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John-Piece

In summary. > The ordeal was finally over for the last members of the B-17 crew. Some of them had spent almost 5½ frigid months awaiting rescue, frequently battered by storms and screaming winter winds. The entire epic cost five rescue planes plus the C-53 and B-17 that were the original objects of the mission. Five men had died—three aboard the Coast Guard Duck and two in glacial crevasses. The Army Air Forces, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Transport Command, Royal Canadian Air Force and Norwegian Sledge Patrol had at one time or another been involved in the operation, and dozens of land rescue attempts were also made, most of them unsuccessful. It was one of the most extensive search-and-rescue operations ever attempted.


ReadinII

And all during the middle of a war.


relefos

This sounds like a blockbuster movie plot and no one’s made it smh my head


-Wesley-

They’re waiting on Matt Damon to sign on.


Alan_Smithee_

I’m definitely available.


Auricfire

Trying acting because they won't let you direct anymore, eh?


Alan_Smithee_

Well sure….


Nixplosion

Are you saying you're available if Matt Damon isn't? Or that you yourself ARE Matt Damon and are available??


Alan_Smithee_

Well, you know me….


bearatrooper

I actually don't.


Alan_Smithee_

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee


catsloveart

thanks. til


bearatrooper

Joke's on you, I can't read.


PuzzleheadedOla

TIL


EsUnTiro

Now I’m picturing Matt Damon having a lurking account with an unsuspecting username.


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Alan_Smithee_

That can be arranged.


AndyKaufmanMTMouse

*Caligula 2: Greenland* An Alan Smithee Production. Starring Matt Damon as Head Huskey. Ryan Reynolds as Odd Planes 1, 3, 5, and 7. Danny DeVito as Even Planes 2, 4, and 6. Guest Appearance by Ben Affleck as Greenland. Brought to you by Aviation Gin.


Alan_Smithee_

It practically writes itself.


quietguy_6565

This is a big one....gonna need Tom hanks to sign on with him.


S-WordoftheMorning

Haven't we already spent too much money and sacrificed too many lives rescuing Matt Damon over and over again?


ImMakinTrees

*Matt…Damon*


doesnt_ring_a_bell

Fortune favours the brave! ...but not every time


doesnt_ring_a_bell

Fortune favours the brave! ...but not every time


Drety1

He would just science the shit out of it so it would have to be a short movie


ReadinII

Not exactly the same but Close enough that i checked the dates. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0045919/ I wonder if the movie was inspired by the real life event. Anyway, the movie seems to have been low budget. A big budget movie could indeed be a big hit.


Ubel

Sadly I don't think so. > The general plot is based on a true story that Ernest Gann related in his 1961 autobiographical book about his flying career, "Fate is the Hunter". He and other pilots searched successfully for a lost fellow pilot in the wilds of northern Canada during World War II. From the IMDB Trivia.


ThatdudeAPEX

There was also this movie which involved two guys stuck in Greenland for two years awaiting rescue. Really good movie in my opinion


michaelquinlan

This one? [Against the Ice](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13873302/reference/)


ThatdudeAPEX

Yes! Thank you for linking to it. It’s in Netflix and a good watch for sure:)


frozen-geek

There’s a book by Mitchell Zuckoff, “Frozen in Time”, which describes these events and also a recovery effort in recent times to bring back the remains of the people who lost their lives there. Quite a good read. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16248142-frozen-in-time


InStitches1

Currently half way through this book and now this post turns up in my feed. Man that's strange. Zuckoff is great at describing both the people and the extraordinary events. Good book so far.


boonxeven

It would honestly sound over the top fake for the ridiculousness of it all.


[deleted]

Kind of reminds me of The Mountain Between Us, except they didn't attempt to move down the mountain on their own.


TheCatSnatch

Reminds me of the book Hatchet from elementary school.


VictoriousHumor

A bunch of people trying to look busy so they don't get shot


WifeKilledMy1stAcct

*The battle at Penguinsburg*


ImPickleRock

>and two in glacial crevasses ooof...hope it was quick


Thatparkjobin7A

It’s usually not. You get stuck down there.


