Is this a true statement about the B24?

[Nick Beale]

"111 were more than enough to close the Air Gap"

Slessor certainly ought to have known but I'd like to know his underlying calculations. Presumably we're talking about round-the-clock operations and so you'd need the serviceability rate achievable in that context; % of strength devoted to training/conversion; estimated attrition per 100 sorties; transit times to and from the gap itself and so on. So given an initial strength of 100, I wonder how many aircraft could have been maintained over the gap on patrol at any given time and how effective that would have been (obviously better than nothing) given the square mileage of ocean concerned and how much of that was visible (to the eye or to radar) from each aircraft at any one time.

[tcolvin]

Yes Bill. I can give you a quote for every statement made. I do not make things up. It was either in Offley: Turning The Tide or in Syrett: The Defeat Of The German U-boats. Both books are available online in reply to a Google search of 'Atlantic Air Gap B24 Liberator", or words to that effect. I must go as its an early start for me to get the ferry. I'm really sorry to leave a discussion I've started for a week - it's not my style. I'll be back. Tony

[Alex Smart]

Hello Tony,
Thank you for your reply.
It does clear up the points of your arguement on the Use or rather non-ues of the early B-24's in RAF use.
However, if you would look at the answer I gave, I did (I thought) make it clear that 86 a/c went to the RAF and that 25 a/c (AL642 to AL667) were not built and also that 54 a/c were retained in the USA. Total 165 a/c.
That is (25 + 54) a total of 79 a/c that can be struck off the total number of 165 a/c.
79 + 86 = 165 a/c.
The breakdown of the 86 a/c was as follows:
1 - AL596 crashed in the USA.
5 - AL530;566;574;577 & 569 went to the MAAF(Mediterranean Allied Air Forces) AL569 crashed in Africa on Nov 25th 1941.
11 - went to 45 Group(Canada) and became Transport a/c.
86 - 17 = 69 a/c
This brought the number down to 69 a/c that might have been in the on RAF Squadron strength and serviceable at some date in the time frame you have suggested.
But remember deliveries were from September 1941 and not all were delivered until at least May 1942.
Also while in RAF squadron use things happened such as the following which brought down the number even more.
1 -AL504 set aside for Churchill.
2 -AL505 DBR Boscombe Down Aug 42.
3 -AL509 DBR Aqir, Aug 42.
4 -AL511 Missing Tripoli May 42.
5 -AL513 Forcelande in Spain Dec 42.
6 -AL516 crashed into sea off Gibraltar Oct 42.
7 -AL519 flew into hill Ballykelly Nov 42.
8 -AL520 Flew into hill in Transjordan Dec 42.
9 -AL531 crashed in Karachi Nov 42.
10 -AL534 Missing Benghazi July 42.
11 -AL537 Shot down Tobruk Aug 42.
12 -AL538 DBR near Lyneham Oct 42.
13 -AL542 Heliopolis heavy landing not repaired July 42.
14 -AL546 Wing collapsed abandoned over Dorset Mar 42.
15 -AL548 Missing (Maleme) Oct 42.
16 -AL549 DBR Polebrook Apl 42.
17 -AL552 Heavy landing Fayid Jul 42.
18 -AL553 SOC Jul 42.
19 -AL554 Out of fuel forcelanded Palestine Jul 42.
20 -AL556 Hit obstruction landing Thruxton Jan 42.
21 -AL558 flew into a hill in May 42.
22 -AL562 caught fire and went into sea off Burrow Head.
23 -AL566 was shot down Benghazi July 42
24 -AL574 was DBR caught fire in Egypt in Feb 42.
25 -AL577 was desroyed in Eire in June 42.
26 -AL588 lost its tail and crashed in Aug 42.
27 -AL595 flew into the ground at night in Nov 42.
28 -AL624 flew into a hill in Scotland in Sept 42.

69-28 = 41a/c

So by the end of 1942 there may only have been 41 a/c in RAF service and some of those may not have been serviceable.
By US standards I expect not even one squadron in a/c strength.
But other later B-24 models were on stream by then.

Best wishes to you ALL for a great New Year.

In the end I agree with both Graham and Bill in this but I appreciate your input that highlights the issues raised.

Alex

[Bill Walker]

Tony, you might be interested in reading original sources rather than popular histories. From the USN post war analysis, what closed the mid ocean gap was short range carrier based aircraft, not long range aircraft. Take a look at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/...-51/ASW-6.html . Some interesting statistics here, from 1944 when the mid ocean gap was shut down.

Carrier based aircraft in mid 1944 made one sub sighting every 600 flying hours. 60 out of 68 sightings resulted in attacks (88.2 %). 40% of attacks resulted in a sinking. In other words, one sinking for every 600/.882/.4 = 1700 flight hours.

This is short range aircraft, with 1944 radar and searchlights, launched in response to nearby sub sightings. How can we reasonably expect a 1941 long range land based patrol aircraft, with lengthy transit times, to sink subs at 10 times this rate (according to your numbers)?

