Last Living D-Day Pathfinder Pilot 100th Birthday Celebrations

Saturday, July 16, 2022, the last living D-Day Pathfinder Pilot, LtCol David Hamilton (USAF, Ret.) celebrated his 100th birthday with the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team (ADT). Hamilton participated in airborne operations involving WWII ADT’s historic DC-3/C-47 aircraft, “Wild Kat” and ADT members who jumped in honor of his 100th birthday. As a 21-year-old, 1st Lt. Hamilton piloted aircraft number 14 of the 20 C-47s that took off late the evening of June 5, 1944, carrying 82nd Airborne Pathfinders to drop them into France behind German lines. Hamilton dropped his Pathfinders around 1:00 a.m. on June 6. The mission of the Pathfinders was to set up electronic homing equipment to help guide the more than 800 C-47 aerial armada that was already crossing the English Channel an hour behind Hamilton’s flight. On those aircraft were 13,000 paratroopers that would drop into the dark of night at the start of the invasion of Europe in the Normandy region of France.