List of surviving Consolidated B-24 Liberators

B-24M 44-51228 painted as 450493 Dugan at the Imperial War Museum Duxford

Consolidated B-24 Survivors is a list of flying and static display B-24 Liberators and includes brief history, markings, owners, locations, and aircraft condition or status.

Background

By the time the last complete B-24M came off the Willow Run assembly line in July 1945, 18,482 Liberators had been built by the five B-24 manufacturers.

Post World War II

The B-24 was quickly declared obsolete by the USAAF and the remaining stateside aircraft were flown to desert storage in the US Southwest. In the Pacific theatre, many aircraft were simply parked, the oil drained from the engines and left for reclamation. By 1950, except for the one B-24D held for preservation, the vast fleet of Liberators were gone. The last flight of a B-24 by the USAF was on 12 May 1959 when Strawberry Bitch left Grissom Air Force Base, formerly Bunker Hill Air Force Base, Indiana following an Armed Forces Open House for the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where it is now displayed.

Lend lease

While at the end of the war both the Royal Air Force as well as the Royal Australian Air Force were willing to continue operating the B-24, the terms of the Lend-Lease agreements stipulated that these aircraft had to be either paid for or returned to the US and vast graveyards of aircraft accumulated in India as well as Tarakan, and Australia.

Other countries' needs

When India gained independence in 1947, 37 Liberators were resurrected and gave service until their retirement in 1968. It is from the Indian Air Force that the majority of the remaining B-24s owe their existence.^[1]

In 1948, when Israel was looking for aircraft, the Royal Australian Air Force was approached with the offer to purchase 25 aircraft, but since these aircraft had not been stored with long-term preservation in mind, they were neither airworthy nor economically feasible to restore to flyable condition.

In 1968 the Indian Air Force donated HE-771, stored at Poonah (Pune), to ex-RCAF pilot Lynn Garrison for inclusion in his aircraft collection. It was to be ferried back to the United States in company with the B-24 given to Strategic Air Command. Garrison was busy with Roger Corman's film Richthofen & Brown in 1970, so he turned it over to the RAF. Somehow it ended up in Kermit Weeks' museum in Florida. Weeks' goal is to resurrect the aircraft, now named Joe, to airworthy status.

Survivors

Australia

B-24M

• 44-41956 - under restoration by the Liberator Memorial Fund in Werribee, Victoria.^[2] About 2000 visitors a year come to the hangar to view the restoration in progress. Completion is expected in 2020, but it has not been confirmed that the aircraft will be airworthy at that point.

Canada

B-24L

• 44-50154 - National Aviation Museum in Rockcliffe Park, Ontario.^[3]

India

B-24J

• 44-44213 - Indian Air Force Museum in Palam Air Base, New Delhi.^[4]

Libya

B-24D

• 41-24301 Lady Be Good - in storage by the Libyan Air Force at the Jamal Abdelnasser Air Force Base in Tobruk, Libya^[5]

Papua New Guinea

B-24D

• 42-40885 - Crashed on October 18, 1943. Wreckage is situated north of Gona at 8°35'55.42"S 148°14'58.60"E.^[6]

Turkey

B-24D

• 41-24311 Hadley's Harem (nose only) - Istanbul.^[7]

United Kingdom

B-24L

• 44-50206 Liberator B.VI (formerly KN751 of the RAF and HE807 of the IAF) - RAF Museum in RAF Hendon.^[8]

B-24M

• 44-51228 Dugan - Imperial War Museum in Duxford.^[9]

United States

LB-30A Diamond Lil from the Commemorative Air Force collection.^{[N 1]}

The Collings Foundation's restored B-24J Witchcraft, October 2009.

Strawberry Bitch, formerly on outdoor display at US Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH

Airworthy

B-24A

• 40-2366 Diamond Lil (formerly Ol' 927) - Commemorative Air Force (B-24/B-29 Squadron) in Addison, Texas This B-24 is number 18 off the assembly line, and is one of a handful of surviving early-war aircraft.^[11][12] Most notable about this aircraft is that it is the only surviving "A" model of the B-24, as the "A" was critically under-armed and under-armored. From the Commemorative Air Force's page on Diamond Lil, "On a training flight from Eagles Nest Airport, N.M., prior to its delivery to England, AM-927 experienced a landing accident. The damage was major enough that the aircraft had to be returned to San Diego for repairs. The plane was deleted from the order to be shipped to England and was converted to a transport aircraft. This was to be the prototype for the C-87 transport and AM-927 served as a flying test bed for further development of important B-24 features, such as modifying the control surfaces to help with lighter control forces for the pilots. For this reason, Diamond Lil was spared from the slaughter in Europe. In 1971, she was painted in the colors of the 98th BG and given the name Diamond Lil. During 2006-2007 the aircraft was reconfigured back to her B-24A/LB-30B roots and was given the Ol 927 nose art. In April of 2012, she was renamed back to Diamond Lil. The aircraft was involved in a nose-gear collapse upon landing at Charlotte-Douglas Airport in North Carolina on 26 May 2012. Damage was minimal and none of the 16 aboard were injured.^[13] She was featured in the film Beautiful Dreamer (2006).

