Death In The Desert...

By

Scott Schwartz

Oh Lady Be Good

Listen to my tale of woe,

It’s terribly sad, but true,

Each evening I’m awfully blue.

I must win some winsome miss,

Can’t go on like this,

I could blossom out, I know,

With somebody just like you, so,

Oh sweet and lovely Lady Be Good,

Oh Lady Be Good to me.

I’m so awfully misunderstood,

So Lady Be Good to me.

Oh please have some pity,

I’m all alone in this big city,

I tell you I’m just a lonesome babe

In the wood, so Lady Be Good to me.

-Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern.

Returning from their first combat mission, the crew of the brand-new B-24 was in trouble.  It was just after midnight on April 5, 1943.  While en route to the Army Air Force base at Soluch, Libya, the pilot, First Lieutenant William J. Hatton, radioed that his automatic direction finder was not working.   He asked for a radio vector to the base.  The B-24 was flying directly to the base, from Naples, Italy.  But, because it had only a single antenna, the radio direction finder at the base was unable to tell its operators whether the aircraft was heading toward or away from the base.  Apparently, the crew of the B-24 never saw the flares that were fired by base personnel.  The B-24-which had been named Lady Be Good-flew onward toward oblivion.