Next year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Here in Belgium, we are preparing for this event in different ways to celebrate those who liberated our country from the Nazis 75 years ago.

In my association [Belgian Aviation Preservation Association], we are restoring a North American B-25 Bomber that we hope to exhibit in the Bastogne War Museum. But the reason why I’m contacting you concerns 3 liaison airplanes that we keep airworthy. Those are Piper L-4 serial 44-80464, 44-80653 and 44-80758. All of them were operated in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) during WWII. We want to put them back in their 1944-45 colors and fly them over the Ardennes to commemorates the 75th anniversary.
We have excellent contacts with the USAAF archives and the Washington Smithsonian Air Museum, who provided us with the Individual Aircraft Record Card (IARC), and we know that end of 1944, those planes were assigned to the 8th and 9th Air Forces, who were in charge of delivering them to Army Ground Force (AGF), but the IARCs don’t specify which ground units.

We know, thanks to extended historical research done by Capt. K. Wakefields, that they were 3 units of the 9th AF (50th, 43rd and 23rd MR&R) in charge of 3rd and 4th echelons of maintenance of those planes. Today, only archives of the 50th MR&R, in charge of the liaison airplanes of the 9th US Army, are still available. Unfortunately, our planes are not in those archives.

Those planes were organic to ground force units, mainly used for field artillery support. So, we think that to obtain more information, we should contact Army Ground Forces associations (not Air Force.)

Could you help us in finding more info on those real “warbirds”?

It would be so great to have those planes flying over the Bastogne Memorial, on next year Christmas Day, in the colors they had in 24 Dec. 1944, to commemorates those who lost their lives 75 years ago for our liberty today!

We are looking for any information, documents, and photos, about pilots, technicians and liaison airplanes, mainly Piper L-4, that were organic to the First, Third and Fifteenth US Armies. Please contact me at: yves@cartilier.eu if you have any information.
—Yves Cartilier, Belgian Aviation Preservation Association

For more information, go to: www.bapa.aero