Unsettling May Have Occurred: Occasionally Uncomfortable Obscure True Stories from Human History

by Damn Interesting Editors, The

  On the night of 24 February 1942 the Air Raid sirens sounded, and the Coast Guard Anti-aircraft guns were ordered to "green alert," putting them in readiness to fire. From the time the battle began until it ended in the early hours of the morning, thousands of people had witnessed the search lights around Los Angeles fix on a target hovering above the city, and anti-aircraft rounds detonate in the sky. Reputable news agencies reported the attack, complete with eye-witness accounts. But the Japanese claim that they never attacked, and there was no wreckage to indicate that anyone actually did. These conflicting accounts cast uncertainty on the nature of the unidentified aircraft that caused the Battle of Los Angeles.

  The first sightings of the incoming aircraft came from the Coast Guard shortly after 11:00 PM. Because commercial and private aircraft were fairly common, the Civil Defense Service reacted cautiously to the initial sighting. As reports of the incoming plane--or sometimes fleet--continued and progressed nearer to land, artillery posts were put on alert. By the time they started getting reports of an overhead object from people inland, things were put into action, and the Air Raid Wardens were called in to put the city into blackout. Thousands of volunteer Air Raid Wardens began calling the homes of people in their areas, and ordering them to douse the lights; in so doing they incited people to go out and seek the object that was crawling slowly through the sky.

  Some witness accounts describe the interloper above the city as a tremendous single object, while others stated that it was a dispersed group of smaller objects. Many people reported to the papers that they were certain they'd seen US planes approach the object before the shelling began, however the army reported that 4th Interceptor Command was only on alert, and no planes were ever launched. Spotlights lit the skies and illuminated an object moving slowly--sometimes hovering.

  At 3:16 AM the 37th Coast Guard Artillery Brigade opened fire while the target was over Culver City. With the city lights all snuffed for the blackout, the barrage of AA shells was the center of attention. The firing continued intermittently through the night until the blackout lifted at 7:21 AM.

  The morning papers were filled with details of the incident. Some reported that two Japanese airplanes had been shot down, but such wreckage was never found. Some buildings had been damaged by shells, and there were six casualties-- all of them were on the ground. There were three killed by friendly fire and three more of stress induced by the attack. The Los Angeles Times ran a front page picture depicting the object caught in the search lights; it is uncertain if this picture is an actual photograph or an artist's depiction because of the lack of clarity, i.e. the fact the search lights terminate on the object rather than cast streams past.

  The Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, immediately denounced accounts of the affair, calling it a false alarm brought about by "war nerves". Since the battle many have proposed that the mysterious object that was seen moving over Santa Monica to Long Beach was a weather balloon, or perhaps an early Japanese Fire Balloon. However to suggest that the Coast Guard commenced firing at a balloon for over an hour implies a degree of incompetence, to say the least.

  There are others who have a less pedestrian explanation for that night: that it was a mass Close Encounter of the First Kind. Some stories have circulated that two downed aircraft were found: one in the sea, and one in the San Bernardino mountains, and that they were of obvious extra-terrestrial origin.

  The variation in personal accounts contribute little to the solving of this mystery. Some saw one large object in the sky, some saw many smaller objects. Reports on the object's altitude ranged significantly. However, it seems certain that there was something in the sky that night because despite the disparity in the reports, the fact that there were tens of thousands of witnesses make the existence of the object over LA that night impossible to dismiss.

  Originally published 24 September 2006

  http://dam.mn/the-battle-of-los-angeles/

  The Remains of Lady Be Good (1943 AD)

  In early November, 1958, a British oil exploration team was flying over North Africa's harsh Libyan Desert when they stumbled across something unexpected... the wreckage of a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) plane from World War 2. A ground crew eventually located the site, where a quick inspection of the remains identified it as a B-24D Liberator called the Lady Be Good, an Allied bomber that had disappeared following a bombing run in Italy in 1943. When she failed to return to base, the USAAF conducted a search, ultimately presuming that the Lady and her crew perished in the Mediterranean Sea after becoming disoriented.

  The British oil surveyors found that the desert environment had preserved the aircraft's hardware astonishingly well; the plane's 50 caliber machine guns still operated at the pull of the trigger, the radio was in working condition, one of the engines was still functional, and there were still containers filled with water on board. But the remains of the crew were nowhere to be seen.

  It took the US military over a year before they took the sighting seriously, but eventually they dispatched a search operation which scoured the desert for the remains of the crew. The search teams found several improvised arrow markers at varying distances to the northwest-- one made of boots, others made from parachutes weighed down with rocks-- but the markers stopped at the edge of the vast, shifting sea of sand known as Calanscio. The group was unsuccessful in finding any further trace of the crew.

