Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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Capt Don Bursik, Chief of Staff, is a humorous and pene- trating man. Deep Freeze has always maintained an informal relationship between the Navy and the U. S. Antarctic Research Program lUSARPl to allow greater flexibility in solving unusual problems, but Capt Bursik feels that in Deep Freeze '66 unit commanders were given even more autonomy. L'The weather here has interfered with practice drill, Cdr Kauffman answers. HEveryone concerned is going to be at the Pole for two weeks' acclimatizationf' Dr. Cowan reminds them. USO we take the jamesway to the Pole P asks Cdr Kauffman. HConna be a job for three men to get that jamesway upj' Lcdr John Bell agrees. He is in charge of Supply. 'iI'll go out with the first plane and stay until the second ar- rives,H says Cdr Kauffman. You let us know how many people, Cdr Morris puts in, 'iso we know what our payload can bef, c'The next event comes three days later when the Traxcavator can get in, Cdr Kauffman continues. I Wait, let's back up here a little bit,', drawls John Bell. He wants to know how many planes and on what dates. MI wouldn't envision that it would take fourteen thousand pounds of equipment to support three people, says Ken Moulton. He is the HUSARP repf, Qsenior scientist in the Antarctic for the United States Antarctic Research Programj. HI donit think you need two weeks to find the prevailing wind, says Dr. Cowan. 'iAll that food . . . stay out there in that awful place . . . unnecessary . . . might as well stay at the Pole. HThe Traxcavator will be the only thing you can get on that second ilightj, Lcdr Bell points out. HWhat's the consump on that Trax Pi' Lt Bob Miller of Public Works says it uses seven gallons per hour. 'iBoy, that's gonna be an awful lot of DFA. At the temperatures they expect in winter, Diesel Fuel Arctic, a kerosene, turns to jelly. MI've been talking to the Doctorf' says Charlie Roberts, a civilian with the U. S. Weather Bureau, 'cand everybody is going to take longer on everything, at that altitude. MTalk to some of those guys who went in the pressure cham- ber for thirty-six hoursf' Dr. Cowan nods. NThey turned purple . . . blue . . . panting . . . and everything else. Constant head- ache. They couldnit do any work. He looks around the room meaningfully. HThey were not acclimatizedf, HCan you find the ridge all right, Ken Moulton asks, Mor will we have to move the station P The ridge is at 790 30'S, 400 E. For medical and scientific records, they want to have the station at the highest possible point of the polar plat- eau. This is about the same height as the nearby 'iPole of Inac- cessibility,'7 set up by the Russians for a similar purpose but presently unoccupied. HHow long do we allow for preparing the skiway PM Cdr Kauffman wants to know. c'We better start after the first flight, says Capt Bursik. A week . . . subject to renegotiationf' Someone says the Trax- cavator moves at three miles per hour. 'iWe better have some way to survey that skiway, to make sure it's straight, Dr. Cowan suggests. He presses his point about the slowness of work at high altitude. c'We7re not going to be on duty twenty-four hours a day . . . maybe put 0116 H1016 man in theref' 22 l l l l l l 1 ! fl l l l l l P l f g

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from the National Science Foundation, and a radio operator. The question is: can the aircraft get back out, without ex- cessive takeoff attempts P There is very little 'csidei' about who sits where. Capt Don Bursik, the Chief of Staff, with a hawklike profile, takes an un- comfortable folding chair in the shadows. The key figure is the slim young doctor, Lt Tim Cowan, who will command the winter- ing-over party. Yet the beauty of the operation is in its logistics, and Cdr Steve Kauffman, assistant chief of staff, in charge of con- struction, stakes out a high swivel stool for himself. Cdr 'cMoeN Morris, who is responsible for all aircraft as commanding officer of Squadron VX-6, explains that the initial flight will carry only 14,000 pounds payload and therefore no bulldozer. HI do think we ought to position a Traxcavator at the Pole, says Cdr Kauffman. The South Pole willbe the staging area, and he means that the bulldozer should be ready to be flown out to Plateau. uCan three men put up a Tamesway at that altitude ? '7 Arthur Weber wants to know. He is a