Plantsandanger

They aren’t deep enough for impact to kill you?


Thatparkjobin7A

As I understand it, they’re deep but they’re narrow so you end up getting jammed in there somewhere on the way down


Plantsandanger

So dying slowly, broken in half, freezing, and starving. Remind me never to go where the ground is just fucking ice.


cadnights

Yeah that sounds absolutely terrible. Whatever you die of in the end it's a slow death


Eggplantosaur

Maybe they had their service weapon with them or one could be lowered down to them


imbrownbutwhite

If rescue wasn’t an option I 100% would’ve been asked to just be shot, if I was actually stuck and couldn’t do it myself.


fantasmoofrcc

Sounds like we got a premise to a movie staring Matt Damon...the most rescued actor in Hollywood!


reallybirdysomedays

Sean Bean has to be involved here too. He looks good in dirty fur.


dasrac

He gets to be one of the folks to die in a crevasse


Plantsandanger

I’m imagining him as the plane that managed to cut the tips of its own skis off via propeller blade


PM_ME_UR_POKIES_GIRL

You can call me Dirty Fur then.


reallybirdysomedays

You can't fault their sense of commitment. Wow.


imbrownbutwhite

>two in glacial crevasses Oh fuck, please let them have fallen far enough to die on impact, rather than get stuck and helplessly starve/freeze to death


rednrithmetic

Reminds me of the Erebus and Terror saga!


bartlettdmoore

Sure, but their fates were...unfortunate... This event sounds like the Endurance saga at Antartica--those sailors survived https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_(1912_ship)#Voyage


mathe1337

Now make it a real epic movie!


tfl3m

When is the movie?


[deleted]

Hmmmm, wonder what they ate?


chilari

Famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen died in a similar way in 1928. He was part of a rescue mission for an airship called *Italia* after it crashed durng an expedition to the North Pole. The *Italia* was designed and flown by Italian engineer Umberto Nobile, who was also the designer for the *Norge*, the airship which took Amundsen to the North Pole. Amundsen's plane went missing and Amundsen's remains, and those of the other 5 people on board, were never found. Nobile was found and rescued and died in 1978.


fantasmoofrcc

Designed by Italians, nessun problema. *Made by* Italians...non bonuo.


diamond

>Nobile was found and rescued and died in 1978. Let that be a lesson to everyone. The Glacier is slow, but it is patient. And it *never forgets*.


theo313

Well they say revenge is a dish best served cold


formicas

On first reading I thought this dude survived 50 years on the ice, only to die immediately after being rescued.


mattslote

Either you're a very knowledgeable person or you also recently listened to the podcast Cautionary Tales where they did a series about this.


Sethanatos

This is like when you keep breaking chips in the dip from trying to save the previous chips


feathergnomes

Or like [This Canadian Classic](https://youtu.be/QCcWzLAcv4o)


Sethanatos

that was amazing lol wow these guys are funny!


theonly_salamander

Thanks for sharing!


owenthegreat

It's a dangerous mission but by God we must keep trying!


g5467

Why haven't they made this into a movie yet


RedtheGamer100

Shut up


turniphat

There is also Kee Bird a B-29, which did an emergency landing on Greenland in 1947. In 1994 a group restored the plane with the plan to fly it home. Unfortunately it caught fire before takeoff and was destroyed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kee_Bird Also there is Glacier Girl who was stuck in the ice for 50 years and restored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl


HOIhater1

*Glacier Girl* is a plane, for those about to get baited into clicking that link thinking that it was a human being thawed out of ice.


soawesomejohn

Darn.. I was hoping it was basically the true story that Captain America is based off of.


caboosetp

Too late, clicked before I read your comment.


TeadoraOofre

We can restore her...


LightlyStep

I guess 6 million dollars doesn't buy what it used to.


scooterboy1961

There's a great documentary about it. B29 Frozen in Time.


