RAF The first British Liberators had been ordered by the Anglo-French Purchasing Board in 1940. After the
Fall of France the French orders were in most cases transferred to the United Kingdom. The RAF found, as did the US, that global war increased the need for air transports and early-type bombers and seaplanes were converted or completed as cargo carriers and transports. LB-30As were assigned to
transatlantic flights by
RAF Ferry Command, between Canada and
Prestwick, Scotland. The first Liberators in British service were ex-USAAF YB-24s converted to
Liberator GR Is (USAAF designation: LB-30A). The aircraft were all modified for logistic use in
Montreal. Changes included the removal of all armament, provision for passenger seating, a revised cabin
oxygen and
heating system. Ferry Command's Atlantic Return Ferry Service flew civilian ferry pilots, who had delivered aircraft to the UK, back to North America. The most important role, however, for the first batch of the Liberator GR Is was in service with
RAF Coastal Command on anti-submarine patrols in the
Battle of the Atlantic. Later in 1941, the first Liberators entered RAF service. This model introduced self-sealing fuel tanks, a plug in the forward fuselage to create more space for crew members and, more vitally, ever more equipment such as
ASV Mark II radar (anticipated early in the Liberator's development when Reuben Fleet told the engineering team he had a gut feeling the nose was too short). The Mark II was the first Liberator to be equipped with powered turrets, one plane having them installed before leaving San Diego, the remainder having them installed in the field: four Browning
Boulton Paul A-type Mk IV with 600 rounds of .303 in the dorsal position; and a Boulton Paul E-type Mk II with 2200 rounds in the tail (later increased to 2500 rounds), supplemented by pairs of guns at the waist position, a single gun in the nose and another in the belly, for a total of fourteen guns. The maximum take-off weight was slightly raised to 64,250 pounds, the maximum altitude lifted from 21,200 to 24,000 feet but the maximum speed was reduced to 263 mph, largely as a result of increased drag. For 12 months,
No. 120 Squadron RAF of Coastal Command with its handful of worn and modified early model Liberators supplied the only air cover for convoys in the Atlantic Gap, the Liberator being the only airplane with sufficient range. The VLR Liberators sacrificed some armor and often gun turrets to save weight, while carrying extra aviation
gasoline in their bomb-bay tanks. Liberators were equipped with
ASV Mk. II radar, which together with the
Leigh light, gave them the ability to hunt U-boats by day and by night. Before the
Leigh Light, not a single enemy submarine had been sunk in over five months, but in combination with radar, it was so overwhelmingly effective that many German submarine crews chose to surface during the day so that they could at least see the aircraft attacking them and have a chance to fire their anti-aircraft weaponry in defense. These Liberators operated from both sides of the Atlantic with the
Royal Canadian Air Force and the
Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command and later, the
US Navy conducting patrols along all three American coasts and the Canal Zone. The RAF and later American patrols ranged from the east, based in
Northern Ireland,
Scotland,
Iceland and beginning in mid-1943 from the
Azores. This role was dangerous, especially after many U-boats were armed with extra
anti-aircraft guns, some adopting the policy of staying on the surface to fight, rather than submerging and risking being sunk by aerial weapons such as rockets, gunfire, torpedoes and depth charges from the bombers. American Liberators flew from
Nova Scotia,
Greenland, the Azores,
Bermuda,
the Bahamas,
Puerto Rico,
Cuba, Panama,
Trinidad,
Ascension Island and from wherever else they could fly far out over the Atlantic. The sudden and decisive turning of the Battle of the Atlantic in favor of the Allies in May 1943 was the result of many factors. The gradual arrival of many more VLR and in October, PB4Y navalized Liberators for anti-submarine missions over the Mid-Atlantic gap ("black pit") and the Bay of Biscay was an important contribution to the Allies' greater success. Liberators were credited in full or in part with sinking 93 U-boats. The B-24 was vital for missions of a radius less than , in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters where U.S. Navy PB4Y-1s and USAAF SB-24s took a heavy toll of enemy submarines and surface combatants and shipping.
