On April 4, 1943 the Lady Be Good-a B24D Liberator leaves Soluch, Libya on her first mission, a bombing run on Naples, Italy. For unknown reasons-possibly visibility problems, the mission was aborted a half hour from the target and the LBG turned to return to base. Disoriented from cloud cover, high winds, and position finding equipment failure, the LBG became lost and over shot their base. Running low on fuel and believing they were still over the Mediterranean Sea, the crew bailed out. Instead of sea, they found themselves in the middle of the desert. The unmanned bomber flew another 16 miles before crashing. 7 of the 9 crew members managed to link up and began the hopeless trek through the desert, miscalculating their location by 300 miles. When they failed to return after the mission, the USAAF believed they had gone down in the Mediterranean. In 1958, 15 years after they had gone missing, a British oil exploration team found the remains of of the ill fated bomber deep in the Libyan desert. All but one of the crew has been found-the last being found in 1960. The 9 man crew of the Lady Be Good was- 1st Lieutenant William J. Hatton, Pilot 2d Lieutenant Robert F. Toner, Copilot 2d Lieutenant Dp Hays, Navigator 2d Lieutenant John S. Woravka, Bombardier Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger, Flight Engineer Technical Sergeant Robert E. LaMotte, Radio Operator Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley, Gunner & Assistant Flight Engineer Staff Sergeant Vernon L. Moore, Gunner & Assistant Radio Operator Staff Sergeant Samuel R. Adams, Gunner R.I.P. all. Kind of a departure from what I've been posting, but I always found this story interesting!