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Category: Air support/WW2/Allied

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Consolidated B-24 Liberator

B-24M Liberator

Click to enlarge Consolidated B-24 Liberator
 It had ea
sily recognizable oval-shape endplate fins and rudders, and unique 'roller shutter' doors which retracted within the fuselage when opened for attack, causing less drag than conventional bomb-bay doors which opened into the slipstream.

The common perception of the Liberator is that it was less durable than the Flying Fortress, despite the fact that it was superior to its cousin in speed, range and bomb load. It had a more spacious fuselage and better adaptability.

F-7A Photographic Reconnassance Version
The 5th AF's first multi engined reconnaissance unit, the 20th Combat Mapping Squadron was equipped with converted F-7A Liberators, and deployed to New Guinea in March 1944, arriving at the beginning of the ‘blue or no blue’ color schemes. The first batch of F-7s arrived painted blue, but by late May 1944 paint stripping had commenced in earnest. Their initial batch of aircraft had all been B 24Js, which left the Consolidated factory at Fort Worth, Texas, and proceeded to the Northwest Airlines modification center at Holman Field, Saint Paul, Minnesota for conversion to F-7A specifications.

United States Navy B-24's
B-24s operating with the US Navy were known as PB4Y-1s, and those modified as transports were designated C-87s by the Army. Typical crew was ten. Crews of up to eleven men were standard on 868th Snoopers in the Pacific, with the 11th man the radar operator.

 

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Digger History:  an unofficial history of the Australian & New Zealand Armed Forces