5 Operational Taining Unit Part III

This is the second of three installments dealing with 5 OTU B24s. The first Liberator, serial EW131 was delivered to 5 OTU on March 20, 1944 and the last four, serials KK239 to KK242 were delivered on November 23, 1944. Those aircraft initially delivered to 5 OTU on or before April 13, 1944 were given sequential single letter codes related to sequential serial numbers. For example EW128, EW129 and EW130 were given codes “A”, “B”, and “C”, respectively. Subsequent codes tended to be assigned roughly in sequence, depending on the date of the aircraft’s delivery. For example, EW218 arrived May 12, 1944 and was assigned code “U”. The next delivery was on May20, 1944, with EW127, the earliest serial numbered B24 assigned to 5 OTU, assigned code “V”. After the complete alphabet was assigned, sequential two letter codes beginning with “A” were used. All aircraft delivered up to September 12, 1944 had the codes initially applied to the rear fuselage, the last three such aircraft being KH 176 and KH 173 delivered on September 6, 1944 and coded “AY” and “AZ”, respectively while KH 175 delivered on September 12, 1944 was coded “AX”. The next deliveries were in October, and these and subsequent aircraft received codes with the “B” prefix. For example, KH287, coded “BC”, was delivered October 18, 1944. Unlike earlier aircraft, these and all later aircraft had the codes applied to the nose rather than the rear fuselage in 36-inch letters just forward of the canopy. In addition, all the previously delivered Liberators would have their codes relocated to the nose. Beginning around February 1945, the paint was removed from 5 OTU’s aircraft. Codes were now applied in black in 36-inch letters on the nose. During the transition to natural metal, variations in the codes occurred. For example EW 216, code “P” was pictured with the nose only in bare metal and the code “P” relocated to the nose and painted in black. Another variation was seen on the Liberator coded “BA” which carries its code on the nose in natural metal, the grey of the code having been removed. The final alteration to assigned codes occurred about April 1945 with the replacement of all the previously assigned codes with new two letter codes beginning with “V”, “W” or “X”. The earliest I have seen is in C. Vincent’s book, Canada’s Wings 2, The Liberator and Fortress” and is dated May 3 1945. While sequences of codes remained, for example EW128 coded “A” and EW129 coded “B” became “VA” and “VB” respectively, many of the newly assigned codes did not appear to follow an identifiable pattern. The new codes were usually in typical RCAF format although KH174 shows the “P” in code “VP” with 45-degree angles similar to USAAF letters. Hical, Allan