Kee Bird: frozen in time

[namvet]

I saw this program on Nova back in 97. an amazing story of a team of men who attempted to rescue a down B-29 called Kee Bird in the frozen artic north. i was facinated. could they repair this piece of history on sight in artic weather and fly it home????
In February 1947, a B-29 bomber nicknamed Kee Bird became lost above the Arctic Circle while on a secret Cold War reconnaissance mission. After crash landing in northern Greenland, the crew was rescued, but the Kee Bird was left behind. Although nearly 4,000 B-29s were built in the 1940s, by 1994 the Kee Bird was one of only a few such planes left in the world. Its historical significance and well-preserved condition attracted the attention of Darryl Greenamyer, an experienced salvage pilot. After surveying the plane and its location, Greenamyer decided to repair the Kee Bird and fly it back to the United States. This episode of NOVA follows his team's efforts to rescue the Kee Bird.
a member of the expedition died during this daring rescue

http://www.b29keebird.net/images/KeeBirdInLakeBig.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Kee-bird-1994-before-restoration.png

http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/attachments/warbirds-warbird-replicas/3199d1237062707-recent-kee-bird-picture-116-b29-spring1990.jpg


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c4/Kee_bird_final_destruction.png

no she didn't make it.

the entire video. about 53 mins long. but an amazing story

http://video.pbs.org/video/1548962233

[Little-Acorn]

Sometimes I wonder if I had a hand in this.

The Kee Bird (we didn't know its name, it was simply "the B-29") had been on the ice near the Nord station on the northerncoast of Greenland, we assumed since WWII. I was the system engineer at the BMEWS radar at Thule, Greenland in the 1980s, and supply planes (C-130s) regularly flew over the B-29 while making their routine runs. One guy shot some beautiful 8x10 glossy photos of it as they flew over, and was selling prints to us at Thule.

I took one of the prints and wrote on the back something like, "One B-29 bomber, available to anyone. As is, where is, located near Nord in Greenland. Arrange own transportation.".... and sent the photo to the Confederate Air Force, a group known for recovering and restoring classic warbirds.

Never heard anything more about it. Then, maybe 10 years after I got back from Thule, I saw the TV story of the recovery attempt. I'm sure it's the same film you're talking about.

Often wonder if that photo I sent, triggered off the recovery attempt. Of course, if we at Thule knew about the B-29, others probably did too. They might have been planning the recovery before I ever sent the photo. I just don't know.

[namvet]

Sometimes I wonder if I had a hand in this.

The Kee Bird (we didn't know its name, it was simply "the B-29") had been on the ice near the Nord station on the northerncoast of Greenland, we assumed since WWII. I was the system engineer at the BMEWS radar at Thule, Greenland in the 1980s, and supply planes (C-130s) regularly flew over the B-29 while making their routine runs. One guy shot some beautiful 8x10 glossy photos of it as they flew over, and was selling prints to us at Thule.

I took one of the prints and wrote on the back something like, "One B-29 bomber, available to anyone. As is, where is, located near Nord in Greenland. Arrange own transportation.".... and sent the photo to the Confederate Air Force, a group known for recovering and restoring classic warbirds.

Never heard anything more about it. Then, maybe 10 years after I got back from Thule, I saw the TV story of the recovery attempt. I'm sure it's the same film you're talking about.

Often wonder if that photo I sent, triggered off the recovery attempt. Of course, if we at Thule knew about the B-29, others probably did too. They might have been planning the recovery before I ever sent the photo. I just don't know.

looks like she was sighted a lot up there. i posted this on a WW2 forum and got this reply


Back in 1969 I was the navigator on a C-141 that was on a two week mission to fly supplies into Nord, a Danish base at the northeastern tip of Greenland. We operated out of Thule AB, Greenland, making two round trip shuttles everyday for two weeks. Our planned routing was to depart Thule and fly north to Canadian Forces Station Alert at the far northeastern tip of the North American Continent. From there we would proceed east to Nord. After off loading, we would return to Thule by reversing the route.

While we were at Thule we learned of the existence of the crashed B-29. The personnel at Thule base operations were unsure of the exact coordinates of the downed Kee Bird, but gave us an approximate location.

That is all it took for us to "amend our orders" and proceed on our own quest to find Kee Bird.

The following pictures were taken by me through the cockpit window using a very cheap, but very small camera that I always kept in a leg pocket of my flight suit. They are of terrible quality, largely due to the near white-out conditions due to all the snow on the ground.

The Kee-Bird from the air:



http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j229/ac130nav/B-290002.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j229/ac130nav/B-290001-1.jpg

Below is our aircraft on the ground at Nord. It was really cold there!
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j229/ac130nav/B-290003.jpg

downtown Nord:
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j229/ac130nav/B-290005.jpg

I ordered the DVD from PBS today