B-24 ?

[Devildog]

I agree. I still have chills from what you all have provided. I just can't explain the sensation knowing what I touched and explored. It was one of the most facinating things I ever experienced and it has always been in the back of my mind over the years everytime I read or seen anything on a B-24. It's a good thing I came onto this forum and thought of it. I just contacted one of the members of the Team back then and he is a WW 2 Aircraft buff. He's freaking out right now and kicking himself because he didn't carry a camera at the time. If it wasn't for the advice of my old man on carrying a camera, I wouldn't have had one either. He said he tried to do some research on the wreakage a few years back but he couldn't remember what I had written down in my Journal and had lost my contact information ( which is consider normal in that occupation).

[von Poop]

Interesting stuff.
Is this the one Ray Mears mentioned in a recent survival programme?

[Devildog]

I don't know him. Is that a programme there in the UK ? I'm still going through my "Box of a million pictures". I must have taken thousands over the past 20 years. I never counted them. Just developed them and kept them all in four foot lockers.

[Bodston]

Originally Posted by von Poop

Interesting stuff.
Is this the one Ray Mears mentioned in a recent survival programme?

Don't think so Adam. His recent series was set in Australia. Is that the one where he was with Les Hiddins, 'The Bush Tucker Man'?

Edit: I do remember a documentary about the Lady be Good though, maybe in the 'Timewatch' strand?

[Warlord]

I saw the story in a History Channel series, don´t remember the name; that might bring some light on the subject.

However, I first knew about it from a movie, one in which the story is followed through the eyes of the ghosts of the crew, which disappear one by one as their remains are found. Last scene depicts the last "survivor", whose body´s never found, playing a very lonely baseball game.

[Devildog]

Is this movie on DVD ?

[Slipdigit]

I am amazed that you actually got to see and put your hands on the Lady Be Good. Such a sad story.

Talking about their deaths, Gotthard, it had to be terrible. Before they died, they would have gotten to the point they no longer could make tears, so they had the sensation of sand and ultimately were no longer to open them.

I read that the navigator's tools were stored away and there were thoughts he never used them to verify where the plane actually was, relying instead on the erroneous beacon readings.

[Owen]

Originally Posted by Devildog

Is this movie on DVD ?

Sole Survivor (1970 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buy! Order on DVD Sole Survivor

[von Poop]

When I first got the internet 'Sole survivor' was one of the first questions it answered for me. Trying to remember the name of a film involving William Shatner, a plane, and the ghosts of it's crew had been bugging me for years.

Decent page:
"Lady Be Good" B-24 Bomber, Quartermaster Graves Registration Search and Recovery

And having checked, it seems she did feature in one of Ray Mears's 'extreme survival' series.

Something of a legend you stumbled on there DD.

[Devildog]

Excellent ! Thanks Chaps for the Movie source. I'll be getting a copy.

Slipdigit...I'm pretty amazed myself now that I know what I stumbled upon. I didn't know it at the time. My guess then was anything considering that during my travels around the world, I've seen the debris of WW 2 still laying around in some of the remote places. When I was in Morroco, there were British Crusaders hulls still laying around in the desert. One looked like it was still in the "Hull down" position. I don't know if that was it's original position or that the desert storms made it that way but there was a huge blast hole just off to the side of the main gun. We took a look inside but it was filled with sand. We were hoping we didn't find something grim inside and that the crew got out in time. It looked like the secondary explosion peeled the top off the turret like a Sardine can. If they were, it would have been a quick death.

I would have given my left testical to have seen the outer defenses of Tobruk which I heard reports that they're still remains of the defensive line today but Libya at the time I was there, wasn't a very friendly place to be.

While in Egypt, I did have the opportunity to visit Sidi Barrani and there are still pieces of German and British equiptment laying around several miles South of there. One of the things I remembered and took a picture of is what appeared to be a German 88. It looked like it was blown in place because the end of the barrel was peeled back like a flower. We didn't venture too far because we were warned by the locals that the sands shift revealing unexploded ordinance from time to time.
I encountered the "unexploded ordinace" warning in the Pacific too when I visited some of the battle sites there.

If I had remained a civilian, I don't think I would have never been able to visit some of those places so I feel fortunate.