The Lost Squadron A True Story PDF
Preview The Lost Squadron A True Story
TRUE STORY RY DAVID HAYES A HmBHHH^HBflHnanvnnnHm^HHnBHHHi ®.w\ .HE "Theplanes are still there! All we have to do is shovel the snow offand fly 'em into the sunset!" Epps pointed downward at the glittering Pat white ice fields ofsouthernGreenland. In August of 1980, after a week ofbuzzing around the Arctic in a single-engine plane, Epps and his friend Richard Taylor were flying home. The night before, in a bar at a remote airstrip, the talk had turned to the legendary Lost Squadron. This squadron, so the story ran, was on a World War II mission when it ditched in Greenland in 1942. The crews had been rescued but their brand-new warplanes were left on the ice cap. Someone said they had been seen as recently as the early sixties. Epps and Taylor were intrigued. They returned to their jobs and families in Atlanta smitten with the allure ofthe Arctic and the notion that an intact squadron ofWorld War II planes could be found there. For the next twelve years, this fascination would lead Epps and Taylor into an extraordinary adventure that would prove more challenging than either ofthem could have dreamed possible. On July 15, 1942, a squadron ofsix P-38 Lightnings and two B- 17 Flying Fortress bombers was flying from Greenland to Iceland when they ran head-on into an Arctic blizzard. As condi- tions deteriorated they decided to turn back, only to then discover that the base there was socked in. Running desperately low on fuel the two bombers and six fighter planes crash-landed on the ice cap in the largest forced landing in history. In August of 1981, almost forty years after the aircraft were abandoned, Pat Epps and Richard .. Taylor and two associates arrived at the site i continued on back • CIVIC CENTO? 3 11 01514 3553 LOST SQUADRON *fj/r ^H - TRUE STORY RY DAVID HAYES A H YPER ON -*5?~ I A HYPERION / MADISON PRESS ROOK Text © 1994 David Hayes Jacket, Design and Compilation 1994 The Madison Press Limited All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holders, except for briefpassages quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine. Hyperion 114 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011 U.S.A. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hayes, David. The lost squadron : a fleet ofwar planes locked in ice for—over 50 years : can they be freed to fly again / by David Hayes. 1st ed. cm. p. ISBN 0-7868-6048-0 — 1. World War, 1939-1945 —Aerial operations, American. 2. Lightning (Fighter planes) Conservation and restoration. I. Title. D790.H386 1994 940.54'4973—dc20 94-10507 CIP Produced by Madison Press Books 40 Madison Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R2S1 Printed in Great Britain ?M To the members, living and dead, — ofthe legendary Lost Squadron thepilots and crews offlights Tomcat Green and Tomcat Yellow I m
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