The most produced Bomber in history had a bad reputation | B-24 Liberator

at the start of 1939 the United States Army Air corps wanted more of its favorite aircraft the B-17 Flying Fortress the development of heavy bombers in the 1930s had led American commanders to adopt a doctrine of high altitude Precision bombing that was intended to maximize Devastation they believed aerial bombardment was a war-winning tool and with conflict looming on the horizon they needed more aircraft so the U.S Army Air corps approach Consolidated with a request to build the B-17 under license Consolidated took one look at the aircraft and decided they could do better they responded with a proposal for a new aircraft which would fly faster higher further and carry more bombs the U.S Army Air corps could hardly refuse and the Prototype took flight in December 1939 named for its intended role in the water calm the aircraft would play a key part in America's bombing effort around the world becoming the most produced military aircraft of all time the B-24 Liberator [Music] foreign foreign in the 1930s Consolidated was known more for making flying boats than bombers and their counter-offer to the U.S Army Air corps took full advantage of signature seaplane features to land or water a plane's critical flight components like the wings tail and engines need to be kept High while the fuselage needs to be deep and buoyant to help the aircraft float these concepts are all visible in the B-24 Consolidated repurpose the big boxy fuselage into a Bombay which could take a huge bomb load of up to 8 000 pounds the Bombay doors also opened up by Rolling inside the aircraft which reduced Dragon flight the high shoulder mounted Wings also increase the capacity of the bomb load and the speed of the aircraft the design was the brainchild of Consolidated engineer David Davis who invented a laminar airfoil a wing where the air flows smoothly over the surface without generating turbulence and this was before the science of laminar flow was fully understood the design of the Davis Wing was long and narrow which generated less drag and more speed and lift it was also unusually thick particularly on its Leading Edge being designed to support the liberators four engines and carry their fuel though a flying boat was the starting point for its design The Liberator proved truly terrible at landing on water the aircraft was so prone to sinking that crew survival rates after ditching were worryingly low British and American forces both attempted to solve this problem with some success by reinforcing the Bombay but concluded only a complete redesign would make the B-24 less sinkable the first b-24s were not flown by the Americans but by the British already at war with Germany and wanting to strengthen their bomber forces Britain and France placed orders for the B-24 before the Prototype was even completed but France had surrendered by the time the production run was complete so their order was transferred to the RAF who received the first models in March 1941. the B-24 was designed to be a heavy bomber but its deep fuselage and long range lent itself to adaptation to other roles the RAF used its first liberators to transport Pilots between the US and the UK but adapted its next allocation for use by RAF Coastal command as an island nation Britain needed supplies from the U.S and its Empire to support the war effort but shipping was threatened by German U-boats which could operate beyond the range of aircraft in an area known as the Mid-Atlantic Gap the modified very long-range liberators were the first RAF aircraft with the range to protect convoys crossing the Atlantic fitted with U-Boat detecting radar and the ability to launch the prize air attacks The vlr Liberator could hunt for German submarines trying to starve the UK personal aircraft fly at relatively low altitudes usually between a thousand and 1500 feet bombing level is normally 50 feet the depth charges are aimed so as to straddle the U-boat the lethal range is 19 feet and they are set to explode at a 25-foot depth we didn't get many liberators in fact we started with about four Americans were so niggly they wouldn't let us have any more but eventually we got up to 10. quadrant became operational at the end of 41. and from then until early in 43 we were the only long range blr which is very long range Liberator Squadron in the Royal Air Force the arrival of these aircraft and increasing numbers helped the Allies to close the Mid-Atlantic Gap and minimize the U-Boat Threat by 1943 the battle of the Atlantic was all but won after the U.S joined the second world war in December of 1941 American liberators began to see service around the world the 44th Bomb Group equipped with B-24 liberators were the first to arrive in Britain in September 1942 they would form a key part of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany alongside the B-17 Flying Fortress the B-24 Liberator was flown from British North African and later Italian bases to bomb industrial military and economic Targets in german-occupied Europe statistically speaking it was one of the most dangerous postings of the second World War the most famous B-24 raid of the second world war took place on the 1st of August 1943 Operation tidal wave a force of 177 liberators set out from bases in North Africa to bomb axis oil refineries in poeste Romania Nazi Germany was already short on fuel and the US Army Air Force is believed that by destroying poesti they could severely weaken their enemies however the operation proved to be a resounding failure and one of the bloodiest Allied Air Raids of the whole War 53 liberators were lost around 660 Airmen were killed captured or interned and there was