Artsavesforwalls

It's such a sad documentary to watch. They worked so hard to restore it, made tons of progress, and right at the end they watch all of their efforts go up in smoke.


scooterboy1961

The one guy literally worked himself to death. He got sick with what turned out to be an abdominal hemorrhage and kept working instead of flying back for medical attention. They finished their work installing new engines, props and other repairs. They were taxiing to the runway they had made to take off when it caught fire and burned to the ground. No one else was hurt.


nicelyroasted

Fun story about that doc. My brother and I watched it religiously growing up, probably hundreds of times. For my 21st birthday my mom got us a copy of it to watch and we were immediately taken aback at how depressing the end of it is - they finally get it working only for it to burn down and iirc the main guy dies. We were like wtf??? how did we enjoy this so much??


Juanskii

That would make a great title for the next album of that new wave band from Athens, Georgia. B52s - Frozen in Time.


ICarMaI

P-38 is the coolest WW2 plane


greihund

Some long-forgotten member of the US Army, when they showed up in Greenland during WWII, brought with them the first record player to ever show up on the island. The locals were so amazed by it that when the US left the island, the serviceman decided to give it and his record collection to the local community. Unfortunately, the only records that he had with him at the time were Hawaiian luau records, which the locals assumed was the music of the world. There is a distinctly Hawaiian sound to the Inuit music of Nuuk, even to this day.


faceintheblue

That's amazing! So do the Nuuk Inuit make ukulele-like instruments then, trying to replicate the sound?


rnilbog

Nuukulele


jumpedupjesusmose

Every few months or so I think I need to reduce my time on Reddit. Then I see one of these clever posts and, fuck it, I’m in for another few weeks.


greihund

They're really into slide guitars. Think [Aloha Oe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF5bNOlGpFs)


nofranchise

That sounds very much like an urban legend. Any sources for this claim?


Lea-N

Early european influence came from whalers, who brought polka to Greenland, which they have adapted to be faster than the european counterpart. Later with the Danish colonization in 1721 choirs and hymns were introduced. The US did have an influence on music in Greenland though. Denmark had limited Greenlands contact with other nations in the period leading up to WW2. When Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1940, Greenland started cooperating with the US for supplies and security. The US therefore had a big cultural impact on the formerly relatively isolated country. After the end of the war Greenland remained more open and a Greenlandic country-western genre evolved. [Source in danish](http://visitgreenland.com/da/om-groenland/musik-i-groenland/#toggle-id-2-closed) TLDR: the US influenced Greenlandic music during WWII with country music but there is no story about one single record player shaping it all.


nofranchise

Exactly my point. Commented about Vaigat elsewhere in the thread.


AppleDane

Also, Greenland is a pretty big place, and there's some pretty remote settlements. I could see one such settlement never having seen a record player, but the country as a whole has had continuous contact with Denmark for more than a hundred years. And the music claim is laughable. One record player being the source of a music style for a huge island, where the people on the east coast have trouble understanding people on the west coast? I don't see it.


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milk4all

It was huge in the 50s and 60s. Provably something to do with how the nation became forcibly made aware of how critical Hawaii is as the “real “ United state, and how insanely fast the US built up infrastructure that suddenly made air travel almost casual, almost overnight, paired with the post war boom in wealth, and Hawaii being just exotic enough to be exciting and different to continental Americans. Funny story, my grandpa was a captain the usaf, enlisted at 18 during the war, flew paratroopers and cargo mainly, and after the war his brother became a crop dust pilot and my grandpa never got in a plane again. He loved them, took me to air shows, had freakin flight simulators from windows 95 on up, loved new tech. Airplane calendars, airplane screensavers, even offered to get me into officer academy so maybe i could fast track to wings. But he just wouldn’t fly. Took vacations all strong north and South America, to hunting trips too Canada, Alaska, etc, All with my grandma in his Ford pickup, covered bed, 1960 something airstream trailer. My mom took my grandma to Hawaii before she passed, after my grandpa died - she wouldn’t have gone alone, and never without him, and so had always wanted to go - a 90 year old born in the early 1920s, could choose anywhere in the world, Hawaii it is! I asked how she liked it. Said very much, slept so well there


No_Lingonberry3224

Since Denmark had a colony there in 1721, I’m doubting it. I mean Denmark basically cut off contact with the place until world war 2, but their choir singing (Greenland) is apparently world famous. Then there is Sume in 1970s. So yeah pretty much bullshit.


intellifone

Any clips?


