Icebound B-29 To Be Retrieved From Greenland -- Ill-Fated Plane To Come In From Cold, 47 Years After Spy Mission

It was one of the first top-secret missions of the Cold War as the United States and Soviet Union, their World War II alliance destroyed by distrust, began spying on each other.

The mission ended with the crash landing of an Air Force B-29 Superfortress on a perpetually frozen lake in an uncharted section of Greenland on Feb. 21, 1947.

Now, 47 years later, the ill-fated spy plane called the Kee Bird - well preserved by the extreme Arctic temperatures - may finally be coming in from the cold.

A retrieval team headed by three men from Southern California is at the Kee Bird crash site 250 miles north of Thule, Greenland, and hopes within weeks to fly the big plane home after outfitting it with new engines, propellers and instrumentation. The Kee Bird's public debut is tentatively set for Nevada's Reno National Championship Air Races next month.

The possible return of the Kee Bird is an event much anticipated in the world of vintage airplane buffs who are passionately dedicated to keeping alive the memory of these magnificent aircraft and the brave men who flew them.

"This is something larger than life," said Wayman Dunlap, editor and publisher of Pacific Flyer magazine. "It means a lot more than just a bunch of sheet (metal). If they can bring the Kee Bird back, it'll be a national treasure."

Stranded for three brutal days in the darkness of the polar winter, the 11-man crew of the bomber was rescued in an effort so daring that it earned the captain of the rescue plane a personal commendation from President Harry Truman.

Military brass warned all those involved in the flight and rescue never to reveal that the plane had been looking for evidence that the Soviets were building military bases near the North Pole.

The flyers returned to Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska, and were back flying other weather and reconnaissance missions within days. But their plane was left behind, out of fuel and with busted wheels and bent propellers but otherwise in mint condition, captured forever in an aspic of ice.

Of 4,000 B-29s built by Boeing during World War II, only one, named Fifi and now in the possession of the Texas-based Confederate Air Force, is in flying condition. The Kee Bird, named for a mythical arctic bird that stays in the cold weather while smarter birds fly south for the winter, would be the second.

The rediscovery of the plane was something of a historical fluke. In 1985, Giles Kershaw, a British pilot making an Arctic exploration flight, looked down from his DC-3 and saw the Kee Bird sitting just where the crew had left it.

Among those who were excited by Kershaw's discovery were Tom Hess, an ex-Army pilot from Newport Beach, Calif.; Darryl Greenamyer, a retired Lockheed test pilot living in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; and Ascher Ward, an airplane-restoration specialist who lives near Los Angeles.

The three formed a partnership to retrieve the Kee Bird, renovate it and then sell it to a museum or private interest. The cost of the project is estimated at $500,000, but Ward estimates that the sale price could be $1 million or more.

The interest of the five Kee Bird crew members who hitched a ride last week on an Air Force transport from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey to Thule to oversee the retrieval is more sentimental than financial. A sixth crew member died recently at age 76 but, in accordance with his final wishes, his ashes will be spread near the Kee Bird.

Much of their talk will be of the Kee Bird's pilot, Lt. Vern Arnett, who died a year after the Kee Bird crash when he crash-landed another B-29 and froze to death while going for help.

"Arnett is the reason we're alive today," said John Lesman, the Kee Bird's flight engineer, with a slight quiver in his voice. "The way he put the Kee Bird down on that lake was magnificent."

Lesman, 70, is a retired Air Force colonel living in Miami. He was a new lieutenant when the Kee Bird took off from Ladd Field on its spy mission. Within hours the plane was trapped in a heavy polar cloud cover that made it impossible to see enough stars to use celestial navigation.

In his book, "World In Peril," Ken White, whose father, Maj. Maynard White, was commander of Project Nanook, suggests that the Kee Bird may have been lured off course by bogus radio signals by the Soviets.

Miraculously, when Arnett set the plane down there was no fire and the plane did not spin or flip.

None of the crew knew where the Kee Bird had landed. "No one even considered Greenland," White wrote.

At nightfall, as the crew prepared for temperatures that sunk to 50-below zero, navigators were able to see enough stars to figure longitude and latitude and relay that information to Ladd Field, 1,500 miles away from the crash site.

"The radio operator asked me, `What are you guys doing in Greenland?' " Lesman said. "I told him: `We came down to shoot a few polar bears.' "

Although the Air Force prides itself on its determination and ability to rescue downed fliers, the Kee Bird rescue was unprecedented. Never had a rescue been attempted where the weather was so brutal and the distance between the downed flyers and the nearest base was so vast.

Several different rescue plans were considered, including using an experimental glider that could be snagged by a plane making a low pass over the lake. That plan was scrapped in favor of landing a C-54 transport.

But it was not known whether the transport could land on the ice without cracking it or skidding into rough terrain. On his second approach, the C-54 pilot decided to risk a dicey landing on a runway illuminated by flares.

Rockets were attached to the C-54 to give it additional power for takeoff. It started slowly down the ice runway. At about 50 mph, the rockets were fired and the lumbering transport became airborne to cheers.

Attachment to the B-29 is intense among veterans and airplane buffs. The big bomber with a wingspan of 141 feet and the flying range of 4,000 miles was the most technologically advanced and militarily fearsome warplane of World War II.

"It is generally agreed by military historians that the B-29 ended the war against the Japanese," said Randy Sohn, a retired commercial-airline pilot and bomber checkout pilot for the Confederate Air Force, which has 136 World War II aircraft in its collection.

Squadrons of B-29s with bombs struck Japanese cities and military installations from bases in India, China and the Marianas beginning in early 1944. The Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and the Bockscar, which dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, were B-29s.

The task of bringing the Kee Bird back to America is daunting: four new engines and new propellers have had to be mounted, new instrumentation has been installed and the fuel system has been converted to fuel injection to eliminate the risk of fire. A makeshift 8,000-foot runway has been constructed on the ice.

Cooperation has been secured from the Air Force and the Danish government, which controls Greenland. Greenamyer and Hess - Ward stayed home - are trying to make the most of the short Greenland summer when temperatures grudgingly creep a few degrees above freezing.

If Greenamyer's team succeeds in getting the Kee Bird operable, the plan is to fly it to Thule Air Base for more extensive repairs and then to a base in Idaho or Montana.