August 1992 The Southern Aviator magazine
© Flyer Media, Inc.

In late June of 1992, I was invited to travel with Pat and the Greenland Expedition Society to the site where the Lost Squadron now rests under 264 feet of glacial ice. I found that the real story is not about the airplanes, long lost and now found, but instead about the determination and dedication of the men of the expedition and their achievements in bringing history to life.

A Fine One I've Gotten Into This Time

It was a classic case of letting my mouth override my brain.

"You know, you ought to let me go back up there with you," I said to Pat Epps. Pat was home from the Greenland ice cap for a few days, and I was talking with him about the progress his team was making in the retrieval of a P-38 from the Lost Squadron.

It was really just a rhetorical question.

"Okay, I'll pick you up Saturday."

Pat called on Thursday to confirm that I would be going, leaving me with a day to prepare for, well, I didn't really know what I was preparing for.

I started fretting immediately. I was supposed to be excited about going on such an adventure, but just between you and me, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I didn't want to go charging off to the Arctic and then be lowered down a 264-foot-deep shaft inside a moving glacier. I am not that intrepid. But the fat was in the fire. I couldn't gracefully get out of this one.

The next day I went shopping for long underwear and wool socks.

###

The story of the Lost Squadron, two B-17s and six P-38s, is well known to most of us in aviation. The airplanes were being ferried across the Atlantic in 1942 to join the war in Europe when they encountered bad weather. Low on fuel, they were forced down on the Greenland ice cap. The flight crews were rescued but the aircraft were abandoned to the glacier.

Enter Pat Epps, who owns Epps Aviation -- the long-time FBO at Atlanta's DeKalb-Peachtree Airport -- and friend Richard Taylor, an Atlanta architect. After an impromptu flight over the North Pole in a Bonanza following Oshkosh in 1979, they decided to stop in Greenland on their way back to Atlanta. It was on this trip that Epps and Taylor learned of the Lost Squadron and decided they would go about searching for the airplanes.

In 1981, the two adventurers launched a quest to find and retrieve the Lost Squadron with visions of flying the warbirds off the ice. Forming the Greenland Expedition Society, they would spend the next decade travelling to the ice cap and pushing forward the technology they would need to retrieve the airplanes.

Somehow, I got lucky enough to go watch it happen.

The Navajo Chieftain rolled onto the ramp at Johnston County Airport on time for the long trip to Greenland.

Pat popped out the plane along with Gary Larkins and T.K. Mohr, two aircraft recovery specialists from out west. Gary and T.K. were being called in to help bring a P-38 up from its resting place beneath 264 feet of ice.

The airplane looked like a freight hauler, loaded to the gills with everything from toolboxes and sleeping bags to Bisquick and Oreos.

We took off for Montgomery County Airport in Gaithersburg, Md., where we were to stop for fuel, lunch and a satellite telephone that would add another 80 pounds to the Navajo. On the way up I started plugging lat/longs into the Trimble GPS unit I'd brought along. The impact of where I was headed started to sink in as I programmed waypoints for places with names like Goose Bay, Nuujuaq, Godthab, Sondre Stromfjord, Narsarsuaq, and Kulusuk. And Tomcat Site 65 deg.18 min. N by 40 deg. 04 min. W -- on the Greenland ice cap, where eight 50-year-old airplanes lay beneath the ice.

###

I flew right seat on the leg to Quebec, where we would clear Canadian customs. It was summertime hot in Maryland, and we were on a 4,000-foot runway aiming for huge power lines at the end.

"I want to weigh this stuff," Pat said with a twinkle in his eye, "but right now I don't want to know."

We made it off the runway and, as a bonus, over the power lines.

I punched our route into the GPS. Direct Quebec. VFR.

Errol Flynn is alive and well in the person of Gary R. Larkins. Larkins, 41, from Auburn, Calif., is an aircraft pirate, pulling lost warbirds up from the ocean floor and out of jungles around the world. Over the last 20 years, he has salvaged 49 airplanes. As Director of Recoveries for the Institute of Aeronautical Archaeological Research, a Sacramento-based salvage and restoration firm, Larkins had just come from three months in the mountains of New Guinea, where he and his team had found and retrieved another P-38 that had crashed during the Big War. In the 100-degree-plus weather there, he slept on the wreck's wing because there were too many snakes in the elephant grass below.

