On this day in 1943, the last surviving members of a B-17 crew prepare to leave the Greenland Ice Cap.
On this day in 1943, the last surviving members of a B-17 crew prepare to leave the Greenland Ice Cap. They’d been stranded on an icy glacier for months. The entire crew had survived the crash on November 9, but early rescue efforts had been a mixed bag of successes and failures. (See yesterday’s post.) By December, seven men were still trapped on the glacier: Six of the original B-17 survivors, plus one man, Don Tetley, who’d been attempting a motorsled rescue when his partner was killed. The situation was grim. The worst of winter was coming, and further rescue attempts would be difficult. The stranded men would have to save themselves. Tetley and three others would take the one remaining motorsled to Ice Cap Station, about 30 miles away. They’d send a new motorsled back for the others. Tetley’s group departed, carefully treading across a field of ice crevasses that surrounded the B-17 wreckage. Just when they thought they’d cleared the field, one man stepped on a hidden crevasse. Th...