Lögberg-Heimskringla - 30.10.1992, Qupperneq 5

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 30. október 1992 • 5
From tKe depths of the Glacier
At a depth of 85 metres under the ice, a P-38 fighter is recovered almost intact.
Readers of the North American
press may have noticed an article that
ran recently in most major papers
which dealt with the finding and
retrieving of one of the planes of a
squadron that ditched on the
Greenland glacier 50 years ago. Well,
there is an Icelandic connection. We
picked the following from the
October 10 edition of Morgunblaðiö
but prior to that the paper had nm an
more extensive article on the same
subject. The article is as follows.
A US Lockheed P-38F fighter-
plane was raised from the depths of
Greenland’s Glacier (278 feet), last
August. The plane belonged to the
“Lost Squadron” that was forced to
ditch on the Glacier during the
Second World War. The squadron
consisted of 8 planes, two B-17’s and
6 P-38F’s. The search for these planes
has been on for over a decade and
has been conducted by the United
States, private enterprise and a few
Icelanders have had a part too.
The planes were discovered in
1983 when the search group
“Greenland Expedition” looked to
Glaciologist Helgi Bjömsson and he
with the assistance of two others
from Iceland located the planes with
the help of an ice-scanner that had
been developed at the University of
Iceland.
Every summer since the planes
were discovered an attempt has been
made to get to them and raise them,
but it took a long time to develop the
technique to tunnel down to them
and to get rid of the ever seeping
water from the ice-tunnel. Finally
they succeeded in saving parts of one
of the B-17’s but the plane itself was
too badly damaged for reconstruc-
tion.
Last spring efforts, were directed
at saving a P-38F plane and the expe-
dition succeeded in raising one at the
end of August.
Next summer plans are underway
to raise two more P-38F’s., as planes
from the Second World War are
much sought after by war museums.
Only six P-38F’s; are known to exist
and therefore the planes in the
Greenland Glacier are more valuable.
One Icelander, Fáfnir Frostason,
has been with the expedition for
three summers as a pilot, flying men
and equipment to and from base. The
members of the expedition have
named him the “Iceman” for his
coolness during harrowing flights and
landings on the DC-3 ski-plane he
uses. Mr. Frostason has expressed his
wish to be a part of the group that
eventually, after restoration, fly the
planes to England, their original des-
tination.
The squadron called “Tomcat
Yellow” was on a flight in July 1942
when it hit bad weather and had to
tum back towards Greenland only to
receive a message that its emergency
base was closed. This message is sus-
pected to have been sent out from a
German U-boat. The squadron ran
out of fuel and was forced to ditch.
Birgir
by Joan Eyolfson Cadham
When I was a young thing leaming
to read, most books told stories about
people who lived in cities or suburbs,
or in England, or on dairy farms. A
hopeless bookaholic from birth, this
never stopped my relentless attempt
to indulgé in every piece of printed
paper in the world, but it did have a
long-lasting effect on me.
I grew up believing the places and
people I knew were not important. I
believed that rambling prairie farms
and grain elevators acting as marker
posts along the highway, and wrap
around sunsets and sloughs and
poplar bluffs and the first spring cro-
cuses had no place in the great cos-
mic scheme of things.
Eventually, I went away to
Toronto, to the place that was impor-
tant. But now I was being indoctri-
nated into the art of college research
- and all the research material, it
seemed, came from Harvard and
from Yale. Meanwhile, we danced to
music developed in Los Angeles and
dressed our hair according to
Hollywood. I had arrived in Toronto
only to discover that it was no longer
“the place”.
My friend, Dennis Dwyer, the
United Church minister, a
Montrealer, said he had begun to
realize that his church wanted to
make a difference in the world but
the people who could make the dif-
ference - the heads of corporations,
the truly wealthy - were rarely to be
found among the congregations.
These were the people of Dennis’
background, and he decided to seek
them out and talk to them in the
place where they were most likely to
congregate—in a secluded anchorage
in Georgian Bay. Dennis and his
wife, Sue, chartered a yacht, took a
leave of absence fforn parish life, and
went in pursuit of Dennis’ vision. The
idea was that Dennis would write a
book on his findings, and I would
“do a little editing”. Somewhere
along life’s highway, Dennis met
David Letoumeau and asked him to
“do a little research”.
Three years later, the three of us
completed Bent But Not Broken:
Today's Canadian Church. David,
meanwhile, had abandoned his
research books and crossed Canada
in a little white car, looking for young
people to talk to about church. I had
given up my editor’s blue pencil in
favour of a plane ticket west. We
gathered data, we talked to people,
we listened, we drank tea, we let Sue
feed us, we argued, we wrote and
tore up and wrote some more, we
drank more pots of tea and ate
Nanaimo bars, and we proof-read
until we were red-eyed and ill-tem-
pered. One day we discovered we
had a completed manuscript.
The book was published by a little
company in West Island Montreal,
printed in Old Montreal, in a build-
ing that predates Confederation,
launched in an Eastern Canadian
suburb, first discussed on an open
line show on Montreal commercial
radio, presented as part of a publish-
er’s collection at a book fair/book
sale for literacy sponsored by
Montreal’s only English-language
daily, and first reviewed by that same
daily, The Montreal Gazette, and by
the Montreal Catholic Times.
Copies are available in Montreal
and in Toronto.
Oh, the book is filled with
accounts of Georgian Bay, of
Montreal, of Vancouver and Toronto
and Roxboro. But there are also lines
and paragraphs, pages and chapters
about places called Rose Vale and
Holar. Leslie and Kandahar, Foam
Lake and Model Farm.
David has driven the Yellowhead.
He has been to church in Foam Lake,
and got lost tiying to flnd niece Jill’s
place. We teased Dennis about this
prairie Brigadoon - until Christmas,
when the Foam Lake shop-at-home
promo made the National and he
phoned me, shouting jubilantly, “I’ve
seen Foam Lake on television.”
(Dennis is more visual than I am.)
I realize, of course, that from the
moment I realized that those black
Sigourney is interested in reviewing
Amma's book
symbols, together, formed words, and
words, together, represented
thoughts, that my ultimate ambition
was to hold in my hands a book with
my name on the cover.
Still, I know that the absolute
sense of delight comes as much from
reaching inside, to investigate the
places that are real now because they
are in a book published in the East
about my West.