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Welcome to Lady Be Good.net
A repository for online information about
WWIIs Ghost Bomber |
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see below...
The
purpose of this site is to provide a central repository
for links, information, photos, maps, history, and recollections
of and about the legendary "Lady Be Good - Ghost
Bomber of WWII".
We apologize that progress on the site was halted in 2009-2010. This was due to other resposibilities, but we are very excited to now have the time resume building the site! We wish to thank the many people who've contacted us in the interim with pertinent information and details about the LBG and it's crew and apologize for the lengthy delay in completing the site. Work is now resuming on the and departments!
The wreckage of the Lady Be Good (after a brief 2009 stay at the former El Adem airfield 16 miles to the south) is apparently now back in the Tobruk compound she was housed at since 2004. This move was likely made sometime in late 2009 or early 2010. The remains of the aircraft appear to now reside along the western wall of the compound rather than the northeast corner where she had previously rested for some years. We thank Muir T. Smith for taking the time to contact us recently to verify her current location.
Accordingly, we've updated our Google Earth Map file (now at Version 1.3) with the various locations of the LBG since her removal from the desert by the Libyan government in 1994. We've also added additional information (within the location icon text bubbles) and included new links to recent photos of her. Download it here: "Lady Be Good 1.3.kmz"
(You must have Google Earth installed to view this file. If you don't have
GE installed
you can download a free copy here,
courtesy of Google).
1. "The Diaries" and the "Map Room" departments
are complete.
2. The Map Room's "Flight Simulation Tests" report attempts to answer many of the nagging questions concerning the
Lady's last flight. This is a "must read" for technical minded flight and aircraft enthusiasts.
3. If you have Google Earth installed,
you can view the LBG KMZ Map (updated on 07/27/2011) which includes extensive LBG information imbedded into
GE's 3D interface, and maps the crew's ordeal as well as the current and former locations of the LBG's remains.
4. We've resumed progress on the and departments and hope to have them online soon.
5. The
remainder of the Navigation Bar links to the
left currently
link
only to the home page until
the
departments
are complete enough to activate.
Since
her discovery deep in the Libyan desert in 1958/59,
many thousands of people have been fascinated by the story of
the
ill-fated
B-24D Liberator bomber named "Lady Be Good".
In April of 1943, she had been reported missing in
action during a routine
bombing run from Libya to Italy. Not the slightest
trace of the plane or her crew had ever been found.
The mystery
of what
happened
to her, and the ordeal of her nine crew members, commanded
by 1st Lt. William J. Hatton, took many months and
thousands of
man hours to unravel and is one of the most engaging
and haunting stories of WWII. More information about
the details of this story may be found at the links
at the bottom of this page.
A
Google search for "Lady Be Good" turns up quite
a few hits concerning the aircraft and her lost crew. However,
with a few notable exceptions,
the online sources
for photographs of the plane, her crew, and artifacts
recovered by the people involved in her discovery and crew
recovery efforts, are somewhat brief, lightly illustrated,
and widely scattered in
bits and pieces all over the internet. Various items pertinent
to some part of the LGB story are often difficult or impossible
to find. Some
sites contain valuable bits of media or information
not found elsewhere,
each
of
which adds
a piece to the LBG saga. Some of this information has also been
inaccurately perpetuated about the web for some time.
Gathering
up these disparate
bits of media, or at least presenting a central place with information on where
to
attain them,
and
clarifying
the many inaccuracies often found in print and
web media concerning the LBG and her crew, is the intended
purpose of this web site. To
our knowledge, no single location (online or otherwise)
has ever gathered all of the
available public domain and/or private
collections of LBG media into one place. Since visual
media in greatly
enhances an
understanding
of the story
and adds much to the work done by Walker, McClendon,
Martinez, and others (see book reviews below),
it is our wish to bring as much of this material, and/or
links
to it, into one place so that those who have a new or
ongoing
fascination
in the LBG saga can easily access it.
