Consolidated B-24 Liberator B-24H

The glazed greenhouse nose of early Liberators left the aircraft badly exposed to the head-on fighter attacks the Luftwaffe had perfected against American bomber formations. The B-24H was the answer: it fitted an electrically powered Emerson A-15 nose turret above the bombardier's position, in a location comparable to the Frazer-Nash FN5 nose turret of the Avro Lancaster.

The change brought roughly fifty other airframe modifications with it, including a redesigned bombardier compartment. The tail turret received larger windows for better visibility and the Martin A-3 dorsal turret an enlarged high-hat dome. The waist positions were enclosed with Plexiglass windows and laterally offset so the two gunners no longer interfered with each other.

Most of the 3,100 B-24Hs came from Ford's Willow Run plant, the largest assembly line in the world, which at its 1944 peak delivered one B-24 per hour and 650 per month. B-24H sub-assemblies made by Ford and completed by other companies, and any aircraft retrofitted with the C-1 autopilot or the M-1 bombsight, were redesignated B-24J. In RAF service the B-24H corresponded to the Liberator B Mk.VI.