Merry Christmas everybody! I wonder if any Coastal Command Liberator experts could help me please? My late Uncle flew with 59 squadron in Liberators between 1944 and 1946. I have his log book, and I was thinking of making a scale model of one of the ones that he flew in. I have a picture of him with his crew posing next to what looks like a Liberator GRV which unusually has some nose art - a kicking donkey - and this is the aircraft I'd like to use as the basis of the model. It also looks to have a smaller version of the dumbo front radar dome which I haven't seen any other photos of. So my question is really, does anyone know what the code and serial number was for this aircraft or any other details about it? I guess it actually could have been another squadron's plane that they posed next to, although I don't think so as I remember him talking about it. I wish I had asked him more when he was around! Here's the picture and Dennis is 2nd from the right. Thanks very much. Bob.
Hello Bob, welcome to the forum. Have a look at the link below, it might help. The administrator of the site is Lorenzo, he's a member of this forum. Regards Peter http://www.number59.com/new_59/homepage.html
The Liberator GR.V was a development of the long-range Coastal Variant of the D-24D and MkIII the scanner was was mounted either under the nose in a Dumbo fairing or in a rotating retractable unit under the fuselage aft of the bomb-bays. The serial range for the Mk.III and GR.V was - BZ711 to BZ959
Thanks for getting back so quickly. I haven't seen any other pictures of Coastal Command Liberators with nose art so I thought it would be possible to track this aircraft down quite quickly. I've sent some information through to before but will see if if has any further information. Were there actually two sizes of the Dumbo fairing or is this just an optical illusion in the photo?? Thanks again. Bob.