USAAF Introduction to service, 1941–1942 oil fields in August 1943. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) took delivery of its first B-24As in mid-1941. Over the next three years, B-24 squadrons deployed to all theaters of the war: African, European, China-Burma-India, the Anti-submarine Campaign, the Southwest Pacific Theater and the Pacific Theater. In the Pacific, to simplify logistics and to take advantage of its longer range, the B-24 (and its twin, the U.S. Navy PB4Y) was the chosen standard heavy bomber. By mid-1943, the shorter-range B-17 was phased out. The Liberators which had served early in the war in the Pacific continued the efforts from the Philippines, Australia, Espiritu Santo, Guadalcanal, Hawaii, and Midway Island. The Liberator peak overseas deployment was 45.5 bomb groups in June 1944. Additionally, the Liberator equipped a number of independent squadrons in a variety of special combat roles. The cargo versions, C-87 and C-109 tanker, further increased its overseas presence, especially in Asia in support of the XX Bomber Command air offensive against Japan. So vital was the need for long-range operations, that at first USAAF used the type as transports. The sole B-24 in Hawaii was destroyed by the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. It had been sent to the Central Pacific for a very long-range reconnaissance mission that was preempted by the Japanese attack. The first USAAF Liberators to carry out combat missions were 12 repossessed LB-30s deployed to Java with the
11th Bombardment Squadron (
7th Bombardment Group) that flew their first combat mission in mid-January. Two were shot up by Japanese fighters, but both managed to land safely. One was written off due to battle damage and the other crash-landed on a beach. US-based Liberators entered combat service in 1942 when on 6 June, four LB-30s from
Hawaii staging through
Midway Island attempted an attack on
Wake Island, but were unable to find it. The B-24 came to dominate the heavy bombardment role in the Pacific because compared to the B-17, the B-24 was faster, had longer range, and could carry a ton more bombs.
Strategic bombing, 1942–1945 ,
Ploiești, Romania fly through flak and over the destruction created by preceding waves of bombers, May 31, 1944. On 12 June 1942, 13 B-24s of the Halverson Project (HALPRO) flying from Egypt attacked the Axis-controlled oil fields and refineries around
Ploiești, Romania. Within weeks, the First Provisional Bombardment Group formed from the remnants of the Halverson and China detachments. This unit then was formalized as the
376th Bombardment Group, Heavy, and along with the
98th BG formed the nucleus of the
IX Bomber Command of the
Ninth Air Force, operating from Africa until absorbed into the
Twelfth Air Force briefly, and then the
Fifteenth Air Force, operating from Italy. The Ninth Air Force moved to England in late 1943. This was a major component of the
USSTAF and took a major role in strategic bombing. Fifteen of the 15th AF's 21
bombardment groups flew B-24s. For much of 1944, the B-24 was the predominant bomber of U.S. Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF) formerly the
Eighth Air Force in the
Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany, forming nearly half of its heavy bomber strength in the ETO prior to August and most of the Italian-based force. Thousands of B-24s flying from bases in Europe dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of
high explosive and
incendiary bombs on German military, industrial, and civilian targets. The
44th Bombardment Group was one of the first two heavy bombardment groups flying the B-24 with the 8th Air Force in the fall/winter air campaigns in the European Theater of Operations. , breaks in half after attack by a
Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter A total of 177 B-24s carried out the famous second attack on Ploiești (
Operation Tidal Wave) on 1 August 1943. This was the B-24's most costly mission. In late June 1943, the three B-24 Liberator groups of the 8th Air Force were sent to North Africa on temporary duty with the 9th Air Force: while the
Tenth Air Force's
493rd Bomb Squadron employed it against Japanese railroad bridges on the
Burma Railway in early 1945, fulfilling the intended original purpose of the Azon system.
Assembly ships at
RAF Horsham St Faith had participated in
Operation Tidal Wave In February 1944, the 2nd Division authorized the use of "Assembly Ships" (or "Formation Ships") specially fitted to aid the assembly of individual group formations. They were equipped with signal lighting, provision for quantity discharge of pyrotechnics, and were painted with distinctive group-specific high-contrast patterns of stripes, checkers or polka dots to enable easy recognition by their flock of bombers. The aircraft used in the first allocation were B-24Ds retired by the 44th, 93rd and 389th Groups. Arrangements for signal lighting varied from group to group, but generally consisted of white flashing lamps on both sides of the fuselage arranged to form the identification letter of the group. All armament and armor were removed and in some cases the tail turret. In the B-24Hs used for this purpose, the nose turret was removed and replaced by a "carpetbagger" type nose. Following incidents when flare guns were accidentally discharged inside the rear fuselage, some assembly (formation) ships had pyrotechnic guns fixed through the fuselage sides. As these aircraft normally returned to base once a formation had been established, a skeleton crew of two pilots, navigator, radio operator and one or two flare discharge operators were carried. In some groups an observer officer flew in the tail position to monitor the formation. These aircraft became known as
Judas goats.
