Consolidated B-24 Liberator

By Graham M. Simons

The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was almost certainly the most versatile Second World War Bomber. Apart from its bombing role in all theaters of operation, the B-24 hauled fuel to France during the push towards Germany, carried troops, fought U-boats in the Atlantic and, probably most important of all, made a vital contribution towards winning the war in the Pacific. Its most famous single exploit is possibly the raid on the Ploesti oil fields in August 1943.The B-24 ended World War Two as the most produced Allied heavy bomber in history, and the most produced American military aircraft at over 18,000 units, thanks in large measure to Henry Ford and the harnessing of American industry. It still holds the distinction as the most produced American military aircraft. The B-24 was used by several Allied air forces and navies, and by every branch of the American armed forces during the war, attaining a distinguished war record with its operations in the Western European, Pacific, Mediterranean and China-Burma-India theaters.This book focuses on the design, engineering, development and tactical use of the many variants throughout the bombers service life. The overall result is, as David Lee, the former Deputy Director of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford said upon reading the final manuscript, to be acquainted with ...all you never knew about the B-24!The book is enlivened by the many dramatic photographs which feature, and this coupled with the clarity of Simons' prose makes for an engaging and entertaining history of this iconic Allied bomber, a key component in several of their biggest victories and a marvel of military engineering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781783035915

Graham M. Simons

Graham M. Simons is a highly regarded Aviation historian with extensive contacts within the field. He is the author of Mosquito: The Original Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (2011), B-17 The Fifteen Ton Flying Fortress (2011), and Valkyrie: The North American XB-70 (also 2011), all published by Pen and Sword Books. He lives near Peterborough.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I want to tell you from the Russian point of view, what the President and the United States have done to win the war. The most important things in this war are machines. The United States has proven that it can turn out from 8,000 to 10,000 airplanes a month. Russia can only turn out, at most, 3,000 airplanes a month. The United States, therefore, is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines, through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.

Joseph Stalin

In the late 1930s the United States of America faced the possibility of being forced into a war which was being fought by the great powers in Europe. The American aircraft industry was also facing the problem of manufacturing huge quantities of aircraft suitable for national use. The industry rose to the challenge and rallied to mass-produce thousands of aircraft. Between mid-1940 and V-J Day, the United States spent an estimated $45 billion on military aircraft. This sum was only for the cost of aircraft and engines – it did not include ordnance, government-financed factory expansions, marketing, equipment, housing for workers and other necessary expenses. In support of the strategic bombing mission, American industry mass-produced an estimated 12,761 B-17s and 18,481 B-24s.

The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was almost certainly the most versatile of all the Second World War bombers - for some reason it has also played ‘second fiddle’ to what is often perceived as the more glamorous B-17 Flying Fortress. Indeed, throughout its short operational career the Liberator was oveshadowed by its more famous comrade-in- arms, just as was the Halifax by the Lancaster and the Hurricane by the Spitfire. The B-17 ‘glory boys’ looked upon the slab-sided Liberator with disdain, referring to it as ‘the crate that ours came in’

In recent years the design and use of the B-17 has achieved an almost mythical, ‘god-like’ status through the activities of a few so-called ‘third generation veterans’ - whatever that means - who love to over-glamourise the war-horse of their ancestors. To read some authors, one would have to believe that this huge bomber sprang fully formed out of the box it was delivered in clad in more armour than a tank and carrying more guns than a battleship!

Apart from its bombing role in all theatres of operation, the B-24 hauled fuel to France during the push towards Germany, carried troops, fought the U-boat in the Atlantic and, probably most important of all, made a vital contribution towards winning the war in the Pacific. Its most famous single exploit is possibly the raid on the Ploesti oilfields in August 1943. But the B-24 was never to gain the recognition it deserved by press and public alike.

Without doubt there is a clear, strong requirement to ‘put the record straight’, using primary source documentation to record the undoubted achievements alongside and in context with the shortcomings to the type’s design and operation that have otherwise received scant attention.

This is not a book that details the many thousands of combat operations flown by incredibly brave aircrew in the European, CBI and Pacific theatres of operations - we prefer to leave that to the likes of good friend and colleague Martin W Bowman, who does a far better job at that than we could ever do!