ultimately no impact on oil production the B-24 served in huge numbers by the summer of 1944 almost half of the US Army Air Force's bomber strength in Europe was made up of b-24s with many serving under the 15th Air Force in Italy and the second air division of the Eighth Air Force in Britain the Allies ability to produce and maintain equipment in huge quantities was vitally important to their eventual victory the B-24 built up five plants across the U.S serves as an excellent example of this the largest Factory the Mile Long Ford production line at Willow Run in Detroit in total around 19 000 liberators were built between 1940 and 1945. the most of any bomber ever around a third of those including the one behind me were built at Willow Run given its service history the B-24 Liberator should have emerged as one of the most successful and famous bombers of its day but ultimately with its boxy appearance it was never quite as popular as the more streamlined B-17 while it could fly faster further and with a greater bomb load the Liberator was more difficult to control and gained a reputation as a dangerous aircraft well I've never seen an airplane as big as that before and four very powerful engines to very impressive Lookout with a twin twin tail it was quite different from the Flying Fortress it was more difficult to fly and was heavier on the controls in 1943 the aircraft became known as the so-called problem plane because of how frequently it was involved in accidents during training we can attribute this problem more to inexperienced pilots and insufficient training rather than the Liberator itself as the overall accident rate proved to be very similar to that of the B-17 B-24 accidents did however lead to more fatalities than these 17 ones both in training and in battle there was a belief that the B-17 could withstand greater battle damage in combat than the B-24 while this claim is hard to prove there is certainly more photographic evidence of b-17s that managed to limp home with extreme battle damage as well as many dramatic images a stricken b-24s exploding in mid-air what perhaps is more likely is that the B-17 was more escapable Escape hatches on both aircrafts were in roughly the same place but with the radio operator engineer and two pilots crowded into the flight deck these crewmen had to squeeze past each other to get in and out of the aircraft through the Bombay creating a bottleneck in the B-24 which just didn't exist in the B-17 design also made a difference the lower mounted wing on a B-17 helped the fuselage to absorb the shock of a crash landing while the shoulder-mounted Davis swing on the B-24 placed a lot of weight on the fuselage which in a heavy Landing caused it to crumple there are instances when Pilots manage to land their Liberator only for them to be killed and crashed by the top turret Landing upon them overall for the bomber Crews tasked with flying either aircraft in combat during the second world war there was not much notable difference in terms of safety or survivability like in a B-17 Flying conditions inside a B-24 were cramped cold and noisy while the aircraft itself offered little protection from enemy flat from fire the life expectancy of a bomber crewman was determined more by when their mission was taking place especially the availability of long-range fighter escorts and whether the Allies had achieved aerial superiority at the time more than the type of bomber that they were flying in ultimately neither the B-17 nor the B-24 proved up to the task of delivering Victory through aerial bombardment alone and thousands of men lost their lives in the Skies over Europe executing the flawed doctrine of strategic bombardment when the second world war ended the B-24 was considered Surplus to requirements by the U.S Army Air Forces outclassed by faster heavier nuclear-capable bombers like the B-29 super Fortress B-24 liberators were scrapped in large numbers this aircraft is one of only 13 surviving B-24 airframes it was used for scientific research until 1956 then spent 43 years on the edge of the parade ground at Lapland Air Force Base in Texas iwm disassembled this aircraft and shipped it to Duxford in 1999 where it was restored externally and has been on display in the American Air Museum since 2001. most B-24 survivors however owe their existence to the Indian Air Force which was the last military force to fly the B-24 Liberator at the end of the war the U.S left around 70 b-24s to the Raf in India who disabled them and dumped them at camper Airfield when war broke out between the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan in 1947. the Indian Air Force recovered and restored around 50 of these aircraft to Flying condition they kept them in operation through repair and Salvage until 1968. the B24 has largely been forgotten compared to the fame of the B-17 but it can lay claim to most the accolades the B-17 is now remembered for including the famous Memphis Belle it was actually a B-24 Liberator called hot stuff that was the first aircraft to complete 25 combat missions over Nazi occupied Europe and it achieved this fee in February 1943 three and a half months before the Memphis Bell unfortunately Hot Stuff crashed in Iceland on its return flight to the U.S killing 14 of the 15 men on board the U.S war department decided Memphis Belle should therefore be celebrated as the first aircraft to survive 25 missions despite its appearance and reputation the B-24 was a Cornerstone of Allied victory during the second world war and its exploits and Crews should not be forgotten

Channel: Imperial War Museums

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Id: 2jyplIo_yN0

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023