By
Scott Schwartz
Lady Be Good was officially known as a B-24D
with an assigned serial number of 1-2401. Coming off
the San Diego assembly line in 1942, 1-2401 was destined for service in the
African desert. Accordingly, it was
ferried to Fort Worth, Texas, where it was outfitted for the combat conditions
it would eventually operate under. Once
the aircraft was ready for combat, it was flown to Topeka Kansas. There, 1-2401’s first crew was officially
assigned to the aircraft.
Her
first pilot, Second Lieutenant Samuel D. Rose, originally named the aircraft “Bugs Buggy” and wrote this name in
chalk on the fuselage. The rest of the
crew didn’t like the name, and when the rain washed the chalk away, the name
was not re-applied, and the airplane left the United States as just one more
non-descript B-24 Liberator. At least, that’s one version of the
story. After the war, Rose’s navigator
asserted that a member of Rose’s crew came up with the idea of naming the
aircraft Lady Be Good. Regardless, 1-24301, along with six other
B-24’s started the long flight to North Africa on March 8, 1943.
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