Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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when these are subtracted from a total of 21 aircraft, of which five are helicopters, the timing of scientific programs may be af- fected. Field parties are demanding to get out. Later in the sea- son, the four Heres set a record by flying 23,000 miles in 24 hours, to deliver 267,000 pounds of cargo. During this crucial month, November, when at least 500 people have to be flown in, the Air Force - under contract to the Navy - ferries men and priority cargo from Christchurch to Mc- Murdo. Their Hercs, which have wheels only, land on the ice runway and return immediately to New Zealand. The uIcemaster,', a tall, genial Major named Bob Swanson, inspects the runway for cracks and snowdrifts and certifies it to be safe whenever Air Force flights are scheduled. This runway, being on sea or Hannualw ice, is much more fragile than the skiway on the Barrier. It has been known to go to sea with little notice. A skiway was laid out at McMurdo in 1957, in the dark, by the wintering-over party. It has always been a precarious thing, as was shown by the crack last year, and is moved every two or three years, depending on its condition. Near the end of Septem- ber, 1962, the earliest opening date in the history of Deep Freeze, the wintering-over party had to prepare the skiway in high winds and a temperature of 60 degrees below zero. It was so' cold that a heavy blade of one of the bulldozers broke. when it touched the ice, and several windshields in the Heres were shattered.. Before the unprecedented emergency flight of 1964, when a'Herc landed in the dark, a 10,000-foot skiway waslcleared of a four-month accumulation of snow. The men worked 24 hours a day to reactivate the GCA and .- TACAN equipment, which had been in storage. , 33 McMurdo Station. These nondescript buildings conceal an up-to-date communications system. Wires cannot be put underground because of the permafrost that makes dig- ging difficult. The chapel, built by volunteer labor, is iust visible at left. The big Quonset hut contains the ship's store, barber shop, and disbursing office.

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'.:5'..:-.x-H P- 7 f-'li ' ' - Scott's hut at Cape Evans, where the second land lastl man to reach the South Pole on toot established a coastal base for his 1910-13 expedition. The hutwas restored in 1960-61 by a party of seven New Zealanders. It had saved the lives of another expedition in 1915-17, when the great Ernest Shackleton tried to get through the Weddell Sea and across the Continent to loin his second party in the McMurdo area. Shackleton himselfendured an epic struggle at sea, and not until two years later was he able to rescue the men at Cape Evans. The McMurdo area has probably served as acenter for more explorers, of various nationalities, than any other place onthe Continent. It is near enough to New Zealand, a friendly base to outfit ships, and is one of two coastal positions closest to the Pole. The other is the Filchner Ice Shelf on the Weddell Sea. Argentina and Chile, of course, are intensely interested in the Antarg- tic because only 600 miles separate Cape Horn from the Antarctic Peninsula. Fifty years ago, expeditions used to come in and winter-over, then perhaps a 'Lspring journey to set out depots of fuel and food, then a dash inland in November or December, they departed never later than March 1, to keep the ship from being frozen in, The timetable today remains the same: the first icebreaker rarely arrives before the middle of December, leading the supply ships that bring in five and a half million gallons of fuel as well as general cargo. Both ships and planes usually get out by the end of February. The Antarctic, by forces greater than technology, still decides the length of the season. Deep Freeze has only five months in which people can get in and out, and supply operations to the inland stations must be completed in this period. By the end of November, two of the Goons have received strike damage Qthey are Written offj, and v- 1- - .. . - , A , ,, ....,.,...,-,-,.,.,.,.,..-.,-,- -s-- ' - - - ..--L. Y - - - - - . . , , ,-.-....-.-.-.-....-.4. ,.7::1,

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