At the request of one of my readers I'm posting three photos showing the ALCLAD 24S-T markings on the Lady Be Good.
The Lady Be Good cropped up in the news again recent with the unfortunate events surrounding the disappearance of flight MH370. Of course, a bomber disappearing during a bombing raid in WWII was hardly the news story that MH370 has become.
My reader's request concerned specifically the ALCLAD 24S-T markings on the aluminim/alumninium sheets that formed the hull and wings. Per Wikipedia, Alclad was a trademark of Alcoa used as a generic term to describe corrosion resistant aluminum sheeting. It was made by bonding high-purity surface layers to a high strength alloy core.
In the modern aluminum classification system ALCLAD 24S-T would now be ALCLAD 2024T. Developed around 1927 it is one of the best known of the high strength aluminum alloys and is still commonly used in aircraft manufacture today. The '24' alloy (with copper) itself has a low corrosion resistance hence the reason for cladding it with high purity surface finishes. The ‘S' indicates it was a wrought alloy – that it could be shaped by rolling, drawing or forging, while the ‘-T' indicates the temper or heat treating. Tempering increases a material's toughness (ability to absorb energy and deform without fracturing) usually at the cost of a reduction in hardness (resistance to permanent shape change when a force is applied).
The photos below were taken from the wings and hull. Two of them just show the repetition of the ‘ALCLAD 24S-T' imprint but one of them includes another line that reads ‘ALCOA .022″‘. from reading around a lot of historic Alcoa documents through Google search, the .022″ is most likely the thickness of this particular sheet. Unfortunately I don't know where on the aircraft this panel was but as all the rivets are flush I'm assuming it was part of a wing since most of the rivets on the hull are rounded. I read somewhere there were 340,000 rivets in a B24 Liberator!
It's funny, if I were taking these with a modern camera the GPS in the camera would tell me where on the aircraft this panel was. As it was at the time I took these in 1990-91, our Magellan hand-held GPS was the size and weight of a brick and was good to a few meters if it could see three or more satellites (and just as useful as a brick if it couldn't). The remains of the wreck, by the way, are no longer in the desert. Most of the wreckage was removed from the desert in 1994. It's spend most of the time since then in various yards in and around Tobruk. I suspect pieces of the Lady have been lost each time she's been moved. However, but for the current political and security situation in libya, it is now theoretically much easier, relatively, to visit the wreckage, though I personally feel she should have been left where she was.
I've also included a photo taken inside the rear section of the fuselage, aft of the waist-gunner's position to indicate that the ALCLAD markings were only on one side of the sheet metal, not both. from this I surmise they were etched into one set of the rollers used to roll the sheets of metal. It would be nice to know if there was any convention during aircraft construction to place the markings to the exterior. I don't have any interior shots that indicate the markings on the interior of the skin.
Although the Lady Be Good flew her one and only mission in Desert Pink camouflage, it's also clear that she likely shipped out of the Consolidated factory in San Diego in ‘Olive Drab' as Walker (The Liberandos)
Here are the photos. For a larger version, click on the photo.
The photo below is of the port side of the hull and has been rotated 180° so it's easier to read the markings.
This next one is taken from one of the wings.
Below is a detail that I think is from one of the wings because the rivets are flush. This one also bears on the bottom row of text the legend ‘ALCOA .022″‘. Also, after the ‘ALCOA' in much smaller letters on two rows appears to be the letters ‘A E O.' on the top row and ‘I.M.' on the bottom row. I've no idea what these mean. Perhaps it's a reference to the rolling mill where the sheet was rolled. (Update April 5, 2013: thanks to reader T.M. for pointing out that the small markings are ‘REG' on the top row and ‘T.M.' on the bottom row – ‘Registered Trade Mark')
And finally, here's a shot from inside the hull to the rear of the waist-gunner position to show that the ALCLAD 24S-T markings were only on one side of the sheet of metal.
If I have a regret from my visits of 1990-91 it's that I did not do much research before visiting the site. Had I done so I would have known my survey area covered the locations where the locations 7 of the crew were subsequently found. But then, doing research back then required visiting libraries and in England I would likely only have discovered McClendon's book since Walker's book was published in 1994 and Martinez's account in 1995. I believe all three books are now out of print but new and used versions are available:
I have a photo book containing several of my images of the Lady Be Good available through Blurb, below:
For more information on the Lady Be Good you might also want to check out www.ladybegood.com (Martinez's site) and www.ladybegood.net though neither appear to have had any recent content changes. The www.ladybegood.net has a neat flight simulation and video of how the aircraft might have ended it's flight.
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