Holiday snaps – Narsarsuaq

The Liberator, actually a C-87, that Gann referred to was in Canada.
But having seen the photo of the B-26 fuselage on the dump does pose the question of what might still be up there? I would expect any easy finds would have been recovered years ago.

My uncle was based at Thule in the 60s…he reported there was lot of nothing there.

Based on Gann’s writing and my uncle’s experience, along with my father likely stopping there in a C-124, I ‘d like to visit the place.

While testing the new forum layout, Mark, I decided to stop by for a peek. Excellent array of photos — thanks. Ernest K. Gann in Fate is the Hunter describes a downed Liberator transport in Greenland or northern Canada as being a giant aircraft on the ground, but just a speck in a vast landscape when viewed from a search & rescue aircraft above. I think the brain can easily lose a sense of scale when viewing typical icebergs from afar, but your photo of the boat close to an ice floe hints at the vast size of many icebergs.

By coincidence Narsarsuaq is mentioned in the current October 2018 issue of Aeroplane… Duane Egli’s story of flying the Battle of Britain Film B-25 over the North Atlantic.

The trapped ice flows are truly spectacular.

Mark

I bet there are some relics to be had, Dave. Mixed in amongst what appears to be old steel roof trusses and other scrap that Americans are capable of producing in prodigious quantities. I wonder if that Marauder front end is still buried in there somewhere?

Seems a pity to leave that nice intact P&W R-2000 engine outside like that. I thought at first it would have been a C-54 unit – seeing as they staged through there – but, after seeing the exhaust pipe arrangement it appears to be from a post-war DHC Caribou.

It is the Bluie West One mentioned in Gann’s book. The freighter was, in fact, 30 miles up the “correct” fjord and was confirmation that they had picked the right one.

Anon.

Google Earth appears to show a dump are on the NW corner of what was the US base are… seems to have a lot of metallic scrap – I wonder if there are any aircraft parts mixed up amongst it

Hi,
is this the base mentioned by Ernest K. Gann in his very good book Fate is the Hunter, where crews heading into here had two fjords to aim for, more often than not the weather was minimal they had to find the fjord with a shipwrecked at the entrance of the right one. Once in they could not climb or turn back…
Photo 7 shows the airfield with a stretch of water…

Regards,

jack…

That’s certainly an interesting holiday destination! Thank you for sharing those photos Mark12, much appreciated.