LGB
Crash Site: 26*42’45.7”N 24*01’27”E
Woravka: 26*54’N 24*08'E
Hatton, Toner, Hays, LaMotte, Adams: 27*50’N 23*34'E
Ripslinger: 28*05’N 23*13'E
Shelley: 28*10’N 23*05'E
Rally
Point Position: Extrapolated
from Woravka's position; see "Rally Point Position Determination" below.
The
above coordinates were obtained from both McClendon and
Martinez's manuscripts, and Myron Fuller's original investigation
report notes. McClendon,
on page 163 erroneously gives Shelley's coordinates that
that of Ripslinger's, and on Page 155 of his book
erroneously gives Woravka's coordinates as the location
of the group of five (though on page 166 attributes these same coordinates, correctly, as
those of Woravka). Martinez's coordinates match these,
but he correctly attributes them to the correct crew members,
and includes other coordinates (Ripslinger) that McClendon
didn't even mention. As Martinez has included a
number of other accurate details (azimuth headings, etc.)
that McClendon didn't cover either, and his bibliography
is extensive, he seems to have confirmed these coordinates
from independent sources, such as the original investigation
reports, etc. Interestingly, the exact position of the
group of five is not stated in either of these books; but
we have obtained the coordinates that were hand written
by Capt. Myron C. Fuller's in his original notes for the
group of five site. The location of the LGB is taken from
Martinez, and attributed to Bowerman, Sheridan, and Martin's
original astro-fix at the crash site on February 27th and
28th, 1959. If we obtain any evidence to indicate any of
these various positions are in error we will update the
map accordingly.
Many
published and online accounts have contained considerable
variation in the number of miles traveled by Ripslinger and
Shelley after they left the group of five and continued on
their own into the Calanscio Sand Sea. These accounts not
only vary but early mistakes seem to have been compounded
by later ones, an example of which is:
In
1962, in his book "The Lady Be Good", McClendon
wrote: Ripslinger: 21 miles, Shelley: 6 miles
further. (This as it turns out is probably a very low
estimate, see below). Then, it appears the Quartermaster
Graves Web Site, using these same figures, inadvertently reversed Ripslinger
and Shelley's positions: Shelley: 21 miles, Ripslinger:
6 miles further. This compound mistake then
appears to have been widely copied into a number of other
online accounts of the story at such sites as: Damned
Interesting, B29's
over Korea, Marshall
Stelzriede's Wartime Story, and probably countless others,
including perhaps, any of a number of magazine publications
featuring the story. In this way these errors seem to have
have been perpetuated for some time.
In
1994, James W. Walker in "The Liberandos" reported
the distances as: Ripslinger: 26 miles, Shelley:
11.5 miles further. In 1995, Mario Martinez, in "Lady's
Men" repeated these figures. These estimates extended
the distance that Shelley was previously thought to have
traveled by more than eleven miles over what McClendon and
others as far back as least 1962 had been reporting, and
increased Ripslinger's distance by at least another 5 miles.
Were they right? As it turns out, our measurements support
Walker and Martinez's
numbers. Assumedly, they had charted these distances anew
from the original position reports, or at least obtained
them from more accurate source material than McClendon had,
and they are surprisingly close to the results we obtained
independently. Our results were: Ripslinger: 27.46 miles, Shelley:
9.96 miles further. The only difference is they place
Ripslinger 1.46 miles closer to Hatton's group than our estimate
and awards the difference to Shelley. When combined, their
total mileage (37.5) and ours (37.42) only vary by 8/100s
of a mile, which seems to persuasively corroborate the two.
The bottom line is, we feel confident that these estimates
are indeed very close to the minimum distance these men actually covered
after leaving Hatton and the others. If one considers the
near impossibility of traveling through the labyrinthian
pattern of dunes in a strait line, combined with the
difficulty of climbing the dunes to traverse them, they obviously
must have walked considerably farther than the "strait
line" mileages indicate. Given their likely condition,
the incredible endurance they mustered seems even all the
more astonishing. Unfortunately, as his remains have never
been found, Sgt. Vernon Moore's travel distance is still
a matter of speculation.