Making any sort of attempt to sort out Liberator production and usage into some sort of chronological sequence is like trying to unravel spagetti - production was split over five manufacturing centres often producing almost identical models, but with different designations and block numbers - and that does not take into account that the aircraft were also used in different theatres around the world and were subject to work by Modification Centers and changes at Group and Squadron level!

For many years there have been endless battles as to which was ‘best’ the B-17 or the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. We decided to carefully study not only those two designs in comparison, but also to put the B-17 up against other Axis and Allied designs of the time - the results were interesting to say the least!

As David Lee, the former Deputy Director of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford said upon reading the final proofs: ‘... there is so much new to me, also amazing production and usage facts and figures. For a technical treatise on the B-24, no-one else comes close’.

Graham Simons

Peterborough UK

ORIGINS

The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1923 by Reuben H. Fleet, the result of the Gallaudet Aircraft Company’s liquidation and Fleet’s purchase of designs from the Dayton-Wright Company as the subsidiary was being closed by its parent corporation, General Motors.

Reuben Hollis Fleet was born in Montesano, Washington on 6 March 1887. His parents were David and Lillian Fleet. David Fleet was a prosperous civil engineer and property owner but lost millions of dollars in the great financial panic of 1893, David Fleet was forced to go to Alaska, resuming his work as a civil engineer, while Reuben and his sister Lillian were sent to ‘Greenmount’, a family plantation in Virginia. Upon their return, Reuben started a business raising chickens.

From 1902 to 1905, Reuben attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, which his uncle, Col. Alexander Frederick Fleet founded, after serving in the Confederate Army. At the time, Culver was considered one of the six most distinguished private military academies in the country.While at Culver, Reuben became the editor-in-chief of the school paper, the ‘Vedette’ and also its business manager, putting the paper on a self-supporting basis. He also was the captain of the debating team. A solidly built six footer, Reuben played fullback on the football team as well as the centre on the basketball team.

In 1906 Reuben became a school-teacher in Montesano, Washington. Later that year, he began working for his father in the timber business before moving into the real estate business, then entering the National Guard in 1907.

Reuben married Elizabeth Girdon on 29 April 1908, the couple having a daughter Phyllis in 1909, followed by son David Girdon Fleet, born in 1910. In 1911 he was sent to San Diego with the National Guard - then in 1914, after taking a ride in a flying boat out of Seattle, he became an aviation enthusiast.

In 1915 he won election as a Washington State Representative from the 29th district and was made the Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the House. It has been claimed that some colleagues said that if he would fly around the Capitol building for half an hour, they would support any bill that he would bring in to help aviation. The Daily Olympian reported that he had ‘...taken a spin in a hydro-aeroplane around the flagpole of the capitol and some of Olympia’s other skyscrapers,’ After which he introduced a bill to appropriate $250,000 for aviation with the Washington State National Guard. At the time this was more than the Federal government had allocated for national aviation.

e9781783035915_i0002.jpg

Reuben Hollis Fleet (b) 6 March 1887 (d)29 October 1975. He is seen here in his Major’s uniform.

On 22 March 1917 Reuben travelled to San Diego, California where he trained to become a pilot, graduating as a Junior Military Aviator with wings No. 74. During the war in Europe Fleet was the Executive Officer for Flying Training, Signal Corps Aviation Section, stationed in Washington, D.C. His commanding officer was Colonel ‘Hap’ Arnold and he crossed the Atlantic on temporary duty to learn, and later graduate from the Gosport Advanced School of Flying Instructors in England, at that time the premier school for flying training in the world.

Back in the USA, Fleet organized the first Airplane Mail Service between Washington and New York - the first flight being made by himself on 15 May 1918. The Aerial Mail Service was jointly operated by the Departments of War and Post Office. Fleet was appointed Officer-in-Charge of the Aerial Mail Service in addition to his duties as Executive Officer for Flying Training. After initial successes were marred by several deaths, Fleet successfully petitioned President Wilson personally to suspend the expansion of the air mail service to Boston until better equipment and facilities were created.

