![]() Bomb bursts can be seen below in lower left and a ship at upper right along the beach. Boiteau took this photo of a B-24 Liberator in 1943 while a Liberator during a bombing run over Salamau, New Guinea, before its capture by Allied forces. Its bomb racks had been replaced with passenger seating.īy the start of 1942, four companies were contracted to build B-24s: Consolidated Aircraft, which was the original designer, Douglas, North American, and Ford, the only firm that was not originally an aircraft manufacturer. Winston Churchill picked an American-made B-24 to fly him to the meeting of Allied leaders at Casablanca in early 1943. I was completely amazed by its monstrous size, its four mighty engines," a pilot who flew the B-24 said upon first seeing the bomber. (Though it would be months before Ford hit its bomber-a-month production goal.) But Edsel had promised that the massive bombers would take flight in May 1942.Īfter numerous delays and production problems, Bomber Ship 01 took off from the air field adjacent to the Willow Run plant on May 15, 1942. The first piece of B-24 was completed at Willow Run two days after the attack. Bombers of the Southwest Pacific command smashed Lae, New Guinea on May 27. Two trucks carrying half-ton bombs move up to “The Eager Beaver,” a US B-24 Liberator bomber in the Southwest Pacific on May 28, 1943, in preparation for a raid against the Japanese. It can carry a bigger bomb load farther and faster, day in and day out, than any airplane that has passed the flaming test of combat."īelow, you can see how the vaunted B-24 went from prototype to the most mass-produced aircraft in history - helping carry Allied forces to victory along the way: ![]() #B 24 bomber crew listings manual"The B-24 has guts," the Army Air Force's pilot-instruction manual said. The hearty bomber saw service in all theaters of the war but played an essential role in the effort to pummel German forces in Europe. The B-24 bomber, dubbed the Liberator, would become a mainstay of that arsenal. They have to be produced by workers and managers and engineers with the aid of machines which in turn have to be built by hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the land," Roosevelt said on December 29, 1940. "Guns, planes, ships, and many other things have to be built in the factories and the arsenals of America. President Franklin Roosevelt at the commissioning of four B-24 Liberator bombers and their delivery to US-trained Yugoslavian crews, in Washington, DC, October 6, 1943. ![]()
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