Larkins has piloted most of the exotic warbirds you can think of, including PBYs. This Arctic adventure was just the right venue for a swashbuckling airplane pirate.

###

I decided to become an airplane pirate myself, and Gary agreed to take me on as an apprentice. When we landed in Quebec, Pat knew the Customs officer and we didn't even have to show our passports. But I wanted to get mine stamped, and while Gary and I were sitting in the customs office lounge I saw a different inspector and asked him to stamp my passport.

Naturally, my mouth problem had reared its ugly head again as the Customs man asked how it was I was there without the proper forms. He finally gave up on us and walked away.

Gary looked at me and said with mock seriousness, "Rule number one: Never talk to Customs." I was on my way to piratehood.

###

Thomas K. Mohr, 60 -- he goes by T.K. -- grinned at me. "I heard they were 80 feet under ice," he said, "then I found out they were 80 meters under."

T.K. is a 10,000-hour pilot, ATP rated in just about all the old transports: DC-3, -4, -6, -7, Convairs, B-25 and B-26, jets like T-33 and F-86 and -- important to this trip -- P-38. He works as an A&P/AI for Western International Aviation in Tucson, right off the end of the runway of Davis-Monthan AFB, where he refurbishes and rebuilds aircraft that are often warbirds. He has done a lot of crazy things over the years, including crashing airplanes while working as a lead pilot on firebombers.

But this trip is something altogether new. He is excited about the prospect of being a part of such a historical moment.

"I wonder how, out of all the mechanics in the country, I was picked."

###

We landed at Goose Bay, Labrador, at dusk with brilliant approach lights contrasting the darkening sky. We had logged more than 10 hours in the Navajo.

We spent the night at the Ambassador Hotel, a steel building that had comfortable rooms. I knew it was the last time I would see a motel room for a while.

Goose Bay is a NATO training base. The next morning, U.S. Air Force F-16s, British Tornadoes, and Canadian C/F 18s were taking off with afterburners aglow. Pat received a thorough briefing at the Canadian Forces weather facility, while Gary and T.K. found a Canadian maintenance officer who provided them with what amounted to a treasure map: A list of crashes in Labrador over the last 40 years. Hurricanes, B-25s, B-17s, everything -- along with site coordinates and status. Larkins licked his chops over the booty, and I could tell he'd be back to Canada to hunt for some of these downed warbirds.

During the night an Aeroflot freighter had landed. Four of the crew jumped ship and asked for asylum.

This was a strange and wonderful trip.

North to Narsarsuaq

Greenland is a hard place to get to. Consider that the island, almost big enough to be a continent, lies above 60 degrees latitude. It's more than 2,500 miles north of Atlanta. Most of the 50,000 people who populate the island live on its western shoreline in Godthab, the capital, or Sondre Stromfjord farther north.

We would make landfall and stop for fuel on the southern tip of Greenland at Narsarsuaq. Our destination was the desolate and remote east coast, a landing site called Kulusuk.

The North Atlantic weather is a cauldron of unpredictability. We expected poor conditions for our 5 1/2-hour flight across to Narsarsuaq and Pat prepared alternatives to fly a more northerly route to Godthab.

With about 6 1/2 hours of fuel on board, there wasn't much room for error. We had a four-man raft and life jackets. But there were no immersion suits Ñ the bulky, thermal wetsuits most ferry pilots wear when they fly across. In the North Atlantic, you might last 30 or 40 seconds in the cold water before hypothermia gets you. The immersion suits can prolong that to a couple or three hours.

I accepted the fact that if we bit the big one on this leg and had to ditch, we were all ice cubes. After all, immersion suits are really just body bags with an opening for the face. Larkins placed the whole exercise into perspective for me. "Why stop living," he mused, "just to stay alive?"

