OneManGang
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Memorial Day 2024
The “Lady Be Good”
The “Lady Be Good”
9 November 1958
Over the Libyan Desert
Approximately440 miles south of Benghazi
A survey team working for D'Arcy Petroleum was flying over the Great Sand Sea in central Libya. In the middle of the trackless wastes is a plateau that rises about 500 feet over the surrounding sands. Aircraft were the preferred method for these surveys as the daytime temperatures below usually topped 120ºF. Geologist Ronald MacLean was looking out the window trusting his eyes trained by long experience to spot likely looking rock formations the locations of which would be noted for ground teams to come in and do further exploration.
Suddenly, MacLean spotted something. The pilot took them lower and it became clear. It was the wreck of a 4-engine heavy bomber. It's olive drab color scheme and white stars in blue circles on the wing and fuselage further identified the wreck as an American aircraft. MacLean noted the approximate position. This was long before GPS so the margin of error was somewhere around 25 miles.
They went on with their survey eventually returning to their base and filing their report. The note about the crash site was passed on to the US Air Force at Wheelus Air Force Base outside Tripoli. The Air Force had no records of a missing aircraft in that area and filed the information away.
A ground team went out in February, 1959 to follow up on MacLean's notes. On the 27th the wreckage was spotted. The team entered where the fuselage had broken and found a mystery. Everything was just as the crew had left it. There were thermoses of water and tea, maps, and live ammo still in the machine guns. It looked like the crew had simply vanished.
They noted the plane's designation; B-24-D-25-CO, Serial number 41-24301. On the left side of the nose was painted a large “64” and on the right was the nickname Lady Be Good.
Once back at base camp, the team sent this new information to Wheelus AFB and the pieces began to come together.
4 April 1943
Soluch Airfield. Libya
25 B-24 bombers were detailed to attack port facilities in Naples, Italy 700 miles away. There would be two flights following, one behind the other, from the 376th Bombardment Group (H) nicknamed the “Liberandos.”
The last plane of the second flight was a brand-new B-24D named the Lady Be Good of the 514th squadron with a rookie crew on their first mission.
Her crew:
1stLt. William J. Hatton, pilot — Whitestone, New York
2nd Lt. Robert F. Toner, co-pilot — North Attleborough, Massachusetts
2ndLt. D.P. Hays, navigator — Lee’s Summit, Missouri
2nd 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
Things went wrong almost from the beginning. Shortly after take off at 1500hours a sandstorm blew up and scattered the planes. Lady be Good got separated from the rest of her flight but they pressed on, reaching Naples after dark at about 1950. The 376th was under strict orders not to bomb civilian areas of Naples. Unable to see anything as there was no moon and the target was blacked out, they turned back and salvoed their bombs in the Mediterranean. They also promptly got lost.
The last contact with the crew was Lt. Hatton at 0012 reporting that the plane's automatic direction finder was not working and requesting that the base turn on its homing beacon. The problem was that the beacon did not give a bearing to the field and the bomber droned on, not seeing flares being fired to attract their attention. For their part, the men of Lady Be Good thought they were still over the Med.
Around 0200, the engines began to sputter as fuel ran out. Hatton put LBG on autopilot, hit the bail out bell and the crew bailed out. Lady Be Good flew on for a further 16 miles before landing remarkably intact atop the plateau.
LBG's crew soon found each other in the dark by firing pistol shots and flares. Bombardier Woravka never made the link up. Unbeknownst to the others, his chute failed to open and he was killed on impact.
Surprised to find themselves in the desert instead of the ocean, they sorted things out and set off north to hopefully make their was closer to the coast.
Back at Soluch, the 376th also thought they had gone down at sea and focused search efforts there.
Walking at night and holing up in patches of shade during the furnace heat of the day, leaving scraps of cloth and parachutes as markers, with little to no water or food, they made it 80 miles before they decided that five of the eight could go no farther. Co-pilot Toner was keeping a small diary.
On 9 April he wrote that Ripslinger. Moore and Shelly were going on ahead hoping to send aid back to the rest.
On 11 April, Toner wrote hauntingly, “Still waiting for help, still praying, eyes bad, lost all our wgt. aching all over, could make it if we had water; just enough left to put our tongue to, have hope for help very soon, no rest, still same place.”
It was the second to last entry.
In 1960, an Army search team investigating the wreck discovered the five bodies in a small depression. Following more markers they found the skeletons of Shelly and Ripslinger 26 and an astounding 37.5 miles further on, respectively. Sgt. Moore's remains were never found,however a British Army patrol in 1953 reported finding remains in the area and burying them. They, of course, never saw the crash site.
Their remains were returned to the US and buried with military honors.
No blame should attach to navigator Hays. He was on his first operational mission and was betrayed by weather, darkness, and malfunctioning equipment. Navigation gear at the time was primitive and of little help without experience to guide the user.
Bits and pieces of Lady Be Good are preserved at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton,Ohio.
The Libyan government recovered the wreck in the 1990s and stored it in a corner of a Libyan Air Force base where she sits to this day being slowly stripped by souvenir hunters.
Godspeed, men of the Lady Be Good.
Suggested Reading:
Steve Birdsall, Log of the Liberators
Dennis E McClendon, The Lady Be Good
All photos from the US Air Force.
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