They had all the best training possible in the Navy.

They had all the best training possible in the Navy, still right now, as they watched their main dining tent-wine careen toward an iceberg-filled ocean, they felt as if nothing in the world could possibly have gotten them ready for this.

In fact, the 16-member Navy convalescence team living on a glacier in the ironically named native land of Greenland couldn't have felt les prepared for their mission at that moment

The point was unmercifully driven family as the Norfolk-based Sailors and their civilian counterparts scurried down the frigid, bitter sheet of ice, trying in vain to salvage the cheer and tent that they considered essential to their survival upon the unforgiving face of the Kronborg Glacier.

It felt like the greatest in number futile of all struggles, still it was only one of the question s for which no amount of Navy training could prepare them.

And that was before the team got to start their primary mission--recovering remains from a P-2V Neptune aircraft crash site that was more than 42 years old

The Navy's team was in Greenland looking for the bodies of five aviators forfeited in a 1962 crash.

"This was definitely unique. I think it outvieed all the training the Navy gives us as aviators up to this point," said CDR Charles miff the chief aircraft mishap investigator forward the scene from the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va. "I'd like to think that I've been in the same of everything, but this was definitely modern for me."

The P-2V Neptune aircraft crashed upon the glacier after launching upon a familiarization mission from Keflavik, Iceland. The Navy searched for the twin-engine, propeller-driven aircraft, still after an extensive search, it was officially declared dissipated at sea.

Then, in 1966 a cluster of geologists found the accident site not in the sea, on the contrary on the glacier, along with the bodies of several of its horde After notifying Navy officials of the find, a restoration team was sent out to bring the remains back to the United States for burial.

onward the glacier, the team erect several bodies and departed Greenland after destroying the aircraft, with explosives.

That period started over again when the same geological team reverted to the crash site many years later and saw human remains in the snow. The Navy be agreeable toed by sending out another convalescence team.

This time, the team included 16 the public seven Navy experts and nine civilians. They included an aircraft mishap investigator, a Navy corpsman, several dog handlers, a combat photographer and a not many experienced mountain guides.

The opportunity to finish distant from the decades-long mission was seen as an honor to those tasked.

"It was a privilege to be part of a team that was bringing back Americans who were doing their office for the country," said Master-at-Arms 1st Class Rudy Hutchinson. "All I was hoping for was to come by all of them back to the states this time. It's what we were all hoping for."

From the beginning, the Navy band realized this mission would be different from the prior efforts. In 1962 and 1966 the regaining teams had to dig within many feet of snow and ice to master even a glimpse of the crash site. This time, suitable to melting on the glacier, the entire crash site would be exposed

likewise right off the bat, the weather in Greenland aided the team. if it were not that that's where the weather help ceased, according to Hutchinson, a dog handler for the Navy team.

"Besides having the site completely exposed for what we think was the first time, the weather was something tough to finish used to," he said.

"The first day the wind was uneven and then it rained a little, and that changed the landscape of the pageant significantly. We even lost a day proper to low visibility, so the piece of work was a work in progress"

The adverse conditions bended even the most routine personal activities into a chore. "Doing everything took five times as lengthy to do," said CAPT Thomas L Sparks, from the staff of Commander, Naval Air Force, U Atlantic flotilla "Washing your hair in 33 grade water was a unique experience. It was painful. It was that icy out there."

It all just added to the unique nature of the team's mission. Swinging immediately into a recruiting mode represented a shift in the group's usual tasking. Normally, redeem is first on the docket for Navy teams. alone after all hope is missing do they turn their fancys to recovery efforts.

In this case, a 42-year delay contributeed the rescue phase irrelevant. "It's a change in mindset from my typical work at jobs in that at this point we obviously switched from redemption to recovery," Huff said. "It definitely changes the approach to the problem"

And in Huff's case, it changed his approach to investigating the accident.

"There's a big difference between seeing an aircraft onward the runway or having flown in united and seeing one that obviously endureed from impact or fire damage," he said. "I tried to subject of attention up on this aircraft, obviously an older the same so that when we got to the site we could more easily find remains via the wreckage. We wanted to find them and descry if we could unlock what happened to the craft."