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My 2¢ worth and a new wrinkle: The Norseman was found in a French farmer's field, safely landed, in January, 1945. It was subsequently reclaimed and attached to a maintenance squadron in England where it served until it was written off after a load shifted on take off. This was mentioned in William Brinson's "315 Group", his history of the 315th Troop Carrier Group in WWII. This "mention" was expanded upon in a group newsletter article by Robert L. "Doc" Cloer, the long-time recording secretary of the 315th TCG Association.
Curiously, an almost word-for-word copy of the article showed up in 1995, on the instruction sheet of Modelcraft's 1/48 scale Norseman, itself a scaled-up 1/72 Matchbox kit. "Word-for-word", that is, except for the part about the a/c's discovery and recovery. Also, the kit's tail number is shown as "470258" instead of "470285". A miss-identification anomaly or just a dyslexic key-stroker in Modelcraft's art department?
Doc Cloer was a C-47 pilot in the 315th's 34th Troop Carrier Squadron and it was his plane, among others in the 34th, that flew the band members to France several days after the Norsemen and its passengers had departed. I wish I could find that newsletter as Doc quoted, IMMS, tail numbers, squadrons and dates.
As I said, my 2¢....
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