[ARC5] Video discussing the loss of the Lady Be Good

[Robert Eleazer]

My understanding is that they were relying on ADF to find their base, missed the reversal when they flew over it and assumed that they were not there yet and were still over the ocean.  The Nav did not need his instruments I guess, if he had a good ADF signal.  They bailed out over the desert and did not ride the airplane down and thus did not have the use of the still functioning radios.  They probably could have landed in the desert and did a "Flight of the Phoenix" (a similar incident inspired the movie).

Not all navigators were any good at their jobs.  They were supposed to fly with a large formation and thus only the lead nav had to be any good.

In the a book about the 100th Bomb Group the writer, a Nav, describes how little he knew about his job when he first got started.  He was unexpectedly at the last minute told to fill in for the Group Nav on a training mission over the U.K., and a very good radio operator gave him good bearings to radio stations.  An English Literature major in college, he could tell everyone the history of the towns they passed over.  He impressed everyone so much by that near-non-performance that he was unexpectedly told to fill in once more for a real mission, to bomb a target in Norway.  There were no radio bearing available on that mission, and he totally screwed up, had a strong tailwind he did not know about, and found the target only because the clouds parted at the last minute and the Germans were using smoke in an attempt to mask the target.  He found the way home only because he accidentally routed them over Narvik and the resultant flak told him they had to be over the only worthwhile target on the coast of Norway.  He did not know here he was most of the time and thus did not have the radio op send out the required position reports - as a result the Germans did not know where he was either.  Only two JU-88's intercepted them after they passed Narvik and the B-17's withering return fire blew both of them out of the air with no U.S. losses.  After they hit Scotland they could follow the coast back to base, so he had no navigating to do and just collapsed. 

He got back to base and figured he would be sent home after such a truly awe-inspiring series of screw-ups.  Instead he got a metal for such an awe-inspiring performance: target hit despite bad weather and also done during lunch when the Norwegian workers were not there, the longest range mission of the war up to that point completed successfully, two Ju-88's shot down with no U.S. losses.  And he was made permanent Group Lead Navigator - and at that point decided he needed to learn how to do his job.

Wayne