Article 4161 of rec.aviation.military:
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From: jfb@usgp1.ih.att.com (Joe Baugher)
Subject: Bomber Series--Consolidated B-24 Liberator (8 of ??)
Message-ID: <Cy13In.82I@ssbunews.ih.att.com>
Summary:  The Liberator Production Pool
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Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 15:11:10 GMT
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In order to meet projected demand for the B-24, in early 1941 the 
government established the Liberator Production Pool Program.  Under 
this program, Consolidated would set up a new plant in Fort Worth, 
Texas to supplement the Liberator production in its main San Diego 
plant and Douglas would open up a similar plant for Liberator 
production in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The initial plan was for the 
Douglas/Tulsa plant to put together complete Liberators from 
sub-assemblies and components provided to it by Consolidated until it 
acquired enough experience to build complete aircraft on its own.  

Shortly thereafter, the Ford Motor Company joined the Liberator 
Production Pool Program as a third member.  Ford planned to build 
Liberators at an entirely new plant at Willow Run near Detroit.  
Initially, Ford was assigned the task of providing components for 
final assembly by Consolidated/Fort Worth and Douglas/Tulsa, but in 
October of 1941 Ford received permission to assemble complete 
Liberators on its own.  

In January of 1942, following Pearl Harbor, North American Aviation 
was given a contract for the manufacture of B-24s at its Dallas, Texas 
plant.  This brought the total number of plants involved in Liberator 
production to five.  

By early 1942, the Army had formalized its initial Liberator 
production plan.  Primary manufacturers of the B-24 were to be 
Consolidated/San Diego, Ford/Willow Run, and North American/Dallas.  
These aircraft were to be designated B-24D, B-24E, and B-24G 
respectively.  Consolidated/Fort Worth and Douglas/Tulsa were to carry 
out the final construction of planes by putting together 
sub-assemblies provided by the other three plants.  Eventually, 
Consolidated/Fort Worth would also become a primary manufacturing 
center.  In addition, the Ford plant at Willow Run was designated as 
the prime contractor for B-24 spare parts.  

The Willow Run plant was truly gigantic.  It was built on a 65-acre 
site and was almost a quarter of a mile wide and a half-mile long.  It 
had a 90-degree bend in the middle of its length.  This bend had 
supposedly been put there at the insistence of Henry Ford himself.  
According to local legend, the length of the plant had been 
miscalculated by the architects during the initial design work, and 
the bend had to be introduced in order to prevent the plant from 
extending into the next county where the taxes were higher.  This bend 
came to be known as the "tax turn", and Liberators had to take a 
rather awkward 90-degree turn as they progressed down the assembly 
line.  

The first B-24Ds for the USAAF were manufactured by Consolidated/San 
Diego in January of 1942.  As part of its participation in the 
Liberator Production Pool, the Consolidated/San Diego plant began to 
supply sub-assemblies for B-24Ds to Consolidated/Fort Worth in May of 
1942, and to Douglas/Tulsa in August 1942 for final assembly.  

The first Ford-built Liberator rolled off the Willow Run line in 
September of 1942.  The Ford-built Liberator was designated B-24E.  
The Ford plant had lots of initial startup problems, due primarily to 
the fact that Ford employees were used to automobile mass production 
and found it difficult to adapt these techniques to aircraft 
production.  Ford's plant at Willow Run was beset with labor 
difficulties, high absentee rates, and rapid employee turnover.  The 
factory was nearly an hour's drive from Detroit, and the imposition of 
wartime gasoline and tire rationing made the daily commute difficult.  
In only one month, Ford hired 2900 workers and lost 3100.  Henry Ford 
was cantankerous and rigid in his ways.  He was violently anti-union 
and there were serious labor difficulties, including a massive strike.  
Henry Ford refused on principle to hire women.  However, he finally 
relented and did employ "Rosie the Riveters" on his assembly lines, 
probably more because many of his potential male workers had been 
drafted into the military than due to any sudden development of a 
social conscience on his part.  At the request of the government, Ford 
began to decentralize operations and many parts were assembled at 
other Ford plants as well as by the company's sub-contractors, with 
the Willow Run plant concentrating on final assembly.  The bugs were 
eventually worked out of the manufacturing processes, and by 1944, 
Ford was rolling a Liberator off the Willow Run production line every 
63 minutes.  A total of 6972 Liberators were built at Ford, and 1893 
knock-down parts were provided for other manufacturers.  

The last member of the pool to produce Liberators was North 
American/Dallas.  The version of the Liberator built by North American 
was designated B-24G.  The first B-24G Liberators rolled off the line 
at Dallas in late 1942.  