Fleet’s next assignment was as the Army Air Service’s chief aviation contracting officer, part of the Engineering Division, based at McCook Field, just outside Dayton Ohio. There he played key roles in the development of the turbocharger for aero applications and the testing of a number of other aviation innovations.

McCook became the first U.S. military aviation research and development centre. Although not expected to do any test flying, Reuben found it hard to resist climbing into the cockpit of test aircraft, especially if any equipment for which he had contracted was involved. He is quoted as saying ‘...to be able to talk intelligently and to thoroughly know what I was talking about, I had to get into the air as much as possible’.

By 1920 Reuben claimed ‘I was too engrossed in business’. The couple had drifted apart, and so Elizabeth and Reuben were divorced.

Fleet was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his service at McCook Field. With post-war budgets slashed and commissioned officers being reduced one rank, Fleet felt he had gone as far as he could in military aviation. On 30 November 1922, Fleet, his superior officer and the chief of the Power Plant Section announced to the press that they all were resigning.

Upon resigning his commission Fleet accepted a position with Gallaudet Aircraft Company as Vice President and General Manager. The Gallaudet Aircraft may have been the first aircraft factory in the USA when Edson Gallaudet in 1908 organized the first aircraft engineering office and in 1910, the Gallaudet Engineering Company started building aircraft under contract, being reorganized in 1917 as the Gallaudet Aircraft Corporation. Its first mass production craft was the 1918 production of Curtiss floatplanes. The DB-1 and DB-1B, built after the war and planned as day bombers, never reached the production stage. The company was sold to Major Reuben Fleet in 1923, when on 29 May Consolidated Aircraft Corporation came into being.

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Reuben Fleet - on the left - briefs his pilot George L Boyle before the first mail flight to New York.

e9781783035915_i0004.jpg

Consolidated PT-1 ‘Trusty’ on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force.

(USAF)

One of the first products from the new company was the TW-3 Trainer which was offered with a number of different engines, Fleet secured US Army permission to rebuild one example with a new, slimmer fuselage, providing tandem rather than side-by-side seating. This revised aircraft was generally known as the ‘Camel’ due to the hump between its two cockpits.

The ‘Camel’ may be regarded as the prototype of the Consolidated response to the USAAS’s 1924 requirement for a new primary trainer. In the early summer of 1924, the USAAS tested a prototype unofficially designated TW-8 and placed an order for 50 examples of the Consolidated Model 1 production variant for service with the designation PT-1 known as the ‘Trusty’. Other trainers soon followed, and by 1929, Consolidated Aircraft was the largest volume manufacturer of aircraft in the USA.

In 1928/9 Consolidated produced the prototype XPY-1 Admiral flying boat, designed by Isaac M. Laddon in response to a US Navy competition in the 1920s to create an aircraft capable of nonstop flights between the mainland of the United States and Panama, Alaska, and the Hawaiian Islands, but Consolidated lost the contract to the Martin aircraft company.

Isaac Machlin ‘Mac’ Laddon was an American aeronautical engineer and designer, as well as a prolific inventor. He was educated at McGill University in Montreal from 1915. He joined the U.S. Air Service Experimental and Engineering Test Center at McCook Field, Ohio in 1917, and within two years had become the chief designer for all large aircraft development. He held numerous patents in the aviation industry. He joined Consolidated Aircraft Company as Chief Engineer in 1927.

e9781783035915_i0005.jpg

The Consolidated XPY-1 Admiral flying boat.

(Consolidated Aircraft)

e9781783035915_i0006.jpg

Isaac Machlin ‘Mac’ Laddon (b. 25 December 1894, d. 14 January 1976)

Commodores, Cats and Coronados!

As a result of losing the Navy contract, Consolidated offered a passenger-carrying version of the XPY-1, which became known as the Commodore. The monoplane all-metal hull could accommodate thirty-two passengers and a crew of three. However, the full complement of passengers could only be carried on relatively short-route segments - for a 1000-mile flight, it could accommodate no more than fourteen people including the crew. Wing and tail construction consisted of metal-frame structure covered with fabric except for metal-covered leading edges.

