The B24 – in Great Britain called “Liberator” - was
the successor of the B17, and before appearance of the B29 the most
effective bomber of the US-Army-Air-Force – in view of range and
cargo.  The
planes were built by Consolidated at San Diego and Fort Worth, by Ford
at Willow Run, by Douglas at Tulsa and by North American at Dallas. The
Liberator was conceived in January 1939, when General "Hap" Arnold
invites Consolidated to design a B17-Flying Fortress' successor. The
first flight of the prototype was at 29th December 1939. The US-Army
and US-Navy ordered 43 planes for evaluation, otherwise Great Britain
orders 284 aircraft for their Bomber Command. The first produced
Liberators pioneered the Sout Atlantic ferry route. After the japansese
attack in Pearl Harbour, the production of B24 was intensified
enormous. In the middle of 1942 a lot of B24 attacking the oil-fields
at Ploesti/Rumania from the Middle East. The 8. Airforce was fighting
against the german "Afrika-Korps". After occupation of Sicilia and
South-Italy the bombing-raids towards the heart at Germany was openend.
Over all 18.482 Liberators was build in any versions, but in 1951 only
1 (ONE!) of these aircraft was visible in US-Air-Force-Inventory.
The plane, I wants to represent was “Ship 27” of the 765 th
Bomber Squadron, 461 st Bomber Group, 49 th Bombardment Wing, 15 th Air
Force, stationed at Torretto/Italy. Unfortunatly there was two Ship 27
in this squadron, the “Betty Jean” (Serial No. 42-78606)
since 3 rd Aug. 1944 (transferred to 451st BG) and the “You
Bet!” (Serial No. 44-10557) since 19 th Dec. 1944 (ex 8 th Air
Force) ……. So my model takes two nose-arts and serial
numbers.
All two aircraft was veterans of the most essential and difficult
raids, the 15th Airforce have flown, like the attacks against Vienna
(Railyards, Danube-harbour and oil/petrol-stock), Linz
(steel-industry), Sankt Valentin (Tanks-production), Moosbierbaum
(refinery for flight-petrol), Strasshof (main-railyard for the eastern
front), and so on.
The "You Bet!" has alived the war and was flown back to the United
Staates on 15th June 1945 by Vahl Vladyka. For the destiny of "Betty
Jean" I have no facts, but I hope, that she has alived too.
I have used the old Monogram-Kit – let’s forget to talk
about modern demands….. – and had a lot to do with sanding
and putting. From the beginning, I tried to build the interior as
reliable as possible – never I will do so again ……
All interior is scratch-build, a work for 3 months.
For producing the interior I used all, that I was able to became in my
fingers ..... Oxygen-tanks was built from old drugs, transistors also
was used for smaller containers, the remains-box was plundered, from
wire the inner-structurs of the turrets was built ..... Most time the
answer for the question: " How I can build this?" needs dual-time, like
building them.
For diorama I have used a wood plate, gravels and earths from
model-railways; the short fence was made from moskito-grate. The
vehicles was kits from Revell (Caterpillar), Verlinden (Jeeps) and
Formatex (Dodge WC54).
The figures was from Verlinden, ICM and Revell.
Conclusion
B24: A pretty and favourable kit, for beginners and advanced modellers.
The whole kit, also the details in style of the seventies of the least
century; today no longer top.
Dodge: A very good resin-kit from the hungarian manufacturer "Formatex" , there was no problems in building.
Jeeps: Verlinden - no more words necessary ...
Caterpillar: Hm - Monogram and old ...... a lot of things was to do, to bring him into a good result......
With modellers best wishes
Wolfgang Strassmayer
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