Liberator MonumentPrint Page

A replica World War Two Liberator bomber commemorates the men and women who maintained the aeroplanes during World War Two when they were based at Tocumwal aerodrome.

The replica was originally located in Jerilderie Street, and was relocated to the Tocumwal Aviation Museum.

The aerodrome was commissioned by the US Army Air Corps and constructed in 1942 as the McIntyre Field heavy bomber base as preparation for an attempted Japanese invasion. The project was classified and so the fact is not well known but it was a remarkable complex, the largest in the Commonwealth at that time. It had 450 buildings spread over 25 square miles with 114 km of roads interconnecting it all. There were four runways, each nearly 2 km in length. The demand for tarmac alone consumed the output of BHP for three months. The project cost two million pounds and was substantially completed within four months, with planes using the airstrip within five weeks. American forces moved to Tocumwal but only briefly as the situation in the Pacific improved and they moved north to Queensland. The aerodrome then became the RAAF Station Headquarters for training Liberator bomber aircrews. There were 5500 men on the base in December 1944. It subsequently became an aircraft depot until the 1960s when, unfortunately for aviation history, thousands of planes were smelted down.

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