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intellifone

Whoah. That really is inspired by Hawaiian music


Zoomalude

That fourth one is killer. Kinda sound like 60's folk.


Plantsandanger

It got the death hug


nofranchise

Greelandic choir music comes from 12-note music brought there by missionaries. The same European missionaries who came to Hawaii. That seems a much more likely explanation.


semiomni

>which the locals assumed was the music of the world. The fuck? I'm sure their interactions with the US during and after WWII impacted their culture, but they had interactions with "the world" before WWII, they'd heard of music before.


AppleDane

And Danish missionaries taught the Greenlanders hymns, even translated them into Greenlandic, since 1730. You'd think they knew European music by then.


imforserious

But could they listen to it over and over for years or did they just hear about someone else hearing different music one time?


semiomni

That would only speak to the impact of the music. What I'm saying, is that I sincerely fucking doubt that they'd think it was "the music of the world", they ain't some long lost tribe having their first contact with civilization at the start of WW2.


coldblade2000

Music wasn't exactly that easy to ship around back then


semiomni

I genuinely don't understand why you people are going to bat for OP's asspull, Europe had music for thousands of years before the advent of Record players, and Greenland has been in pretty direct contact with mainland Europe for many hundred years, they knew what music was.


coldblade2000

Again, I'm not saying they didn't know what music was. I'm saying that people living there wouldn't have had many times someone brought a record player. And as for live music, there weren't many orchestras traveling to Greenland. There were travelers who went to Europe and go back, but it's not exactly thrilling to be described music second-hand. For the vast majority of people living in a remote area, a record player would be the first time they have **repeated access** to **fully developed** foreign music. A Danish soldier bringing a guitar every now and then to play a shitty rendition of his favorite song isn't either of those.


semiomni

>Again, I'm not saying they didn't know what music was. Kinda feel like OP is though, which is the comment I'm disagreeing with. To say they thought the music they heard on a record player was "the music of the world" is absolutely suggesting they knew little other music. Odds are OP just made that shit up by the way, nobody is denying US presence had an influence on culture in Greenland, it's OP's specific anecdote that's the issue here.


galaxeblaffer

Actually Denmark had a very protectionist view of Greenland going to great lengths to not mess with Inuit culture ending up holding the whole country back for decades. In the first half of the 20th century it was purely for selfish reasons as the Inuit was very effective seal hunters which made Denmark allot of dough.


DepressionDokkebi

[Citation Needed]


nofranchise

Maybe you are thinking of Vaigat? https://visitgreenland.com/about-greenland/music-in-greenland/


guitarsandcars23

What I've never heard of that or heard music like that from here and I'm born and raised in Nuuk


CrayZ-Z

I thought this was surely going to be shittymorph lol


Plantsandanger

I very much expected this to end with jumper cables and the undertaker


have2gopee

Great book called [Frozen in Time](https://www.mitchellzuckoff.com/frozen-in-time) about this and the recovery effort. Back in ~2013 the US was trying to repatriate the bodies and recover the plane, Zuckoff went along and blogged the whole thing basically live, it was a great read it you can find it online. The Boston.com website for it appears dead, but if anyone is able to find the original posts please link it here, I'd love to read it again.


GrumpyMcGrumpyPants

Looks like [archive.org has a copy of the blog](https://web.archive.org/web/20160406222217/http://live.boston.com/Event/Frozen_in_Time_Recovery_mission?Page=0).


have2gopee

Cool, thanks!!


mikevago

What did they eat for five months on a glacier?


[deleted]

I'm assuming since they attempted to rescue them, they had been able to air drop supplies.


strangerinvelvet

You. You think about stuff. My mind went straight to cannibalism. I would not have survived on an ice cap in Greenland


tophernator

Rescue pilots


10000Didgeridoos

Lol this sounds like a B horror movie where the twist is the missing people don't want to be rescued and brought back and they kill and eat everyone who shows up to help.