But the ominous weather forecast the night before didn't pan out. When we broke out on top at 7,500 feet, climbing to a cruise altitude of 9,000, everyone relaxed and settled in for the long flight. Occasionally a break in the undercast would give us a glimpse of the ocean and a smattering of icebergs.

###

Clear skies prevailed over the southern coast of Greenland. The near-continent rises sharply out of the ocean, its rugged coastal ranges a sheer barrier to seaward approach.

We flew low across the ocean, picking our way through the myriad icebergs and ice floes dotting the water close to land. The summer thaw had loosed the ice pack to drift south, and we skimmed just above chunks big enough to land on.

The flight was a panorama of spectacular scenery as we flew up a fjord to Narsarsuaq. The Lost Squadron had tried to return here 50 years earlier. The landing site was then known as BW-1, and is now still little more than a runway and small terminal building. The four of us were ecstatic at landing there, our sense of the adventure heightened by our arrival at such an isolated spot on the globe.

After 5 1/2 hours, we were also greatly relieved to find excellent Danish plumbing fixtures available.

There are no customs to clear in Greenland. They must figure that if you made it this far, you don't need any extra hassles. The tower operator was also the guy who provides weather briefings. Conditions were good for the three-hour flight north to Kulusuk, and after topping off with $1-per-liter avgas, we were off again.

###

We climbed away from Narsarsuaq heading north, flying up the glacier next to the airport. As we gained altitude, the enormity of the ice cap beyond the coastal mountains became apparent. It stretched away to the west in a great, vast dome of white ice. At its apex, the cap is more than 9,000 feet deep.

The jagged mountains are absolutely sheared away by these omnipotent glaciers. There is no other abrasive force to erode and mold the shapes of the rock but the massive, inexorable movement of the ice heading to the sea.

The voluminous scope of the ice cap -- and our relative insignificance -- became clear. No help is available to an airplane flying in this region. With radio communications spotty, the feeling of isolation is intensified.

The Kulusuk Hilton

On the way into Kulusuk, Pat flew low over Tomcat Base -- the site of the expedition camp, named after the fateful flights of 50 years past. We couldn't land the Navajo on the soft summer snow at the site; that would be left for the expedition's DC-3 on skis. The camp depends on the Gooney Bird for heavy resupply, while a twin Dornier, also on skis, makes more frequent trips to the site.

We buzzed the camp several times as the expedition crew below waved excitedly. I looked down on the camp. A row of yellow tents, a tall flagpole with Old Glory waving proudly, and -- for as far as the eye could see -- snow and ice.

"No way," I thought out loud, "No way am I staying out here!"

###

Kulusuk is a 5,000-foot dirt strip. Its abandoned radar site was part of the famous DEW line, the defense early warning system that stretched across the arctic and watched the big, bad Bear.

These days it's more of a travellers way station, its old barracks providing modest overnight accommodations. The mess hall functions as a social center for the hardy group that maintains the airstrip, and provides basic services for the most intrepid of the world's tourists.

It is also the staging base for the expedition, where the red-and-gold DC-3 laagers along with the Dornier used to ferry supplies out to Tomcat.

The guys with the expedition call the building the Kulusuk Hilton, and I would know why before I left Greenland.

###

Oyvid, the man who runs Kulusuk, knew we were coming. He kept the mess hall open and, after nine hours in the Chieftain, we were treated to an excellent fried chicken dinner. As new travellers we caused a buzz of activity, and the mess stayed open late with conversation and a few shots of spirits.

###

About a mile from Kulusuk, down a snow-covered path and over a hill, the village of Capdan is home to about 400 Innuit people, native Eskimos. The road was still impassable to vehicles in late June. A couple of us decided to walk over, trudging through the melting snow.

The village's wooden plank houses, painted brightly with blues, red and yellows, provided a colorful escape from the stark white landscape.