 It
is not the intention of this web site to elevate the
status of the Lady Be Good's crew above the
many tens of thousands of other servicemen and women who
gave their lives for their country.
The courage
and sacrifice of those who have fought for and perished
in defense of freedom will be honored
in perpetuity. That
said,
then why have a web site completely devoted to an otherwise
minor component of a very well documented
war?
Perhaps
because the story sticks
to
the
imagination and refuses to let go,
in a way few others do. Even
half a century after it's discovery in the desolate sands
of the Sahara, the story of the "Fallen Lady" has
somehow remained one of the most alluring and
unforgettable tales of WWII. The
mysteries that shrouded the aircraft's discovery were simply
too provocative,
and contained all the elements of an enduring legend: the
stark image of an almost intact war bird with no sign
of
her missing
crew, the area in which she was found being so woefully
far
off the beaten track that 15 years had passed without a
single human
having laid eyes on her, the slow unraveling and eventual
heart rendering awareness of the crew's struggle
to survive, and finally, the poignant diary entries found
among their remains.
But there is more to the story than that. It challenges
us to measure ourselves, to question our
own sensibilities, to appraise our courage
in the face of as sudden
and formidable challenge such as
the one faced by the Lady's crew so long ago. The
Lady's Men were, like so many others, simply
ordinary human beings who were suddenly thrust into an
extraordinary situation,
and who, even in the face of a potentially fatal circumstance
of their own doing, had to act as quickly and clearly
as possible and think on their feet if they were save
their lives. Though
the tragic miscalculation that placed them in their
predicament cannot, and should not, be minimized, what
they did after the fact, in
their
struggle to somehow rectify their blunder, is an inspirational
example of the unyielding tenaciousness
and resilience of the human spirit. In the scope of what we
now know to have been
their unenviable predicament, hopelessly
stranded in an uncompromisingly
harsh environment, their
attempt to save themselves was quite astonishing ...their
endurance
impressing even the most experienced desert survivalists.
Some
may argue that their
struggle to free themselves from the ironic self-miscalculation
from which they suffered
was more an act of desperate
survivalism
than an act of heroism; that there is a pretentiousness
in magnifying their drama above or beyond the thousands
of other stories of struggle and sacrifice from those who
have died in battle rather
from their own folly. This view is understandable
and certainly not
without merit. It's true that they were young, untested,
and had
never flown
a mission
before.
This was their first, and it can be assumed they were just
as excited and anxious about it as they were nervous and
scared. But from the moment
they
took to the air that fateful Sunday afternoon, their measure
of courage,
their their hunger to serve, their willingness to fight
and perhaps die for their country, could never be questioned.
Though their inexperience may have doomed their fate,
there is very little to indicate or suggest that they acted
in anything
less
than the
finest
traditions
of military protocol, self discipline,
and
even when faced with death, human civility. And, to be
certain, there is a reasonable amount of convincing evidence
that this
was
in fact more likely
the case
than not. In this then,
there is much to honor and admire about these men. Heroic
or not, they were nothing less than equal in caliber
to their brethren in arms.
The
haunting canvas of their story is no better punctuated
than in epilogue. In
the post-discovery
era many persons, through a great deal of hard
work and unshakable determination, in the noblest tradition
of the
United States
Armed Services, dedicated themselves to
finding and recovering the crew's remains. In an unprecedented
attempt to repatriate the lost airman, and bring closure
to their families, eight of the nine crew members were
eventually located in the immeasurably vast
waste of the
Libyan
desert, and then, at
long last, with
the traditional accolades and honor assigned to fallen
veterans of war, were carefully and respectfully
returned back home to
their final resting places. To this day, somewhere in
the vast ocean of sand that comprises Libya's Calanscio
sand
sea, Staff Sgt. Vernon L. Moore's remains still await
discovery.
The Lady has always been reluctant to surrender her
mysteries easily...and to this one at least, she
still holds tight. May
Sgt. Moore and his fallen comrades forever rest in peace.
