Death In The Desert: The Lady Be Good...

By 

Scott Schwartz

Most writers and historians typically refer to those who manned combat aircraft as “the crew”, “the pilot”, etc.  Therefore, it is easy for us to forget that these aircrews were individuals, with thoughts, loved ones, dreams, and desires.  Accordingly, the crew of the Lady Be Good will be “introduced” to the reader, as follows:

Pilot:  1^st Lt. William Hatton.  Hatton was born in New Jersey, but he was raised in Whitestone, NY.  He received a Jesuit education as a youth, and he received a Liberal Arts degree from Fordham University.  At one point, he’d considered becoming a dentist.  At the time of the Lady Be Good’s first combat mission, Hatton was twenty-six years old. 

With eight siblings, Hatton came from a happy home, and from an upper middle-class family.  By most accounts, he was a compassionate and warm young man.

War was on the horizon when Hatton graduated from college, in 1940.  Accordingly, he joined the U.S. Army  - as an infantryman – and served for one year.  Hatton was discharged on December 1, 1941.  Six days later, of course, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  This time, Hatton joined the Army Air Corps.  During his physical examination, doctors discovered spots on his lungs.  As it turned out, the spots were found to be the result of sand he’d ingested during his infantry days at Virginia Beach.  With treatment, the spots cleared, but Hatton never got over his disdain for sand. 

Although he was originally trained to be a fighter pilot, Hatton found himself assigned to B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.  He never did learn the reason for this mysterious switch.  Nonetheless, while training to fly heavy bombers in Florida (during 1942), Hatton married a girl from his home town of Whitestone, NY, by the name of Amelia Jarsky.

Hatton’s sister, Elizbeth Henry paid him a visit during his bomber-training days- in August, 1942.  It was during their time together that Hatton told his sister that he had no desire to fly B-24’s, because they were difficult to bail-out from.

As previously mentioned, Hatton did come from a happy home, but his father was a rather stern sort, who prohibited any of his children from driving his brand-new La Salle automobile. The man relented, when Hatton told him that he’d been given command of his own aircraft.

An easy-going, modest fellow, Hatton believed that his co-pilot, 2^nd Lt. Robert Toner should have been the pilot instead of himself.

To be continued...