User:GreenlandExpeditionSociety/sandbox

In the summer of 1942, on their way to WWII in Europe, a squadron of eight US Army warplanes ran out of fuel and bellied-in on the Greenland icecap. The flight consisted of two Boeing B-17, “Flying Fortress” bombers and six Lockheed P-38, “Lightning” fighter planes. Two weeks later, the twenty-five pilots and crew were all rescued by a US Coast Guard cutter. No one was left behind. All of the men were given two weeks R & R and then shipped back to their assignments. The war ended three years later and their airships were left where they lay.

Prophetically, they became known as “The Lost Squadron.”

Thirty-nine years later, in 1981, Pat Epps of Epps Aviation, and Richard Taylor, an Atlanta Architect flew by private aircraft from Atlanta up to what was reported to be their landing site in Greenland. Upon landing there, it didn’t take but a moment to see that the icecap was bare of any hint of abandoned aircraft.

Several months later, but now with radar detection equipment, they went back again and were equally unsuccessful.

Then in the summer of 1983, Russell Rajani and Roy Degan teamed up with the RJ Reynalds Tobacco Company and mounted a quick million-dollar expedition to find the planes. Their mission failed and Epps and Taylor formed the Greenland Expedition Society to go back and continue their search.

In 1986, GES mounted their third expedition with sophisticated ground penetrating radar, but again found nothing.

In 1988, and now supported with the Arctic experience of Norman Vaughan, the financial aid of Dr. Dan Callahan and the steady engagement of Don Brooks, the GES mounted their fourth expedition. Their success was measured by establishing that the Lost Squadron was no longer lost. Their sounding indicated that the Lost Squadron had moved one mile east and now resided at rest 250 feet beneath the Greenland icecap.

Epp and Taylor assembled the team to return to the icecap in ’88, when they made contact with a B-17, and brought a piece of the airplane back to the

surface.

The next year, 1989, Don Brooks designed a melting device he dubbed a thermal meltdown generator. This device was built to melt a shaft large enough for personnel to be lowered down to a plane and return, The TMG descended flawlessly for a while, but when it reached a depth of 70 feet, it stopped descending. When the crew investigated the problem, the TMG was resting peacefully on its side on a base-layer of solid blue ice. They then changed the name if the device from TMG to Gopher. They also discovered that the composition of the glacier at that depth, changed from the porous layers of granular snow, to solid blue-ice that went down another 2500 feet to terra-firma below. This increased density of the glacier changed their concept of the Gopher using gravity as a descent guide. Guidance must be mechanically controlled. Since they didn’t have the physical resources to change their guidance system in situ, there was nothing to do but pack up and head 3000 miles back home to Atlanta for more design/build work.

The next year, 1990, was the sixth expedition. This time, GES teamed up with a highly respected general contractor, Pizzagalli Construction Company from Burlington, Vermont who turned out later, one of the most tireless workers on the cap. Their contracted responsibility to GES was to bring at least one complete P-38 Lightning up to the surface. Several times they had forty people working on the excavations. The Pizzagalli Team effort used a physical coring devise to excavate a 16-foot diameter shaft. It ate its way down 175 feet before it suddenly flooded, and they were forced to stop-work. Simultaneously, GES was melting a three-foot diameter shaft the 250 feet down to the B-17, Big Stoop. The GES Gopher hole collected substantially less water and eventually reached the bomber. The area immediately surrounding the plane was then melted-out to create a work area large enough to salvage a healthy collection of historical aviation paraphernalia. They hauled up machine guns, throttle quadrants, cockpit instruments, 50 cal. ammo, combat helmets, the entire upper gun turret and much more. Some of the engineering efforts from both teams worked out fine, and some didn’t. But, in the end, a great array of B-17 parts was salvaged.

Then in 1991, a fellow named Roy Shoffner flew his Beechcraft Baron into Peachtree Airport and taxied over to Epps Aviation for fuel. He met Pat Epps, who then called Richard Taylor and a new working-friendship was born. They came to an agreement for Shoffner to be a substantial financial sponsor for one more Greenland Expedition Society foray.

It took a full year to put together all of the components for this next expedition. The GES team returned to the site in May 1992. This new mission started with first “thumping” a plane to be sure it was there, then melting four, 4-foot in diameter ice-shafts in row down to it. The +2-foot web between the holes was subsequently excavated by hand leaving a +4 x 24-foot slot. Once all the components were pulled up to the surface of the cap, it was then helicoptered to Kulusuk, Greenland, and then ocean-barged to Stockholm, Sweden, then shipped to Savannah, Georgia. Since GES agreed that Shoffner would undertake the restoration of the plane, it was trucked to Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Roy Shoffner then bought-out GES’s interest in the plane, hired its Executive Director, Bob Cardin, [RT2] and they restored the plane at the Middlesboro Airport. This extraordinary process took 10 years and they named her Glacier Girl.

Subsequently, Rod Lewis of the Lewis Energy Group in Texas bought her and now she is awe-inspiring Royalty holding forth at air shows all around the country.

[CJ1]?

[RT2]