[Milsurplus] Bomber Fantasy Camp, OK

[Hue Miller]

Not very good odds. I suppose that figure works in all causes of nonrescue, 
such as the difficulty of the sea landing itself?
BTW, I recently read, was it in an old "Morsum Magnificat", a turnabout 
story to the story of the "Lady Be Good". A German plane made a forced 
landing in the desert of LIbya.
The radio still worked, but they could not raise their airbase. The operator 
managed to raise someone back in the Reich, and it was one of the ham 
networks the Germans
allowed during the war. Their call for help was verified for authenticity 
and relayed back to the North Africa base. IIR, the plane was able to be 
repaired or refueled and flown
out. Unlike the 'Lady Be Good' though, they had been in daylight, and so 
didn't mistake the desert for sea, and felt confident about riding it down. 
The 'Lady Be Good' crew
could possibly have survived if they'd ridden the plane down and in like 
manner radioed for help.
-Hue Miller

Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Bomber Fantasy Camp, OK
Amen, Hue. Check out http://pacificwrecks.com/updates.html  This site 
documents many of the planes lost in the Pacific.
I'm currently reading "Finish Forty and Home," an excellent book on B-24s in 
the Pacific. It talks about how difficult navigation was because on most of 
the missions, the planes were flying over hundreds of miles of open ocean 
with no landmarks to guide the navigator. One minor navigation error and 
your plane would run out of fuel and go into the drink. The author said that 
of those crews that ditched in the ocean, only about 25% were ever rescued.
Joe Connor