Another lesson in perspective waited for me over the hill. Life at its simplest: Wake up, fish, clean the fish, cook the fish, eat the fish, go to sleep. I walked past the dogsleds and wondered how people lived in such isolation, so far away from the rest of the world. But the people I saw and spoke to had smiles on their faces, and the children playing tag laughed gaily. Pat found a small outcropping of rock to sit on, and looked out over the frozen inlet and the fjord and mountains beyond. It was midnight, and the sun was still edging over the horizon.

###

That first night of daylight was weird, to say the least. It just didn't get dark, and the body couldn't figure it out. If it ain't dark, it ain't bedtime.

I did finally fall asleep, for about three restless hours. Then it was time to go to the ice cap.

On to Tomcat

The trip out to Tomcat, 125 miles south-southwest of Kulusuk, was also a re-supply mission. We worked up a sweat loading and securing 16 drums of Jet A and avgas on the DC-3. The big tailwheel left the cargo floor tilting at an angle, and much grunting was required to roll the heavy drums up the fuselage and turn them upright. The fuel kept the camp generators and equipment running.

We also had the load of provisions we had brought from the states, including fresh meat and vegetables. Outside the cargo hold, Pat and T.K. swept over the old airplane, preflighting, pouring buckets of oil into the round engines.

The Gooney Bird was heavy, but nevertheless lifted smartly away from the runway. It was my first ride in a DC-3, and I was bent over behind Pat, peering wide-eyed out of the pillbox windscreen.

The DC-3 had been a C-47 for most of its life. The 1946 airplane, owned by Don Brooks of Douglas, Ga., and on loan to the expedition, was converted to a DC-3 in 1986 by Basler Aviation in Oshkosh. The cockpit was a juxtaposition of ancient flight controls and modern avionics. A battery of old switches mixed with color radar and a loran on the refurbished panel.

T.K. flew as Pat's co-pilot. Pat, who had flown for 20 of the last 36 hours, nodded off to sleep. This just wasn't as exciting for him as it was for me.

###

He woke up in time to see Tomcat come into sight. The DC-3 swung around in a wide arc and lined up with a "runway" defined by flags.

The big skis settled lightly on the ice. It wasn't like a crash, but it wasn't like a landing either. The airplane undulated slowly with the firmness of the snow and the Gooney Bird grudgingly stopped, robbed of momentum. We were abeam the camp as the guys gathered to greet us.

This was a high point for everyone. The Gooney Bird's landing interrupted the daily toil of routine camp life, and new visitors meant news and new conversation to the men who had been on the ice since May.

I jumped down from the cargo door and sank up to my knees in snow. I was relieved to know I had brought the right gear: Heavy, insulated rubber boots and waterproof pant shells. I looked around me, my eyes adjusting to the brilliant white reflecting from the snow. There was nothing but snow.

I heard Dorothy saying, "You're not in Kansas any more."

Then the work started. We unloaded the provisions and the drums of fuel. A Ski-Doo snowmobile dragged the supplies away on pallets.

I felt as if I had stepped into a photo out of National Geographic.

In fact, I had.

Down the Hole

The first order or business once the plane was emptied was getting a look at The Hole. Over the past weeks, the crew had worked to melt a shaft down to P-38 Delta, the aircraft believed to be in the best shape following its forced landing.

My first glimpse of the shaft left me shocked. How could these guys come out here and make this incredible hole 264 feet down into the bowels of the glacier?

A small bulkhead, two feet high, served as a guard to the edge of the hole. The hole had been widened to about four feet by eight feet using the Super Gopher, a mole-like device that uses hot water to melt a path through the ice.

I cautiously peeked over the edge, into a bottomless, black pit. I stood back and shook my head woefully. "I am not going down that.," I said out loud.

It had been decided that I would go down the hole right away so I could photograph the Lightning before it was further disassembled. Various cowlings and panels had been removed and brought up, as had the four .50 caliber machine guns and the six-foot-long 20 mm cannon. Earlier I had watched as Pat and Gary were lowered into the hole. I noted the apprehension that flushed across Gary's face. This guy was used to doing dumb, dangerous things, but even he took stock of the danger.

