besides the weather facility the us military wanted a base from which the warplanes of operation bolero that were forced to land on the greenland ice sheet could be rescued. owing to its closeness to the inland ice comanche bay was deemed a favorable place from which to send rescue patrols. however, when shortly thereafter a boeing b-17 flying fortress crash-landed on the ice sheet not far from comanche bay, a rescue operation ran into difficulties because of treacherous crevasses near the crash site and two men were lost. following this accident the base was closed in the fall of the same year.