After a first flight in 1931, a total of 14 Commodore boats were built. They were used in airline service from the United States to South America, where routes extended as far south as Buenos Aires from Miami.

From the Admiral and the Commodore Consolidated deveoped the XP2Y Ranger, which itself was developed with two-and-three engined versions, including fitting short cowled ‘Hornet’ engines placed on the wing instead of in the space between fuselage and wing.

In September 1935 Consolidated moved across the country to its new ‘Building 1’, a 247,000-square-foot continuous flow factory in San Diego, California. The reason quoted for the move was that the company experienced problems in testing the flying boats in the frigid weather of Buffalo, New York. Supposedly the location came about when Reuben Fleet asked his new wife Dorothy to choose between San Diego and Long Beach. She chose San Diego because she ‘...didn’t like those smelly oil wells’ off the coast of Long Beach!

As American dominance in the Pacific Ocean began to face competition from Japan in the 1930s, the US Navy contracted both Consolidated Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Corporation in October 1933 to build competing prototypes for a patrol flying boat. The US Navy had adopted the Consolidated P2Y and Martin P3M models for this role in 1931, but both aircraft proved to be underpowered and hampered by short ranges and low maximum payloads.

Consolidated’s XP3Y-1 design (company Model 28) was revolutionary in a number of ways. The aircraft had a parasol wing with internal bracing that allowed the wing to be a virtual cantilever, except for two small streamlined struts on each side. Stabilizing floats, retractable in flight to form streamlined wingtips, were another aerodynamic innovation, a feature licensed from the Saunders-Roe company in the United Kingdom. The two-step hull design was similar to that of the P2Y, but the Model 28 had a cantilever cruciform tail unit instead of a strut-braced twin tail. Cleaner aerodynamics gave the Model 28 better performance than earlier designs. The prototype was powered by two 825 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-54 Twin Wasp engines mounted on the wing’s leading edges. Armament comprised four 0.30 in Browning machine guns and up to 2,000 lb of bombs.

e9781783035915_i0007.jpg

Consolidated Commodore flying boat NC689M of Pan American Airways System.

(Consolidated Aircraft)

e9781783035915_i0008.jpg

The Consolidated Model 22 - the P2Y Ranger. A total of 78 were built, including one that was evaluated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service as the ‘Consolidated Navy Experimental Type C Flying-Boat’.

(Consolidated Aircraft)

The XP3Y-1 had its maiden flight on 28 March 1935, before the move from Buffalo, after which it was transferred to the US Navy for service trials. The XP3Y-1 soon proved to have significant performance improvements over contemporary patrol flying boats. The Navy requested further development in order to bring the aircraft into the category of patrol bomber, and in October 1935, the prototype was returned to Consolidated for further work, including installation of 900 hp R-1830-64 engines. For the redesignated XPBY-1, Consolidated introduced redesigned vertical tail surfaces. The XPBY-1 had its maiden flight on 19 May 1936, during which a record non-stop distance flight of 3,443 miles was achieved.

The initials ‘PBY’ was determined in accordance with the US Navy aircraft designation system of 1922; PB representing ‘Patrol Bomber’ and ‘Y’ being the code used for the aircraft’s manufacturer, Consolidated Aircraft.

The XPBY-1 was delivered to VP-11F in October 1936. The second squadron to be equipped was VP-12, which received the first of its aircraft in early 1937. The second production order was placed on 25 July 1936. Over the next three years, the PBY design was gradually developed further and successive models introduced.

e9781783035915_i0009.jpg

The new Consolidated plant in San Diego on which Reuben Fleet had painted the slogan ‘Nothing short of right is right’.

(Consolidated Aircraft)

e9781783035915_i0010.jpg

A Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina landing at Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

(Consolidated Aircraft)

After deliveries of the PBY Catalina began in 1935, the United States Navy began planning for the next generation of patrol bombers. Orders for two prototypes, the XPB2Y-1 and the Sikorsky XPBS-1, were placed in 1936; the prototype Coronado first flew in December 1937.

