Mitchell Zuckoff

Summary: An account of rescue efforts in 1942-43 and a retrieval effort in 2012 to recover several lost heroes, all occurring on the Greenland icecap.

In November of 1942, a C-53 cargo plane took off from Iceland to an airfield on the west side of Greenland. For unknown reasons it crashed inland from the eastern coast of Greenland. A B-17 diverted from transport to England joined the search with a crew of nine, captained by Armand Monteverde. Unsuccessful, they ran into a bad snowstorm that show more was like “flying in milk.” They also crashed, the plane splitting into two pieces. All nine survived the crash and much of the narrative in this book describes their efforts to survive in subzero temperatures, avoiding life-ending crevasses and fighting frostbite and keeping up hope as months went by with little more contact than overflights by another B-17, piloted by “Pappy” Turner, dropping supplies and communicating with the survivors.

Part of the 1942-43 story concerned the efforts to rescue these men either by plane or motor- or dogsled. Sadly, rescuers, both by plane and motorsled died, as did one of the B-17 crash survivors. Three of those who died were on a Coast Guard plane called “The Flying Duck” piloted by John Pritchard and Benjamin Bottoms. They rescued two crash survivors, one who was most severely affected by frostbite. Coming back, they picked up another survivor. Loren Howarth, who had repaired a radio on the crashed B-17. They, too, encountered a fast approaching storm and went down with no survivors.

Here enters the other part of this story. Lou Sapienza, who had participated in previous recovery missions learned the story about the lost men from the Flying Duck. On a preliminary survey in 2010, they identified possible crash sites. Now, he wants to go back. He needs the help of the Coast Guard and a lot of money the Pentagon doesn’t have. He enlists the author to chronicle (and help bankroll) the effort. Offsetting a reluctant bureaucracy is Coast Guard Commander Jim Blow, whose passion is not to leave those missing in action behind. Somehow, they come up with enough for a week on the Greenland ice cap.

So much of what sustains interest in this narrative, which goes back and forth between the rescue and recovery missions, is the uncertainty that they will find a way to rescue the B-17 survivors or recover the Flying Duck and her crew. The big challenge is Greenland itself. There are so many ways it can kill you from crevasses to polar bears to cold. For the surviving crew, the challenge was crash injuries, advancing frostbite, and morale. One is impressed in all the ways this crew improvised shelter, jury-rigged radios, and used what they had on hand. The recovery mission led by Jim and Lou had its own challenges. Faulty GPS coordinates, moving heavy equipment across crevasses, and conflict within the expedition pose challenges, even as they scramble to locate the Flying Duck as another of Greenland’s storms approach, necessitating evacuation.

Zuckoff’s eyewitness narrative coupled with careful historical research makes for a riveting account of the effort to “bring them home” that is a heartbeat of the services. The efforts to survive, to rescue, and to recover are all heroic. In a day when so many public figures disappoint, a narrative about heroes, who have their own struggles, but transcend and work and risk for noble ends, is a welcome gift. show less

In November 1942, an American military plane crashed in Greenland. In a search and rescue effort, two other planes crashed. The end result was nine men stranded in extreme cold in a remote location, attempting to survive in intermittent blizzards with limited food. Mitchell Zuckoff tells the story of the multiple crashes and the heroic rescue attempts. He weaves in an account of a 2012 expedition (in which he played a key role) to locate and recover one of the missing planes.

This narrative show more non-fiction is filled people facing dangerous conditions. It includes planes landing on ice, planes flying in “milk” (white-out), dog sled teams traveling across unstable glaciers, isolated crash survivors facing frostbite, hypothermia, and psychological trauma. It serves to highlight one of the lesser known stories of WWII. It is well-researched and told with dramatic flair. Just when we think conditions cannot get worse, they do.

As in most dual storylines, one of the two is more riveting than the other. The modern quest for lost heroes is perhaps a bit oversold. I listened to the audiobook, competently read by the author. Unlike some authors reading their own books, Zuckoff has a pleasant voice and conveys the intensity of the situation. It is a gripping story that will appeal to those interested in WWII history, aviation, geology, and accounts of survival in harsh conditions. show less

Mitchell Zuckoff writes fascinating true adventure stories. I first discovered him though his book Lost in Shangri-La about a WWII plane that crashed into a remote and nearly inaccessible valley in Dutch New Guinea, what the survivors endured, and the daring rescue to pull them out. He brings the same story-telling skills and ability to take the reader into the moment in his newest work of non-fiction about another rescue mission, Frozen in Time.