  The Lady Be Good had been crewed by nine men:

  1st Lieutenant William J. Hatton, Pilot

  2d Lieutenant Robert F. Toner, Copilot

  2d Lieutenant Dp Hays, Navigator

  2d Lieutenant John S. Woravka, Bombardier

  Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger, Flight Engineer

  Technical Sergeant Robert E. LaMotte, Radio Operator

  Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley, Gunner & Assistant Flight Engineer

  Staff Sergeant Vernon L. Moore, Gunner & Assistant Radio Operator

  Staff Sergeant Samuel R. Adams, Gunner

  The official search was eventually called off on account of equipment problems from the harsh environment. But quite by accident, all but one of the crew were located during the year of 1960, over sixteen years after the Lady had disappeared into the desolation. Combined with the findings from the crash site, the clues found with the remains of the crew told the story of men's final days.

  The April 4th, 1943 bombing run on Naples had been the first call to action for Lady Be Good and her crew. That afternoon they launched from the Benina air strip in the city of Soluch in Libya. They departed amidst a sandstorm which incapacitated two other bombers in the flight group, forcing them to return to base. Lady's engines ingested some of the airborne sand as well, but seemed to be running normally, so Lieutenant Hatton opted not abort the mission. En route to the target, the aircraft was buffeted by severe winds that pushed her off course and further away from the bomber group, forcing numerous course corrections on the way to Naples. By the time they neared the target, the other Liberators had long since come and gone, and visibility was reportedly poor. So the pilot turned back, dumping their bombs into the Mediterranean Sea.

  The last contact from the crew of Lady Be Good was a radio transmission from her pilot, William Hatton: "My ADF has malfunctioned. Please give me a QDM." This indicated that his position-finding equipment had failed, and due to the thick cloud cover he had become disoriented. For reasons unknown, Lt. Hatton never received a response to this request for a position report, but it has been suggested that the radio tower suspected a German trick. Later, in the darkness, the distinct droning sound of a B-24 emanated from the clouds over Benina airport. Flares were launched to signal the bomber, but the engine sound passed overhead, and faded into the distance.

  Realizing that they were hopelessly disoriented, several members of the Lady's crew made notations in their logs indicating that they had become lost. A notepad belonging to bombardier Lt. John Woravka revealed one side of a written conversation, probably pencile
d so their pilot wouldn't hear them over the intercom. It suggests that there may have been some disagreement in the cockpit:

  "What's he beeching (bitching) about?"

  "What's going to happen?"

  "Are we going home?"

  Running dangerously low on fuel and probably believing they were over the Mediterranean Sea, the nine men donned parachutes and ditched the aircraft to take their chances. It's likely that the men were surprised when their boots hit sand rather than water. Using revolvers and flare guns, the seven scattered survivors managed to find one another in the desert. They decided to get underway immediately, knowing that the unforgiving Libyan desert reached daytime temperatures of up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

  Lady Be Good flew on through the dark night, slowly descending to crash-land sixteen miles from the men's gathering place. Not realizing that their plane and its supply of food and water were a scant sixteen miles away, the men estimated that travelling northwest would bring them back to the airbase in Soluch. They set out on foot with what supplies they carried. By their calculations, they were no more than 100 miles from the base. In reality, the distance was over 400 miles.

  When the plane's wreckage was located in 1958, desert survival experts predicted that the airmen could only have moved up to thirty miles on foot, particularly considering the fact that they were unprepared for the unforgiving desert environment. Much to the amazement of investigators, the remains of the first group of men were found about eighty miles north of the wreck. A British oil survey team discovered the five bodies, closely grouped together in an area strewn with personal effects such as wallets, flashlights, pieces of parachutes, flight jackets, first-aid kits, and most importantly, the diary of Lieutenant Robert Toner which described his final eight days with a sober brevity:

  Sunday, Apr. 4, 1943

  Naples--28 places--things pretty well mixed up--got lost returning, out of gas, jumped, landed in desert at 2:00 in morning. no one badly hurt, cant find John, all others present.

  Monday 5

  Start walking N.W., still no John. a few rations, 1/2 canteen of water, 1 cap full per day. Sun fairly warm. Good breeze from N.W. Nite very cold. no sleep. Rested & walked.

  Tuesday 6

  Rested at 11:30, sun very warm. no breeze, spent P.M. in hell, no planes, etc. rested until 5:00 P.M. Walked & rested all nite. 15 min on, 5 off.

  Wednesday, Apr. 7, 1943

  Same routine, everyone getting weak, cant get very far, prayers all the time, again P.M. very warm, hell. Can't sleep. everyone sore from ground.

  Thursday 8

  Hit Sand Dunes, very miserable, good wind but continuous blowing of sand, every[one] now very weak, thought Sam & Moore were all done. La Motte eyes are gone, everyone else's eyes are bad. Still going N.W.

  On 9 April, Lieutenants Hatton, Toner, Hays and Sergeants Adams and LaMotte ended their trek, too exhausted to continue. Sergeants Shelley, Moore and Ripslinger continued northward in search of help. There was no further written record for the three men who departed, but with negligible water, no food, and temperatures as high as 130 degrees, the misery of their last few days is difficult to imagine. Lieutenant Toner continued to keep his diary as they waited:

  Friday 9

  Shelly [sic], Rip, Moore separate & try to go for help, rest of us all very weak, eyes bad, not any travel, all want to die. still very little water. nites are about 35, good n wind, no shelter, 1 parachute left.Saturday, Apr. 10, 1943

  Still having prayer meetings for help. No sign of anything, a couple of birds; good wind from N. --Really weak now, cant walk. pains all over, still all want to die. Nites very cold. no sleep.

