'Lady Be Good' - in from the heat?

[Flat 12x2]

Its interesting reading the comments regarding "bring her back" (from the horrible country that wont let her go/is letting her rot) when you (the USA) have a complete B-24D, veteran of 18 combat missions left rotting where she came to rest on your own home soil.
Who's going to save that aircraft ?

Which one is that?

He's probably referring to 40-2367, a B-24D resting on Atka, a remote island in the Aleutian chain off Alaska.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/b24registry/b24-402367.html

http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/travel/aviation/atk.htm

Yep, thats the one

Plus,on other islands theres the wings/engines + tail of another & possibly another B-24 (all discussed here on WIX before)

Last edited by Flat 12x2 on Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Russ Matthews]

Is this the same wreck that provided parts for the Hill AFB Museum aircraft? Or was that a different arctic B-24?

SN

Different aircraft.

Correct.

The components incorporated into the Hill AFB Museum display were recovered from the wreck of 41-23908 on Great Sitkin Island in the summer of 1995.

http://www.hill.af.mil/library/factshee ... sp?id=5653

[tom d. friedman]

i better get a life........... i had to look at that vulcan silhouette again. that pic just astounds me.

[Steve Birdsall]

Steve Nelson mentioned that various parts of Lady Be Good were retrieved . . . as I recall the Air Force Museum got a canteen, compass, the navigator's log, maps and charts, a nose gun and one of the props.

One of the props was displayed at Wheelus AFB in the 1960s . . .
http://community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/1108211896052688524puDduz

More?

I can confirm that there was no interest at all in bringing the whole aircraft back at the time she was discovered. The museum was struggling to get funds, and Strawberry Bitch was still sitting out in the weather with so much of her original equipment gone missing.

[PinecastleAAF]

Does anyone had better pictures of 40-2367 on Atka? The only two photos I have seen are the black and white pics from 1978.

thanks!

[Second Air Force]

Steve Nelson mentioned that various parts of Lady Be Good were retrieved . . . as I recall the Air Force Museum got a canteen, compass, the navigator's log, maps and charts, a nose gun and one of the props.

One of the props was displayed at Wheelus AFB in the 1960s . . .
http://community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/1108211896052688524puDduz

More?

The last time we were at the NMUSAF (ten years ago or more) the LBG display also included the nose tire/wheel, some hydraulic components, and one of the engines.

Scott

[TonyM]

There was an official Lady Be Good website/discussion forum some time ago. This site had offered some new evidence concerning the fate of Sgt. Vernon Moore, the Lady Be Good crewmember still listed as MIA. The last time I was there--early last year, they were not accepting new members. Not sure if the site still exists; I will try and find it later so I can provide a link.

If I remember correctly Mario Martinez, who wrote the very good book treating the subject of the B-24D known as Lady Be Good titled "Lady's Men", had turned up some new evidence concerning Sgt. Vernon Moore. It seems that a British Army Patrol Unit, while practicing a desert penetration mission/drill, had come upon the body of an US flier in the Lybian desert. This body was found in the general area where other LBG crew were found several years later. The British Army unit buried the body on site. Photos were taken (these had been posted on line). This story was told to Martinez by one of the guys who was there. Some historians (this one included) believe that this body was probably that of Sgt. Moore. At the time that this body was found--in the early 1950s, nobody knew about the LBG---it had yet to be discovered several years later.

I have been studying the Lady Be Good for some time now and I was going to write a book on LBG when I graduated college, but Martinez had beat me to it. So I wrote the USAAF accident book instead.

I'll try to come up with that link.

TonyM.

Last edited by TonyM on Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[JDK]

For those not familiar with this fascinating, tragic story, start here. It also touches on Tony's point about the 'missing' crew member.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_be_Good_(aircraft)

[TonyM]

Apparently www.ladybegood.com has been down for several months.

Here is a link to another site dedicated to this tragic bomber:

http://www.ladybegood.net/index.htm

TonyM.

[Shay]

What exactly do those of you who say "Preserve as is" mean?

At the moment, at best she is a ripped up pile of aluminum. It would take some amount of restoration to even display her as found in 1959 (which would be an interesting undertaking).

So if in future some amount of restoration is going to take place. What is simplest and makes the most since? Restore to pre- april 1943 or to 1959

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[JDK]

What exactly do those of you who say "Preserve as is" mean?

Would that be me? I thought quite a lot had been covered in the thread already.

At the moment, at best she is a ripped up pile of aluminum.

Really? With a complete wing, which is more than most ground-transported B-24s had. It's just stored, not arranged. Have another look at Peter's posts and pictures. AFAIK, he's the only one of us that's actually SEEN the aircraft.

It would take some amount of restoration to even display her as found in 1959 (which would be an interesting undertaking).

The word would be 'conservation'. What survives can be arranged as per the crash site, with missing equipment replaced with new-old stock, and missing material replaced, sympathetically made, over an armature, if necessary.

It's not an exact comparison, but the presentation of ancient pots is a similar conservation process.

Getting a wreck back onto its own gear would require much more replacement and reconstruction, IMHO, unjustified in the fact that the aircraft's ONLY historical importance is its loss - presenting a rebuilt Lady be Good would simply mislead the public as to what was found. If you need to see what she looked like before, there's the Strawberry Bitch.

So if in future some amount of restoration is going to take place.

We agree that is desirable; but it doesn't have to happen. Arranged on a sandy floor, in a Libyan museum with photos 'as found' would perhaps illustrate all-too-well the degree of post-discovery plunder by mostly Western nationals. Another reason that IF the museum goes ahead, it would be a great bridge building exercise by the NMUSAF to return the pieces there and to assist with the conservation.

That's just one possible outcome and the best in my opinion, which is free and worth what you pay for it.

Cheers,

[Django]

I agree that the only restoration scenario that makes sense it to the post crash site and that it is famous because of the crash.

Personally, I don't see the NMUSAF letting go of their pieces of LBG.

[davegnz]

I find it interesting that so many people say display LBG as found in 1959 then complain that if the LBG was restored it would no longer be original. The only way to represent her as found condition would be to restore her to as built condition, then find some way to simulate her as crashed.

Understand that when she was salvaged for preservation, the Lybians took a lot of trouble to disasemble the aircraft along production joints (the wing was moved in one piece [which was not done with Sho Sho Sho Baby when the USAFM recovered this B-17G from France]).

It should also be mentioned the the Smithsonian Institution was offered the LBG in 1959 and turned down the USAAF because they did not want wrecked aircraft in their collection (The Air & Space Museum still does not have a B-24 and they have no desire to get one).

Final point, if you want a B-24D with a combat history, what about Hadley's Harem ( http://www.rmk-museum.org.tr/english/ex ... on.html#13 ) - Turkey salvaged the nose section, the rest of the airframe is still underwater.

[EHVB]

[quote
Final point, if you want a B-24D with a combat history, what about Hadley's Harem ( http://www.rmk-museum.org.tr/english/ex ... on.html#13 ) - Turkey salvaged the nose section, the rest of the airframe is still underwater.[/quote]

There is a pic in the new Bob Ogden museum book that shows a lot more of a B24, including part of the mid fuselage, and wing. So maybe more of the B24 has been salvaged now. BW Roger