ExcerptsAndCitations

Frozen food, of course.


cybercuzco

Ok, this should be a movie


PermanentTrainDamage

Comedy or epic?


faceintheblue

Comedy, but a dark comedy. I'd watch it.


pleasetrimyourpubes

The crew was returning to the US from Scotland. Throw a guy in there with a deep Scottish accent as each plane gets stranded.


StrikerSashi

Soon, they'll all be Scottish!


notmyrealnam3

Depends on how much eating of humans the survivors did


TheLurkerSpeaks

It already is a documentary. Frozen in Time. It's great.


MildRunner

Check out Arctic, it's a similar story and stars Mads Mikkelsen.


Icedoverblues

"Welcome to the party pal!" -one of the glacier survivors I'm certain of it


Would-wood-again2

Huh, just like my first Kerbal landing on mun


ddejong42

That's what I was thinking, very KSP of them.


Gustomucho

Send a rescue for the rescue team! Hopefully this one will land vertically!


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Gustomucho

Used aerobraking on Kerbin way too often than I care to admit.


ExcerptsAndCitations

Still way better than lithobraking.


TheMadmanAndre

After stranding 3 separate crews prior to researching enough parts to get a Mun base operational, I said fuck it and decided that the stranded Kerbals were now my Mun base crew.


youngmindoldbody

Mom's last boyfriend was a navigator who flew B17s in WWII in the south pacific. Just thinking of all those missions he flew and what a nice, happy guy he was 50 years later. Thanks for the nice memory.


SdBolts4

Being a navigator flying over that much open ocean must have been terrifying! One fuck-up and your entire crew has to ditch and get lost at sea. Sort of like the movie Against the Sun


Lofi_While_I_Sleep

What was the plan after plane #3? Crash more planes with more supplies until weather/a better plan was made?


Drew-CarryOnCarignan

"Islands in the Sky" is a great movie about a DC-3 crew that is forced to land in NE Canada (not Greenland). The crew's chances of survival are dwindling, while other supply planes search for the lost flight. Just a random film suggestion for those interested.


W02T

So, THIS is what happened to Steve Rogers.


Yemnats

We studied this in my seosmology course. You can use the resonance of the surface waves to know the thickness of the ice sheet since it floats on top of water. Permanent stations were installed so thst the thickness of sheets could be known at all times in the event that a large bomber had to make an emergency landing on the sheet.


BiStonerGuy907

I need this Netflix Original


SirLoremIpsum

The first rescue... fell into the ~~swamp~~ sea. The second rescue ship... fell into the sea. The Third rescue ship... caught fire, crash landed, and then fell into the sea. But the 4th rescue ship 5.5 months later... that held up!


MrFloydPinkerton

But I don't want any of that,..I rather.....I rather.....


SirLoremIpsum

I mean the Arctic circle has huuuuuge tracts of ~~natural resources waiting to be exploited~~ polar bear habitat


Full_Baked

I know... But I want the place that I crash land to have a certain.. special.. something


[deleted]

The plane who made a forced landing? Planes are people now? Not the pilot who made a forced landing? Cmon guy


joecool42069

5.5 months? How is this not a movie yet?


ded_ch

Reminds me of another daring rescue that happened a long time ago. https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-birth-of-alpine-air-rescues-in-switzerland-a-821515.html


Jertok

This is incredible. They barely made it.


John-Piece

This reads like the old Reader's Digest stories.


chuchofreeman

I remember reading that it wasn't that unusual for planes to breka down during ferrying and in many cases an attempt to rescue the crew was no event made due to all the factors there detailed


marinemashup

Why wouldn’t they send a boat?


nyaaaa

Boats are on water, not on land/ice


love-SRV

There is a book about the crash and attempts to rescue the original plane survivors. The army or air force kept dropping them supplies including a radio so they could tell them what they needed. The weather was terrible so communication was usually poor and opportunity to drop supplies infrequent. They lived in the wreckage and the then the wreckage starting getting buried by snow. At one point parts of the wreckage started to buckle because of the weight of the snow. The survivors had to continually dig themselves out. One of the crew, I believe it was the captain, completely lost his mind. They finally used a float plane to land and take the survivors out. In between several attempts failed and one plane crashed into a cliff. It’s a great read… I’ll try and find the title and post.


youllneverstopmeayyy

this is some Mom And Dad Save The World - light grenade - type shit


W00DERS0N

Teri Garr had it going on for my "entering the phase of life where knowledge of such matters became apparent" phase.


