Wrecked Douglas C-47 brought in from Siberian cold

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(CNN)Half-sunk in the marshy tundra of the Taymyr Peninsula of northern Siberia, not far from the Arctic Circle and several hundred miles away from the nearest human settlement, lay the remains of a 70 year-old American-made aircraft.

How and why did it get there?

In August, an international expedition organized by the Russian Geographical Society set off from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk to conduct a rather unique salvage operation, in one of the most remote places on Earth.

Lend-Lease program

To tell this tale we need to travel back in time, to 1943.

The world was at war and American factories were working at full capacity churning out all sorts of aircraft for the Allies.

With the Cold War still a distant prospect and the US and the Soviet Union fighting the same enemy, the Lend-Lease Act guaranteed that a continuous stream of American war material made its way to the Soviets.

This was the case of the C-47 of this story — manufactured by Douglas in the United States (serial number 42-32892) and handed over to the Soviet Union in Fairbanks, Alaska, on March 12, 1943.

This was one of more than 7,000 aircraft that transited through the ALSIB, the Alaska-Siberia air road, during the war. A supply route that stretched thousands of miles, from the continental United States across Northern Canada to Alaska and, from there, across the Bering Strait all the way to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Most of these aircraft then continued their journey onto the front, but this was not to be the case with our C-47. It was instead kept in the rearguard and assigned to fly supply and reconnaissance missions in the Siberian Arctic.

In 1946, without having seen front line action, the aircraft was transferred to civilian duties, flying from Krasnoyarsk to several remote outposts in northern Siberia.

Drama in the tundra

A memorial was erected by the members of the salvage expedition at the site where the old Douglas stood. A plaque explains the events that took place in that remote stretch of tundra nearly 70 years ago.

The late pilot’s daughter, Avelina Antsiferova, and relatives of the other crew members traveled to the site to witness its unveiling.

In addition to its status as a historical object, the aircraft itself will serve as a memorial to the pilots who ran the ALSIB route during the war.

This logistical feat was already the object of a commemorative flight in 2015, with American and Russian pilots retracing the historical supply route with vintage aircraft.

Yulia Komissarenko, a representative of the Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society, explains what awaits the C-47 in the near future:

“The aircraft will have a place of honor at the future Museum of the Exploration of the Russian North, in Krasnoyarsk,” he says. “In the meantime, it will be kept at a facility of the Russian Geographical Society, where specialists will assess the need for further restoration work. The idea is, then, to display it either in a static location or as part of itinerant exhibits”.

It will be the only aircraft of this type preserved in a museum anywhere in Russia.

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