Operation Bolero – Leg V (Final Leg) EGPK – Prestwick, Scotland → EGXW – RAF North Witham, England

This is the leg that proves the bridge is complete.

Prestwick is loud with purpose. At EGPK, engines are turning, radios are alive, and the sky is crowded with aircraft that no longer belong to ferry commands. They belong to war. Bombers depart east. Fighters climb hard. Transports line up in patient ranks. The quiet uncertainty of the Atlantic is behind you. The gravity of Europe is in front of you.

This is not a long flight. It is a heavy one.

You taxi knowing your C-47 is no longer just an airplane that survived the crossing. It is now an instrument of invasion. The men who will soon step out of its door into darkness are already training, already sweating, already preparing to die if necessary. You are delivering their wings.

You lift from EGPK into low Scottish cloud, the green hills sliding away beneath you. The sea flashes briefly off the left wing and then disappears. England lies ahead. The heart of the storm.

Unlike the Atlantic, this sky carries tension. Radio calls are sharper. Traffic is denser. Airspace is controlled, layered, alive with intent.

Below you, convoys crawl across Britain. Rail lines pulse with movement. Airfields multiply like stepping stones toward France. This island is no longer defensive. It is a loaded spring.

Then the English countryside opens beneath you.

Fields stitched together by hedgerows. Villages with blackout curtains. Airstrips carved into farmland like scars of resolve.

And there it is:

EGXW – RAF North Witham.

Not a city. Not a port. A launchpad.

This is where legends will start. The 52nd Troop Carrier Wing. Rows of C-47s lined wingtip to wingtip. Paratroopers moving with quiet intensity. Gliders waiting like ghosts beside the runways. Maps on walls marked with French towns no one here has ever seen.

Your approach is steady, but your hands feel the weight of it. When the runway comes into view, you understand that the journey across the ocean is over, and something far more dangerous is beginning.

The wheels touch.

No applause. No ceremony. Just work.

Ground crews swarm. Paratroopers watch from the edges of the field. Someone marks your aircraft on a clipboard. One more Skytrain added to the ledger of history.

From EGPK to EGXW, you have completed Operation Bolero.

You did not drop bombs. You did not fire a shot. But without this flight, none of what follows can happen.

This C-47 will: • Drop men into Normandy • Tow gliders into darkness • Resupply armies under fire • Carry wounded home

You shut down the engines. The ticking metal sounds final, almost reverent.

The Atlantic is behind you. The invasion is ahead of you.

Operation Bolero is complete. The road to D-Day is now paved with wings.