Now it was my turn. Hey, I did not want to go down that thing -- I am not that brave a guy. Really, I'm not. But here I was, on the ice cap, in front of God and 12 hardy souls. I knew there was just no graceful way to weasel out of this. (I know some of you think that you'd just love to have a chance to go down the hole, but no mortal can stand above it and not have serious thoughts about home, family and insurance policies.)

I would go on the chain hoist first, then Gary. Gordon Scott, who is the Hole Master, would escort us down.

Bob Cardin, the expedition's leader, helped me dress out for the descent and gave me instructions. The bench seat is like the one used by miners, and I snugged into it. A safety harness was cinched tightly my waist.

I had put my camera equipment in zip-lock plastic bags and wore a raincoat. A hard hat with a miner's light completed the ensemble. I clicked the harness ring to the chain hook and attached to a dead-man safety rope using a Jumar safety device.

The long ride down takes about 20 minutes on the chain hoist.

I swung my feet over the edge of the low bulkhead. Most everybody in camp had crowded into the operations tent to watch as the new meat was suspended over the chasm, dangling above the 264-foot shaft to hell.

I looked up at the faces grinning down at me and yelled, "This is the most stupid f--kin' thing I have ever done."

I meant it, too.

The Ride Down

As we were lowered, the whir of the hoist and the noise of the generators diminished and then was swallowed by the shaft. The silence was disconcerting at first, then a surreal calm prevailed.

The sides of the shaft were mostly smooth from the path of the Super Gopher, but the evidence of the years was still clear. Alternately, swaths of snow from winters and melted ice from summers shown through the walls. There are lights about every 75 feet down the shaft, and the ice was pale blue and clear.

A bundle of electric wires was strung down the side of the hole, and a large fire hose reached to the bottom to remove melted water from the hole.

Gordon carried a handheld radio strapped to his chest. The support crew above work occasionally ask for a radio check. "Ops normal," he would respond.

I stared at the wall of the shaft, and remembered to breathe.

About 80 feet down, a piece of plywood jutted from the wall. It was left over the shaft during the 1989 expedition, and marked the depth of the attempt to reach the P-38 that year.

A little farther down, we passed the Firn Line, the level of the water table inside the glacier. It began to rain down the hole as water wept from the ice.

Ten feet above me, Gary sang a cowboy song. I considered my unique circumstances, one of maybe 30 people on earth to have been inside an arctic glacier.

###

The airplane rests on a bed of ice. The big hole empties directly above the number two engine, which provided a sturdy landing spot for us.

Happy to have made it down, I was hardly prepared for the sight that greeted me. A 50-foot-long cavern had been melted around the plane. The opening in the ice resembled melted Styrofoam. The crew had used a homemade water cannon, a device with a fire hose nozzle that sprayed hot water to melt the ice and carve out the work space.

In most places you could stand up. Walking was precarious, but spikes attached to our boots helped with our footing. Halogen lights had been erected and cast a eerie glow on the cavern ceilings, shadows giving texture to the walls. The air was heavy and wet. The temperature in the cavern, constant at about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, was comfortable as we moved around working.

The airplane lay on its belly, its twin tail booms disappearing into small openings in the ice. The airplane is in great shape. A P-38F model, serial number 417630. Though there is skin damage from the weight of the ice, it is structurally sound. In fact, the whole crew received a big morale boost when Gary came out of the hole the first day and proclaimed the airplane in excellent restorable condition.

The tail assembly had been pulled about 15 feet away from the tail booms -- and the rest of the airplane -- by the glacier. The canopy was crushed, but the cockpit itself is fine. Compared to other warbird restoration projects, this airplane is a rare jewel. All original, brand new parts. Fifty-hour Allison V-12 engines. No corrosion anywhere.

As Gordon set up additional work lighting, Gary went straight to work disassembling the number two engine. He was amazed at the condition of the parts. He was able to unscrew bolts and fasteners as if he were in a hangar. The aircraft offered no resistance to the work. Glycol and oil were still in the lines and hoses.

The plan called for removing the engines, props, tail boom and wingtips and hoisting them to the surface. The center section of the fuselage would present the biggest challenge; the aluminum main wing spar stretched 17 feet across from the outsides of the two engines. The hole would have to be enlarged somewhat to accommodate it.

