Death In The Desert: Lady Be Good

By

Scott Schwartz

Radio Operator La Motte sent another message to the Malta station.  He was looking for confirmation that Lady Be Good's course (140 degrees) was correct, and he wanted to be sure that the aircraft was heading to Benghazi.  The response from Malta is unrecorded.  Nonetheless, La Motte transmitted again at 8:59 PM, and this time, he received confirmation that his aircraft was on the correct heading.  

Bombardier Woravka was told to jettison the bombs.  With a tailwind and less weight, Lady Be Good was being bowled along at two hundred miles per hour.  The ride was rough, though, and Lady Be Good, cruising at 8,000 feet, passed in and out of clouds.  

La Motte contacted a Benghazi aircraft control station at 10:05 PM.  He wanted an exact vector back to the base at Soluch.  La Motte apparently received the vector, but whether it was being adhered to is unclear.

More to come.

Liberator Down: Lady Be Good...

By

Scott Schwartz

So, Lady Be Good was heading home.  Radio Operator La Motte tapped out a Morse-code message to the facility at Malta, in an attempt to find out if Lady Be Good was on the right course for her home base.  It was 8:55 PM.  There was no reply.  

More to come.

Liberator Down: Lady Be Good...

By 

Scott Schwartz

With Hatton's decision to about the mission and head back to base, Lady Be Good departed Naples on a South East heading of 140 degrees.  Lady Be Good was roughly seven hundred miles from her home base, and she only had four hours of fuel left.  Clearly, navigation errors could be disastrous.  Further, the aircraft was still three hundred, fifty miles North East of Malta.  The crew was apprehensive about whether the radio operators on Malta would be able to pick up Lady Be Good's transmissions at that distance.  

To be continued...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Death in the Desert: Lady Be Good.

By 

Scott Schwartz

Over Naples, navigator Dp Hays plotted a course back to Benghazi.  Over the intercom, Hays asked Hatton and Toner if they could radio the station at Malta in order to verify Lady Be Good's position.  Because Hatton and Toner were apparently arguing about something, neither of them answered Hays' question.  Hays then looked down at bombardier Woravka, who was in the "green house" nose section of the aircraft.  Woravka passed a note pad to Hays, on which the following was written:

"What's he beeching (sic) about?"  "What's going to happen?"  "Are we going home?"  Hays' answer is lost to the mists of history, but Woravka stuffed the pad back into his chest pocket.  

Someone on the flight deck finally said something at 8:52 PM.   "We're going home, turning on a magnetic heading of 140 degrees, departing the area."  "No bombs to be dropped."  "Call Malta and request a location fix."

To be continued on Monday.

Liberator Down: Lady Be Good.

By 

Scott Schwartz

It was 8:40 PM.  Altitude:  9,000 feet.  Outside, the sky was black.  There were no enemy fighters, and no fires on the ground.  Despite flying at a lower altitude, Lady Be Good's crew was cold, and they badly needed to urinate.  

A crew member suddenly exclaimed that there fires on the ground.  The crew tensed, as they prepared to be attacked by enemy fighter aircraft.  But, none came.  Nor did the probing fingers of enemy searchlights.  The fires, of course, were the handiwork of the previous raiders.  

Hays and the other crew members agreed that they were probably over Naples, but they wondered what to do.  

Co-pilot Toner bluntly stated:  "Let's get out of here, but let's not screw up our course!"  Hays was sure that he could guide the aircraft back to base.....

To be continued.

Death in the Desert: Lady Be Good...

By 

Scott Schwartz

Besides the physical discomforts, Lady Be Good's crew was starting to recognize the fruitlessness of continuing on.  Reaching Naples after dark would make it difficult to spot targets.  And then what?  

As the time approached 7:45 PM, Lady Be Good was approximately one hundred, sixty miles east of Naples.  The crew believed that they were approaching Naples, but, because of the poor visibility, some of the crew members wondered how they would know when they arrived.  At this time, neither waist gunner, nor the tail gunner could see anything outside of the aircraft.  

A nervous Dp Hays sat at his little table, trying to figure out what was happening.  His last log notes had been made at 7:00 PM, and those were sketchy at best.  His notes indicate, though, that he knew that the aircraft was near the "heel" of Italy at 7:15 PM.  Now, with Lady Be Good flying a heading of 330 degrees, he realized that the aircraft was flying up the east side of Italy.  There was approximately five hours of fuel left in the B-24's tanks, at this point.

Hatton believed that 330 degrees would take Lady Be Good to Naples.  Toner suggested a heading of 270 degrees (i.e. a more westerly heading) and that Hatton descend below 10,000 feet so that the crew could remove their oxygen masks.  Toner figured that they'd have a better chance of figuring out where they were, if they were lower.  Plus, the fires from the previous raid would still be burning, making Naples identifiable.  

Hatton descended to 9,000 feet and steered the aircraft to a heading of 270 degrees.

To be continued.

Death in the Desert: Lady Be Good...

