The U.S. Coast Guard Academy has honored a pilot who lost his life during a daring rescue mission in Greenland during World War II.
Lt. John Pritchard was a 1938 graduate of the academy in New London, Connecticut. He was inducted Friday into its Hall of Heroes.
His 91-year-old sister, Nancy Pritchard Morgan, told cadets in dress blue uniforms assembled for the ceremony that he loved his family, loved flying and loved the Coast Guard.
Pritchard 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 been trying to recover the plane.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
