Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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their small units, and take pride in producing or repairing some- thing on which many people depend. The harshness of the en- viromnent, the loneliness, and the long hours are relieved by close companionship and a rich humor. Thishumor hides their serious- ness and their genuine idealism. Like the support forces of other nations, the Navy offers assistance to anyone who requires it, whether to a Russian aircraft, an Argentine traverse party, or a New Zealander studying pen- guins. Dr. Henry M. Dater, the staff historian of Deep Freeze, says this attitude comes from 'fthe ancient tradition of the sea of giving help to ships in distress and the feeling of polar explorers that, where nature is implacable, man had better unite for his own survivalf, As a precedent for the world, this arrangement in the Antarctic, extended by treaty for 30 years, may turn out to be historic. On the ice, space and time are not what they seem. An air- craft leaves McMurdo today and arrives at Byrd Station yester- day. Mountains are farther away than they look, and the ground - in some weather - is closer. The latest communications equip- ment reports the geology of three hundred million years ago. To reflect the feeling of the Antarctic, this book takes certain liberties with space and time. A Hercules LC-130 aircraft at Williams Field. A taxi-run that may be an all-time record was made by one of the Hercs in Deep Freeze '66, With visibility too low to take off, it simply taxied from the main station at Byrd to the VLF lVery Low Frequencyl substation l4 miles away. Machines are especially beautiful in the Antarctic because they are rare. They stand out dramatically on the ice, and their purpose is immediately clear.

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- - - -- - - vs Y . Y., - - - .- .. .'r.7::.:.f 11' 7 17 1 kitty:-LT ,,,,,,,,,...,,,,.......,.,r.-..-,B-.-1- gg 21 -.. -.-.-....-:.r:.7. f e - A ' - 3 f r - ill -. - - --- --- - - ' ----,,,,-5,-3-:i..,,,,,.,.f ,,,.s......,... .......,..'-.-.af-.-v..-..m-f,fa.--A+- e-nf: V - fi-ff L4 l Rear Admiral Fred E. Bakutis in the flag quarters at McMurdo. Admiral Bakutis is especially familiar with bad flying conditions, since one of his previous commands was the Alaskan Sea Frontier, where mountains, fog, and short runways often make landing even more hazardous than it is on the ice. Aformer fighter pilot, he shot down twelve enemy planes in the Pacific in World War ll and, among many other decorations, holds the Navy Cross. A personal knowledge of flying is almost essential to.a commander of 'lOperation Deep Freeze, as nearly everything in the interior of the Continent is brought in by aircraft. He is the fourth admiral to command the U. S. Naval Support Force Antarctica, and was selected for his imaginative grasp of the scientific as well as logis- tic problems peculiar to this operation. Brockton, a sum- mer weather station on the Ross lce Shelf, was named for his home town in Massachusetts. ON THE ICE The odd thing about the Antarctic is that anyone can live there at all. The weather and the terrain are so fierce that, on a summer day, a man alone can be sucked into oblivion. The Con- tinent has been covered with ice for 11 million years, and not until 1957 did anyone spend a winter at the South Pole. In the ten years since then, facilities have been built up so carefully that a man can live Hon the icei' almost in comfort, giving his attention to the bottom of the sea or the upper atmosphere. The scientific knowledge thus gained is already worth many times the original cost. Each year, in the austral summer, the United States Navy sends a large force to the Antarctic in support of 150 to 200 scien- tists. uOperation Deep Freezen manages to keep about ten ships and nearly two dozen aircraft operating in the coldest temperature on earth. About 200 Navy men spent the winter in 1966 -four to six months of it in darkness -to allow 36 scientists to main- tain the continuity of their observations. The scientist's measurements may not be analyzed for a year or more, but he has the satisfaction of knowing they may benefit his country and perhaps the entire world. Following the practice begun during the International Geophysical YearQ1957-58j,scien- tific information is freely exchanged by all nations with Antarctic bases. This unprecedented cooperation multiplies the quantity of data available to each investigator. ' The National Science Foundation offers about 37.5 million annually in grants. The scientist, or his university, tells the U. S. Antarctic Research Program QUSARPQ what he will need, down to the smallest net or coil of wire, and USARP discusses the logistic requirements with the Navy. The Ulead time is often as much as a year, since his project must be coordinated with others and he and his equipment