Unidentified 8th/RAF Bomber Command AF "Towel Rack" Antenna

[Old MacDonald]

Most or all 8th AF B-24Ds up through at least the summer of 1943 had the "towel rack" antenna shown in the photos below, as did many or all RAF Bomber Command Halifaxes (and Lancasters?). No known photos of 9th AF B-24Ds during this same period appear to show this antenna, so it may have been used in the UK only.

It's been suggested this could have been a marker beacon antenna. However, all B-24Ds left the factory with the thin-wire RC-43-A Marker Beacon antenna for the BC-357-B Marker Beacon Receiver mounted under the bomb bay, so if the "towel rack" was in fact a marker beacon antenna, it must have been for a British instrument landing system such as SBA (Standard Beam Approach (or Lorenz)) or BABS (Blind Approach Beacon System).

Web searches have revealed "teardrop" or YAGI shaped antennas for one or both systems, but these may be of a later style. Since I don't yet know the correct nomenclature for the base receiver system or antenna, web searches have been unproductive (searching for "towel rack" antenna leads to a lot of links to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which ain't the same thing at all!).

Anybody got any tech data/nomenclatures on this?

TMIA

O'M

 

[N4521U]

You sure they aren't Pitot tubes?

 

[Old MacDonald]

Definitely not. The Liberator's pitots were the horn-shaped posts in the "eyebrow" position on both sides of the nose (or mid position on the earliest B-24D-COs), and the Halifax's pitots were those two "L" shaped posts in front of the "towel rack."

 

[N4521U]

Sorry, I was looking in the wronnnnng place

 

[Airframes]

Standard Beam Approach antenna.

 

[Wurger]

As memo serves it was the di-pole aerial for the Lorenz Beam Blind Approach.

 

[Old MacDonald]

Sorry about the very long delay in responding; we've had a serious problem with an uncle for whom I'm legally and financially responsible and I've been out of pocket for more than a month. Just now able to get back into the fun stuff now.

Since SBA and Lorenz were the same thing, or fundamentally the same thing, the suggestions this antenna was for the British SBA seem correct. As I noted in my original post, the B-24Ds already had the "thin wire" antenna in the same basic physical configuration for the American BC-357-B Marker Beacon Receiver, which I think operated on 90 or 150 KCs (yeah, I know they're KHz now, but that's what they called them 74 years ago!), so I assume the SBA system operated on different frequencies, therefore requiring a new antenna. Anybody know the freqs for the 1943 SBA?

Thanks to everybody for their help.