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We
humbly dedicate this site to the lost men of the :
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1st
Lieutenant ,
Pilot
2d Lieutenant ,
Copilot
2d Lieutenant , Navigator
2d Lieutenant ,
Bombardier
Technical Sergeant ,
Flight Engineer
Technical Sergeant ,
Radio Operator
Staff Sergeant ,
Gunner & Assistant Flight Engineer
Staff Sergeant ,
Gunner & Assistant Radio Operator
Staff Sergeant ,
Gunner
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We
wish to welcome all persons who
are interested in the Lady Be Good, contributed to discovering
her, have written about her, and have either touched or have
been touched
by her story and the story of the men who flew her on her last
fateful flight on Sunday, April 4th, 1943.
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Many
pertinent pieces of media concerning LBG have never been
published or released. Therefore
we would especially like to encourage persons who have had
first hand experience with the LBG story who may possess
unpublished photographs or recollections they would like
to share with the general public, to allow us to post them
here as well. Generations of LBG fans will be forever grateful.
(See webmaster link below for contact information).
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The
LBG has been featured in many dozens, if not hundreds, of magazine
and WWII publications over the years, and a complete list of
these is exhaustive. Overall however, there are three traditionally
popular book length accounts of the LGB story in print,
including the first listed here, an excellent treatment of the
story by the 376th Bomb group historian James W. Walker:
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(1994):
In
this excellent and highly recommended book, James W.
Walker chronicles
the history of the US. Army Air Corps' 376th heavy bomber
group, from its origins in early 1942 until its deactivation
from
combat service in April 1945. A special section of more
than sixty pages is devoted to the LBG saga and contains
authoritatively
researched and
accurate information about LBG and her crew. Here is an excerpt
concerning the discovery of the crew's remains and Robert Toner's
diary:
" The degree
of preservation of the five bodies was a surprise to even the experienced
Mortuary investigators. Sterile surroundings had precluded disturbance
of the remains by animals or insects. The normally stable gravel
surface at the last camp of the men had been lightly disturbed
by their final movements allowing the underlying fine sand to drift
around the remains and erode exposed portions to skeletal form.
Sand-covered areas of the bodies were preserved by mummification.
During the course of examining the clothing scattered about the
recovery site, Capt. Fuller made a dramatic discovery. In the pocket
of a rolled up pair of
flight coveralls with a leather name tag embossed "Lt. R.F. Toner," he
found a small reminder-type diary. The diary,
perfectly preserved and belonging to the Lady Be Good copilot, answered many
of the questions still surrounding
the lost plane and crew."
This
hefty 618 page hardcover volume was published in 1994
and is out
now
of print, but the 376th Heavy Bomb Group Veterans Association,
has recently reprinted the book in limited release. As of April 14th, 2008 they
still
had
about
170 in stock
for $60.00 plus $6.50 for UPS shipping and handling according to Richard Miller
at
the
376
Book
Fund
Department.
To order direct from the 376th HBGVA go to their website and
look about halfway
down the page for ordering information. It
can
also
be
purchased
at
a
number
of
used booksellers on the internet, though it's rarity seems to have
prices
up to around $150.00, so if you're interested in owning
a copy, the 376th HBGVA reprint is the way to go while copies last. This
is
a
must
have
for
LGB
and B-24 enthusiasts.
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by
Dennis E. McCLendon (1962, republished in 1982):
This
1962 publication was the first full length book that was
dedicated
entirely to the LBG story. Well researched, rich in detail,
and faithful to the spirit of the LGB crew and the investigators
who unraveled her mystery, for over 30 years it remained
the only detailed account of the LBG saga. Though there
are a few facts in error concerning the location and
coordinates
in
which
some
crew
members remains
were found, these are very minor components of an otherwise
devotedly written and highly recommended book. Until Martinez and
Walker published their books in the mid-90's this was the
only in depth published chronicle of the story.