Trials with the XPB2Y-1 prototype revealed some stability issues, the design was finalized as the PB2Y-2, with a large cantilever wing, twin tail, and four Pratt & Whitney R-1830 radial engines. The two inner engines were fitted with four-bladed reversible pitch propellers; the outer engines had standard three-bladed feathering props.Like the PBY Catalina before it, the PB2Y’s wingtip floats retracted to reduce drag and increase range, with the floats’ buoyant hulls acting as the wingtips when retracted.

Bomber thinking.

On 8 August 1934, the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) published proposal 35-356 for a multi-engined bomber to replace the Martin B-10. Submissions were invited. The Air Corps were looking for a bomber capable of reinforcing the air forces in Hawaii, Panama, and Alaska. The competition would be decided by a ‘fly-off’ at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. After a long and tortuous process, the Boeing B-17 was born.

e9781783035915_i0011.jpg

The PB2Y Coronado clearly demonstates the evolution of Consolidated design philosophy. The long, plank-like wing that can be traced back to the Commodore - the engine positions of the Catalina that were increased from two to four and the highly distinctive tailplanes and nose area that were later used on the Liberator.

(Consolidated Aircraft)

The conception and development of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator was strongly influenced by this - Air Corps General Henry H, ‘Hap’ Arnold shared a belief prevailing in the Air Corps in the 1930s that strategic bombardment could be the unstoppable avenging angel of future wars.

The concept of strategic bombing goes back to Harold Lee George. An American aviation pioneer and an outspoken proponent of the industrial web theory, George taught at the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) and through his teachings, influenced a significant group of airmen passing through it – ones who were to have powerful influences during and after World War Two. He has been described as the leader of the so-called ‘Bomber Mafia’, a group of men who advocated an independent military arm composed of heavy bombers.

George studied aeronautics at Princeton University and learned to fly at Love Field, Texas, getting his wings on 29 March 1918. He went to France that September with an initial assignment to the 7th Aviation Instruction Center at Clermont. Two months later he was posted to the Meuse-Argonne front, piloting a bomber with the 163rd Bomb Squadron, 2nd Day Bombardment Group. In the one week that it saw action, the 163rd flew 69 sorties. George observed that massed bombers, flying in formation, swamped enemy defences and so reduced the attacker’s casualties. In France, George met William ‘Billy’ Mitchell and became convinced that Mitchell’s vision of an independent Air Force was the best future direction for the American military.

After the war, George was assigned to the 49th Bombardment Squadron at Kelly Field, Texas, where he was promoted to First Lieutenant in April 1921. He next served with the 14th Bombardment Squadron at Langley Field, Virginia, and with the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. From 1921 to 1923, George assisted Mitchell in his bombing demonstration against old battleships, and helped develop air-to-ship tactics. In August 1925, George went to Washington as chief of the Bombardment Section in the United States Army Air Corps Operations Division.

e9781783035915_i0012.jpg

Lieutenant General Harold Lee George. (b. 19 July 1893. d. 24 February 1986) seen during his latter years. George was one of America’s first proponents of daylight precision bombing by an independent air arm.

(USAF)

In July 1929, George was ordered to Hawaii for two years with the 5th Composite Group at Luke Field, serving Pearl Harbor. In September 1931, he went to Maxwell Field, Alabama, to study at the ACTS, where he helped refine the precision daylight bomber doctrine taught there. Following graduation, George became an instructor at ACTS, teaching air tactics and precision bombing doctrine and became de facto leader of the influential ‘Bomber Mafia’. With Haywood S Hansell, Laurence S Kuter and Donald Wilson, George researched, debated and finally codified what the men believed would be a war-winning strategy that Wilson had termed as the ‘industrial web theory’. This was a military concept which stated that an enemy’s industrial power could be attacked at nodes of vulnerability, and thus the enemy’s ability to wage a lengthy war could be severely limited and his morale – his will to resist – brought down.

