Facts & Fiction
Flight Path of the Lady Be Good


The Lady Be Good was the 21st of 25 bombers that took off in a sandstorm on 4 April,1943, to strike Naples from Soluch Airfield, a crude, hastily-built strip some 30 miles South of Benghazi, Libya. Her 700-mile mission began at 3.10 p.m.

She did not bomb Naples. At 10 p.m., while returning to Soluch on a bearing of 140 degrees, she dropped her bombs in the Mediterranean.

Just past midnight her engines were heard over Benghazi and Soluch. By then all but the Lady Be Good and two other Liberators had returned to Soluch. The other two had already landed in Malta.

Flares flew up from Soluch to orient the Lady Be Good but no one on the ship saw them. At 12.12 a.m., 5 April, the Benina Radio Direction Finder Station—a nearby station North of Soluch and East of Benghazi—received a coded message from an aircraft requesting an inbound bearing to Benina.

Benina is said to have responded, but the Lady Be Good either did not receive the bearing, or misread it and continued flying. (The latter has been claimed for years.)

The Lady Be Good overflew the Soluch area and continued southeast over the desert on the bearing of 140 degrees. (It is likely that Lady Be Good never received the bearing or she would not have flown two more hours for 400 miles.)

T/Sgt. Ripslinger's diary entry of April 4, 1943 reads "Lost coming back." And on the same date, Lt. Toner's diary reads "lost returning."

There is no mention in either diary about a signal from Benina. At about 2 a.m. the Lady Be Good ran out of fuel and her crew bailed out, thinking they were still over the Mediterranean. The bomber then flew a further 16 miles before crashing in the desert. For the next 16 years, what happened to the ship with the hopeful name and her crew remained a mystery. These facts are beyond dispute.

What probably didn't happen:

Prior to opinions expressed in the book "Lady's Men," the following hypothesis has been posited, and continues to be perpetuated in TV documentaries and other accounts about the Lady Be Good's location at 7.45 p.m. during Mission 109. It is based on information which does not agree with the 'navigator's log' of Lt. Dp Hays:

The Lady Be Good, number 64, takes off at the tail of Section B at 3.10 p.m. Section A were away starting at 1.30 p.m.

Due to the time lags between takeoffs caused by dust and sand, the 25 Liberators that comprise the squadron are scattered. The tail of Section A is an hour or more ahead of Section B.

A number of ships in B Section are forced to return to base with rough engines.

Those remaining are clearly disconnected from Section A by time and space. Both A and B section are flying northwest towards the toe of Italy on a bearing of 330 degrees.

The plan is this: at the "toe of Italy", the ships turn west along the north coast of Sicily, then north towards Naples on their bombing run.

By 7.45 p.m., with darkness near, this plan has nearly been completed by Section A .

All but one ship from this section has bombed Naples and are now returning to Soluch.

At about this time, 7.45 p.m., Lady Be Good is claimed to be near Naples ahead of three Liberators and she leads them towards Naples on the bombing run.

At this point a mysterious thing takes place.

Even though there is sufficient light to bomb Naples, the leading Liberator—claimed to be the Lady Be Good—turns away from the target and heads for Soluch without dropping her bombs.

The three planes behind do likewise. At the time no one in the three planes behind the leader knows it is based on information which does not agree with the "navigator's log" of why she turned from the target.

Years later, when the Lady Be Good was found, a search for clues was made in the sortie reports of the three pilots who flew behind the plane that turned from Naples.

One pilot, Second Lieutenant L. A. Worley, wrote in his report, "I think it was 64 leading."

Think?

The leading Liberator could not have been Lady Be Good because Worley and the other two following planes had taken off one hour and twenty-five minutes before her. The number of the ship that turned from Naples was probably number 37, whose pilot was 1st Lieutenant Brian W. Flavelle of A Section, 512th squadron.
What probably happened:

Mission 109 was hampered from the outset by the sandstorm blowing North from the Sahara. At the time of the Lady Be Good's takeoff, powerful winds were also developing from west to East across the Mediterranean. They were to influence her destiny greatly.

She had struggled off the ground behind two ships and was following them.

Not long into their flight the engines of these two leading bombers were running rough from ingested sand on takeoff.

The Lady Be Good's seemed to be running fine. At this point, the mixture of winds from North and west was pushing the three bombers North and to the East, away from their intended northwesterly course of 330 degrees.

Instead of crossing the Libyan coast at Benghazi, the three ships crossed miles to the East on a bearing near 360 degrees.

A course correction was made to 330 degrees. Not long after, at about 4.30 p.m., sand-clogged fuel lines forced the two Liberators the Lady Be Good was following to turn back, leaving the Lady Be Good alone on her first mission.

From this point forward the winds from west to East were intense. At around this time too, the Lady Be Good was climbing through showery rain clouds.

It is clear from Dp Hays' Log that a number of course corrections were made to compensate for the winds. Did he know how far east he was? Probably not, but everyone knew that they were detached from 'Mission 109' and out of touch.

And they dared not break radio silence for fear of lurking Axis fighter planes.

In fact, at that point the Lady Be Good was most probably flying North up the Ionian Sea, with Sicily and part of Italy to the west and Greece to the east.

At around 7 p.m., the Lady Be Good's location was near the heel of Italy, and she began to turn west towards Naples on a bearing near 270 degrees.

At this point the ship was about 200 miles from Naples and darkness was gathering.

There are clues that sometime after the turn to 270 degrees—but before 8.52 p.m.—there was probably a dispute in the cockpit of the ship.

At this time the bomber was most likely over or very near Naples. Although darkness had come, the crew could not have missed it, as there were fires along the Naples coast from the earlier bombings.

At 8.52 p.m. the Navigator makes his last telling log entry.

Hays writes "Depart. Heading 140 degrees."

In other words, the ship was heading back to Soluch. After trying to confirm their bearing with Malta Radio, the Lady Be Good continued southeast near the west coast of Italy towards the Libyan coast—right on course for Soluch.

At 10 p.m. they dropped their bombs into the Mediterranean.

At around midnight they reached the Libyan coast.

At 7.45 p.m. the Lady Be Good was probably nowhere near Naples.

She had departed from Naples—or close to it—at 8.52 p.m., one hour, seven minutes after Lieutenant Worley says he "thinks" he saw her there.