TheTraveler

 
Glacier Girl
by: Megan Kopp

Fifty years, 268 feet of crushing ice, thousands of gallons of scalding hot water and she still had air in her tires.

I sat entranced in the small Middlesboro, Kentucky hangar turned museum as Project Manager Bob Cardin described the journey to recover "Glacier Girl" -- one of the P-38 Lightening warplanes of the infamous "Lost Squadron". On a wooden bench nearby, retired businessman J. Roy Shoffner sat quietly, watching the last minute touches being put on the fully-restored fighter. It was his dream and financial resources that lead to this three-part adventure of discovery, recovery and finally... flight.

The story began in July of 1942. Operation Bolero's mission was to ferry planes from the United States to support war efforts in Britain. At the height of World War II, six P-38F fighter planes and two B-17 bombers were crossing from Maine to England. False weather reports sent the entourage off-course and, running short of fuel, the planes were forced to make an emergency landing on Greenland's Icecap.

Pilot Brad McManus attempted to land his "Lightening" bird with wheels down. The plane flipped, but luckily McManus was not seriously injured. The remaining seven planes landed safely. After 10 chilly days the 25 airmen were rescued. The planes, including the P-38's, with only 74 hours of flight time, a mere 62 days old, were left behind.

Fifty years of snow, 35 to 50 feet a year, turned with time and pressure to ice, burying the fledgling fighters. A score of expeditions attempted to first locate and then recover the buried birds. None succeeded. In 1983 the planes were located by subsurface radar. In 1992, fifty years after the P-38's first landed, yet another recovery attempt was launched.

Retired military officer and entrepreneur J. Roy Shoffner put up the capital to finance the expedition (working with the Greenland Expedition Society), but he also was responsible for finding a project manager capable of pulling it off. He chose Bob Cardin, ex-military as well, but more importantly a natural leader. They'd need

the edge to wrestle their target from its icy prison.
Where previous recovery crews attempted to chip a solid out of their way, Shoffner's team took a different tact. They changed the solid to a liquid and began a meltdown of the ice, drilling a hole with 180-degree water, descending at the laborious rate of 2 feet/hour.
At 268 feet they finally reached a plane. "It was like sliding down a soda straw..." said J. Roy of his half-hour journey down into the belly of the glacier, lowered on a cable attached to his body harness. Landing on the tip of one wing was an eerie feeling.
The crew now faced the daunting task of melting the plane out of an ice cube, disassembling the frozen fuselage and raising the fighter to the surface, piece by piece. "Pretty slippery working conditions," noted Bob Cardin, who spent up to 18 hours at a time working in the hole.

After 14 weeks it was time to leave. The expedition did not come cheaply. Total recovery costs: $638,000. But where others had failed, Shoffner's team had the satisfaction of leaving with a ccomplice P-38 to restore.

And what a restoration they faced! "After we took off all the broken pieces, we had nothing left," said Cardin. Chief mechanic Robbie Grosvenor took on the daunting task of getting "Glacier Girl" (as they dubbed her) flight-worthy again.

Each piece was evaluated. Did it need to be straightened? Rebuilt? Replaced? After 10 years of hard labor they managed to salvage 80% of the original aircraft. On October 26, 2002, Glacier Girl taxied down the Middlesboro, Kentucky runway... with a little of that original 1942 air back in her tires... and took flight for the first time in 60 years.

End of story? Not by a long shot. The Lost Squadron Museum, currently lodged in a crowded hangar, where all of the restoration work was completed, is about to move. Plans for a 12,000 sq.ft. museum at the Bell County Airport are quickly taking shape. It is hoped that Glacier Girl will keep up her brilliant performance by flying in air shows around the country. The History Channel will air a special 90-minute documentary about the "Lost Squadron" on March 3, 2003, highlighting the P-38's incredible journey from recovery to restoration to reigning attraction.

If you go:

For complete information and maps, contact the Southern & Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association (SEKTDA), toll free at 877-TOUR-SEKY or visit them online at www.tourseky.com . The Lost Squadron Museum is located at the Bell County Airport in Middlesboro, just off U.S. 25E. For more detailed directions and current hours of operation, call (606) 248-1149 or visit their website at www.thelostsquadron.com .

Nearby Attractions

While in Middlesboro (an English industrialist's dream town built in the crater of a meteor strike) you might want to add on a game of golf at the Middlesboro Country Club -- renowned for being the oldest, continuously played golf course in the U.S. (circa 1889). You are also ideally situated for a visit to Cumberland Falls State Resort Park (home of the only "moonbow" in the Western Hemisphere), a hike along Daniel Boone's Wilderness Trace to Gap Cave in Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, a ride along the Big South Fork Scenic Railway to the abandoned coal mining towns of Barthell and Blue Heron, or a couple of days cruising Lake Cumberland up to 76 Falls in a houseboat (don't miss stopping for a little taste of heaven -- the Peanut Butter Pie at Grider Hill Dock & Indian River Lodge). SEKTDA's website (www.tourseky.com) has all the details.

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