by Sam McGowan
Although the Douglas C-47 is usually thought of as the most important transport of the war, in reality it was the transport conversions of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber that opened up the world to the Air Transport Command.
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Converted Bombers Open up New Route across Pacific
Before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army had ordered the conversion of most of its initial order of B-24As to fill the transport role and had used them to open the first overseas routes. Several weeks before Pearl Harbor, future bomber commanders Caleb V. Haynes and Curtis Lemay flew a converted B-24 to Moscow on a diplomatic mission transporting U.S. envoy W. Averell Harriman. Other long-range flights in the converted bombers followed as the War Department’s Ferrying Command began opening routes to distant parts of the world.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States reclaimed several LB-30 Liberators that had been consigned to British forces. Some were converted into transports and joined previously converted B-24As on ferry routes across both the Atlantic and the Pacific. While the original route to Australia had been over the Atlantic to Africa and then overland across Asia, a new route was established from the West Coast to Hawaii and then across the South Pacific to the Land Down Under. Consolidated Aircraft received a contract to operate Liberator transports between California and Australia primarily to transport key personnel to the combat zone and return ferry crews to the United States.
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