| Lady Be Good (aircraft) |
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On November 9 , 1958 , British oil surveyors located the wreckage of the Lady Be Good near , 440 statute miles southeast of Soluch. Although the plane was broken into two pieces, it was immaculately preserved, with functioning machine guns, and a working radio. Evidence aboard the plane indicated that the men had bailed out. Records in the log of the navigator Lieutenant Hays ended at Naples, suggesting that he may have been incapacitated by Altitude Sickness . The United States Army conducted a search for the remains of the airmen. Finding evidence of the men's progress northward, the exploration concluded that their bodies were buried beneath Sand Dunes . In 1960 , the bodies of eight airmen were found by another British oil exploration. Five were found nearly 80 miles from the crash site, while another two were found another twenty and twenty seven miles farther north, respectively. A journal found in the pocket of co-pilot Robert Toner indicated that eight of the men had managed to meet up by firing their revolvers and signal flares into the air and had survived for eight days without water before perishing, managing over 100 miles in searing heat. Three of the eight (Guy Shelley, 'Rip' Ripslinger and Vernon Moore) had set off to try and find help while the other five waited behind. The crew never suspected that they were more than 100 miles inland. The body of one of the three, radio operator Moore was never found {See LadyBeGood.com below for possible fate}. The last man, bombardier John Woravka, was found dead not far from the crash site. The other crew members had been unable to meet up with him and presumed him lost. In fact his parachute had failed causing him to die during the evacuation. The crew could have survived had they known how far they were inland and had their escape maps covered the area in which they had bailed out. The distance they covered, heading north, was only slightly less than the distance to the oasis of El Zighen, to the south. On their way there, they would have come across the wreckage of the Lady Be Good and would have been able to retrieve the water stored aboard. According to the Graves Registration Report on the incident: The aircraft flew on a 150 degree course toward Benina Airfield. The craft radioed for a directional reading from the HF/DF station at Benina and received a reading of 330 degrees from Benina. The actions of the pilot in flying 440 miles into the desert, however, indicate the navigator probably took a reciprocal reading off the back of the radio directional loop antenna from a position beyond and south of Benina but 'on course'. The pilot flew into the desert, thinking he was still over the Mediterranean and on his way to Benina. EXTERNAL LINKS AND REFERENCES
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