"Carpetbaggers" From August 1943 until the end of the war in Europe, specially modified B-24Ds were used in classified missions. In a joint venture between the Army Air Forces and the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) code-named
Operation Carpetbagger, pilots and crews flew specially modified B-24Ds painted with a glossy black anti-searchlight paint to supply friendly underground forces throughout German-occupied Europe. They also flew
Douglas C-47s,
Douglas A-26 Invaders, and British
de Havilland Mosquitos. Carpetbagger aircraft flew spies called "Joes" and commando groups prior to the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day and afterward, and retrieved over 5,000 officers and enlisted men who had escaped capture after being shot down. The low-altitude, nighttime operation was extremely dangerous and took its toll on these airmen. The first aircrews chosen for this operation came from the anti-submarine bomb groups because of their special training in low altitude flying and pinpoint navigation skills. Because of their special skills, they were called upon to fly fuel to
General George Patton's army during the summer and early autumn of 1944 when it outran its fuel supply. When this mission was completed, it was recorded that 822,791 US gallons (3,114,264 L) of 80 octane gasoline had been delivered to three different airfields in France and Belgium. The 859 BS was converted from day bombardment to these operations and then transferred to the 15th Air Force.
Transport variants C-87 Liberator Express In early 1942, with the need for a purpose-built transport with better high-altitude performance and longer range than the Douglas C-47 Skytrain, the San Diego plant began sending B-24D models to Fort Worth for conversion into the C-87 transport. The conversion had a hinged cargo door at the nose eliminating transparent nose and large cargo doors installed in the waist area. The C-87 had a large cargo floor, less powerful supercharged engines, no gun turrets, a floor in the bomb bay for freight, and some side windows. The navigator's position was relocated behind the pilot. Indigenous Fort Worth C-87 and AT-22 production began with the FY 1943 order for 80 serial-numbered airframes 43-30548 through 43–30627. The C-87A was a dedicated VIP series built in small quantity. Early versions were fitted with a single .50 caliber (12.7 mm) Browning machine gun in their tails, and a XC-87B version proposed two .50 caliber (12.7 mm) fixed machine guns for the nose, operable by the pilot, though these were eventually removed. The XC-87B also designated a resurrected crash victim B-24D (42-40355) fitted with low altitude power packages and a forward fuselage extension. The extended nose earned it the name Pinocchio. Later modifications gave it a single tail and yet another type of engine packages bring it to near C-87C configuration. Other C-87 designations were the
U.S. Navy designation RY and Lend Lease Liberator Cargo VII. Although only 287 C-87 and eight U.S. Navy RY variants were produced, they were still important in the Army Air Forces' airlift operations early in the war when aircraft with high-altitude, long-range heavy hauling abilities were in short supply. The C-87 flew in many theaters of war, including much hazardous duty in flights from Labrador to Greenland and Iceland in the North Atlantic. In the
China Burma India Theater (CBI), the C-87 was used to airlift cargo and fuel over
the Hump (the
Himalayas) from
India to
China. Early in the campaign, the C-87 was the only readily available American transport that could fly over the Himalayas while heavily loaded, rather than relying on circuitous and highly dangerous routes through valleys and mountain passes, but the type was not very popular with crews: they complained of various hazards including the fuel system, engines and cockpit accessories, while the type was notorious for leaking fuel tanks and mid-air fires a constant danger. Unlike the C-87, the C-109 was not built on the assembly line, but rather was converted from existing B-24 bomber production; to save weight, the glass nose, armament, turret fairings and bombardment equipment were removed. Several storage tanks were added, allowing a C-109 to carry 2,900 gal (11,000 L) of fuel weighing over . Plans originally called for 2,000 C-109s to support 10 groups of B-29s (approximately 400) in China, but the
capture of the Mariana Islands provided a far more easily resupplied location for raids on mainland
Japan, and the plans were greatly scaled back. Only 218 C-109s were actually converted. After the transfer of the B-29s, the C-109s were reassigned to the
Air Transport Command. According to the history of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, at least one squadron was assigned to the IX Troop Carrier Command in Europe to transport gasoline to advancing ground and air forces on the Continent after the Normandy invasion. However, whereas a combat-loaded B-24 could safely take off with room to spare from a runway, a loaded C-109 required every foot of such a runway to break ground, and crashes on takeoff were not uncommon. The aircraft demonstrated unstable flight characteristics with all storage tanks filled, and proved very difficult to land fully loaded at airfields above MSL in elevation, such as those around
Chengdu. After it was discovered that these problems could be alleviated by flying with the forward storage tank empty, this practice became fairly routine, enhancing aircrew safety at the cost of some fuel-carrying capacity. Many C-109s were lost in flying the Hump airlift to China. The
Singing Cowboy Gene Autry served in the Air Transport Command (in the same squadron as
Barry Goldwater), and described flying the C-109 over "The Hump" as "the thrill that lasts a lifetime". B-24 bombers were also extensively used in the Pacific area after the end of World War II to transport cargo and supplies during the rebuilding of Japan, China, and the Philippines.
