The U.S. Coast Guard Academy is honoring an alumnus who died on a daring rescue mission in Greenland during World War II.Lt. John Pritchard, a pilot, was trying to save a man left stranded on the tundra by the crash of a B-17 when his own single-engine Grumman Duck plane went down in whiteout conditions in November 1942. A total of three service members died in the wreck.
The U.S. military has stepped up efforts to recover the plane that is now entombed in a glacier, including a mission to Greenland this summer by the Joint Personnel POW/MIA Accounting Command.
The academy in New London inducted Pritchard into its Hall of Heroes Friday afternoon. Pritchard was a member of the class of 1938.
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