Like Martinez's
book (see below), McClendon takes a few liberties in portraying
the
actions and thoughts of the crew, but he remains generally
true to the behavioral "likelihood" of
these events in a way that doesn't vastly violate the story
as an historical manuscript. An example being the crew
firing flares and calling out to each other after bail-out
to rally
together; they did jump in pitch
darkness, and empty flare canisters were discovered near
the parachute harnesses at the bail-out site, so it is
assumed
these actions must have occurred
in some form or another. Using this method of fact-based
conjecture, the interactions of the crew are mostly kept
in a passive 3rd
party perspective form rather than lengthy suppositions
of the crew's thoughts, as in Martinez' treatment. Though
he too walks a fine line in this sense, McClendon keeps
most
of
the behavioral contexts of the
crew within the constraints
of an "interpretive" historical
narrative.
McClendon's
1982 reprint contains a new epilogue with some interesting Wright/Patterson
AFB museum photos
and extra material that Mr. Martinez expanded upon in
his 1995
book. New and used copies may be purchased here.
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by
Mario Martinez (1995):
Martinez' "Lady's
Men" is the latest entry into the retelling of the
LBG story. Heralded as being the definitive work on the
topic, to his credit, Mr. Martinez has done an impressive
job of researching many aspects of the story and "got
right" a great many things that previous publications
either missed or were in error about. It contains pieces
of information not available to Dennis McClendon when he
first published his book in 1962, expanded coverage of
the first D'Arcy oilmen ground expedition to explore
the LBG wreck site, and many
other pertinent elements of
the
story.
Some have
felt that Mr. Martinez's suppositions about the crew's
behavior, and more specifically their thoughts during their
ordeal, overstepped the bounds of what should be a strictly historical
narrative. To be sure, many of these passages
are based on obscure but well researched bits of
various crew members personal history, and
other recovery investigation
evidence. So long as they are taken in
perspective, and intelligently perceived
with an awareness as to their ultimately speculative nature,
these sections of the narrative should not otherwise
intrude on the remaining bulk of authoritative
information the book provides.
There are many
important details about the story
that have never been readily available elsewhere, and the bibliography
provides an indication
the exhaustive work that Mr. Martinez obviously put into it's
creation. Though McClendon and Martinez's
books were written many years apart,
and they differ
in
some important pieces of data here and there, both take in-depth
looks at some aspects of the story not covered by the other.
New and used copies of "Lady's Men" may be purchased here.
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There
are many, many, small to medium treatments of the LBG saga available
on the web; a Google search for "Lady Be Good" will
turn up pages and pages of hits with varying degrees of mention,
analysis, and unfortunately, a good share of inaccurate information
as well. In general, if you are new to the LBG story you can
start here:
Lady Be Good.com (created
by Nicholas Robinson in association with Mario Martinez)
at:
"www.ladybegood.com" The first and more athorative site of information about LGB. Until recently incuded
the only member forum in existence strictly devoted
to LGB. We sincerely hope the forum is up again soon. Robinson and Martinez have created an
attractive, easy to navigate site with a good deal of exclusive, first hand, and painstakingly dedicated work about LBG to
be perused here.
The
Lady Be Good page of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum web
site at:
"www.qmfound.com/lady_be_good_b-24_bomber_recovery.htm" This
is site of the organization responsible for having recovered the bodies of the
crew and likewise treats the topic with great respect. Though brief in scope,
it is nicely written and illustrated, but unfortunately contains a few glaring
inaccuracies. It also includes a very complete list of LGB related publications
and resources.
Historic
Wings': "Unlucky Lady, The Mysterious Tale OF 'Lady
Be Good' " at:
"www.historicwings.com/features2002/ladybegood" This
site contains a relatively brief but nicely written tour of the LGB story, with
handsome graphics in an "interactive" pop-up window. The pop-up window
however, is frustratingly small and a bit of a pain scroll continually, but none
the less it's an easy to read introduction to the LBG saga. Unfortunately, as
in others, this site too contains a few of glaring inaccuracies.
Questions
and comments may be directed to creator and webmaster Ed Truthan
at: edtruthan@gmail.com
Web site design and creation by North Coast Graphics - Garberville, CA
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