###

I eased myself into the cockpit of the new, 50-year-old fighter. I tried to imagine the feelings of the pilot who emerged from this cockpit so long ago. It's a small cockpit, cramped with gauges and instruments. The instrumentation was in pretty good condition, though a little dirty and worn. The canopy had been crushed by the weight of the ice, but overall the sight was remarkable. Placards still gave instructions for the landing gear, throttle levers were retarded and props pulled to feather.

I squeezed my feet into position on the rudder pedals. This thing is built for speed, not comfort.

I sat there, incredulous.

###

I stayed down in the hole more than three hours before heading up the shaft. The return trip was more enjoyable, my earlier fear and worry replaced by a great sense of glee and satisfaction.

From then on, the work would continue through two eight-hour shifts each day, with three guys going down at a time to finish taking the airplane apart.

What makes the effort so remarkable is the industriousness of the expedition members. Every needed item, if it wasn't brought along, had to be fabricated. A solution to every problem was devised with good old Yankee ingenuity. If a glitch cropped up, it had to be dealt with from existing resources -- there is no corner hardware store on the ice cap.

Camp Life

Bob Cardin is the expedition manager and the man charged with bringing the airplane to the surface. Retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army, he was an army aviator and airfield commander.

He is completely focused on his purpose for being at Tomcat. "They told me to bring up and airplane, and that's what I'm going to do," he said stoically. "Even if I have to cut it into four-inch pieces with my pocket knife."

Bob is a tremendous leader. He analyzes every member of his team, and plays to each one's strengths while minimizing each man's weaknesses.

He also snores pretty damned loud.

###

I bunked with Bob Cardin and Bart Wilder. The tent had a kerosene heater that knocked the edge off the cold. The last night I was there, the outside temperature dipped to 12 degrees -- but inside it was a toasty 28. I slept in an arctic mummy bag. By my second night on the cap, I decided I could sleep anywhere.

Dave Kauffman is a mechanical engineer from Atlanta. He had taken a leave of absence from his job to be a part of the expedition. When I met him he had been on the ice cap for 56 days. Dave, along with John Fogarty, an electrical engineer also from Atlanta, helped me stow my gear in a tent and showed me around the camp when I arrived.

The camp consists of a row of four expedition tents for living, a supply tent, the mess tent and three tents for operations: Two for mechanical equipment and the third, larger one covering the hole over the P-38.

The tents were nearly below the surface, the result of more than 12 feet of snow the site had received since the expedition arrived May 6. "Our motto is 'Shovel or Die,'" Dave smiled.

###

About 300 yards south of the camp, a large hole had been excavated in the snow. At the bottom, ice steps led down to a small opening -- the operations tent from the 1990 expedition that had reached the B-17 "Big Stoop."

That year had resulted in disappointment when "Big Stoop" was found to be badly damaged. Still, the expedition had proven that it could reach under the ice and touch the planes. A steel I-beam from the '90 effort had kept the inside of the tent intact, under the 35 feet of snow that had accumulated in two years. The team was able to retrieve a lot of useful equipment, including some generators and hoists, to use this year.

They also uncovered the diesel skid-steer loader they'd left behind in '90. It had rested quietly for two years in the cold, but when they hooked up its battery the engine cranked to life on the first try.

###

Lunchtime the first day was my introduction to the mess tent. It is the social center for expedition members. Inside, it's always warm from the kerosene heater and there is a perpetually-full coffee pot.

The sign above the entrance purveyed a double entendre. "Putting fire in the Hole," it reads. In addition to their three meals a day, the mess is also where members not working gather to write in their journals or listen to the BBC over the shortwave radio. Twice each day, a ham operator in Maine reaches the camp over the airwaves to bring news and pass on messages from the expeditioners.

###

I would soon know all about the mess tent. I volunteered to relieve the camp's cook, Lou Sapienza. For a day and half, I became part of the expedition instead of an observer of it. In fact, I have a new vocation: Arctic Pot Scrubber. I did become popular after my first lunch, a kind of beef stroganoff number with pan gravy and scratch biscuits. They liked it enough that they threatened to kidnap me, making me cook for the duration of the summer.

