On the subject of passenger seating or otherwise aboard ferrying Liberators, I have come across a 1944 article by Edward C. Bowyer that brings out the contrasting standards.

The article appeared in FLIGHT magazine for 25th May 1944 under the title, “Britain’s Overseas Air Services”. Mr Bowyer “is Chief of the Information Department, Society of British Aircraft Constructors”, a former journalist who had joined the SBAC in 1930 to organise its Information Department and had also held other senior SBAC posts in WWII. The article reports a 25,000 mile journey from early January 1944 to early February 1944. He travelled in several different aircraft types but two of the journeys were in Liberators.

The first of these was in Liberator FR240 EDIT; THIS WAS A TYPO – SHOULD BE ‘FK240’ (christened “Gremlin’s Grandpappy”) from West Africa to the Bahamas. “Eighteen passengers were on board. There were side seats in the aft portion of the fuselage, a few bunks in the bomb bay and a shelf – known as the Bridal Suite – above the bomb bay”. Mr Bowyer (the only civilian on board) was assigned the shelf, said to be the most ‘comfortable’ accommodation. As Mr Bowyer was behind schedule, Captain Williams had suggested they take the fastest route and Mr Bowyer had agreed. “My regret was to come later”, he wrote. I can’t repeat the circumstances, so will simply add another of Mr Bowyer’s comments: “My longest, fastest and most arduous flight since my first airline journey in 1921”.

The second of his Liberator flights was on board Liberator AL614 from Montreal to Prestwick. AL614 “had no seats[/I] and [I]the twelve passengers were accommodated on mattresses on the floor[/I]”. Passengers were “provided with oxygen masks, flying suits, flying helmets and gloves. Warm air was admitted through vents in the main bulkhead, but it was not circulated, with the result that the air at the top of the fuselage got very hot, while the temperature on the floor stayed below freezing point till late the following morning” (their having left Montreal at five-thirty in the afternoon). He says that it was difficult to sleep anyway, with the associated risk of kinking the oxygen tube and suffocating, and that condensation building up inside the mask trickled down and froze.

You may find the whole article of interest; it is available on-line.

Good luck on all fronts, Matt.

Thanks, again.

The photos were terrific, longshot. I already have the “Stockholm Run” book to which you refer.

I wasn’t aware, lazy8, of the ‘differences’ between Consolidated and BOAC that you describe.

I have located another copy of that MOVEMENTS BOARD photo. The quality is not great but it has slightly different visual qualities that make the top of the board clearer. You can’t see the column headings any better (perhaps worse, in fact) but a date is chalked on the top-left of the board. Again, it’s not too clear but the year is “42“. I hope that this image can be seen well enough to see that.

EDIT: Oh dear! It doesn’t seem possible to expand that image; I don’t know why. Perhaps you will have more luck. What I have done, however, is copy the image below on to a WORD document and then expand the image on that page. The “42” is clear and the date may be “19” but the month is not obvious.

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Thanks for the comments, all.

Trumper:
I’ve just finished reading “Ferry Command” by Don McVicar (to which someone earlier in this thread first directed me – thanks). It was a quick skate through, over a few nights, rather than a ‘study’ but he certainly didn’t relish the lack of comfort on the return from Prestwick. This was earlier than this photograph was taken and standards could have improved in that time.

Ericmunk:
Everything I’ve read about the North Atlantic ferry route mentions that the crews were made up of many nationalities. Five KLM DC-3s escaped to Britain at the start of WWII and were used on the Whitchurch – Lisbon service and, for that, I believe that any Dutch crewmen would have had to become BOAC staff – maybe even being issued with British passports – like the Norwegian crews that flew to Stockholm. I am less sure that it would have been a requirement for ‘flying’ Dutchmen on the North Atlantic ferry service.

Adrian/lazy8:
Further back along the fuselage, there appear to be cabin windows and overhead racks for bags, coats or whatever. The passengers do not appear to be prepared for cold conditions, either.

On the other hand, when some BOAC Liberators received their civilian marks, they were registered as 18-seater aircraft (presumably 9 seats along each side?). If the photograph of the interior was taken from the front-most seat, that would be about right.

Below, I show part of the registration certificate for Liberator II G-AHYE (AL529). I’ve chosen this one for no other reason than that it shows not only the “eighteen seater” note but also the “REDUCED TO PRODUCE” phrase, to which there is reference in earlier posts.

I don’t know why but I thought “RTP” meant “Reduced To Parts” until I saw it written on the pdf for G-AHYE on the G-INFO website I would never have come up with “Reduced To Produce”, which is a strange turn of phrase indeed. “Produce”, as a noun, is something produced; ‘reduced to something that is produced’ makes no sense at all to me. Maybe it was a phrase dreamed up by a civil servant with a classics education and ‘produce’ has a classical root of which I am not aware. Can anyone produce an answer to this conundrum?

This piece of silent video is apparently made up of the out-takes from a Pathé News item about the expansion of Prestwick Airport in 1944.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/expansion-of-prestwick-airport

The notes do not mention Liberators but you do briefly see one being worked on in one of Scottish Aviation’s hangars – to me, it looks like one of the Return Ferry Service machines but perhaps someone here could confirm that or otherwise.

In one of the shots, you can see what appears to be a Coastal Command Liberator taxiing. There is also a couple in the background as a B-17 takes off and also perhaps in the background of some of the views from the control tower.

There are various other ‘period’ aircraft to be seen – B-17s parked, a Lancaster too, Daks and C-54s (still and moving), a Beaufighter flying low (presumably after take-off) and so on. The film lasts just over 3 minutes and is well worth watching. It can be viewed full screen, too.

It makes me wonder if the original Pathé News newsreel is still availble to view. Does anyone know?

FLIGHT magazine for 23 July 1942, which I have just seen on-line, has a six-page article entitled “Ferry Command Birthday”. The main photograph on the opening page has the same photograph that we have been discussing – the one with the MOVEMENTS BOARD in it. The photograph is captioned:

In the “operations room” of the main eastern terminal of the R.A.F. Atlantic Ferry Command

This confirms, to my satisfaction anyway, that the location is Prestwick. It also shows that the photograph must have been taken in 1941 or, more likely perhaps, in 1942. The magazine shows the photo reference number as CH 5542 (which might be a digit short) but previous photographs I have seen with “CH” prefixes have been from the Air Ministry.

The article has some photographs attributed to “Flight” magazine itself and here is one of them: