Navy denies request to recover airmen who died in Antarctic crash

Citing safety concerns, the U.S. Navy has rejected the latest request to recover the bodies of three airmen -- including one with Lake County ties -- who died in Antarctica in 1946.

In a letter sent Thursday to a relative of one of the dead flyers, Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter said the Navy considers the polar site to be the final resting place of the airmen and their doomed seaplane, the George One.

"We do not support disturbing or potentially desecrating their remains," Winter wrote.

A Mundelein woman whose brother is among the dead entombed on Antarctica was disappointed with the Navy's decision.

"I really thought we were going to get there," said Betty Spencer, 81. Her brother, Wendell K. Hendersin, was a radioman on the ill-fated mission.

Winter's decision has not discouraged a private organization from conducting its own recovery mission, however.

Lou Sapienza, a Seattle photographer who served with an expedition that salvaged a World War II-era plane in Greenland in the 1990s, is moving forward with his own plan to recover the bodies.

"As long as the families' desire is to bring these men home, I will bring them home -- to the country and soil they loved, served and died for," Sapienza said in a news release.

The seaplane crashed during Operation Highjump, the largest Antarctic expedition ever undertaken.

Six men survived. Before being rescued, they buried the dead near the wreckage. Today, the graves could be under more than 100 feet of ice, experts have said.

Sapienza remains undaunted in his quest to find the George One. He said he'll seek congressional and private funding for his independent mission.

He expects to have a team using ground-penetrating radar on the Antarctic surface in November 2008, and hopes to return in 2009 to recover the bodies.

http://www.georgeone.blogspot.com/