Since five different manufacturing plants were now building the 
Liberator, it was necessary for the USAAF to keep track of which plane 
was built by which plant for maintenance and spare parts purposes.  
This was done by adding a manufacturer identification code to the 
designation scheme after the block number to identify the builder of a 
particular airplane.  These latters identified the particular plant 
which was responsible for the construction of the aircraft.  The 
letters designating the five members of the pool were as follows 

	CO 	Consolidated/San Diego 
	CF 	Consolidated/Fort Worth 
	DT 	Douglas/Tulsa 
	FO 	Ford/Willow Run 
	NT 	North American/Dallas 

However, since each plant in the pool would often use sub-assemblies 
and components provided by the other members, even this system was not 
completely adequate to tell maintenance people which factory was 
really responsible for any given plane.  The general rule seems to be 
that the manufacturer code assigned to a particular aircraft 
corresponded to the factory that was responsible for its final 
assembly, with the series letter (D, E or G) identifying the primary 
manufacturer.  

The version of the Liberator that underwent primary manufacture at 
Consolidated/San Diego was designated B-24D.  When the B-24D was 
completely assembled at San Diego, it was designated B-24D-CO.  
However, Consolidated/San Diego also shipped parts and components of 
B-24Ds to Consolidated/Fort Worth and to Douglas/Tulsa for final 
assembly.  B-24Ds assembled by these plants were designated B-24D-CF 
and B-24D-DT respectively.  

The B-24E was the version of the B-24D that underwent primary 
manufacture by Ford at Willow Run.  There were significant differences 
between the B-24E and the other two versions.  Not only did Ford build 
complete planes, but it also supplied components of B-24Es for final 
assembly at Douglas/Tulsa and at Consolidated/Fort Worth.  B-24Es 
built and fully assembled at Ford were designated B-24E-FO, but those 
assembled by Douglas/Tulsa and Consolidated/Fort Worth out of parts 
supplied by Ford were designated B-24E-DT and B-24E-CF respectively.  

The version of the Liberator built by North American/Dallas was 
designated B-24G.  It differed little from the Consolidated/San 
Diego-built version.  Since North American/Dallas was only a primary 
manufacturer and did not supply components to the other members of the 
pool, all B-24Gs bore the NT manufacturer's letters.  

As might have been expected, the production pool system did cause lots 
of problems with standardization of components and equipment.  
Variants coming from the various members of the pool would often have 
significant detail differences from each other, leading to a spare 
parts and interchangeability nightmare.  There were often significant 
differences between the various production blocks of the same model 
Liberator and sometimes differences even WITHIN a production block.  
Parts for Liberators built at different factories were often not 
interchangeable with each other, and all four factories involved in 
primary manufacturing produced Liberators of similar variants but of 
vastly different detail specification.  Even the two Consolidated 
plants suffered from this problem.  

With the introduction of the B-24J, all five members of the pool (both 
primary manufacturers and sub-assemblers) converted to the production 
of this version.  

Since Liberator production rates were extremely high, it became 
difficult to introduce changes dictated by field experience onto the 
production line in a timely fashion.  Consequently, newly-constructed 
Liberators were often already obsolescent as soon as they rolled off 
the line.  For this reasons, a series of modification centers were 
established for the incorporation of these changes into new Liberators 
following their manufacture.  There were seven known modification 
centers:  Consolidated/Fort Worth, Oklahoma City Air Materiel Center, 
Tucson Modification Center, Birmingham Depot, Northwest Airlines 
Depot, Martin-Omaha, and Hawaiian Air Depot.  

Sources:

    Famous Bombers of the Second World War, William Green, 
    Doubleday, 1959.

    Liberator: America's Global Bomber, Alwyn T. Lloyd,
    Pictorial Histories Publishing Co, Inc, 1993.

    B-24 Liberator in Action, Larry Davis, Squadron/Signal Publications
    Inc, 1987.

    General Dynamics Aircraft and Their Predecesssors, John Wegg,
    Naval Institute Press, 1990.

    Consolidated B-24D-M Liberator IN USAAF-RAF-RAAF-MLD-IAF-CzechAF
    and CNAF Service, Ernest R. McDowell, Arco, 1970. 

    United States Military Aircraft Since 1909, Gordon Swanborough
    and Peter M. Bowers, Smithsonian, 1989.

    American Combat Planes, 3rd Enlarged Edition, Ray Wagner,
    Doubleday, 1982.

    Jane's American Fighting Aircraft of the 20th Century,  Michael
    J.H. Taylor, Mallard Press.

Joe Baugher			  **************************************
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