02/28/2011. Remarks by Jack McKillop: "On August 28, 1942, this Douglas Model DC-3A-360 was delivered to the USAAF as a C-47-DL, s/n 41-18540 on September 2, 1942. By December 1942, it was assigned to the 45th Troop Carrier Squadron, 316th Troop Carrier Group, Ninth Air Force and based in Egypt. In May, 1943, the 316th Group was transferred to the Twelfth Air Force, moved to Algeria and began training for the invasion of Sicily during which they dropped paratroopers in July. In September 1943, the group moved to Sicily until it was transferred to the Ninth Air Force in the UK in February 1944.

In England, the group was based at Cottesmore, Rutland until the unit returned to the US in May 1945. During that time, they dropped paratroopers during the Normandy invasion in June 1944, Operation 'Market Garden' in September 1944, and the airborne assault across the Rhine River in March 1945. Initially, the 316th was assigned to the 53rd Troop Carrier Wing, IX Troop Carrier Command, Ninth Air Force and the 45th Troop Carrier Squadron was assigned the squadron code '4C' painted on the fuselage. At the end of August 1944, the IX Troop Carrier Command had been reassigned from the Ninth Air Force to the First Allied Airborne Army.

This C-47 was declared surplus and and on December 11, 1945 was registered as CF-CPY to Grant McConachie's newly formed Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA) of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Subsequently converted to a civil DC-3C, the aircraft received the CPA fleet number 175 and later 275.

On April 28, 1960, CF-CPY was sold to Connely-Dawson Airways of Dawson City, Yukon Territory. Connely-Dawson was formed in 1958, and had taken over Callison Flying Services and Arctic Wings and Rotors before it merged with Range Airways and Yukon Flying Services into Great Northern Airways (GNA) at Calgary, Alberta, and CF-CPY was registered to GNA on March 4, 1966.

Four years later, November 1970, after 31,581 flying hours, CF-CPY was abandoned after blowing an engine on take off. Sitting derelict at Whitehorse Airport, Yukon Territory for several years the aircraft was donated to the Yukon Flying Club, and in 1977 a four year restoration was started. Restored in CPA colors, it became the world's largest weather vane at the airport in 1981. Put on a pivoting pedestal, it only takes a 5 knot (5.75 mph, 9.26 kmh) wind to turn it.

In July 1998 it was taken down for another paint job that took over three years, and on September 16, 2001 it returned on its pedestal. In the summer of 2009 it was taken down again and mounted on a new pedestal in front of the Yukon Transportation Museum, also at Whitehorse Airport, and is back up turning in the wind."