Morrell booster! (From Bournemouth Echo)

Morrell booster!

5:00am Thursday 3rd July 2008 in

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THE Dakota won Sheila Morrell's heart 63 years ago.

The 89-year-old had never been on a plane before, and went on a five-day odyssey to India from Bournemouth Airport to work as a communications officer for war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten.

This Saturday she will ride in the famous World War II transport plane once again.

Her family paid £99 for her to take part in the "Last Flight of the Dakotas".

Headline by 2CR listener Chris Preston of the college at Lansdowne

Winner of the headline challenge on the Paul Bunker show

She will have a 20-minute trip on one of the vintage planes from Bournemouth Airport, before costs ground them for good this summer.

Sheila is excited about reliving an amazing trip halfway around the world.

"It was very basic," she said. "There were no drinks or waitresses but it was an absolutely wonderful journey!

"We stopped at Malta and Cairo and at desert bases for refuelling.

"I was not scared, I took to the plane straight away."

Sheila, originally from Sussex, now lives in Littledown, Bournemouth, and is married with two children.

At the end of her five-day Dakota flight she worked in Singapore, then in Delhi, for Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1979.

She said: "He was wonderful, very caring. I also worked with his daughter, who is now Lady Brabourne."

Before flying out to India, Sheila decoded top-secret allied messages in London during the Blitz and regularly had to dodge bombs on the way home.

The Douglas DC-3 was one of the most famous and important transport planes ever made, and was the backbone of Allied air supply during the Second World War.

More than 13,000 were built after it first flew in 1935 and it carried cargo, dropped parachutists and secret agents, and even served as a gunship in the Vietnam war.

The aircraft developed a reputation for being rugged and dependable, and a few post-war models still fly today as crop sprayers or light transport planes.