U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps PB4Y-1 B-24s were also used by the
U.S. Navy and
U.S. Marine Corps for
ASW, anti-ship patrol, and
photographic reconnaissance in the Pacific Theater, and by the
U.S. Coast Guard for patrol and
SAR. Naval B-24s were redesignated
PB4Y-1, meaning the fourth patrol bomber design built by Consolidated Aircraft. Navy PB4Y-1s assigned to Atlantic ASW and all Coast Guard PB4Y-1s had the ventral turret replaced by a retractable radome. Also, most naval aircraft had an Erco ball turret installed in the nose position, replacing the glass nose and other styles of turret. The Consolidated Aircraft Company PB4Y-2 Privateer was a U.S. Navy
patrol bomber that was derived directly from the B-24 Liberator. The U.S. Navy had been using B-24s with only minor modifications as the PB4Y-1 Liberator, and along with maritime patrol B-24s used by RAF Coastal Command this type of patrol plane had been quite successful. A fully navalized design was seen as advantageous, and Consolidated Aircraft developed a purpose-built long-range patrol bomber in 1943, designated PB4Y-2. The Privateer had non-turbosupercharged engines for weight savings and optimal performance at low to medium patrol
altitudes, and was visually distinguishable from the B-24 and PB4Y-1 by its longer fuselage, single tall vertical stabilizer (rather than a twin tail), two dorsal turrets, and teardrop-shaped waist gun blisters (similar in appearance to those on Consolidated's own PBY Catalina).
Australia Liberator with their aircraft
RAAF Australian aircrew seconded to the Royal Air Force flew Liberators in all theatres of the war, including with RAF Coastal Command, in the Middle East, and with South East Asia Command, while some flew in
South African Air Force squadrons. Liberators were introduced into service in the
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1944, after the American commander of the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), General
George C. Kenney, suggested that seven heavy bomber squadrons be raised to supplement the efforts of American Liberator squadrons. The USAAF transferred some aircraft to the RAAF, while the remainder would be delivered from the US under
Lend-Lease. Some RAAF aircrew were given operational experience in Liberators while attached to USAAF squadrons. Seven flying squadrons, an
operational training unit, and two special duties flights were equipped with the aircraft by the end of World War II in August 1945. The RAAF Liberators saw service in the
South West Pacific theatre of World War II. Flying mainly from bases in the
Northern Territory,
Queensland and
Western Australia, aircraft conducted bombing raids against Japanese positions, ships and strategic targets in
New Guinea,
Borneo and the
Netherlands East Indies. In addition, the small number of Liberators operated by
No. 200 Flight played an important role in supporting covert operations conducted by the
Allied Intelligence Bureau; and other Liberators were converted to VIP transports. A total of 287 B-24D, B-24J, B-24L and B-24M aircraft were supplied to the RAAF, of which 33 were lost in action or accidents, with more than 200 Australians killed. Following the Japanese surrender, the RAAF's Liberators participated in flying former
prisoners of war and other personnel back to Australia. Liberators remained in service until 1948, when they were replaced by
Avro Lincolns.
Qantas In June 1944,
Qantas Empire Airways began service with the first of two converted LB-30 Liberators on the
Perth to
Colombo route to augment PBY Catalinas that had been used since May 1943.
The Double Sunrise route across the
Indian Ocean was long, the longest non-stop airline route in the world at the time. The Liberators flew a shorter over-water route from
Learmonth to an airfield northeast of Colombo, but they could make the flight in 17 hours with a payload, whereas the Catalinas required 27 hours and had to carry so much auxiliary fuel that their payload was limited to only . The route was named
Kangaroo Service and marked the first time that Qantas's now-famous Kangaroo logo was used; passengers received a certificate proclaiming them as members of
The Order of the Longest Hop. The Liberators were later replaced by
Avro Lancastrians.
SAAF Two squadrons of the
South African Air Force (SAAF) also flew B-24s:
31 and
34 Squadrons under No 2 Wing SAAF based at
Foggia, Italy. These two squadrons engaged in relief flights to
Warsaw and
Kraków in Poland to support the
Polish Uprising against Nazi Occupation.
