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The Lady be Good was a B-24 Liberator based in North Africa that went missing during a raid on Italy. At the time it was generally believed that the aircraft had got lost somewhere in the desert (radio contact was established near the African coast), but air searches failed to find it. The missing aircraft wasn't discovered until 1958 when oilmen working in the Libyan Desert flew over the almost intact wreck. That triggered a series of attempts to find first the aircraft and then its missing crew.
This book tells three linked stories. The first is of the raid and the Lady be Good's role in it. The second is of the unsuccessful survival efforts of the aircraft's crew deep in the Libyan Desert. The third is of the post-war efforts to find the aircraft and its crew, something that involved oilmen, the US Army Mortuary System and possibly even the British Army. All three are fascinating tales (although the first two are inevitably a bit gloomy in nature).
The determined efforts of the British oilmen to find the aircraft on the ground having seen her from the air are of great interest, but perhaps the most impressive feature of the story is the distances covered by some of the crew in their attempt to reach what they believed to be the nearby coast of North Africa.
This edition includes a second epilogue examining the possible discovery of the last member of the aircraft's crew, whose fate was unknown when the book was originally written.
Chapters
1 - El Alamein
2 - The Characters Assemble
3 - Doomed Crew
4 - Eye Witness
5 - Take-Off
6 - Where Was Lady be Good?
7 - Missing
8 - Probably Truth
9 - The Next Day
10 -Oilmen Overhead
11 - Dead Reckoning
12 -Uncomfortable Souvenirs
13 -Crew Search
14 - Jump Time
15 - Day One
16 - Day Two
17 - Day Three
18 - Day Four
19 - Day Five
20 - The Last Days
21 - Oilmen Again
22 - Mystery Projectile
23 - Final Thoughts
Appendix - The background to this book
Author: Mario Martinez
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 213
Publisher: Pen & Sword Aviation
Year: 2011