As we
have yet to obtain precise field coordinates for the Rally
Point position (if any were originally obtained at the location
near Woravka
where the pile of parachute harnesses and spent
flares were discovered), we have therefore placed it with
the following considerations in mind: McClendon mentions
it was “a little over a mile south” of Woravka,
and Martinez says “about four tenths of a mile” from
Woravka in the direction of the LBG. Walker also states it
was 0.4 miles SW of Woravka's position. We have opted for
Martinez as Walker, as other positions in their books have
shown to be more reliable than McClendon. Thus the rally
point has been placed at four tenths
of a mile southwest Woravka on a heading of 220 degrees for
all calculations. This is not a "verified" position,
but it can be assumed (without further evidence to the contrary)
that it's still very likely to be within a small margin of
error from the actual site the crew rallied. How scattered
they originally became at the bail out, and how long it took
for them to rally is of course unknown. For the record, that
puts our currently charted rally point for
the crew at: 26°53'43.94"N 24° 7'44.95"E.
All azimuth
measurements on the map reflect true (rather than magnetic)
north. The magnetic declination in central Libya, as it does
everywhere on Earth, changes over time. Today the variation
in central Libya is approximately plus 2 degrees. In 1943
it was minus 2 degrees. In 1960 it closely matched that of
true north. Because of this variation, we were at first unsure
of how accurately
chart the crew's path and vehicle tracks so as to match the
investigation reports distance and azimuth readings of certain
elements, etc. In laying out the map we
found that if we
placed the
Italian
tracks
at
a true 340 degrees and the British tracks at true 20 degrees
(the headings mentioned in the Army investigation reports),
and then plotted the crew's true headings
as indicated by the evidence found in the field, that the
distances for the crew's trek and several other mentioned
distances between points did not line up quite right. Shifting
everything 2 degrees clockwise however,
allows all elements of the map to not only intersect
at their expected locations, but perfectly corresponded with
the distance measurements reported in the investigation reports
and published accounts. This makes sense when viewed from
the perspective
of the 1943 minus 2 degree magnetic variation. For had the
crew followed a magnetic compass
heading of 325 degrees at a given leg of their trek, their actual
true heading would have been 327 degrees. We
have thus plotted the map this way because the crew
headings and vehicle tracks triangulate perfectly at the
intersects
expected of them, and the distances subsequently measure
correctly as required by the known evidence.
The robustness
of the map results are inherently dependent on the following assumptions: (1). That
the positions used, as stated in the published source material
are correct. (2). That the above positions
as originally obtained in the field were accurate to within
a margin of 1 arc minute (a reasonable standard of error). (3). That
the positions as taken in the field were rounded either up
or down to the nearest arc minute (often done in such field
work). (4). That a 1 arc minute reasonable
error in the field, results in an error of approximately
one mile (in Libya and arc minute is 1.15 miles in latitude
and 1.02 miles in longitude). (5). That
assuming the above factors have not been not exceeded, plotting
the map markers at exactly the positions as listed above
should not therefore introduce an error of more than 1.5
miles in any single position, ( i.e.1 minute of reasonable
error + 30 seconds of rounding up/down the minute). (6). That
even if two positions had the maximum error as stated in
5 above, the combined maximum error between these two points
would therefore not exceed +/- 3 miles. (7). That
if original positioning is in error, it is to be understood
that the actual distance and azimuth measurements between
any two points will of course vary accordingly.
Question:
How good a time did the crew make in the first days,
as opposed to a few days later when in a more weakened state,
and
when did they reach specific points along their trail?
