconnaissance missions and patrols along the Suez Canal and above the Red Sea in search of enemy submarines.
Detailed information about combat operations of UC/C-43 and GB-2 aircraft in the European and Pacific Theaters of War is minimal at best, but some interesting tidbits do exist. For example, in the December 1994 issue of the Beech “Log” (an in-house publication) a UC-43 flown by Col. Lloyd O. Yost was reported to be standing up well under the harsh, jungle environment of the South and Central Pacific regions. Yost used his UC-43 to fly emergency missions in support of local troops from short, unimproved airstrips. He praised the airplane’s
MAY 2023