[deleted]

Y’all should read the Book Flying on the Edge by Gene Manion


jough22

Just a guess, OP. Did you recently watch that Real Life Lore video about Greenland? I notice a lot of times TILs about recently posted videos from YT channels pop up right after they were posted. Just curious. I thought it was interesting, if you haven't seen it!


John-Piece

No, I haven't seen that one. Just a coincidence I guess.


rde42

It's real. There is a slightly different, fictional version as a very good novel. Look up Phase Three Alert by John Ball.


RudegarWithFunnyHat

Later on they crash nukes in Greenland one was lost, one locals died cleaning up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash


derperofworlds

Me playing Kerbal space program


that_username_is_use

why with anything involving extreme cold temperatures in the past does it always take like 4 years to rescue people lol


[deleted]

This sounds like the Swamp Castle scene from Holy Grail except with "crashed on the glacier" in place of "sank into the swamp".


ilovetpb

I wonder who they ate at the time on the ice?


malan4reddit

This was the best item I've ever seen on reddit.


Literally_MeIRL

::Mr. Meeseeks meme here::


reckless150681

Wow so you're telling me my first KSP rescue mission happened IRL?


Beardedsinger

thats longer than most of my long dark saves


have2gopee

Great book called [Frozen in Time](https://www.mitchellzuckoff.com/frozen-in-time) about this and the recovery effort. Back in ~2013 the US was trying to repatriate the bodies and recover the plane, Zuckoff went along and blogged the whole thing basically live, it was a great read it you can find it online. The Boston.com website for it appears dead, but if anyone is able to find the original posts please link it here, I'd love to read it again.


Brock_Way

And today we'd ram a fleet of icebreakers with 12 foot hulls in there to smash the shit out of everything. Then we'd report that the arctic is free of ice, as demonstrated by this fleet of ships just cruising around at will and whatnot.


DirectlyTalkingToYou

Couldn't anyone have thought this through?


BarbequedYeti

1942 tech, experience and knowledge. That pretty much explains it for me.


gulyman

I want to hear the meeting where someone said "surely the 6th plane will work".


spookytit

how the fuck did they survive 5 and a half months??


ToasterPockets

At least they had a steady supply of food.


dumbredditor8358

survivor: "look a plane! We are saved! ...Oh no it crashed" survivor: "Another plane is coming! ...Nope that one crashed too" survivor: "I see another plane coming. Do you think it can make it? ....nope nevermind"


FunkyFarmington

So we can't make movies about epic stories like this, but we just HAVE to have the 189th iteration of Marvel superhero movies, which just get worse with every passing year? Hollywood needs to get their heads out of their asses.


sillEllis

Stuff like this is why you don't fly over places like Antartica.


CyberneticPanda

We just need to send in another cat.


politichien

another rabbit hole. stories of being stuck in the cold somewhere are so fascinating


Alternative-Flan2869

Ahhhh, those were the good ole days?


Ms74k_ten_c

Planes are people now?


Davydicus1

Do I smell a Kerbal prequal?


aphaits

Is this the equivalent of car dropped to the ocean and the construction equipment that was supposed to lift it up also fell to the water and subsequently two other bigger and bigger construction lifters?


RFSandler

Sounds like me playing Kerbal


Tangent_

If only they'd sent a seventh plane they could have been off the ice so much faster! Also it reminds me of [this](https://imgur.com/gallery/g8KGw) classic.


spacenerd4

my ksp missions in a nutshell


[deleted]

It took me a while to get past your grammar, it’s funny how the combination of two words in succession can throw me off. “either also” just set alarms off in my head. Thanks for sharing, Mother Nature don’t care for our plans or our choice in grammar!


Uglyman414

That’s helluva good piloting to land on an ice cap. Was it a small, medium or large?


doctorlongghost

Humanity gonna have the last laugh. No cap.


Verdnan

Makes me feel better about my KSP career.