The Liberator in Royal Airforce and Commonwealth Service

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"The Liberator in Royal Air Force & Commonwealth Service "
I have just aquired this book by James D Oughton, with John Hamlin & Andrew Thomas .
An Air-Britain publication ISBN 0 85130 362 5

It has [supposedly] the serial numbers of all the WW2 B-24 Liberators in RAF & Commonwealth service & short paragraph on each one .I expect many people have this book but if anyone wants a Lib. looked up let me know .

Anne

[Vitesse]

One of Jim Fail's articles mentions that KN 768 had its undercarriage collapse when attempting to take off from Dorval on a ferry flight to India. He dates this to June 30th (1945?) This incident would fit in with my memory of something my late father described: but not the date, since he would probably have flown out of Dorval some time in April or May - he joined his squadron (358) on May 27th 1945.

As I recall, they had a similar problem at Dorval, although with less disastrous results, the plane being - obviously - unflyable afterwards and they had to wait until another Lib was flown in from Willow Run, resuming their journey to India a few days later. Pilot(s) would have been F/O Husband and/or F/O Wilson.

Is it possible to identify which planes they might have been using from Oughton's book? I assume they'd have arrived at Bamrauli by mid-May at the latest. The 358 Form 540 records that they were flown into Jessore from Poona on two Libs to replace time-expired crews, but I don't know how long they'd been there.

KL 632 is also mentioned as having been "left" at Dorval and later flown to England after repairs - could this be the one? Or is it more complicated than that?

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Vitesse
As in the book--
I hope you can work out the initials & abbreviations ? I had to look up some of them.

KN768 -BV111;ex 44-50073;MCn46-30 ;allocated to india but on takeoff from Dorval on delivery flight by 6FU undercarriage retracted prematurely ,one propellor hit runwayand flew off ,engine cut and aircraft crashed ;SOC 2.7.45 [this is the date given ,not 30/6 but close !]

KL632 -B.V1 ;ex 44-49804;MCn43-24 ;left Dorval for ME 4.5.45;engine failure led to forced landing ;complete engine change by 20.5.45 ;retd to USA for experimental work 12.6.45 retd to Dorval 23.8.45 fitted with SCA.51 [ILS] and Sperry A-12 Gyropilot ;to UK; SAL Prestwick ;RAE 6.3.46 ;to MoS change 1.4.46 ;experimental work on ILSby TFU ,leading to automatic landing trials ;A&AEE 5.6.46 ;BOAC Development Unit Hurn 28.6.46 retd to A&AEE working with BOAC ,18.12.46 ;to Nairobi 19.12.46 ,retd 2.47 ;handed back to BOAC 20.2.47 ;automatic approach and ILS trial demonstrations at Prestwick 4.5.47 .also at Heathrow 16.5.47 19.5.47 and 6.647 ;various Transport Command demonstrations 6 MU 1.8.47 ;SOC 16.11.47.

There are photos of KL632 on p236 -at London airport [Heathrow] where it gave demonstrations of ILS approaches 16-19 May & 6 June 1947 & on P234 in flight

Anne

[Vitesse]

Marvellous! Many thanks for the quick response. From that, it looks like KL 632 was very likely the plane I was looking for. Timescale fits anyway.

Presumably the records of 6FU exist somewhere - that's probably the only way I can double-check this.