must be delivered in the field together - at the end ofthe world is longest supplyline. The weather still makes most of the decisions in Antarctica. In order to overcome it, with machinery that must be maintained thousa.nds of miles from home, the Navy has become ingenious at making the most out of a limited amount of equipment. On a budget of 319.9 million, of which a staggering proportion goes into fuel and transportation, Deep Freeze probably gets as much for its money as any command in the armed forces. Deep Freeze is the N avyis Hblue chipi' duty - not because it is easy but because of the caliber of the men. When it began, there were 16 volunteers for each opening, and even today reenlist- ment remains high. Like Rear Admiral Fred E. Bakutis, Com- mander Naval Support Force Antarctica QCTF-431, who during his career has survived many dangerous assignments, the men have courage. They are attracted to the ice for a variety of reasons,- but undoubtedly for adventure and the feeling of beingwin on something important. Since most of them are selected for Deep Freeze on the basis of their individual skills, they discover when they arrive on the ice that they are indispensable. They feel personally responsible for 8 -l,Ql?Tl3l131TfCl' 'i::4l LED::LZ-f727f7QIf115fTQ77'1fTzTLT2TaZ'ILt:Li:::L:17gg7g7 --1--7 i-+7-4.4.6.1 LC- 1.z,7::11' -1:-7 11. ,rrr 4 -7-1 ,- ,-.-,.,-.-.-.... - - .-..... :...,.. . .,..,.. -- -,-,-k g hi.--.. ...- . ...-,,, -,:'- -,--- -.- - - -- - ... ..- -- ---A --we ---f-....,-,..- - .-., -.-..- ...... - - ' r- f --- e--.---.- Y - ,, . , 1. -..,,.-.........,...-.... a. .:,.xr.:T11::1'::- v-M3--L - ' 5 - -

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-.--.-.- -yr -.rn-1-4-,L-t-tfahi- i-.- - ...-.-,.1..-v-4-1-:T 747.4-.Ti-1 n-Q-1 - i i , 5 i i fi , its ig l These ominous flags, in various combinations, warn of an approaching weather condition that is generally more serious than it would be in civilized surroundings. When two of the square flags are hoisted, one above the other, they signify Storm Condition One. The red triangle means Low Visibility Condition One. ..I.-,.. . 'Rope Yam Zero-zero at McMurdo. A 40-knot wind carries the snow in from the south, and the flags at Antarctic Support Activities QASAQ Command spell out Storm Condition One. As in 1902, when Shackleton first saw it, the ground is covered thickly with the dull ashes thrown out by Mount Erebus. i'The whole place had a weird and uncanny look, and reminded me of the desert in iChilde Roland to the dark tower came' ii - The teletype for Commander Task Force 43 says: EXTER- IOR CONSTR WORK SUSPENDED DUE TO WX . . . AIR OPS SUSPENDED DUE TO WX . . . MCMURDO SHIP CHANNEL ,10 MILES LONG. NOW 15.7 MILES FROM HUT POINT. 36 HOURS OF STRONG SOUTHERLY WINDS HAVE CLEARED 80 PERCENT OF THE BRASH FROM THE CHANNEL. The message is copied by the icebreakers Glacier and Burton Islanal iiThe breakers like to have a strong wind in their face, says Lt Glen Drummond in the weather room, Hbecause it blows the loose ice outf, It is copied also by Calcaterra, which is on station about halfway to New Zealand. i'Bulldog7' Drummond thinks the weath- er ships have the worst duty on the ice. 'iThey send up balloons and track them with radar. Maybe they have to send up as many as five, to get one clear, because of the seas and the wind and the rolling. They hang 'em in the antennas and everything else. Calcaterra and Thomas Gary, both DERS Q destroyer escorts with radarj, are alternating this year on picket duty, three weeks on station and three weeks off. HWe haven't always had two, says Drummond. HThe ship would take six to ten days off, then get back out as quick as it could get refueled. They are the main reporting point on the 2,200-mile flight line between Christ- church, New Zealand, and McMurdo Station. They are there, also, in case an aircraft has to ditch between these two points. It is not much worse than a blizzard in New England, except that there are no trees to stop the wind. The polar air flows down from the plateau, unhindered, for more than a thousand miles. The snowfall on the whole Continent averages only a foot or two a year, but at 15 miles per hour the wind begins to pick up drift. The next message says: ICE RUNWAYS 15f33 GRID. AND 0'7f25 GRID CLOSED UFN DUE TO SNOW COVERAGE. Down at BOQ-10 where the staff officers live, which ordinarily has a view more exciting than the Bay of Naples, they pull back' the curtains at the picture window. There is nothing but a white void. A small speaker in the overhead warns all personnel, ex- cept those on urgent business, to remain inside. HRope yarn?- says someone in the hut, and it raises a wistful laugh. This, elsewhere, means a day off. In the side of a big shabby building is a little door with HHerman,s Rest Home scrawled on it. The interior is jammed with vehicles, and is so vast and gloomy that a man working on I0