By

Scott Schwartz

Despite short periods, during which navigator Hays seemed to be on top of things, the whole crew knew that they were way off course.  Still over two hundred miles West of Naples, Lady Be Good penetrated Italian airspace at approximately 7:15 PM.  The crew was scanning the sky for enemy fighters.  The cold air entering the fuselage through the open gun hatches, coupled with the necessity of using oxygen at the ten thousand foot altitude Lady Be Good was cruising at, made for a fatigued and irritable crew.

More to come.  

Death in the Desert: Lady Be Good..

Pilot Hatton really should have turned back toward base, at this point.  Lady Be Good was alone.  Her inexperienced navigator was nervous, the sun was setting, she was flying in and out of the clouds and through rain showers, and the high winds had pushed her toward the Libyan coast.  Hatton knew that he would not reach Naples until 9 PM. Recognizing his target after dark would have been nearly impossible.  He couldn't call for help on the radio, because radio silence was being observed in order to avoid detection by enemy aircraft.  An experienced pilot would have seen that pressing on, under these circumstances, was foolish.  But, Hatton was not experienced, so he pressed on.  What he was thinking is anyone's guess.  A courageous and determined man, Hatton may have wanted to accomplish his mission regardless of the conditions arrayed against him.

Tempting Fate: Lady Be Good...

Off course and directed by a nervous navigator: this photograph depicts the fate of Lady Be Good.
Photograph courtesy of the United States Air Force.

Coming tomorrow evening: more about Lady Be Good.

Liberator Down: Lady Be Good...

By 

Scott Schwartz

Lady Be Good was now on her own.  The two B-24's ahead of her, and on whose navigation Hatton was relying on, had aborted the mission due to rough-running engines.  The sandstorm had done its work thoroughly.  Lady Be Good's engines were running fine, but she was alone.  I remind the reader that this was the crew's first combat mission, and the responsibility for finding the target lay with inexperienced navigator Dp Hays.  Inexperienced and unsure of himself, Hays apparently made a course correction in order to compensate for the high winds connected with the sandstorm.  But, by this time, Lady Be Good had been blown eastward, toward Greece, and she was still some 380 miles from Naples.   

Death In The Desert, Lady Be Good.

Ok, folks, I thought I'd share a photograph of Lady Be Good's crew.

Photograph courtesy of the United States Air Force.

Left to right: Hatton, Toner, Hays, Woravka, Ripslinger, LaMotte, Shelly, Moore, Adams.

More to come.

Death In The Desert: Lady Be Good..

By

Scott Schwartz

As mentioned previously, Lady Be Good was trailing behind two other B-24's, because its crew had the least (virtually none) combat experience. Lady Be Good's navigator, Dp Hays, was having no trouble keeping his airplane on course, while en route to the target, because his B-24 was simply following the others.  The winds from the storm were blowing the aircraft off target.  The two leading B-24's engines were still running rough, due to sand ingestion.  The navigator in the lead aircraft corrected for the high winds.  Everything was going just fine, for Lady Be Good's inexperienced navigator, Dp Hays. Until the two lead aircraft turned back for base, due to their rough-running engines.

More to follow on Monday.

Liberator Down: Lady Be Good, Continued.

I must emphasize that Mission 109 was launched under horrendous conditions, due to the sandstorm.  The disorientation among the B-24 crews is a matter of record.

Lady Be Good was to trail behind two other B-24's during Mission 109.  The reason for this is that, at the time, the aircraft with the most experienced navigator took the lead, while those with less experienced navigators bringing up the rear.  Since Lady Be Good's navigator and crew had no combat experience, Lady Be Good was the twenty first B-24 to take off, of a group of twenty five.

More to follow.

Death In The Desert: The Lady Be Good..

Once Mission 109 was completed, and it was discovered that Lady Be Good was missing, rumors abounded about a B-24 that had gone down in flames over Naples.  Naturally, this aircraft was assumed to have been Lady Be Good.  In truth, the only bomber missing was one that was designated "Number 64".  It took a little time, but it came to light that Liberator Number 64 was, in fact, Lady Be Good.  Further, no B-24's were shot down in flames during Mission 109.  The only airplane that was unaccounted for was Lady Be Good.

To be continued.

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

Depending upon whose diary is to be believed, Lady Be Good took off at either 3:10 PM or 2:50 PM local time.  The fourteen cylinder engines mounted on all of the B-24's in Lady Be Good's section were sputtering due to the sandstorm.  Nine of the thirteen B-24's in the section turned back to Soluch, because sand had accumulated in their fuel lines.

By 7:45 PM, the four remaining B-24's of Section B were over Naples.  The area had already been hit by B-17's approximately three hours earlier, and the last B-24's from Section A were already heading for home after unloading their bombs.

In the wake of this previous attack, three of the four Section B aircraft were following the lead of the unidentified fourth B-24.  When the four airplanes were only thirty miles from the target (Naples), this mysterious lead aircraft suddenly veered away from the target.  The three trailing aircraft were obligated by procedure to follow.

The crews in the three following B-24's were puzzled; some of them believed that the mystery airplane was, in fact, Lady Be Good.  But, was it?