LITTLE BILL'S nose art - what's the aircraft?

[Dave Homewood]

Here is another photo from the late Neville Jackson's collection, which shows Neville (I believe) standing next to the wreck of an aeroplane with a wonderful nose art on it. I posted this yesterday on the Wings over New Zealand forum and it was suggested it may be a Liberator. What do you reckon? It's a little bit bent. Great artwork though.

Here's the shot as scanned:


And I have enhanced the artwork slightly so you can see it a bit better here. The slogan says LITTLE BILL's.

[retroaviation]

Yup. Liberator.

[Second Air Force]

Judging from the nose cutout for the turret, I'd say this is a PB4Y-1 with the standard Erco bow turret. We can probably come up with a rough idea of the production block judging from the braced pitot mast, but I've put all my Liberator references away. Maybe Al Blue or A. Carey will stumble onto this thread to solve the I.D.

Scott

[Jack Cook]

Scott is spot on!

[retroaviation]

Liberator, PB4Y, same ol' same ol'.
Okay, I admit it, I was wrong.

Gary

[Second Air Force]

Liberator, PB4Y, same ol' same ol'.
Okay, I admit it, I was wrong.

Gary

Good grief, man, a Lib is a Lib. I was just trying to help I.D. it for Dave. Nobody said anything about you being wrong.

[Jack Cook]

Gary's just casting a wide net!

[Second Air Force]

Gary's just casting a wide net!

He threw me back a long time ago, Jack! Oh, you meant the photo......

[Dave Homewood]

Cool, so we now know it's a PB4Y Liberator. I'd be interested to know more of how it came to be in this crashed state, and the story of the crew and the nose art if someone out there knows.

I'm not certain where this was or when, but Neville Jackson was at:
First Tour
Guadalcanal November-December 1944
Bougainville December 1944 - February 1945

Second Tour
Green Island April-May 1945
Jacquinot Bay May-July 1945

So it has to be one of these bases I guess.

[Dave Homewood]

Whoops, deleted double post

[Django]

Cool photo!

Nothing comes up in B24bestweb.com

[Django]

Any more thoughts on this crashed Privateer?

[Steve Nelson]

I don't think it's a Privateer (PB4Y-2)..I don't believe they had those big pitot masts. That would make it a PB4Y-1 (I'm not sure if the Navy actually called them Liberators or not.) The Navy designated all their twin-tail B-24 variants PB4Y-1..the Privateer name was applied only to the single-tail PB4Y-2.

Still a cool pic! It would still be cool to see a pic of this aircraft before she ended up in the junkyard.

SN

[Jerry O'Neill]

I think it's just the box the B-17 came in!
Jerry

[RareBear]

The Navy referred to the PB4Y-1's as Liberators. As stated above, the name Privateer was only applied to the -2's.

Walt