The following article was in my local paper today. It covers the events for Middlesboro. I plan to be in Middlesboro Thursday to see them off.
BK
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5589757,00.html
World War II history soars
Glacier Girl, rescued from ice, to touch down in Kentucky
By FRED BROWN,
brownf@knews.com
June 17, 2007
Glacier Girl, the P-38 Lightning saved after decades under the Greenland ice, is returning to Middlesboro, Ky., briefly next week.
Anyone wanting to catch a glimpse of the famous World War II warbird will need to be at Middlesboro Airport, where the plane is expected, weather permitting, from 10 a.m. Tuesday through noon Thursday.
After Thursday, Glacier Girl is to fly to New Jersey, where it will be part of ABC's "Good Morning America" television program.
The Middlesboro-to-New-Jersey flight is the first leg of the trip, meant to finally complete the plane's original flight that began in July 1942.
Glacier Girl was part of a military mission known as Operation Bolero, an Army/Air Force Squadron of six P-38s and two B-17 Bombers headed for Europe.
The squadron ran into foul weather and crash-landed in Greenland, far off course.
Only one P-38 of the "Lost Squadron," as it became known, was salvageable. That P-38 fighter, recovered in 1992, became known as Glacier Girl and was part of a long-running salvage operation and restoration that cost more than $6 million and took a decade to complete.
The project was the late Roy Shoffner's dream. Shoffner, a Tennessee/Kentucky entrepreneur, spent time and money on Glacier Girl and was there the day it was finally hauled from beneath 268 feet of Greenland ice.
His dream was to restore the fighter and fly it to Europe to complete Operation Bolero across the North Atlantic to Scotland's western coast near Glasgow.
Shoffner died in 2005, and the Shoffner family sold the fighter to Provenance Fighters of Fresno, Calif.
Provenance buys and sells historic aircraft. It sold Glacier Girl almost immediately to Texas oilman Rod Lewis of Lewis Aeronautical in San Antonio for an undisclosed sum.
The plane will have only a brief stay in Middlesboro at the Middlesboro Airport, where restoration was conducted by Shoffner and Bob Cardin, a pilot and heritage aircraft expert.
Glacier Girl once was a top tourist attraction in Middlesboro, especially among World War II veterans. A museum was built to house the plane.
The P-38's complete flight plan can be found at the Air Show Buzz Web site at
http://www.airshowbuzz.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=921.
According to the schedule, it will leave Chino, Calif., today and arrive in Kentucky, weather permitting, Monday night.
From the United States, it will be flown ultimately to Duxford, England.
GLACIER GIRL — P-38 LIGHTNING WORLD WAR II FIGHTER
Lost in 1942 over Greenland
1992 - Salvage work began
October 2002 - Glacier Girl flies for first time since WWII
Monday - Expected arrival in Middlesboro, Ky.
10 a.m. Tuesday-noon Thursday - Plane on display
Thursday - Departs for Teterboro, N.J.