  Sunday 11

  Still waiting for help, still praying. eyes bad, lost all our wgt. aching all over, could make it if we had water; just enough left to put our tongues to, have hope for help very soon, no rest, still same place.

  Monday 12

  No help yet, very cold nite

  The entry from Monday, April 12 was the last, written in thick pencil lines.

  Of the three men who continued on, the remains of two were eventually found; Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley was discovered twenty-one miles north of his five crewmates, and Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger may have been the last to fall, having crossed an incredible 109 miles of open desert. Radio operator Moore has never been located.

  Later that year, the remains of the bombardier, 2nd Lt. Woravka, were found a few miles from the crash site. His parachute was still attached but appeared to have malfunctioned during evacuation, causing him to fall to his death. Under the circumstances, he was probably the most fortunate of his crew.

  When they set out after evacuation, had the survivors trekked southeast towards the wreckage of Lady Be Good, they would have greatly increased their chances of survival by retrieving the food and water stored there, and using the radio to call for help. But they had no way to know how far Lady had glided before landfall. And had their emergency maps included the area where they bailed out, they might have realized the severity of their predicament, and instead headed for an oasis to the south. Good fortune certainly did not favor the crew of Lady Be Good on her first-- and last-- battle mission. But the toughness of the crew is unquestionable, surviving days of marching across unforgiving desert with only a half-canteen of water to share between them.

  The remains of the eight crewmembers which were found were all returned to the United States. Today the wreckage of the plane is stored in a compound in Libya, but many of the crew's personal effects and a few parts from the plane are on display at the Army Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia.

  Originally published 04 April 2006

  http://dam.mn/the-remains-of-lady-be-good/

  The B-25 that Crashed Into the Empire State Building (1945 AD)

  On a Saturday morning in July of 1945, Army Air Corps bomber pilot Lt. Colonel William Smith was trying to fly his B-25 bomber through a steadily increasing fog. He was on his way to Newark airport to pick up his commanding officer when he appeared above New York Municipal airport (now La Guardia airport) about 25 miles to the east of his destination. He was requesting a weather report.

  Municipal tower reported extremely poor visibility over New York, and urged him to land, but Lt. Colonel Smith requested and received clearance from the military to continue his flight. "From where I'm sitting," the tower operator warned, "I can't see the top of the Empire State Building." Despite the advice from the Municipal tower, Smith plunged into the soupy fog with his two crewmen, bound for Manhattan.

  Partway through their flight, the pilot quickly became disoriented because he was unable to see the ground below, and he lost his way. Despite Manhattan regulations that forbade aircraft from flying below 2,000 feet, Smith made the decision to drop below 1,000 feet in an attempt to untangle his bomber from the densest part of the fog. When his plane emerged from the thick, his visibility indeed improved. All around his aircraft, silhouettes of skyscrapers towered above Smith and his crew... and the New York Central Building was directly ahead.

  Smith reacted quickly and banked hard, pushing the lumbering bomber to its stress limits to try to avoid the collision. His plane just missed the New York Central Building, flying past its west side with little room to spare. Dozens of skyscrapers lay beyond the first one, leaving a forest of fog-shrouded towers in the plane's path. Smith tried to gain altitude as he weaved between the ghostly shadows of buildings, forcing the bomber to maneuver at its operational extremes.

  When the Empire State Building emerged from the fog right ahead of his craft, Smith banked his plane and pulled back as hard as he was able, but the bomber lacked the maneuverability to dodge the large tower looming over it. At 9:49 a.m, in the middle of a desperate, climbing turn, the ten-ton B-25 slammed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building.

  Inside, workers for the War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference had already started work when their offices were suddenly engulfed an
an explosion of flaming, high-octane fuel. The burning gasoline traveled through hallways, stairwells, and elevator shafts, reaching as far as four floors below the point of impact as the building shook. A publicist working in the offices was propelled out of a window from the explosion, and ten others were caught in the inferno.

  Fire and debris rained upon the surrounding area, mostly onto nearby structures. One of the bomber's engines completely penetrated the Empire State Building, and fell from the opposite side. The other engine flew into an elevator shaft and severed the cable of an elevator car carrying two women, sending it into free fall.

  Catherine O'Connor, who was working in the offices at the time of the crash, later recounted her experience:

  "The plane exploded within the building. There were five or six seconds-- I was tottering on my feet trying to keep my balance-- and three-quarters of the office was instantaneously consumed in this sheet of flame. One man was standing inside the flame. I could see him. It was a co-worker, Joe Fountain. His whole body was on fire. I kept calling to him, 'Come on, Joe; come on, Joe.'" He walked out of it.

  Doris Pope, also in the building at the time, initially suspected that World War 2 had been brought to American soil:

  "That day, as we were getting ready to take our coffee break, we heard this terrible noise, and the building started to shake. … As we looked out our third-floor window, we saw debris fall on to the street. We immediately thought New York was being bombed."