Lady be Good (aircraft)

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The Lady Be Good was an American B-24D Liberator serial number 41-24301, based at Benina Airfield in Soluch, Libya and commanded by 1st Lieutenant William J. Hatton. Following an April 4, 1943 bombing raid on Naples, Italy conducted by the 376th Bomb Group, the Lady Be Good failed to return to base. After attempts to locate the plane in Libya, its nine crewmen were classified as MIA, and presumed dead, believed to have perished after crashing in the Mediterranean.

On November 9, 1958, British oil surveyors located the wreckage of the Lady Be Good near 27.1° N 23.7° E, 440 statute miles southeast of Soluch. Although the plane was broken into two pieces, it was immaculately preserved, with functioning machine guns, and a working radio. Evidence aboard the plane indicated that the men had bailed out. Records in the log of the navigator Lieutenant Hays ended at Naples, suggesting that he may have been incapacitated by altitude sickness. The United States Army conducted a search for the remains of the airmen. Finding evidence of the men's progress northward, the exploration concluded that their bodies were buried beneath sand dunes.

In 1960, the bodies of eight airmen were found by another British oil exploration. Five were found nearly 80 miles from the crash site, while another two were found another twenty and twenty seven miles farther north, respectively. A journal found in the pocket of co-pilot Robert Toner indicated that eight of the men had managed to meet up by firing their revolvers and signal flares into the air and had survived for eight days without water before perishing, managing over 100 miles in searing heat. Three of the eight (Guy Shelley, 'Rip' Ripslinger and Vernon Moore) had set off to try and find help while the other five waited behind. The crew never suspected that they were more than 100 miles inland. The body of one of the three, staff sergeant Vernon L. Moore, assistant radio operator-gunner, was never found. The body of the last man, bombardier John Woravka, was found not far from the crash site. The other crew members could not find him and presumed him lost. In fact, his parachute had failed.

The crew could have survived had they known how far inland they were and had their maps covered the area in which they had bailed out. The distance they covered, heading north, was only slightly less than the distance to the oasis of El Zighen to the south. On their way there, they would have come across the wreckage of the Lady Be Good and the water stored aboard.

According to the Graves Registration Report on the incident:

The aircraft flew on a 150 degree course toward Benina Airfield. The craft radioed for a directional reading from the HF/DF station at Benina and received a reading of 330 degrees from Benina. The actions of the pilot in flying 440 miles into the desert, however, indicate the navigator probably took a reciprocal reading off the back of the radio directional loop antenna from a position beyond and south of Benina but 'on course'. The pilot flew into the desert, thinking he was still over the Mediterranean and on his way to Benina.^[1]

Parts of the plane were scavanged or returned to the United States for evaluation. Curiously, several aircraft that were repaired with parts scavenged from the Lady Be Good crashed. An Army 'Otter' that had an armrest from the bomber, crashed in the Gulf of Sidra. The only traces that were ever found from the plane were a few parts that washed ashore... including the armrest from the Lady Be Good.^[2]

Aside from components reused in other aircraft, other parts from the Lady Be Good may be seen today at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base museum. A Royal Air Force team visited the site in 1968, and hauled away components including an engine (later donated to the USAF) for evaluation by the McDonnell Douglas company. Other pieces were stripped by souvenir hunters over the years. In August 1994, the remains of the craft were recovered by a team led by Dr. Fadel Ali Mohammed and taken to a military base in Tobruk for safekeeping.^[1]

The members of the Lady Be Good crew were:

1st Lieutenant William J. Hatton, Pilot Whitestone, New York
2d Lieutenant Robert F. Toner, Copilot North Attelboro, Massachusetts
2d Lieutenant Dp Hays, Navigator Lee's Summit, Missouri
2d Lieutenant John S. Woravka, Bombardier Cleveland, Ohio
Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger, Flight Engineer Saginaw, Michigan
Technical Sergeant Robert E. LaMotte, Radio operator Lake Linden, Michigan
Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley, Gunner/Asst Flight Engineer New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
Staff Sergeant Vernon L. Moore, Gunner/Asst Radio Operator New Boston, Ohio
Staff Sergeant Samuel R. Adams, Gunner Eureka, Illinois

[edit] Cultural references

The Lady Be Good incident was indirectly referenced in a couple of television shows and movies. Sole Survivor, a 1970 made-for-TV movie, was about the ghosts of a B-25 bomber crew that crashed in the Libyan desert.^[3] King Nine Will Not Return is an episode of the Twilight Zone that told the story of a B-25 crew member finding himself alone with the wreckage of his plane in the desert.^[4]