This same document has some interesting words for the British intiated practice of standing patrols over the Bay of Biscay in 1943:

"Allied antisubmarine forces inflicted the greatest damage on the enemy in the Bay of Biscay and its approaches as 14 U-boats were sunk in the Biscay-Channel Area and another six in the Gibraltar-Morocco Area. Although aircraft crews had to face the increased antiaircraft fire of surfaced U-boats proceeding in formation during the daytime, this presented them with a large proportion of Class A targets and over 25 per cent of the attacks resulted in the sinking of the U-boat. The crowning success of the month occurred on July 30 when a whole group of three outward bound U-boats was sunk, two by Coastal Command aircraft and the third by the Second Escort Group."

"
Four additional U-boats were sunk in the Bay of Biscay by Coastal Command aircraft during the first two days of August, and the U-boats were forced to change their tactics in making the transit of the Bay. They reverted to surfacing at night for the minimum time necessary for the charging of batteries and, in addition, hugged the coast of Spain to get as far as possible from Allied air bases."

The same source discusses the North atlantic sub battle in earlier years. Start at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/...-51/ASW-1.html , and read through to ...-7.html. The mid ocean gap was only one relatively small part of the total war in the North Atlantic. Closing the mid ocean gap earlier in the war could only have been done by moving resources from other tasks. Like your lengthy discussions of the land war in Germany late in the war, you keep suggesting one fix for one problem that could have lost the war for the Allies because of moving of resources from other problems. It ain't that easy.

[tcolvin]

Going for the boat now. Alex: Slessor said that 100 maximum would close the gap, and probably fewer would have sufficed. Perhaps 86 was that number. If the RAF had been more insistent, perhaps the USAAF might have been shamed into giving them more - they were after all an RAF order. But the B24 was not suitable for night bombing, so the RAF's interest was minimal. Bill: the heavy losses of submarines in the Bay of Biscay due to the RAF wa a temporary aberration by the Kriegsmarine deciding to stay on the surface and fight it out in the Bay. When they stopped that suicidal course of action, sub losses fell away significantly. The effect of an aircraft overhead a convoy was extraordinary. U-boats seen in the distance manoeuvering disappeared and the RAF was cheered to the gunwales. A U-boat on the surface made 17 knots, while one submerged was lucky to make 3 knots and only for a short period. Their effectiveness disappeared when aircraft were about. The RN were at fault for not putting escort carriers on until 1943 and messing about with flying Swordfish off grain carriers, but the single most effective means of neutering the Wolf packs was the B24, and that could have been done in 1942. I'm not sure what your beef is, apart from a need to justify the RAF's tunnel vision. Of course there were many aspects to the complete destruction of Doenitz' fleet: HuffDuff, Enigma, Escort carriers, and the B24! Tony

[Kutscha]

The RN were at fault for not putting escort carriers on until 1943

Where were these escort carriers to come from?

[Juha]

Hello Kutcha
yes, Tony has again problems with facts, the first US made RN escort carriers were commisioned in early 1942, but were mechanically unreliable, so their effectiveness was at first impaired, look e.g. the service history of HMS Archer.

Juha

[Bill Walker]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

Where were these escort carriers to come from?

Easy, just cancel the B-24 program. It never did anything but deliver Churchill's silk underwear anyway.

[Rainer]

Tony, even if the Coastal Command would have had 100 VLR Liberators in mid-1942 they would have achieved almost nothing because the U-boats weren't operating against the North Atlantic convoys at all, but found plenty of easy targets off the US East Coast and the Caribbean.

Although the few available VLR aircraft made some impact during the large convoy battles in the winter 1942/43, the Admiralty recognized that it was not possible to maintain the needed continous air cover over a convoy in the Mid-Atlantic gap with those aircraft. Often the aircraft had difficulties to find the ships they were supposed to cover, expended their depth charges quickly in one or two attacks and the convoys were inevitably left without air cover if one of the VLR aircraft had to return to base for one or the other reason. The Admiralty clearly preferred the aircraft from escort carriers as air cover of a convoy as they could be used for defensive patrols around a convoy, but also offensively against U-boats located by HF/DF or ULTRA.

The Coastal Command played a major part when the tide eventually turned in the Battle of the Atlantic in May 1943, but it weren't its VLR Liberators. During that month almost no U-boat could leave or reach its base in France without having been attacked at least once by an aircraft during the transit of the Bay of Biscay, caused by the deployment of ASV Mk.III fitted aircraft on continous patrols at day and night. Not getting an allocation of a certain aircraft type well suited for anti-submarine patrol was bad for the Coastal Command, but the true scandal is that the rivalry between the RAF services almost led to a stop of the development of the airborne centrimetric ASV radar that proved to be decisive to beat the tactics employed by the the type VII and IX submersibles.

[harryurz]

As a (slight) side note, an interesting account of Churchill's B-24 VIP transport here:

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-o...Churchill.html