![]() A large chunk of that total consisted of B-24s of the Eighth Air Force. Ten thousand American bombers fell in battle during World War 2. Boeing’s leaner, slender B-17 Flying Fortress stole the show from the higher-flying, farther-reaching B-24 Liberator, leaving crews of the latter aircraft to feel that they were forever in the shadow of what they often called, simply, the ‘other bomber’ ( via Norman Taylor) CONDITIONS IN EUROPE This pre-war giant eventually ended up in Panama, redesignated as the XC-105 cargo aircraft. The Boeing XB-15 (35-227), seen here, and the Douglas XB-19, were two that proved exceedingly valuable as test ships, but never saw combat. Long before Pearl Harbor, the United States was working hard to design, build and test four-engined bombers with ocean-spanning ‘legs’. This rare aerial portrait depicts the first XB-24 prototype (39-556, later serialled 39-680) on an early test flight out of Consolidated’s plant in San Diego, California ( San Diego Aerospace Museum) In Europe, the strength and durability of the Liberator, and its ability to carry a huge bombload and to shoot back, were all pluses in the campaign waged by the Eighth Air Force. It was always in the shadow of the prettier, but ‘shorter-legged’, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, even after it had become the most numerous military aircraft ever manufactured in the United States. ![]() The Consolidated B-24 Liberator never won the acclaim crews felt it deserved. ![]() The turret-equipped B-24H model, appeared on 30 June 1943, followed by the B-24J, L and M, which had full gun armament, including nose turret. Next came nine B-24Cs, none of which saw combat, and the B-24D which fought everywhere. In March 1939 the US Army ordered seven YB-24 service-test bombers with turbo-superchargers for high-altitude flight. As for the XB-24, it was powered by Pratt & Whitney R-1830-33 engines rated at 1100 hp. With war already underway in Europe, the LB-30 export Liberator came ahead of US versions, and contributed to their development. The prototype XB-24, which the manufacturer dubbed the Model 32, shined in natural metal when completed its first flight, from San Diego, on 28 December 1939. Although the president of Consolidated, Reuben H Fleet, was sceptical, wind tunnel tests showed that Davis’ slender wing with sharp camber provided superior ‘lift’. This great bomber owed its strength and success to a unique wing sold to Consolidated in 1937 by a near-destitute inventor by the name of David R Davis. The Consolidated B-24 Liberator (by other names the LB-30, F-7, C-87, C-109 and PB4Y-1) never got the press it warranted, nor did the veterans who maintained and flew it. Never mind that it was manufactured in greater numbers than any other US warplane of any era, the sum being 19,256 of all variants. Never mind that it was assembled in five factories (Consolidated at San Diego, California, and Fort Worth, Texas Ford in Willow Run, Michigan Douglas in Tulsa, Oklahoma and North American in Dallas, Texas). In contrast, the B-24 – despite its numbers, its performance and its contribution – remains forever unknown to all except the cognoscenti. Studies show that the B-17 Flying Fortress is one of the ‘most recognised’ names in aviation where the general public is concerned, right up there with the Boeing B747 and the Supermarine Spitfire. To add insult to injury, Liberator crew members lived forever in the shadow of what they mockingly called ‘TOB’, or ‘that other bomber’. It was a horror chamber – their situation, because of its constancy and repetition, in many ways more gruelling than the lot of any ground infantryman. When it was all over, and there was no going back to change any part of what had happened, Americans who fought over the continent in the Liberator wondered how in God’s name they had endured the sub-zero cold, flak, fighters and the fickle cruelties of modern industrial warfare which gave the average crewman, according to one official estimate, only a 70-30 chance of coming out alive. ![]()
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