You do say that it was ‘normal for paratrooping’ to have both doors removed, I personally don’t agree with that. It is of course possible, and in some cases desirable (ie large load dropping) to have both cargo doors removed for flight, but I have seen very few images of C-47s/Dakotas in that condition during normal service flight.
In fact many of the images I can find of the main doors being removed was for other reasons ie gun mounting (Spookys’) and Speaker mounting (phsych warfare) etc.

Aeronut raises an issue that I was going to mention and that is the control of paratroop drops. Although paratroops needed to deploy fairly rapidly it had also had to be conducted in an orderly fashion from a safety point of view, just the normal para door being removed ensures good control of this, aswel as being a reasonable distance from the tail, ie it ensured nicely controlled para exiting from the aircraft with the maximum safety margins.
I would also think (but don’t know) that having either of or especially both of the larger door sections removed would cause buffeting inside the aft fuselage, uncomfortable on longer flights, but more importantly not condusive to clean drops and allowing the risk of people/items falling nearer the tail than desirable.
If it was as straight forward as just leaving off the fwd cargo door for normal para drops then I would think that the the inset door would have been deleted, or even not devised in the first place.

I’m not entirely devoid of humor, I’m sorry but unless there is something wrong with my computor that image isn’t what it purports to be to my mind no matter how bad the printing reproduction is, even what appear to be ghost impressions of the aileron trailing edges are wrong as they are parallel with the aileron leading edges, which of course the Dak dosen’t feature.

It seems improbable that fully-equipped paratroops would be able to exit quickly through the smaller in-flight (inwardly) removable door especially when wearing the British-designed ‘leg-bags’ containing much of their equipment (and weapons) but it seems from this account that it happened on D-Day.

CD please re-read the thread again, I went at pains to differentiate and point out that the only door that is removeable in flight is the small inset one in the fwd cargo door, it is completely removeable, and stowed out of the way, and not inward opening so as not to foul the path of the exiting paratroopers.
In photographs this does seem to be the most common approach to para dropping.

I can’t really concur with JDK that both doors (am assuming fwd & aft cargo doors?) being removed was that common, certainly from all the pictures that I have seen.

CD & J.Boyle, either I’m missing your humour or that would be highly effective camoflage as the ailerons match exactly the detail in the backgorund! Why would you just camoflage the ailerons anyway?

Very few people seem to be interested in the Wellington; and I know that is something of a sweeping statement.

…it is, I think quite a few enthusiasts do like and respect the type.

However getting diifferent parties together with different parts to make one project is so frought with difficulties, such as loss of originality with individualy owned items, combined financial issues, and location, that I would think it would be almost impossible to achieve.
If one collection owned the whole lot it would be a different issue.

I don’t know what Marks of Wellington the respective parties own, so wouldn’t like to hazard a guess of what could be achieved.
As a Coastal-phile I would love to see a XIV!

Surely you can only love him?! Good luck Jim!:)

The wing parts are useful but the undercarriage is not, perhaps the Hermes at Duxford can use them.

The Hermes uses a completey different twin wheel main undercarriage leg, being a tricycle rather than tail sitting type!
Be nice to see it reunited with a Hastings wings though.