B-24J

• 44-44052 Witchcraft - Collings Foundation in Stow, Massachusetts. This B-24 is the most widely recognized restored example worldwide. It is the only fully authentic B-24J model that still flies. It originally flew for the RAF as a bombing and resupply aircraft at the beginning of WWII. after an extensive service debut the B-24 was transferred to the Indian Air Force to fly a similar role, by 1968 the aircraft found itself scrapped and abandoned in a field after the IAF decommissioned and retired it. It remained in this location for over a decade before an extensive recovery team led by British aircraft collector Doug Arnold located the derelict airframe in 1981, Arnold had the wreckage airlifted to England where he advertised it in "as is" condition. Shortly afterwards in 1984 the wreck was purchased by the Collings Foundation, a non-profit organization known for restoring aircraft that is based in Stow, MA. the wrecked liberator was shipped across the Atlantic to Boston, MA that year before being trucked in three separate loads to Stow, MA. although originally intended to be restored exclusively as a static display in Stow, thousands of dollars of additional funding and restoration corporations and volunteers persuaded the foundation to return the unique aircraft to airworthy status. Since it flew again for the first time on September 10, 1989 the B-24 has gone through three separate paint schemes each honoring a different squadron and theater of the war. It was first painted as "ALL AMERICAN" (1989-1998) a former 15th Air Force bomber that flew missions over Italy. it was then repainted as "the Dragon and His Tail" (1998-2005), thought to be the "most expansive" example of WW II Allied military aircraft nose art, as the original "dragon" artwork ran nearly the entire length of the fuselage sides. The third paint scheme had the B-24 repainted as "Witchcraft" (2005–Present) to honor the 8th Air Force of the European Theater in perhaps its most significant nose art of the three. Witchcraft still flies for the Collings Foundation and is currently based at New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport at the American Aero Services where it was restored, it has flown with the famous Wings of Freedom Tour since 1989 where it visits around 120 airports year round across the entire continental U.S alongside the Foundation's B-17G Flying Fortress and P-51C Mustang educating the public on the historical significance of the last airworthy B-24J ^[14][15]

On display (complete airframes)

B-24D

• 41-23908 (unnamed) - Hill Aerospace Museum at Hill AFB in Utah.^[16]
• 42-72843 Strawberry Bitch - National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.^[17]

B-24J

B-24J Louisiana Belle II at the Barksdale Global Power Museum

• 44-44175 Bungay Buckaroo - Pima Air & Space Museum adjacent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.^[18]
• 44-48781 Louisiana Belle II - Barksdale Global Power Museum at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana.^[19]

B-24M

• 44-41916 Shady Lady - Castle Air Museum at the former Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, California.^[20]

On display (partial airframes)

B-24D

• 41-11825 Hail Columbia (nose only) - Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida.^[21]
• 42-40557 Fightin' Sam (nose only) (Liberator GR.V formerly BZ755 of the RCAF) - Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.^[22] The nose on display is a re-creation belonging to the Imperial War Museum Duxford.
• 42-40461 Grumpy (nose only) is on display at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia.^[23]

Under restoration or in storage

LB-30

• AL557 - in storage at Vintage Aircraft Ltd. in Fort Collins, Colorado.^[24]

B-24J

• 44-44272 Joe - (last flown in 1997) - to airworthiness by Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida. Another former Indian Air Force aircraft that after retirement was donated to the aircraft collection of Lynn Garrison and later purchased by David Tallichett in the 1980s, The aircraft was then bought by Kermit Weeks, owner of the Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City, Florida and made air show appearances throughout The Southern U.S during the 1990s, Although reported to still be airworthy the aircraft has largely been a static display at the Museum having not flown since 1997. From then until the mid-2000s it remained open to the public in one of Fantasy of Flight's display hangars but in recent years it was towed to the Maintenance and Storage facilities behind the museum and is currently only visible to the public via tram tour. It will undergo a complete restoration before it flies again.^[25][26]

Wrecks

B-24D

• 40-2367 - wreckage is on Atka Island.^[27] This wreck is part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument

Coordinates 52.030395, -175.136921 (for best image use Bing Maps)

References

Notes

Citations

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to B-24 Liberator warbirds.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to B-24 Liberator museum aircraft.

• AAHM nose art information
• Aeroweb's B-24 Location List
• Joe Baugher B-24 Page
• Modern Replica Nose art
• Nose Art Collection
• Pacific Wreck Database (large listing of crash sites)