02/28/2011. Remarks by Jack McKillop: "This Douglas Model DC-3A-456 was ordered by the USAAF as a C-47A-25-DK s/n 42-93736 delivered on June 22, 1944. By July 1944, it was serving in Europe with the IX Troop Carrier Command, Ninth AF. It was back in the US by July 1945 but was declared surplus and transferred to the Reconstruction Finance Corp. on November 25, 1945 at Walnut Ridge Airport, Walnut Ridge, Arkansas.

It was sold to an individual in the US and registered NC62658 and then sold to Tranair, Inc. of New York, New York in 1947. Transair provided irregular passenger and cargo service between New York; Miami, Florida; Havana, Cuba; the Bahamas; and Mexico.

The aircraft was sold to the Cuban airline Expreso Aereo Inter-Americano SA of Havana in the late 1940s. This airline provided internal flights in Cuba. It was then sold to Aerovias 'Q' SA of Havana in 1947.

In 1954, it was sold to the Haitian AF as 3681. The aircraft was operated by COHATA (Compagnie Haïtienne de Transports Aériens), the successor to Corps d'Aviation de l'Armee d'Haiti. Withdrawn from use in 1976, it was placed in storage at Port au Prince Airport in May 1991."

02/28/2006. Remarks by Howard Jones: "In August of 1949, I accompanied my mother and grandparents on a trip to Cuba The plane shown was owned and operated by Aerovias 'Q', a Cuban airline. Although I was only 2.5 years old at the time, I can still vividly recollect the arrival as we waited behind a chain-link fence. As the plane swung around, its wind covered us with sand and sent hats flying into the air.

An interesting side-note for history buffs is that this plane had very probably been co-piloted by Major Pedro L. Diaz Lanz who ten years later after serving as the head of Fidel Castro's revolutionary air force would defect to the US and testify in Congress against Castro."