by Jack Dorsey
Published in November 1995
Portsmouth, Virginia: The crew of the Icelandic motor vessel Skogafoss peered at the still shiny fuselage of the B-17 “Flying Fortress” in the cargo hold, but knew only bits of its history.
“They say it was flying to Europe during the war and bad weather got them lost,” said First Mate Gudni Sigurmundsson. “They turned around, but ran out of fuel and landed on a glacier in Greenland.”
“Usually, we never know what’s in our containers,” Sigurmundsson said. “But this was hard not to see.”
For fifty-three years, the B-17E known as “My Gal Sal,” remained on a Greenland ice cap until it was recovered in August by a three-man team that plans to have it flying again in perhaps eighteen months.
If so, it will be the oldest of about a dozen B-17s that are still capable of flying. There were 12,726 of them built, 6,981 by Boeing, which built “My Gal Sal.”
Even after a half-century of being frozen, its metal is as shiny as when it was built. The blue-and-white star insignia is visible on the right side of its fuselage. The silhouette of a witch’s face between two bombs stands out.
It is, say its salvagers, possibly the best preserved B-17 ever discovered.
The bomber was one of four B-17s assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group making their way to England in 1942. They had taken off from Goose Bay, Labrador, heading for a refueling stop in Greenland.
“But it was closed out with bad weather,” said Gary Larkins, director of recoveries for the Institute of Aeronautical Archaeological Research, based in Sacramento, California. “They tried several times to get up there.”
When Larkins and his crew reached “My Gal Sal” in August, they were both excited and sad.
Hurricane-force winds had flipped it over and broken its back years earlier, possibly in the 1980s. In the 60s, when it was first discovered, the plane had been in near-flying condition, Larkins said.
“What happened was that the ice melted away all around it,” he said. “Soon, it was on a pedestal 30 feet tall, as if mounted on somebody’s desk in the air because the sun couldn’t melt the ice under its wings.”
It was perfectly preserved in the dry, cold air. Its tires still held air. Hoses were pliable. The engines turned. There is no rust or corrosion.
“The wings are beautiful,” Larkins said. “The upper gun turret (valued at $40,000 alone) is in brand new condition. The guns and gun mounts are there, all the kinds of stuff you can’t find now. “It’s like brand new. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
When it crashed, all ten crew members survived. Four are believed to be alive today. While stranded, the crew was dropped survival gear frequently and finally made it out thirteen days later.
Larkins, along with George Carter and Rafid Tuma, both of Baltimore, are veteran divers, pilots, riggers and salvagers who have searched the world to recover such aviation relics.
This is the 57th plane the non-profit institute has recovered since 1975, turning most over to military museums across the country.
“My Gal Sal,” after a half-million dollar restoration, will find its way, it is hoped, to the 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.
“It will be the oldest flying B-17 in the world,” promised Larkins.
“We can have it standing on its landing gear and looking like a B-17 should in two weeks,” he said.
The institute’s finds also include the discovery in 1992 of the missing Japanese midget submarine, found five miles from the entrance to Pearl Harbor. The craft was sunk in 1,300 feet of water by the first shot fired by the United States.
Larkins and crew have been to New Guinea to pluck a P-38 “Lightning” fighter from the jungles; drilled 265 feet below the ice in Greenland to recover another P-38, one of six from the “Lost Squadron” of World War II; and in 1993, led a recovery expedition to the northern tip of Greenland to recover the B-29 “Kee Bird.”
Their chores in Portsmouth this week are mundane compared to past adventures. But readying “My Gal Sal” for the last leg of its journey to the West Coast is still exciting, they say.
Parts of the aircraft are badly smashed, particularly its belly, on which the 20-ton plane slid during its last, wheels-up landing. Its wings and main fuselage appear largely intact.
“My Gal Sal” will not be the last cold weather find for the group. Larkins has permits from the Norwegian government to inspect six more wrecks.
“There are probably sixty planes still up there,” he said.
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