1942 witnessed the dark days of World War II. In Europe Hitler was on the move and the Allies were in trouble. Britain under Conservative Churchill stood alone, while America under Roosevelt mobilized. At home the Prime Minister's image was sinking—not one victory over the Axis Powers had been achieved. Clement Atlee, Churchill's Labour deputy Prime Minister said in Parliament, "Our Prime Minister wins every debate and loses every battle."

In the East the Germans were grinding their way towards Moscow. In the Atlantic their submarines were clobbering Allied shipping, and over Britain, their bombs continued whistling down. Then there was North Africa, where the British Eighth Army were in retreat. Churchill survived a motion of censure in Parliament, and with Britain's back against the wall, he flew to North Africa to implement a purge of his generals. He flew in a Liberator B-24D bomber just in from America. When a plane carrying General Gott, the new man chosen to lead the Eighth Army was shot down on route to Cairo, his replacement—a last choice—became General Bernard Law Montgomery. The rest we know: Victory at El Alamein. Germany was all but through in North Africa. To this, Churchill was later to say "Before Alamein we never had a victory; after Alamein, we never had a defeat."

Churchill referred to Italy as '”the soft underbelly” of Europe. It was territory soon to be probed by the steady stream of American Liberator B-24s that were slipping into to North Africa in ever-increasing numbers. One such Liberator arrived in Soluch, Libya, from Topeka, Kansas, on 25 March, 1943. A few days later someone named her “Lady Be Good.”

A nine-man crew just in from America was assigned to this ship. They were oldish (by the standards of the day) but were nonetheless inexperienced. Together they were destined for their first mission on April 4th to bomb Naples harbour. The Lady Be Good took off in a sandstorm, headed out over the Mediterranean, and vanished.