civilian architect with the Navyis Bureau of Yards and Docks, who designed the vans and will fol- low them to the site. Since' people need oxygen at more than 15,000 feet, Plateau will be near the limits of endurance. Far left: USARP Hal Preston, U. S.WeatherBureau,at the South Pole. Twice a day he sends up balloons that transmit their weather data back to the station by radio, using radar to track them as they are blown by the wind. This work is not without its hazards. A balloon inflation shelter exploded at the Pole on January 31, T966. Luck- ily, no one was inside at the time. Ten SeaBees put up a new shelter in less than two weeks, relocating the re- lease door according to prevailing winds in order to al- low balloons to be released more easily. Lcdr Vince Law in the weather office at McMurdo. Lt Norm Terrell says, Right now, we're running about 90 percent - flights forecast and not aborted. He keeps a forecast verification chart that shows how successful the current forecasting has been. Getting the planes down safely is what we're interested in. He gets upper-layer reports from the balloons that are sent up twice a day, as well as daily reports from foreign stations on the ice. There is also a satellite that gives weather information, which is shared with the Russians and other nations. E WAY'

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Personally, says Charlie Roberts, HI would rather put an extra man in there. The general feeling is that if the machine can't clear the snow quickly the time is going to Hback up and delay the supply schedule. If it goes down fbreaksb, your time is going to back up anyway, John Bell points out. alt has no parts with it. We might as well find the prevailing wind and put stakes out, says Cdr Kauffman. uDo it by eyeball. Someone says the second Trax is due to go in on 27 December. uLet's back up a minute, says john Bell. They have been planning this operation with their depart- ments for a year, and now, at the last moment, are just being ex- tremely cautious. This is why they ask each other rudimentary questions. They discuss IATO Qjet-assisted take-offj and how many bottles of it ought to be carried on each flight. Propellers don't have the same thrust in the thin air they will find at Plateau, and the engines don't develop full power at such a high altitude. Recently a Herc with Admiral Bakutis aboard tried ten times be- fore getting airborne at the Pole of Inaccessibility. HYou7re going to make two flights a day P Cdr Kauffman asks. 'cThis is commensurate with what you want elsewhere, re- plies Cdr Morris. He means the other air operations on the Con- tinent, each one eating up aircraft-hours like peanuts. Imagine an hourglass, magnified. The great surface at one end represents the immense amount of work done in Washington, Davisville, and Quonset, and the accumulated polar experience since Borchgrevink wintered-over at Cape Adare in 1899. All this is focused on four scientists and four Navy men at a point not only in space but in time. What they discover will then be fanned out and analyzed, until it becomes an even greater body of experience. In the wardroom, afterthe second showing of the movie, a Tech. Rep. named Sal Fiore begins playing the piano. Lt Don Kahler goes out and comes back with a guitar. Fiore fetches his accordion. Cdr Morris has nothing on his mind but the 450 men and 21 aircraft of VX-6. Not long ago he piloted a Herc himself on a rescue mission, 'iparlayedw the weather at Byrd, Eights, the Sentinels, and McMurdo, and didnit close his eyes for 24 hours. He goes to his quarters across the hall, and returns with a wash- tub to which a string has been attached, he plays it with a broom- stick, like a bass fiddle. Imperceptibly, suddenly, half a dozen expert, brave, overworked men are tuning up and playing jazz. So ends a rope yarn day. Overleaf: Breathtaking beauty is typical of mountains in the Antarctic. The glacier at lower left is similar to, but much smaller than, the famous Beardmore Glacier. 23 Ken Moulton, USARP representative at McMurdo, is a former meteorologist, but for eleven years he has been engaged in planning and administration. This was his seventh season in Antarctica, and he spent two winters in the Arctic. As senior scientist on the Continent, he was responsible for seeing that all USARP requirements were relayed to the Navy and that the scientists understood the logistic problems of the support force.