Qualla: Lady Be Good (aircraft) https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/9/p/lady-be-good-aircraft-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lady Be Good (aircraft) https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft Lady Be Good (aircraft): Introduction https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft/ Photo credit United States Air Force, Public domain. When the British Petroleum survey crew climbed down from their truck on 9 November 1958, the aircraft in front of them looked as though it had landed an hour ago. It lay broken in two on the floor of the Libyan desert, hundreds of kilometers from anywhere, but the machine guns still functioned, the radio still worked, and a thermos of tea in the cockpit was still drinkable. Painted on the nose was a name and a number: Lady Be Good, 64. The men had heard rumors of a ghost plane out here. Now they were standing in its shadow. There were no bodies. There were no parachutes. There was no sign of the nine young Americans who had flown it into the desert and never come home.

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Image: United States Air Force | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/9/p/lady-be-good-aircraft-wp/ss9p-lady-be-good-aircraft-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lady Be Good (aircraft): The First Mission https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft/ Photo credit Kairotic, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lady Be Good was a brand-new B-24D Liberator, serial number 41-24301, assigned in March 1943 to the 376th Bombardment Group at Soluch Field, an airstrip on the coast of Libya near Benghazi. The crew was new too. They had reached Libya barely two weeks earlier, and on 4 April 1943...

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Image: Kairotic | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/9/p/lady-be-good-aircraft-wp/ss9p-lady-be-good-aircraft-the-first-mission.mp3 0:06 2 full Lady Be Good (aircraft): Past the Coast, Into the Dark https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft/ Photo credit Kairotic, CC BY-SA 4.0. They were not almost there. The navigator believed he was flying a straight line from Naples to Benghazi, but the field's radio direction finder had only a single loop antenna, unable to tell whether a signal lay ahead or behind. The reading that should have guided them home inst...

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Image: Kairotic | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/9/p/lady-be-good-aircraft-wp/ss9p-lady-be-good-aircraft-past-the-coast-into-the-dark.mp3 0:06 3 full Lady Be Good (aircraft): The Long Walk North https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft/ Photo credit Kairotic, CC BY-SA 4.0. Eight of them came together in the dark. The ninth, John Woravka, did not; his parachute failed, and he died where he landed. The survivors gathered what little they had, half a canteen of water among eight men, and began to walk north toward a coast that was impossibly far away....

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Image: Kairotic | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/9/p/lady-be-good-aircraft-wp/ss9p-lady-be-good-aircraft-the-long-walk-north.mp3 0:06 4 full Lady Be Good (aircraft): Found, One by One https://qualla.com/lady-be-good-aircraft/ Photo credit Kairotic, CC BY-SA 4.0. It took until 1960 to bring most of them back. Guided by Toner's diary, search teams found the five who had stopped together, then pushed farther north for the others. Shelley was recovered about 24 miles beyond the five; Ripslinger another 26 miles past Shelley, well over 200 ki...

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Image: Kairotic | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/9/p/lady-be-good-aircraft-wp/ss9p-lady-be-good-aircraft-found-one-by-one.mp3 0:06 5 full