Consolidated B-24 Liberator B-24A

The B-24A was the Liberator's first production model. It was ordered in 1939, before any version of the B-24 had flown, driven by the urgent need for long-range aircraft. Aerodynamic improvements over the XB-24 gave it better performance.

Nine aircraft were completed as transports and handed to Ferrying Command, while twenty were sold to the United Kingdom — before Lend-Lease — under the factory designation LB-30B. In British service they became the Liberator B Mk.I; unsuitable for combat, several were rebuilt for other duties, among them the GR Mk.I general reconnaissance version for the anti-submarine war.

The United States Army Air Forces took delivery of their first B-24As in mid-1941. Over the following three years B-24 squadrons deployed to every theatre of the war: Africa, Europe, China-Burma-India, the anti-submarine campaign, the South West Pacific and the Central Pacific.