Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II

Today, there is a regular commercial flight that is almost 19 hours and a Boeing 777-200LR has flown 23 hours non-stop. With that, it’s easy for us to forget that when the US was ferrying supplies and planes to Europe early in its entry into WW II, you couldn’t just fly across. They had to make refueling stops in Newfoundland, Greenland, and Iceland before reaching Britain. And, it was a dangerous journey, especially over Greenland. You likely know Iceland is green and fertile while Greenland is basically a huge glacier greater than the state of Alaska. The weather is harsh and highly changeable. In addition, there was no GPS, communication was limited, and guidance was still relatively primitive. Though military policy was to expend every effort to rescue its men, the land was so vast and the environment so difficult, many crashes were never found and rescue attempts often failed. On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane crashed on Greenland’s ice cap. A search and rescue mission was quickly dispatched with a vast area to search. Four days later, a brand new B-17 on its way to Europe that was waylaid to join the search crashed in a blinding storm with 9 men on board, all of whom miraculously survived. The crash site was not found for several weeks and was in a very difficult-to-reach area with many dangerous deep crevasses with winter strengthening. Supplies were dropped and various attempts were made but time kept getting drawn out and the weather grew increasingly worse. There were few options but a Coast Guard vessel in the area launched a daring rescue operation with a small amphibious plane nicknamed the Grumman Duck that was lowered from the ship into the water for takeoff. It was able to belly land on the glacier, rescue two of the survivors, and return to the ship. It came again the next day with a storm rapidly approaching, took another severely injured man, but then crashed somewhere between there and the ship. Its wreckage was eventually spotted by another plane, but it was clear that the three men on board could not possibly have survived and the focus was returned to the B-17. "Frozen in Time" is actually two stories. The first is a tale of the B-17 survivors and the repeated attempts to rescue them. The second is of a 2012 mission to find and recover the Duck and return the bodies of those aboard to their families. The two crewmen on the plane are the only remaining Coast Guard servicemen missing in action. The B-17 survivors spent 148 days in the brutal Arctic winter before most were rescued (no spoiler since the story this book details could not have been told if there had been no survivors). The crew had no Arctic survival training and almost no supplies. The plane had broken up on landing and they sheltered in the tail section until it began to slowly slide into a deep crevasse. After that, they dug a snow shelter in the ice under one of the wings before the tail disappeared into the widening gap. Their survival is a harrowing story of jury-rigging, sacrifice, and suffering. Lives were lost in multiple rescue attempts involving another plane landing near the site, a team on a motorized sled, and dog sleds. The story keeps you riveted and wondering what could possibly happen next. In 2012, the Coast Guard and a private rescue organization, North South Polar, worked together to search for the Duck. Though the wreckage had been seen in 1942, there was no way to mark the site, and recording locations was not a precise undertaking resulting in several conflicting “locations.” Making it even harder is the fact that glaciers move. Even if we knew the precise 1942 location, 70 years later it could be anywhere in a vast area and covered by 70 years of ice 40 feet deep. The two stories are interwoven and the suspense palpable, particularly the 1942 story. I’d recommend reading when you have a free weekend because it is hard to put down. You don’t know the results of either until the end. If you like suspense, adventure, survival, military stories, or even the 80s TV show McGyver, you will love this.

Such a great book! This story follows the old saying, "truth is stranger than fiction". I couldn't put this book down.

Fascinating, well-written. Great book!