SPEAKER:  Pat Epps (of Epps Aviation Fame up at PDK Airport) directed the spectacular recovery of a WW II fighter (or was it a bomber? buried beneath 256 feet of Greenland ice cap. A whole flock of US Army Air Corps airplanes crash (Landed?) on the ice in 194?, enroute from the Good Ol' U S of A during WW-II while being ferried to England. Colder than blue blazes, but beat the heck out of ditching at sea! How many there were is up for conjecture - you'll just have to come hear Pat and ask him. Ditto for the makeup of the squadron. Pat took "The Mystery Machine" to Greenland more than once w/ his ice auger while trying to recover the fleet. Took a little while to get through 256 ft of ice. Even Walter Matthau & Jack Lemmon couldn't do that in one season - even helped by Ann Margaret & Sophia Loren! Pat is a native of Athens, Georgia, and the youngest son of Ben T. Epps, Georgia aviation pioneer. He graduated from "Georgia Tech" in 1956 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He became the fifth of Ben Epps' sons to become a military pilot. He flew the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter and later the Fairchild C-123 Provider. Epps has 7,000 hours as a commercial pilot with type ratings in the North American B-25 Mitchell, Douglas DC-3 Gooney Bird, Learjet, and Cessna Citation. Recovering whatever he recovered was an 11-year quest on the Greenland ice cap. The adventure is an incredible story, (Ask him about thawing out frost-bitten feet on someone's BARE stomach! just like the Army's survival manual says to do it.) including the recovery of a piece of the B-17 bearing the name of Phyllis Arleen. In 1942 the plane's pilot, Joe Hanna, had painted the name in honor of his wife. Epps was able to present the memento to Hanna's widow on NBC's "Today" show. She, in turn, handed over the keys to the door of the bomber, which had been staying in her basement for decades (was it the door or the keys that spent decades in the basement? Try diagramming that sentence to be correct!). In June 1994, Epps piloted a friend's DC-3 to France. As he flew over Normandy, veteran WW II paratroopers jumped to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

See you there.

Don Reinhard