Luftwaffe use Three B-24s were captured and then operated by the German secret operations unit
KG 200, which also tested, evaluated and sometimes clandestinely operated captured enemy aircraft during World War II. One of these was captured at Venegono, Italy, on 29 March 1944. It was used on penetration missions in RAF bomber streams at night in Luftwaffe markings. On a ferry flight from Hildesheim to Bavaria on 6 April 1945, it was shot down – by German anti-aircraft fire. Crashed B-24s were the source of the landing gear units for the strictly experimental
Junkers Ju 287 V1 first prototype jet bomber airframe in 1945.
Romanian use Following Operation Tidal Wave, it was decided to attempt the salvage of a B-24 bomber and use it for fighter-pilot training. Three B-24s were recovered:
Boiler Maker II,
Honkey Tonk Gal, and
Brewery Wagon. Of these,
Boiler Maker II was repaired in the field using parts from the other two. Initially, the glazed nose of the bomber was replaced with sheet metal. The airplane was then flown to
Brașov where it was painted in
Romanian Air Force camouflage and markings at the
IAR factory. The aircraft was handed over for operations to the airline. It was destroyed on the ground during a German raid on 26 August 1944. The regiment concerned appears to have been the 890th Bomber Aviation Regiment at Baranovichi until 1944, and then
Kazan.
Chinese use The B-24 bombers of the
308th Bombardment Group (Heavy) joined the battlefield in March 1944 as the heavy bombers of the
Fourteenth Air Force to fight against the Japanese during the
Second Sino-Japanese War (WW2 in China). About 48 B-24Ms were provided by the U.S. to the
Chinese Nationalist Air Force after WW2 and were used during the
Chinese Civil War. The
PLAAF had two B-24Ms captured from the Chinese Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War and operated until 1952.
Indian use In October 1944, two RAF Liberator squadrons (357 and 358) were deployed to
Jessore, India, in support of British SAS, American OSS and French SIS underground operations throughout South East Asia. The aircraft were stripped of most armaments to allow for fuel for up to 26-hour return flights such as Jessore to Singapore. Liberators were also used as anti-submarine patrol aircraft by RAF Coastal Command. RAF Liberators were operated as bombers from
India by
SEAC and would have been a part of
Tiger Force if the war had continued. Following the conclusion of World War II, former USAF and RAF B-24's had been deployed in
Ranchi ,
Panagarh,
Dum-Dum,
Kalaikunda,Salua,
Chabua,
Kumbhigram, and
Jorhat in India. Most Liberators were flown back to
Chakeri airbase in Kanpur, with the
RIAF was given the task of disabling the 100-strong bomber fleet left in India. Following
Indian independence and the
First Kashmir war, the newly formed
Indian Air Force was looking for heavy bombers. The sore lack of effective bombers had resulted in IAF Dakotas beign modified to drop bombs. While the USAF initially proposed sale of surplus
B-25 Mitchells, and the UK of
Lancasters,
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was contracted to study the feseability repairing the B-24 fleet. Following crude and basic repairs on the fleet, which involved substituting the engines with ones salvaged from the
C-47 Dakota and removal of undercarriage doors and some hydraulics and other systems, HAL test pilot Capt. Jamshed Kaikobad Munshi flew the bombers to HAL facilities in Bangalore for service restoration. RAF and USAF technicians also aided in the fleet restoration efforts and Crew training. In this manner the IAF obtained 42 B-24 bombers of which 39 were deployed to the
No.5 and
No.6 squadrons after engineers at HAL restored the B-24 fleet to operational capacity in 1949. In 1957, the 5th squadron converted to
English Electric Canberras and the remaining aircraft were fitted with the
ASV-15 radar within an retractable
radome in the bomb bay where the ball turret had originally been located to be used for reconnaissance and Maritime Patrol with the bomb racks removed and
Sonobuoys and
depth charges being installed. The fleet would be used on leaflet missions during
Operation Vijay and conducted reconnaissance missions during the
Sino-Indian war. They were maintainedd on high alert for use in the
1965 Indo-Pakistani war, but eventually were not used in active combat, instead patrolling the southern coasts of India. They were initially replaced by the English Electric Canberra, followed by the far smaller
Su-7 and
HF-24 fighter-bombers in service as well as the
Lockheed Constellation,
Tu-142 and
Il-38 for patrol duties. Six of the surviving 14 B-24s were obtained from the IAF upon the fleet's retirement in 1968. ==Production==