In 1934, George was made director of the Department of Air Tactics and Strategy, and vigorously promoted the doctrine of precision bombing. It was through his directorship of ACTS, that George became known as the unofficial leader of the men in the USAAC who closed ranks and pushed exclusively toward the concept of daylight precision bombing as a strategic, war-winning doctrine using massed air fleets of heavy bombers commanded independently of naval or ground warfare needs. This concept was to influence more than a generation of thinkers within the USAAC, USAAF and even the USAF and, apart from a period when the USAAC adopted the RAF-style area bombing tactics using B-29s over Japan that cumulated in the dropping of the two atomic bombs in August 1945, continued right through to the 1970s and Linebacker II missions over Vietnam. It was also to strongly influence the designers and manufacturers of bomber aircraft.

George was promoted to Major in July 1936. He graduated from the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the following year and returned to Langley as commanding officer of the General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Corps 96th Bombardment Squadron. George flew to South America as a part of a series of USAAC goodwill flights in February 1938 and November 1939. In 1940, he took command of the 2nd Bombardment Group.

The industrial web theory was put into concrete form by the Air War Plans Division. The plan was submitted for approval to the Joint Army-Navy Board in mid-1941 as AWPD-1, standing for Air War Plans Division, plan number one. A refinement to AWPD-1 came in August 1942 after eight months of direct American involvement in World War Two. The new plan was called AWPD-42 and was submitted to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Neither AWPD-1 nor AWPD-42 were approved as combat battle plans or strategies – they were simply accepted as guidelines for the production of war materiel necessary to carry out intended or subsequent plans. Finally in 1943, a plan was hammered out in meetings between American and British war planners. The industrial web theory would be put into practical plan form with the Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO).

As Assistant to the Chief of the Air Corps beginning in December l935, General Arnold rightly preferred the B-17 over other 1935 competitors for limited Air Corps production funding - but the fledgling Fortress quickly ran foul of a US war Department strongly influenced by a defence-conservative Congress, which did not share the prevailing Air Corps vision of airpower. Even as Hap Amold’s boss, Air Corps chief General Frank Andrews lobbied for production of four engined bombers as defenders of American borders, the Army’s General Staff decided that these long-ranging bomber were offensive weapons not needed by an America proclaiming itself to be in a purely defensive posture.

Other major world powers seemingly endorsed the prevailing bias for shorter-legged bombers, and the War Department pushed aside the B-17 in favour of Douglas’ portly twin engined B-18 after Congress approved an increase in the number of aircraft the Air Corps could possess in June 1936 to a new limit of 2320 aircraft of all types. More B-18s could be built, operated, and serviced for the same amount of money, or so the argument went.

The War Department had to be mindful of the mood of Congress - and Congress in the latter part of the 1930s had to play to a public that included a vocal isolationalist element who were vehemently against the procurement of weapons other than for defence. A four-engine bomber was seen by many as an expression of aggression not purely of defence.

e9781783035915_i0013.jpg

General Henry Harley ‘Hap’ Arnold (b) 25 June 1886, (d) 15 January 1950.

(USAF)

The Munich Crisis and its effect on American policy.

For years, Adolf Hitler had pursued the goal of a Greater Germany, composed of all of the land where German peoples lived. This was expressed in terms of providing Lebensraum or ‘living space’ for the Germans. The Saar was reunited with Germany in 1935, following a plebiscite. Austria was annexed in early 1938. Once Anschluss was completed, Czechoslovakia was

Reviews for Consolidated B-24 Liberator

[Richard kaczmarek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How do you write a 500+ page book about
one aircraft ? ( See below )

The book contains MANY photos of the
various versions of the B-24 on the
production line, in flight and on the
ground to include maintenance
personnel going about their duties.

At book's beginning, the author stated
he would NOT cover the plane's "operations"
but he did to a moderate extent. Who
named it "Liberator" ?

B-24s were produced in a staggering amount of
versions XB-24 to B-24Q to include trainers,
cargo and tanker versions, photo recon and
87 reconfigured to drop "agents" into Europe.
A version of it served with the US Navy as the
Privateer.

Why so long ?

Beyond page 400 there are :
A copy of B-24 Flight Manual;
A comparison of B-24 with other Allied
and enemy bombers;
A list of Air Force units and other countries
that used the B-24;
A glossary of terms;
An index - WITHOUT pages numbers.

It was interesting but took a long time to complete.