The
following mathematical calculations attempt to roughly
estimate and explore the likelihood of the number of miles
the
crew were able to cover from the morning they bailed out
until arriving at the southern edge of the Calanscio Sand
Sea. These daily figures correspond
to the yellow "Timeline" markers on the LBG Crash
Area Map, each of which is positioned to approximate the
position at
which the crew would have been found (and stopped to shelter
themselves from the sun) around
noon on
the day specified. The calculations were intended to test
if the places that McClendon
("The Lady Be Good" 1962) and Martinez ("Lady's
Men" 1994)
portrayed the crew as having passed in a specific timeline
could be
supported by calculating the likelihood of their
ability to be there at that time. The formulas assume Monday
April 5th starts with healthy men able to walk 2 MPH on average,
over a long distance,
while factoring in non-walking considerations such as their
mid-day rests, the "walk
and rest"
pattern they
adopted
on their second day out (5
min. break
every
15 min. walking), time to construct
parachute markers, and the inevitable deterioration that
was chronicled so succinctly in their diary entries.
In doing
this analysis, one issue that became immediately apparent
was the time at which the crew likely encountered the wide
set of British vehicle tracks that crossed the Italian tracks
they'd been following. Both McClendon and Martinez have
the crew encountering the British tracks in the pre-dawn
hours of Wednesday morning after they had walked through
much of
Tuesday
evening and into the night. The problem with this scenario
becomes apparent when examining the map. The distance from
the rally point to the place where Hatton and his 4 crew
mates could go no further at the edge of the sand sea is
approximately 74 miles which they appear to have walked in
around 103 hours or so. However, the distance to the British
tracks from the rally point is
less
than half
this
distance
at about
31.5 miles. It is known from the diaries that they
crew encountered the beginnings of the sand dunes sometime
Thursday, and were already at the place where Hatton and
the other
4 came to a stop by at least mid-day on Friday afternoon.
Thus, if the McClendon and Martinez timelines were correct,
the crew would have had to have moved at the same speed,
if not faster, in the last 55 hours of their trek from the
British tracks to the stopping place at the edge of the dunes
than they made
in
the first 48 hours from the rally point to the British tracks.
After running a few numbers as chronicled below, it seems
likely that the crew encountering the British tracks somewhere
in the mid-morning
hours of
Tuesday, a few hours after dawn.
As
you can
see by the timeline equations, even when the allotted
time for constructing parachute markers and sheltering
themselves for
5 to 6 hours in the heat of the afternoons are factored in,
the crew, still in reasonable good enough condition in the
first two days or so, could have easily made
it to the British tracks
in the time space allotted.
Ultimately
of course, the estimates below are just that, estimates.
Neither diary mentions either of the vehicle tracks, or
even
the
placing
of markers, so the definitive answer of "where and when"
may never be ascertained with any quantum of certainty. One
fact to consider is that all eight men were together until
they reached the sand sea. Thus, they could only move
as
fast as
their
weakest
member, so the estimates of average MPH and FT/SEC as illustrated
below seem reasonable when considered in the context the
rapidly deteriorating physical conditions they experienced
from Wednesday thru Friday. The Google Earth KMZ file available
for download
in the LBG.net
Map
Room has
a
variety
of imbedded
information
that
further
examines
the
timeline issue. It also explores some of the possible factors
that may have influenced the crew to place certain markers
where they did, and
where and why they may have rested at certain points along
their route.
Distance
Covered: 13
miles
Time
Spent Walking: 6.5
hrs walking
(5am to 12pm = 7 hrs, minus 0.5 hr for 1 parachute marker assembly)
Walking
Speed Calculation:
13
miles x 5,280 ft/mi. = 68,640 ft.
68,640 ft / 6.5 hrs = 10, 560 ft/hr
10, 560 ft/hr / 5,280 ft. = 2 MPH
10, 560 ft/hr / 3,600 sec/hr = 2.93 FT/SEC
Assumes
walking continued after hot afternoon rest period at
5pm.
