Operation Bolero – Leg III BGBW – Bluie West One (Narsarsuaq), Greenland → BIRK – Reykjavik, Iceland

If Leg II proved your courage, Leg III proves your endurance.

At BGBW, Bluie West One, the air is sharp enough to taste. The mountains stand like sentinels and the fjord lies dark and cold beneath low cloud. This place feels less like an airfield and more like a temporary truce between man and nature. The airplane is rimed with frost. The wind whispers that it owns this land.

You do not argue. You prepare.

This is not a long leg by distance, but it is one of the most deceptive on the entire route. Greenland releases you reluctantly, and Iceland waits behind weather that changes faster than maps can record. Between them lies water that has no mercy and sky that offers no forgiveness.

You lift from BGBW with care. The runway drops away into the fjord and for a moment it feels as though the world itself is trying to pull you back. Then the C-47 steadies, the engines settle into their deep, confident rhythm, and Greenland begins to fade behind you.

The ocean replaces ice. The horizon becomes a thin line between steel-gray water and slate-gray sky. Navigation becomes sacred. Every heading is deliberate. Every minute is counted.

There is no scenery now. Only responsibility.

This is the leg where crews grow quiet. Not from fear, but from focus. The airplane is not simply carrying cargo. It is carrying faith in charts, instruments, engines, and one another. The men who built Bolero understood this: you do not conquer oceans. You negotiate with them.

Hours later, Iceland rises out of the haze like a promise kept.

The coastline is green where Greenland was white. Volcanic rock replaces glacial ice. Civilization, however thin, returns to the map. And there it is:

BIRK – Reykjavik Airport.

A friendly field. A place where Allied aircraft gather, refuel, repair, and breathe again. Fighters, bombers, transports, all crowded together in a temporary sanctuary on the edge of Europe.

Your approach is steady and unhurried. When the wheels touch at BIRK, the relief is subtle but real. Engines spool down. The wind still bites, but it no longer feels hostile. It feels manageable.

From BGBW to BIRK, you have crossed from survival into strategy. You are no longer in the Arctic. You are on Europe’s doorstep.

Torch is closer. Normandy is no longer abstract.

The ladder across the Atlantic is behind you now, rung by frozen rung. Ahead lies Scotland, England, and the skies that will one day be filled with parachutes.

Operation Bolero continues.