By a Hare

for every potential outcome. Perhaps it was because he was annoyingly practical, having expanded on tactics put forth by his predecessors in order to carry out his grand plans for conquest. Or heck, maybe it was both of those things. Despite napoleon strategic genius, though there were some battles he simply couldn't prepare for, no matter how long he researched. In one instance, the opposing army was too unpredictable, too ferocious, too difficult to comprehend, and it resulted in one of

the most devastating losses of his military career. In July of eighteen oh seven, Napoleon's French army had just won a major battle against the Russian Empire. With that victory, he brought an end to the hostilities between both sides, which resulted in a peace treaty one signed. Napoleon decided the best course of action would be to celebrate. He instructed his chief of staff, Alexander Bertier, to organize a luncheon for the highest ranking men in the French military.

But it wasn't just a luncheon, No, these men were soldiers. They didn't want to eat. They wanted to kill the food that they would enjoy together, and nothing would have been more sporting than a good old fashioned rabbit hunt. Bertier, not someone to carry out a task for his boss, lightly arranged cages teeming with thousands of rabbits around the perimeter of a vast grassy meadow. After a period of mingling and talking shop, the men picked up their rifles,

boarded a carriage, and set out for the hunt. Once the men arrived, the cages were opened and the rabbits hopped into the field. Except they didn't scatter. They weren't afraid at all. They took one look at Napoleon and his hunting party and their agenda became clear. The hunters became the hunted, an ocean of bunnies charged toward them, waves of fur and ears coming for the seasoned French officers, and rather than aiming their guns, they simply watched and laughed.

After all, what kind of harm could a bunch of rabbits do? As an aside, I'm sure most of you have heard the phrase a murder of crows right. A murder is a quasi technical term for a group of crows, like a pride of lions. For rabbits, the options are a bit less entertaining, a warren, a herd, or even a husk. But my personal favorite is a trip, and that's what Napoleon's officers were facing down, a trip of bunnies. As the incursion grew closer, Napoleon's good nature quickly turned

to one of fear. The rabbits surrounded the hunters, climbing up their legs and torsos as the men tried hopelessly to brush them off. They used their writing crops, nearby sticks, and anything else they could get their hands on to beat back the onslaught of furry fiends, but nothing worked. The rabbits kept attacking, and Napoleon, not one to run from battle, lightly new defeat. When he saw it, he had no choice but to retreat, so he and the

men jumped back into their carriage, hoping to escape. But the bunnies seemed to have learned some military strategy of their own, like divide and conquer. They split into two groups and lengked the carriage on all sides. Some even managed to make it inside as it was rolling away. It wasn't until the carriage was out of sight when the animals finally calmed down. The most brilliant military man in generations had been outdone by an invading army of rabbits.

But at least Napoleon had someone else to blame for the fiasco, his chief of staff, Bartier. You see, on such short notice, it had been impossible for Bartier to find enough wild hairs to satisfy a party full of hunters, so he'd put out word to the local farmers that he wanted to buy their rabbits. Only too happy to oblige a man so prominent within Napoleon's army, the farmers had agreed and sold him all the rabbits they had. If only Bertier had done his research, he would have

learned that farm raised rabbits were conditioned. They had come to identify the presence of a human being as a sign that food was on its way. They weren't attacking so much as they were looking for their next meal. And a Poleon, well, he suffered the most humiliating defeats of his career. One might even say it tripped him up. Not long after Italy declared war against France and Britain during World War Two, the country became a major target

for Allied bombers. Not of all those targets, Naples held the title as the most bombed Italian city of the war. Hospitals and churches were leveled, residential neighborhoods became battle grounds, and roughly sixty Italian civilians had been killed in bombing raids by the end of the war. While the country bounced back relatively quickly, so much had already been lost and would never be recovered. The bombers had carried out the attacks as a form of liberation from tyranny form fascism,

from the clutches of an autocratic dictator. Swooping in, dropping their payloads and flying back to their respective basis. Bombing raids became standard fair during the war, but pilots always had unpredictable factors to deal with. Sure, there were enemy planes to watch out for, as well as return fire from soldiers on the ground, but a pilot's deadliest enemy inside or outside of war has always been the weather.

Blue skies could turn gray in seconds, and suddenly a routine flight home met negotiating high winds and lightning while also struggling to remain in the air, and for one particular B twenty four bomber nicknamed Lady be Good, the weather would prove to be a more dangerous foe than any Nazi. Lady Big Good's crew had just wrapped up a bombing run over Naples on the afternoon of April ninette when it ran into trouble. The mission had been simple.

A squadron of twelve bombers would fly over the city first, followed by another group of thirteen bombers right after. At just after three pm, Lady be Good had taken off from Benghazi, Libya, when a sandstorm kicked up, making visibility almost impossible. The B twenty four fell behind from the rest of the planes, but eventually made it to Naples several hours later, along with three others. When their mission was over, they turned around and headed back to base,

but Lady be Goods navigation system started acting up. The pilot, Lieutenant William Hatton, radioed for a landing location, but it never came. Hatton flew directly over the base, taking his crew and his plane deep into the Sahara Desert. Hours passed and fuel was running low. With no way to land safely, Hatton instructed his men to put on their

parachutes and abandon the plane. At two am, nine men jumped from the Lady be Good, allowing the plane to fly solo to its final resting place in the dark of night. Rescue efforts were launched the next day, with teams scouring the desert and the Mediterranean Sea for any signs of wreckage. When they found nothing, the men and their lady were presumed lost. It wasn't until fifteen years later when British petroleum workers spotted something from the air

over the calin Shio Sand Sea. They've been scouting locations for potential drilling, and radioed authorities at a local air base about their discovery. No one had any idea what was out there. There were no records of any wrecks that far into the desert. A few months later, more reports of a down plane started pouring into the base, so on ma of nineteen fifty nine, a recovery team started investigating the claims, and there it was, the Lady

be Good, broken into two pieces, but otherwise intact. The plane had been remarkably well preserved, no doubt due to the dry desert environment. The machine guns still worked, there were still food and water rations on board. Even a thermis of tea had been found, with the liquid inside still drinkable. By all appearances, it seemed the crew had

abandoned the plane midflights, but never found her again. In the winter of the following year, the U. S. Army began sweeping the desert for signs of the plane's crew. They found the bodies of five of the men, including Lieutenant Hatton, While most of the others were eventually discovered later having been buried in the sand, only the gunner staff, Sergeant Vernon Moore, remained unaccounted for. After Lady be Goods discovery, some of her parts were sent back to the United

States to be evaluated by teams of engineers. The military, hoping to save a little money saw an opportunity to repurpose those parts on other aircraft, a decision they would soon come to regret. Transmitters from the Lady Be Good were installed in a C fifty four Skymaster transport plane that was forced to abandon its cargo in an emergency landing after suffering from propeller problems. Another transport plane was fitted with the Bombers radio receiver before it disappeared into

the Mediterranean. Even inconsequential pieces from the Lady Be Good seemed cursed after being installed another aircraft, a single engine prop plane, crashed off the coast of Libya, almost all of it lost beneath the waves, except for an arm rest that had washed ashore, an arm rest that had come from the Lady Be Good. Despite its amazing resilience, it seems that the Lady Be Good just couldn't live up to its name, it's legacy. After all, it was

more than a little bad. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works, I make another award winning show called Lord, which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.