Existing comment:
Alternative Uses:
In addition to its primary role as a long-range strategic bomber, the B-24 was useful in several other capacities.
Maritime Reconnaissance -- The Navy acquired the B-24 through a deal cut with the USAAF in 1942. Anxious to acquire a long-range, land-based heavy maritime reconnaissance and patrol aircraft capable of carrying a substantial bomb load, the Navy had to overcome USAAF resistance to what it perceived as an encroachment into its jealously guarded land-based bomber program. The Air Force, however, needed a plant to manufacture its next generation of heavy bombers, the B-29 Superfortress. The Navy owned a plant at Renton, Washington then operated by Boeing for the manufacture of the PBB-1 Sea Ranger twin-engine patrol flying boat. The Army proposed that the Navy cancel the Sea Ranger program and turn over the Renton factory to them for B-29 production. In exchange, the USAAF would get out of the antisubmarine warfare business and would drop its objections to the Navy's operation of land-based bombers.
The Navy got "navalized" B-24 Liberators, B-25 Mitchells, and B-34/B-37 Venturas for use in maritime reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare. Naval B-24s were designated PB4Y-1. Five squadrons of PB4Y-1s were used as photographic reconnaissance. After the war, Navy Liberators continued to operate into the early 1950s. A number of Navy Liberators were modified for reconnaissance duties as PB4Y-1Ps and served until 1950 with patrol squadrons VP-61 and VP-62. Squadron VP-61 was based out of Miramar MCAS here in San Diego and between 1947 and 1949, it carried out an extensive photographic mapping survey of Alaska. |