Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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l'Uncle Herman, alias 'lthe German, officially known as CMI John L. Koehler, boss of the gas shop at McMur- do. With a small group ofSeaBees, he uses all sorts of ingenious tricks, including prayer, to keep all the so-called light machines - anything that is not Diesel - in work- ing order. Below is MRI Gordon Boyd, head land sometimes onlyl man in the machine shop, which is adiacent to Koehler's emporium. Boyd, from Wakefield, Massachusetts, has been in the Navy eleven years and wintered-over this season at McMurdo.

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llll-I'-'- top of one of them is almost unnoticed. He is uHerman the German,'7 the SeaBee boss of the gas or ulightn shop where they repair anything that isn't Diesel. The center of affection is a glit- tering red HFire Bossn on tracks. Since McMurdo with '70 build- ings and 850 people is partially unprotected while it is down Cout of commissionj, they are trying to get it out of there as fast as possible. The Fire Boss carries 4,000 pounds of Ansul, a dry chemical' T any liquid would freeze. Each track rests on four great tires which are there only to keep it in place and provide some cushion- ing. They are Hsandbaggingw or just going along for the ride. In front is the smallest V-8 engine made by Ford, and it is hard to see how it can move the 30-inch tracks. joe Harner, a me- chanic, says the secret is in the gearing. At the rear, a man is in- side its very vitals, with one foot hanging down and one eye visible through a small hole in the housing. HHerman descends from the truck, and turns out to be CM1 john Koehler, a mild man to be responsible for so much heavy equipment. He gets his odd name from occasionally putting on goggles, sliding his hat back on his head, and saying, This is the way we did it in Field Marshal von Rommel's Panzers! Contentment radiates through the shop, probably because the men know what they're doing. They would never admit it. uSome- times I threaten to put on a robe and carry a staff, and go around and try to heal some of these things, says Koehler. uSome people call me The Healer. Through a passageway is the machine shop, where MR1 Cordon Boyd is threading some large bolts for the SeaBees. His calendar says he still has 299 days to go. Although he is winter- ing-over at McMurdo, he seems happy to have a steady deck un- der his feetg he came off a destroyer in the Pacific. He has a help- er or two, but he is often alone during his twelve-hour day. If a spare part is lacking, it would have to be sent ten thousand miles, so- he improvises repairs that keep machines running all over McMurdo as well as at stations far out on the Continent. c'My bench has never been clear in fifty-eight days, he says cheerfully. A chain of consequences reaches out from this shop. The fate of a field party, or a whole scientific program, may rest on Boyd 's judgment. On a clipboard behind him are diagrams of the same Fire Boss that is in the gas shop. He makes the rough drawings him- self, he can't trust other people's measurements. An automatic hacksaw cuts the heads off the bolts, then Boyd threads them, turning the huge handles 'cby main strengthfi When he finishes, he flicks the switch on the lathe and begins turning a valve-insert guide rod for the pony engine of a D-4 Caterpillar bulldozer. The c'pony is a small gas engine that turns over the Diesel. Under a piece of glass on his desk, which in every other shop on the ice holds a picture ofa girl from Playboy, is a quote from Emerson, 4'Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment. N I2 f U! 4 l I I 5 ' 'Z I i 5 E I t s - 5 Q

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'ii f.4F3 'ff---RE: Above is the Strip, as the skiway, together with its temporary buildings, is known. Its location varies with the season. Near the end ofthe Deep Freeze '65 sum- mer season, when the ice threatened to break out, the whole complex of buildings had to be moved about a mile and a half to the south. The rectangular building is the new sick bay, and behind it is the chow hall. White ls- land is in the background. On the HStrip7' the wind is approaching 65 knots. Only fifty yards away, two LC-130 Hercules on skis, as graceful as dolphins, are almost obscured by blowing snow. The other ski-aircraft, i'Goony-Birds and Otters, are tied down farther out. One of the Super-Constellations is left, like a waif, alone on the ice runway a couple of miles to the west. Its companion waits on wheels in the hot sun at Christchurch. The Strip, which serves the skiway, is a village in itself and the men who work there seldom go up to the NHill. The 4'Hercs are kept flying around the clock, since the squadron is sometimes behind due to the weather. Each Hercules has two crews. Some of the pilots have bunks behind the Strip Coordinators Office, in a Iamesway, a hut made of two layers of green fabric with fiberglass between. Here they rest until it is time to file for the next flight. The Strip has its own sick bay, movies, and chow hall. In the chow hall - two Jamesways placed end to end with a pair of wings for the galley - half a dozen 'fair-dalesi' Qaviation ratingsj are having coffee. Bruce Benson, an Otter 'cplane cap- tain or mechanic, says that last season a chopper tried to land during a uwhite-outi' - the continuous refraction of light between low clouds and the ice, with no shadows and no horizon. The crewman dropped a smoke flare to show the wind direction and to find out how close the ground was, but it went off inside the air- craft and temporarily blinded the pilot. The c'helo crashed, with- out injuring anyone, and was later retrieved by an icebreaker and a long line of men pulling on ropes - as practiced in the time of the Pyramids. Benson is reminiscing about the time he fixed up a Weasel that had been 'csurveyedn or written off. It isthe smallest thing on tracks, but he claims he got it up to 70 miles per hour on the ice runway and that one day he did the four miles from the Hill I4