The, Lady Be Good, 41-24301, was an American B-24D Liberator, which flew for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was originally in the 8th Air Force, the 376th Bomb Group, and the 514th Bomb Squadron in Britain, and sent to  North Africa, as part of the 8th Air Force, the 376th Bomb Group, and the 514th Bomb Squadron, under the 9th Bomber Command at Benghazi, Libya.

                                                                                                                                                  The crew of, Lady Be Good, were on their first combat mission, on April 4,1943, having arrived in Libya on 18, Mar 43. The aircraft was also new, having reached the 376th Bombardment Group, March 25. It was one of 25 B-24s assigned to bomb Naples late in the afternoon of April 4,1943, and failed to return. FTR. The crew took off from Soluch Field shortly after 3 PM, one of the last to depart. High winds and obscured visibility prevented it from joining the main formation of bombers, and it continued the mission on its own. Their mission was the second part of a two part, two flight raid on the Italian harbor of Naples, with two flights of 13 B-24s.



Nine B-24s returned to base almost immediately after takeoff because of a sandstorm, and four aircraft, including, Lady Be Good, continued on. They arrived over Naples at 7:50 pm. at 25,000 feet. With bad visibility, they did not bomb the primary target, but two B-24s hit their secondary target on the return trip, and two dumped their bombs into the Mediterranean to reduce weight and save fuel. Lady Be Good, flew back alone from Italy on the return trip to Benina, its home base in Benghazi, Libya.



At 12:12 AM, the pilot, Lt. William J. Hatton, called base by radio and stated that his automatic direction finder was not working and asked for a bearing to base. The bearing indicated, Lady Be Good, was flying on a direct path from Naples to Benghazi. However, the radio direction finder in use at the base had only a single loop antenna and was unable to distinguish between a true bearing and its reciprocal, so that the same bearing would be returned whether the plane was inbound from the Mediterranean or if it had overflown the base and was heading inland.



The plane apparently overflew its base and did not see flares fired to attract its attention. The plane continued into the interior of North Africa for two more hours. At 2 AM, the crew parachuted to the ground and, Lady Be Good, continued on for 16 miles more, apparently controlled by it's autopilot, with no one aboard, and descended level when the engines ran out of gas, crash landing in the Calanshio Sand Sea of the Libyan Desert. A search and rescue mission from Soluch Air Base to find the missing bomber was unsuccessful, and no trace of the crew or aircraft was found at that time. At the time, the plane was assumed to have crashed into the Mediterranean Sea and it's nine crew members were classified as (MIA) Missing in Action. 5 APR 43.



The first reported sighting of the crash site was on November 9,1958, by a British Oil Company exploration team. The team contacted authorities at Wheelus Air Base, but no attempt to examine the aircraft was made, as no records existed of any plane believed to have been lost in the area. The location of the wreckage was, however, marked on maps to be used by oil prospecting teams that were due to set out to explore the Calanshio Sand Sea the next year.



On February 27, 1959, British Oil surveyor, Paul Johnson, spotted the wreckage near 26°42′45.7″N 24°01′27″E, 440 miles southeast of Soluch, following up the first sighting from the air on May 16, 1958, and another on June 15. A recovery team made initial trips from Wheelus Air Base to the crash site on May 26, 1959.



Although the plane was broken into two pieces, it was immaculately preserved, with functioning machine guns, a working radio, and some supplies of food and water. A thermos of tea was found to be drinkable. No human remains were found onboard the aircraft nor in the surrounding area, indicating the men had bailed out. After the crew abandoned the aircraft, it continued flying southward.



After parachuting to the desert floor, eight of the nine airmen had managed to meet up by firing their revolvers and signal flares into the air. They had not been able to find the ninth crewman, bombardier Lt. John Woravka, because, unknown to them, his parachute had only partially opened and he likely died on impact. Thinking they were fairly close to the Mediterranean coast, the eight surviving crew members walked north, leaving behind footwear, parachute scraps, Mae West vests, and other items as markers to show searchers what their path had been. They survived for eight days, sharing only a single canteen of water while walking over 100 miles (160 km) in searing heat before perishing. Remains of five airmen were found in a group nearly 80 miles from the crash site. The other three, Guy Shelley, "Rip" Ripslinger, and Vernon Moore had set off to try to find help while the other five waited behind. The bodies of Shelley and Ripslinger were found 20 miles and 27 miles further north, respectively. Moore's remains were never found, although it is possible that in 1953 his body had been spotted and buried by a British desert patrol, unaware that any air crews from the war had ever gone missing in the area.



A diary recovered from the pocket of Copilot, Robert Toner, told of much suffering on the walk northward and indicated the crew were unaware they were over land when they bailed out. There has been speculation that whatever airborne glimpses they may have caught of the empty desert floor in the darkness looked like open sea. It seems the crew never understood they were more than 400 miles inland. Lost, 4 Apr 43, LBY - MACR 15566 - Pilot William J. Hatton                                                                                                               

The members of the Lady Be Good crew were:

1st Lt. William J. Hatton, pilot — Whitestone, New York

2nd Lt. Robert F. Toner, copilot — North Attleborough, Massachusetts

2d Lt. D.P. Hays, navigator — Lee's Summit, Missouri

2d Lt. John S. Woravka, bombardier — Cleveland, Ohio

T/Sgt. Harold J. Ripslinger, flight engineer — Saginaw, Michigan

T/Sgt. Robert E. LaMotte, radio operator — Lake Linden, Michigan

S/Sgt. Guy E. Shelley, gunner — New Cumberland, Pennsylvania

S/Sgt. Vernon L. Moore, gunner — New Boston, Ohio

S/Sgt. Samuel E. Adams, gunner — Eureka, Illinois