Last night the History Channel aired a documentary about a WWII plane excavated from the Greenland ice cap recently. Actually, it was brought up about 10 years ago, but it took them another 10 years to rebuild it. It finally flew a few months ago.

This a P-38 fighter that safely crash-landed in 1942 along with five others of that sort plus two B-17 bombers. After 50 years of accumulated snow, all the planes were 250 feet down, in solid ice, and over a mile from where they landed because of the glacier moving them.

They used a huge heated weight to melt a tube about seven feet across down through the ice until they hit the plane -- which the located with ice-penetrating radar -- then hosed it out with hot water. They disassembled the plane into pieces and brought them up; the largest piece was about seven tons.

It's just amazing what some people will go through to do this, including hardships on the ice, broken marriages, failed businesses, and spending literally millions of dollars. But now the world has 26 flying P-38s instead of 25. Considering the thousands built and scrapped, it's sad there are so few left.

Pictures and more details at the Glacier Girl museum.



I forgot to say that a lot of time went to my next Battlefield: Glass design. This one's a surprise for y'all, and I think you'll like it.


Recent reading:

How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nimitz and His Admirals, an excellent review of top-level planning during WWII. It's amazing to hear of how many plane accidents Nimitz himself was in as he flew back and forth between San Francisco and Pearl Harbor, as well as the rest of the South Pacific. Thanks, Santa!


The B-17: The Flying Forts, another good book with many rather interesting anecdotes and stories of heroism amidst the dryer reports accounting numbers of planes dropping various tonnages of bombs and shooting down so many enemy fighters.