Coast Guard DUCK Found
Ever seen the old 1971 flick Murphy’s War in which Peter O Toole takes on a German U-boat in a lost stream in Africa? In it he flies (pretty badly) a J2F Grumman Duck. The Duck was used by the Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard from 1936-1950s, and only about 600 were built.
The United States Coast Guard is currently working with North South Polar Recoveries to recover a J2F-4 Duck downed in a storm on a Greenland glacier. Three Coast Guard airmen were lost and presumed still entombed at the site. The Duck is presumed to be under 38 feet of ice.
“NEW YORK – The Defense Department’s Joint POW/MIA Personnel Accounting Command said an exhaustive search by an expedition team of U.S. Coast Guard service members and North South Polar, Inc. Scientists and explorers has produced sufficient evidence that the crash site of a WWII Coast Guard Grumman Duck rescue aircraft missing for 70 years with three men aboard, beneath the ice near Koge Bay, Greenland, has been found, Coast Guard officials announced Monday.
By using historical information, ground penetrating radar, a magnetometer and metal detection equipment, the expedition team isolated the location where the aircrew crashed on Nov. 29, 1942. The team then melted five six-inch-wide holes deep into the ice and lowered a specially designed camera scope. At approximately 38 feet below the ice surface in the second hole, the team observed black cables consistent with wiring used in WWII-era J2F-4 amphibious Grumman aircraft.
KOGE BAY, Greenland – Possible wreckage of the WWII Coast Guard J2F-4 Grumman Duck rescue aircraft missing for 70 years with three men aboard, beneath the ice near Koge Bay, Greenland, Aug. 29, 2012. An expedition team of Coast Guard servicemembers and North South Polar, Inc. Scientists and explorers located the crash site. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Mitchell Zuckoff.