"We don't waste anything on the ice cap," I was told, so I started a two-gallon project of soup du jour. T.K. was my soup content advisor. He called the creation "Sonofabitch Soup," for when you tasted it you'd say, "Son of a bitch, that's good."

Over the next couple of days the soup took on new character as its contents grew and simmered. One night after dinner, instead of raking the plates into the trash, I had all of them scrape their plates directly into the pot.

Waste not, want not.

###

Gordon Scott, 42, a ranking member of the expedition, is a veteran of the '89 and '90 efforts. A tall, rough-hewn man from Girdwood, Alaska, he came to the Greenland Expedition Society through his association with Col. Norman D. Vaughan.

Vaughan, now in his eighties, was the last man to have seen the Lost Squadron when, as an Army major in 1942, he dogsledded alone to the landing site and retrieved the secret Norden bombsights from the downed B-17s. Vaughan had been with Adm. Richard E. Byrd on the famous expedition of 1928-30 to Antarctica.

###

The necessary facilities for man's bodily functions were located about 20 yards downwind from the camp. An outhouse with an open front faced south, and from the royal perch you could look across the ice at the ocean 20 miles away. A pole with a flag had been erected as a signal. If the flag was flying, the can was in use.

It was a challenge, to say the least, to bare all in anticipation of the moment of contact with the seat. This was not a place to loiter. Business was dispatched quickly. We'll call it a lesson in perspective.

###

Bart Wilder, 21, lives in Macon, Ga. Sam Knaub, 29, is from York, Pa. Both are former U.S. Army Rangers and capable of putting up with any hardship. They are also both A&P mechanics, and between playing practical jokes on one another would be helping dismantle the airplane. Jorn Skyrud, 25, is from Oslo. The Norwegian did his pilot training in Conway, S.C. As a member of the expedition, he is most comfortable with the nordic conditions.

Another face is Tony Pope, 31, from Douglas, Ga. Tony is a paramedic and provided medical expertise in such a remote location. He had come prepared, stocking IVs, splints, suture sets, oxygen and antibiotics. "Everything you'd find on an ambulance," he said.

The expedition's physician, Dr. Dan Callahan, would be on the ice soon, along with other long-time expeditioners such as Norman Vaughan and Richard Taylor, Epps' partner in the whole affair.

Some of the expedition's critical members had gone into Kulusuk while I was on the cap. Neil Estes and Weegee Smith are both senior members of the effort with whom I spent little time, but had been working for two months.

###

The midnight sun confounds one's senses, and the fatigue of the 20-hour days showed on the faces of all the men.

There were moments of great levity. Gary had brought along a three-iron and some fluorescent red golf balls. We had a great time on our impromptu driving range, playing the first Arctic Open.

Homeward bound

I made my way back by catching the Dornier to Kulusuk. The expedition supply pilot is an Icelandic native who goes by the monicker Iceman. On the way back he let me fly the Dornier. We flew low, sometimes 20 feet over the ground, skirting chunks of ice and looking for seals. When I got to Kulusuk, I learned why the modest barracks had earned the nickname Hilton. The musty shower stalls of a few days before had become a luxury of delirious proportion in comparison with the camp.

I threw on the first clean clothes I had worn in four days, and barely made a Jetstream that was leaving for Reykjavik, Iceland. The next day, I caught an Icelandair 757 back to Baltimore.

###

It was the trip of a lifetime for me. But I was only a visitor for a few days. The guys on the ice landed there May 6. They had built a city, conquered the climate and achieved an incredible feat, making their way down through 264 feet of ice to bring history to the surface and the light of a new decade.

But the men of the Greenland Expedition Society have faced a lifestyle of harsh weather, little sleep and difficult work under poor conditions. Their stalwart dedication to the task is what makes the story of the Lost Squadron.

And history will add another chapter through the spirit of adventure, determination and achievement of the expedition members.