Consolidated B-24 Liberator Liberator GR Mk.V

The Liberator GR Mk.V was the general reconnaissance version RAF Coastal Command used in the anti-submarine war. Derived from the B-24D with more fuel and less armour, armed to the Mk.III pattern, it carried radar — on some aircraft mounted under the nose — and a Leigh Light to illuminate surfaced submarines in night attacks.

Its contribution was decisive in the Battle of the Atlantic. No. 120 Squadron of Coastal Command was the first RAF unit with an aircraft of sufficient endurance to cover the mid-Atlantic gap, the stretch of ocean that until then lay beyond the reach of land-based aviation and where German submarines attacked convoys with almost no air opposition. Closing that gap was one of the factors that tipped the campaign in favour of the Allies.

Some GR Mk.Vs were fitted with eight zero-length rocket launchers, four under each wing; others received stub-wings on the sides of the lower forward fuselage for eight RP-3 rocket rails. A Coastal Command Liberator pilot, New Zealand Flying Officer Lloyd Trigg, received a posthumous Victoria Cross for a successful attack on a German U-boat off West Africa in 1943; uniquely, the award was made on the recommendation of the enemy captain himself and other eyewitnesses.