Greenland, that misnamed island of glaciers, show more snow, and ice, perpetually white and forbidding, might have been far from the fighting in WWII but it was deemed a strategic outpost to the Allied war effort. By planting bases on it, there was a place to re-fuel planes on their way from the US to Europe and it gave the powers that be some meteorological insight into the weather that was soon to swirl its way into Europe and onto the soldiers on the ground. But the massive island's variable weather, unpredictable blizzards, and harsh climate made it incredibly treacherous to fly over and throughout the course of the war, quite a number of planes crashed onto its glacial interior. One plane, a C-53, carrying five US military personnel made a forced landing on Greenland and the crew miraculously survived the crash. But their radio contact with base didn't last long enough for their location to be fixed and so the rescue missions that were mounted to discover them not only had to contend with the frustrations of terrible weather grounding planes for days at a time but also with finding one relatively small plane in a vast, blank land. But looking for a needle in a haystack was just the first of the problems about to beset the rescue mission.


A B-17 bomber, diverted from delivery in Europe, was pressed into service looking for the downed C-53 and its crew. But it too flew into disorienting conditions pilots called "flying in milk" and crashed onto the island in the midst of a crevasse-riddled glacier. Amazingly, the nine men on board the B-17 also survived. But now there were two separate crews of 14 men stranded on the ice in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet and fighting for their survival. Zuckoff captures the immediacy of the danger that the men on the ice faced, from their lack of provisions and cold weather survival gear to the danger of frostbite and exposure. He captures the frustration of command at the inability to find a way to safely remove these would be rescuers now in peril themselves. And he follows the planning and determination of a pilot and his navigator on a Coast Guard cutter patrolling the seas off of Greenland as they prepare to risk their own lives to save the men in the B-17 by flying their small Grumman Duck, an amphibious biplane, to the crash site to pluck the men two by two off the ice.


Alternating with the historical chapters of the increasingly frantic determination to rescue the weakened and suffering men from the B-17, Zuckoff weaves in current day chapters about the quest to locate the Grumman Duck, also tragically lost on the unforgiving glaciers of Greenland with her crew of two fearless men and one of the B-17 survivors. He captures the larger than life, forever optimistic personalities who spearheaded the years of research into the fate and location of the little amphibious biplane and her passengers, lobbied government agencies for their support, and by hook or crook and on a showstring managed to assemble the people and the money to make the trek to Greenland to try and physically locate the final resting place of the Duck.


Zuckoff has written a completely gripping, compelling tale. He's captured the terror and helplessness of the downed men and those valiantly searching for them. He's drawn visceral pictures of the aching cold and desperation they felt as the days mounted without their discovery and that they continued to feel even after their discovery as more time passed while the powers that be tried to figure out a way to pluck them from the ice without endangering more lives. The reader truly feels the ways in which they were at the complete mercy of nature and their own psyches. Pulled from journals, declassified documents, interviews with survivors' families, maps, and interviews, Zuckoff stays true to the story as reproduced publically, honoring the survivors' and participants' versions of events, never speculating on what cannot be known. The story of the men and the several attempts to rescue them is compelling. The modern day narrative about the expedition to find the Duck and her three missing men is interesting and provides closure to the sixty year old tale but isn't quite as enthralling as the historic events. This is a tale of heroes and determination, an overwhelming perseverence in the face of danger, and the unthinkable but constant threat of failure. World War II buffs will certainly appreciate it but other armchair travelers will also find themselves captivated by the hellish Greenland winter, the dire circumstances of the men, and the terrible or wonderful consequences that befell every man who dared to go out to try and save his fellows even in the face of overwhelming risk. show less

”With time, news becomes history. And history, it’s been said, is what happened to other people.”

This book…..

Where to start. I already knew all I thought I needed to know about this horrific day but no. Not even close. Mitchell Zuckoff managed to take events that we all are very well versed in and create a page turner par excellence. I mean, it read like a thriller where I had no idea what was going to happen next. He did it by filling the narrative with personal stories of both show more survivors and those who never stood a chance and yet I didn’t know until the last possible second which it would be. And he did it also by painstakingly developing a timeline that step by step revealed the horrors that we’re all familiar with. And yet, he made these events seem like they just happened and I hadn’t really heard about it before.

Of course I heard at the time about the ghastly communications problems between federal agencies that prevented basic (and I mean basic) information, crucially needed in the case of multiple attacks, from being shared even on a rudimentary level but to think that the NYPD and the NYFD couldn’t easily communicate vital information was fairly shocking. All the communication problems added to the incredible chaos that ruled the day especially in NYC but even at the Pentagon. Granted, these problems have been addressed and hopefully the chances of another day like 9/11 are less likely but just reading about it enraged me. I assumed too much about protections guaranteed by the government.

Please don’t think you know all you need to know about what happened that day. This brilliant book will change your mind and remind you that we must never forget. These brave, passionate, real people will stay with me for a long, long time. So worthy of at least five stars. show less