[typ550]

There is a great book titled "The Lost Squadron" that chronicles the recovery attempts for the Greenland P-38 and portions of one of the B-17s. A friend and local mechanic who wrenches on my MGs was on several of the recovery expeditions and has some amazing photos taken on and under the ice. What finally worked, as I understand it, was a rig that melted their way down to the aircraft while pumping the water out of the hole. That was one deep hole (almost 300 ft) that you had to be lowered through on a harness to get to the aircraft; the Lightning was then gradually disassembled and brought in pieces back up through the hole.

These aircraft still had live ammo on board, of course, since they were abandoned during wartime (the Norden bombsights on the Fortresses were retrieved, though, so they would not fall into enemy hands). My buddy has some great photos of where he and the team pulled one of the 20mm cannons off the P-38 and rigged it to remotely fire at an empty oil drum out on the ice. Thing worked like a charm after 50 years under the ice.