WWII Pilot Greenland Glacier Crash Story

[CWO Marc]

From the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22958160

[Gargantua]

Wild!

I just read recently about a B-29 that landed on a lake in Greenland, and was left there for 50/60 years… in 1995 they tried to restore it - got it up and running, and then it burned :(

[ABWorsham4]

@Gargantua:

Wild!

I just read recently about a B-52 that landed on a lake in Greenland, and was left there for 50/60 years… in 1995 they tried to restore it - got it up and running, and then it burned :(

I watched a NOVA episode where a B-29 was restored during  two year timespan and it burned on its attempt to get airborne killing several people. Very sad.

[Witt]

That was a ridiculous(rescue)story. Why even fly over Greenland? Sounds like it was unnecessarily dangerous!
And sad about the B29.

[CWO Marc]

@wittmann:

Why even fly over Greenland? Sounds like it was unnecessarily dangerous!

It may have had something to do with the US occupation of Greenland, which the Americans seized early in the war to prevent Germany from getting any idea of doing the same thing.

[Witt]

Thanks Marc.
I suppose it had value for tracking the Convoys. Not that I can imagine the Germans seriously considered capturing it. And with what exactly?

[Gargantua]

@ABWorsham:

@Gargantua:

Wild!

I just read recently about a B-52 that landed on a lake in Greenland, and was left there for 50/60 years… in 1995 they tried to restore it - got it up and running, and then it burned :(

I watched a NOVA episode where a B-29 was restored during  two year timespan and it burned on its attempt to get airborne killing several people. Very sad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kee_Bird

The Kee Bird!

[CWO Marc]

@wittmann:

I suppose it had value for tracking the Convoys. Not that I can imagine the Germans seriously considered capturing it. And with what exactly?

Capturing Iceland would have been more practical (it’s closer) and more useful (as a U-boat base) for Germany; for that reason, Britain occupied Iceland to deny it to Germany.  I think the most sensible German use for Greenland – for which capturing only a small part would have sufficed – would have been as a meteorological station, given that weather typically moves west-to-east across the Atlantic .  See this article for a related operation Germany undertook during the war:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Station_Kurt

[Gargantua]

@CWO:

@wittmann:

I suppose it had value for tracking the Convoys. Not that I can imagine the Germans seriously considered capturing it. And with what exactly?

Capturing Iceland would have been more practical (it’s closer) and more useful (as a U-boat base) for Germany; for that reason, Britain occupied Iceland to deny it to Germany.  I think the most sensible German use for Greenland – for which capturing only a small part would have sufficed – would have been as a meteorological station, given that weather typically moves west-to-east across the Atlantic .  See this article for a related operation Germany undertook during the war:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Station_Kurt

Germany did use Greenland for Weather Stations.

And America fought them there!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland_during_World_War_II

[Witt]

Thanks both.
Fancy not knowing that. I would have been no use to the Axis war effort.