OT: Lady Be Good?

[Footslogger]

This is an odd story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8ioi8ADM1w

[spence]

maybe it's just because I'm an old fart but I remember something about this from long ago. I think that Hollywood may have made a movie about it. I remember Richard Baseheart (sic) as a general in it and the only reason I could remember him was from submarine show in the 60s whose name escapes me.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: spence

maybe it's just because I'm an old fart but I remember something about this from long ago. I think that Hollywood may have made a movie about it. I remember Richard Baseheart (sic) as a general in it and the only reason I could remember him was from submarine show in the 60s whose name escapes me.

Voyage to the bottom of the sea?

I tried watching the video but it went to a long ad so I shut it off.

[dr.hal]

There was a book that came out in the 60s about this aircraft, Lady Be Good, it was one of the first "History" books I ever read, and it was fascinating. This whole incident was probably the greatest documented attempt at desert survival that is known. It failed but to read the diary entries that were later found is heart rendering. To know that none of the crew made it. So tragic and so preventable. To me it illustrates how little real training folks had before they were thrust into deadly combat.

[geofflambert]

I'll bet this was an inspiration for the fictional story in Flight of the Phoenix. Many of the same elements, lost in the desert, encounter with nomads. Outcome entirely different, of course.

[GI Jive]

There was a 1970 movie called "Sole Survivor" that was inspired by the Lady Be Good incident. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxV6kbydpW4. There are some artifacts from the Lady Be Good at the Air Force Museum in Dayton.

[Canoerebel]

There was a thread in here about six or seven years ago discussing this.

The movie is surprisingly good with a serious twist - kind of like The Others.

[dasboot1960]

When I was three years old in 1963, living in Izmir, Turkey, I broke my army badly. My dad was in the USAF. The nearest hospital that could best address my issues was at Wheelus AFB, in Tripoli, Libya. That was the first time I encountered this story. At that time, there was a memorial to the crew on base, basically just a roped off gravel area containing one propeller and a plaque. There used to be a picture... Tragic story for the crew; given that their initial error in heading the wrong way doomed them even if they had not made any other mistakes. Apparently they travelled during daylight, but actually covered enough distance that if they'd headed south they could have hit an oasis. They just had no idea where they were.