The Lady Be Good

Summary

On 4 April 1943 a B-24 Liberator named Lady Be Good took off from Soluch in Libya on a raid against Naples, turned back short of the target, and did not come back. She was the only aircraft of twenty-five that was never accounted for.

Sixteen years later an oil survey party reached her on a gravel plain in the Sahara, 440 miles inland, so well preserved that a machine gun could still be fired. There were no bodies aboard and no parachutes. The crew had jumped before she came down, in the dark, believing they were over the Mediterranean. Eight of the nine were found in 1960, along a trail running north. One never was.

What is documented

The mission. A Consolidated B-24D, serial 41-24301, of the 514th Bomb Squadron, 376th Bombardment Group. She took off from Soluch after noon on 4 April 1943 as one of twenty-five aircraft sent against the harbour at Naples. The Army’s account records that she turned back thirty minutes short of the target. She was the only aircraft of the mission not accounted for.

The navigational error. On the return flight, at night and above cloud, the aircraft radioed for a directional reading from the HF/DF station at Benina. The official investigation concluded that the station gave a 330-degree bearing, that the navigator probably took a reciprocal reading from the back of the single-loop direction-finder antenna, and that the aircraft then flew about 440 miles into the desert, in the official report’s words, "thinking he was still over the Mediterranean". The single-loop finder could not distinguish a signal ahead of the aircraft from one behind it.

The bail-out. At about 2:00 a.m. on 5 April, with fuel critically low, nine men jumped. The aircraft flew on without them before bellying in; she skidded roughly seven hundred yards and broke behind the main wings. Discarded harnesses and flight clothing, found in 1960, mark the bail-out site, about twelve miles from where she came to rest.

What the wreck held. Reached on the ground on 27 February 1959, she was well preserved: a machine gun could still be fired. The rear hatch and the bomb bay doors stood open. There were no human remains, no parachutes and no life vests at the site. The men had never come back to her.

The first search found a trail and no one. The official ground search ran from May to August 1959 under a Quartermaster officer with an anthropologist. They found a pair of flight boots nineteen miles north of the crash site with the toes pointing north, and a trail of parachute arrowhead markers weighted with stones. No remains. The search was abandoned on the assessment that the men might be buried under shifting sand.

The recoveries. On 11 February 1960 oil company employees found five men on a plateau inside the sand sea: Hatton, Toner, Hays, LaMotte and Adams, with Toner’s diary among their effects. Shelley was found on 12 May, twenty-one miles northwest of the five. Ripslinger was spotted from a helicopter on 17 May, twenty-six miles north of Shelley, in an area of six-hundred-foot dunes. Woravka was found in August, about twelve miles from the aircraft, still in his high-altitude suit and parachute. It appears that his parachute failed to open properly. He never joined the others, who never saw him again. Search teams covered about 6,300 square miles.

The walk. The diary records that eight men who came down together walked about eighty-five miles north sharing half a canteen of water, in heat reaching 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Desert survival experts had estimated that men in that condition could walk twenty-five to thirty miles. On 9 April, Shelley, Moore and Ripslinger went on to seek help while the other five stayed, too weak to continue.

The diary, in Toner’s own words. Friday 9 April: "Shelley, Rip, Moore separate & try to go for help, rest of us all very weak, eyes bad, not any travel, all want to die." And: "Still very little water. Nites are about 35 degrees, good [north] wind, no shelter, 1 parachute left." An undated entry: "LaMotte’s eyes are gone, everyone else’s eyes are bad. Still going [northwest]." The final entry, Monday 12 April: "No help yet, very cold nite."

One man was never found. Staff Sergeant Vernon L. Moore has never been recovered.

The distances are not agreed. Published figures differ materially. The official American account gives about eighty-five miles for the group of eight, twenty-one miles more for Shelley and twenty-six more for Ripslinger. Other published accounts give seventy-four miles from an extrapolated rally point, or 115.5 miles total for Shelley from the bail-out. This record uses the official set and notes that any single figure should be attributed rather than stated flatly.

Leading explanations

A reciprocal bearing and a tailwind overshoot (the official finding; established). The aircraft was flying at night above cloud; strong tail winds carried it further than the crew reckoned; the navigator probably took a reciprocal reading from the back of a single-loop antenna; and the crew overflew their own base believing they were still over the sea. The Army’s account gives strong tail winds, navigational errors and a lack of visibility of the ground as the most probable causes.

Woravka’s parachute failure (the recovery finding). He was found still in his high-altitude suit and parachute, about twelve miles from the aircraft, with discarded harnesses and flight clothing less than half a mile away marking the bail-out site. The Army’s account says it appears his parachute failed to open properly. He never joined the other eight.

The jinxed-aircraft story (rejected as an explanation). Components salvaged from the wreck are said to have carried bad luck into three later aircraft. The incidents are recorded; no source the Registry retrieved offers a causal mechanism, and the loss of this aircraft is fully accounted for by the navigation finding.

Current status

Later explained. The loss is accounted for. The official finding is that a reciprocal radio bearing taken from a single-loop direction finder, with strong tail winds and no sight of the ground, led a crew to overfly their own base at night and bail out over the desert believing they were over the sea. The human outcome is documented in unusual detail, by Toner’s diary and by the recovery of eight men along a trail running north. One item is open: Staff Sergeant Vernon Moore, never found, last recorded in the diary as leaving with two others to seek help on 9 April 1943. Recovery and identification of his remains would close it, as would release of the full investigation files, which the published accounts cite and which the Registry did not obtain.

Last reviewed: November 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.