Australian Liberators

[cdxbow]

I posted a photo of my late fathers Liberator in the RAAF thread - Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates | Page 387 | Defence Forum & Military Photos - DefenceTalk Going through his things I found a picture of him in front of the tail gun and another picture he had taken of the aircrew of #75. These are from 1944-5. My artist friend sent me a picture of numbers 42, 46 and 75 flying together. I used an online AI to colorize it, but it still needs a bit on work done by hand. He also sent me the last picture which describes the various paint schemes Australian liberators used.

 

[Arclighy]

Thanks cdxbow for posting these historical pics and important memories of your late father. Crucially, the family link, in this case father and son, shows that we of other generations need to remember the courage and commitment our forebears demonstrated defending our nations. Great post!

 

[pgclift]

My father was for a time part of the Liberator ground crew. When the war ended he kept many of the Liberator maintenance manuals. These were hard cover books resembling encyclopedias which as a child I used to go through looking at the pictures with dad and he'd explain the different things.

Some 60 years later the only expression I can remember, because it seemed so strange, was something about the Shimmy Damper. But I still don't know what it does. Thanks for posting cdxbow, brought back some happy memories of time with my dad.

 

[cdxbow]

My father was for a time part of the Liberator ground crew. When the war ended he kept many of the Liberator maintenance manuals. These were hard cover books resembling encyclopedias which as a child I used to go through looking at the pictures with dad and he'd explain the different things.

Some 60 years later the only expression I can remember, because it seemed so strange, was something about the Shimmy Damper. But I still don't know what it does. Thanks for posting cdxbow, brought back some happy memories of time with my dad.

May have worked on my fathers plane. Was he in Darwin?
The 'shimmy damper' sounds like something they sent a newbie off to fix/find but doesn't actually exist.

 

[pgclift]

From memory yes plus Townsville and Moratai. It would be a nice coincidence.

 

[ngatimozart]

The Liberator was a great aircraft. My dad was in the RNZAF in the Pacific and he said that the USAAF used some of their B-24D Liberators as freighters because of the roominess of the fuselage. He got to know that very well because he was volunteered to unload them when they arrived with RNZAF stores. There was a freighter variant as well, the C-87 and a MPA variant the PBY-4A. With the PBY-4A they replaced the ventral gun turret with a centimetric ASV radar,.

 

[pussertas]

There is a Liberator being restored by a group of individuals to Museum standard in a WW2 type hanger near Werribee, Australia. The WW2 aerodrome has been subdivided into multiple homesteads so it will impossible to fly the A/C out of of its restoration hanger without a large injection of funds to remove the 'new' fences.