I think timing had a lot to do with it. The B-17 came first, so it got the early exposure. The B-17 was more advanced than earlier designs (which is as it should be) and was perhaps considered the epitome of modern American aeronautical engineering. But I think a more important timing issue involves tail number 41-24485. This aircraft, nicknamed Memphis Belle, was the first U.S. heavy bomber to complete 25 combat missions with its original crew. William Wyler made a stirring movie about the plane, and the airplane toured the United States on war bond drives. So not only was the B-17 there first, and was the first ‘modern’ design after earlier ‘modern’ though outdated designs, it got loads of publicity for being the first to complete a combat tour.
When I was a kid I saw the famous photo of a B-24 that had been hit by flak, and its flaming wing was folding at the root. As a child I decided B-24s were flimsy compared to the B-17. In reality, the Liberator was a more advanced design than the ‘Fort’, using a much thinner, narrower wing and weight-saving construction. It developed a reputation for not being as rugged as the B-17. It’s also said they tended to burn easily.
And the disastrous raid on the Ploesti oil fields probably didn’t help. That wasn’t the planes’ fault; but still, they were the ones on the raid.
EDIT: If you’ve never seen it, do yourself the favour of watching Wyler’s documentary Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress. I first saw it as a kid, and I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it since. A truly great documentary. Incidentally, the only similarities between Wyler’s film and the 1990 movie is that both had a B-17 named Memphis Belle. The Hollywood filmmakers couldn’t even get the uniforms right!
Where were the B-24s based? I’ve found references to a lot of them flying out of North Africa and Italy. Maybe it just didn’t look like there were as many of them because they were so scattered; while you couldn’t swing a dead cat in England without hitting a B-17.
All that, plus
(1) The 17 had been the darling of the USAAF for years, as the vehicle for introducing the very concept of strategic bombing. The 24 represented mainly the wartime policy of having a backup design and manufacturer for every major aircraft type it needed. The Liberator was the baby of RAF Coastal Command instead. US media/propaganda types naturally adopted the USAAF’s attitudes as their own.
(2) The aforesaid media types were concentrated in England, not Libya, for obvious reasons. There were more Forts there by far, and more stories of heroism to be created. It helped that the 17 could take more battle damage - not that many Libs managed to limp back home once badly hit.
(3) The 17 was, face it, more photogenic anyway.
Never mind that the Lib could carry twice the load and farther.
That plane had been hit there by a bomb dropped by one above it in the formation (somebody was out of position). No plane could have taken it.
The 24’s was pretty spindly - if a takeoff had to be aborted with a full load, the landing forces tended to punch the struts through the wing tanks, causing death by fire. The 17’s gear was like the DC-3’s - it could land safely with the gear retracted.
I’m pretty sure Johnny is referring to a film clip taken from above the stricken plane. Spend too much time watching the Military Channel and you’ll recognize it.
carnivorousplant, safety is relative. Yes, you’d lose the props, and trash the engine bearings too, but you’d survive and the plane might even be flyable again. The ball turret gunner would only be in there when over enemy territory, unless it jammed like in the *Memphis Belle *remake. That’s about the only position that was safer in the Lib, btw, which had a deep enough fuselage to allow the ball turret to be retracted.
There’s another sequence of photos, taken directly above a B-17 after a bomb or bombs take a big chunk out of its wing and it falls out of formation. Couldn’t find it through Google Images, though.
I thought that too, for a long time. But I saw it examined on a documentary, and they said it was flak. I can’t watch the video frame-by-frame on YouTube, but there are people who commented there who have seen actual film and had relatives in that very formation who say it’s definitely a flak hit.
Yes, you’d lose the props, and trash the engine bearings too, but you’d survive and the plane might even be flyable again. The ball turret gunner would only be in there when over enemy territory, unless it jammed like in the *Memphis Belle *remake. That’s about the only position that was safer in the Lib, btw, which had a deep enough fuselage to allow the ball turret to be retracted.
