The Privateer was a heavily armed (6-twin .50 cal. machine gun turrets) four-engine, long range, land-based, patrol bomber developed from the famous B-24/PB4Y-1 Liberator. It was responsible for sinking over 550 Japanese ships and shooting down almost 50 enemy aircraft. It usually operated alone but sometimes with a second Privateer on its missions lasting up to 11-12 hours at a time.
This is a revised and expanded second edition that examines United States Navy patrol and bombing squadrons equipped with the Consolidated B-24 Liberator (PB4Y-1) and its successor, the Consolidated-Vultee PB4Y-2 Privateer. The author's previous book, We Flew Alone, discussed the Navy's use of the B-24 Liberator from February 1943 to September 1944. He now examines in dramatic detail the use of the B-24 and PB4Y-2 during the last eleven months of the war against Japan. The author has collected personal stories, over 300 images, a tabulation of all aerial kills credited to PB4Y patrol plane commanders, a roster of all personnel killed in action or in the line of duty, individual squadron records, and a list of all known B-24 Liberators and PB4Y-2 Privateers assigned to the Pacific between 1943 and 1945.
Introduces the different kinds of bombers used during World War Two, their capabilities, the kinds of missions on which they were sent, and any special characteristics. Also discusses what some of the airplanes were used for after World War 2.
The Reluctant Raiders is perhaps the most documented and researched book on a United States Navy land-based squadron flying the PB4Y-1 Liberator and PB4Y-2 Privateer. The final result of five years of research, the book traces the squadron's history from its commissioning in August 1943, to the final days of World War II, including: never before published combat and nose art photography; the squadron's tactical organization; a chronology of each combat aircrew's mission record; personnel killed in action; and an appendix containing Japanese shipping and aircraft destroyed or damaged by the squadron
This revised and expanded second edition covers USN and USMC squadrons that operated the Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber as the PB4Y-1 in the Pacific from early 1943 through September 1944 in the Central Pacific. Combat air crews consisted of eleven young men typically ages 18 to 26 led by a patrol plane commander in his early to mid-twenties. They flew alone on single-plane patrols often lasting ten or more hours. Alone on patrol there were no witnesses when an aircraft failed to return to base; they simply vanished, leaving little if any clues about their fate. Other aircrews sent to look for the missing would occasionally spot a deflated life raft floating or dye marker spreading across the water--evidence marking where a four-engine bomber and its crew had gone down.
Alan Careys new book, his fifth on USN and USMC bomber units of the Second World War, is the story of U.S. Navy Fleet Air Wing Seven (FAW-7) and the men who flew the Navy version of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber out of Dunkeswell and Upottery, England during World War II. Navy PB4Y-1 Liberator squadrons were unlike their counterparts in the U.S. Armys 8th Air Force, who battled their way through thick flak and swarms of German fighters while flying to and from targets in continental Europe. The job of U.S. Navy PB4Y-1 Liberator aircrews was to keep German U-boats from successfully operating in the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel by going out day after day, often in miserable weather conditions, on unrelenting search and destroy missions. During the war, FAW-7 Liberators were responsible for the sinking of five U-boats and damaging many more.
With their stout airframes, innovative airbrakes and near-vertical dive capabilities, U.S. Navy torpedo and dive bombers rendered Japanese deck gunners nearly defenseless and played a crucial role in Allied victory. Remarkable period color photography and quotes and anecdotes from pilots and crewmembers relate the stories behind Navy dive bombers. Included in the collection are the legendary SBD ("Slow But Deadly") Dauntless, SBC Helldiver, TBD Devastator and TBF and TBM Avengers. In addition to depicting the aircraft, photos show American airmen testing and training, while first-person accounts tell of missions against Japanese vessels.
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was almost certainly the most versatile Second World War Bomber. Apart from its bombing role in all theaters of operation, the B-24 hauled fuel to France during the push towards Germany, carried troops, fought U-boats in the Atlantic and, probably most important of all, made a vital contribution towards winning the war in the Pacific. Its most famous single exploit is possibly the raid on the Ploesti oil fields in August 1943.The B-24 ended World War Two as the most produced Allied heavy bomber in history, and the most produced American military aircraft at over 18,000 units, thanks in large measure to Henry Ford and the harnessing of American industry. It still holds the distinction as the most produced American military aircraft. The B-24 was used by several Allied air forces and navies, and by every branch of the American armed forces during the war, attaining a distinguished war record with its operations in the Western European, Pacific, Mediterranean and China-Burma-India theaters.This book focuses on the design, engineering, development and tactical use of the many variants throughout the bombers service life. The overall result is, as David Lee, the former Deputy Director of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford said upon reading the final manuscript, to be acquainted with ...all you never knew about the B-24!The book is enlivened by the many dramatic photographs which feature, and this coupled with the clarity of Simons' prose makes for an engaging and entertaining history of this iconic Allied bomber, a key component in several of their biggest victories and a marvel of military engineering.
When we think about World War II bombers, we picture formations of scores of bombers, escorted and protected by fighters, flying into enemy territory and bombing the hell out of the enemy. In Europe and usually the Pacific, this was the standard approach, but some bomber squadrons flew a different kind of mission. This was the case for VPB-117 – the Blue Raiders – unique not only because its B-24 Liberators flew for the U.S. Navy and not the Army, but also because most of the Raiders’ missions entailed bombers venturing out over the Pacific, alone, to seek and destroy on long-range missions of a thousand miles out and a thousand back, often at altitudes close enough for sea spray to cloud their windows. This is their story.
