Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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Lt Hal Morris, of VX-6, pilot ofthe LC-47 that crashed on the Ross lce Shelf in poor visibility and with some evi- dence of icing. All six men aboard lost their lives. An accident such as this one calls attention to the precarious- ness of life in the Antarctic, and to the personal courage of the men who go out on these flights day after day. -----,--in Chief Partlow, who has been taking ice-corings, examines them in the Sick Bay to decide how much longer the runway will last. Weill have to close itbythe 28th, he guesses. The crack is between the station and the Strip. You can still land your air- craft, but we wouldn't have any way of getting back and forth. We're taking the Wannigan off the Strip two days from nowf' He says both the machines for making fresh water broke down, and there was no water in the Sick Bay. They needed it all for the galley and the head. But a small glacier on the hillside is beginning to trickle, which will produce plenty of water. The wind on the Strip is so strong that it tears some papers out of Major Verlautz's hands. They are notes he made on the operation of the station, and they go flapping off to leeward. When the plane is ready to take off, Dompe suddenly throws open the door and jumps to the ice. He has the pump, pliers in his hand, and disappears under the port wing. Cdr Driscoll tries to taxi, but something, perhaps a wheel or a ski, is stuck. Dompe crouches under the wing, repeatedly, with bare hands in the 25-knot wind, and then steps back to watch the pilot try once more. As it gets colder, the passengers contemplate staying overnight at the station, but the only repair facilities are in the head of the big, expressionless man out on the ice. After a long time, the plane moves. When Dompe comes aboard, he says the brake was frozen. Cdr Driscoll taxis to the north end of the run- way and takes of into the throat of the mountains before bank- ing, at the last second, and flying out of the bay. john Cranfield, after his smelly labors among the penguins, is enjoying a large cigar. Dompe stretches out like a cat on a few seats and reads a paperback, resting on one elbow. He is limp as an animal, oblivious to the bad light. The copilot, Lt Hal Morris, comes aft and says he and Lt Bill Fordell, another Goon pilot, are scheduled to winter-over. A few VX-6 people are kept over, to be on hand for early spring operations. We reactivate Hallett early, itls important for weather reporting. The Goons spend the winter on the ice. They take the control surfaces off and tie them clown. It takes about a week to make them fly. Someone wonders about blowing snow. Morris smiles sympathetically. i'Those poor Goonsf, HA-fter three years,'7 says Dompe, 'cthese things arenit safe to fly back for overhaul, so they take ,em apart and send ,em by ship. Next season they fly 'em down from the West Coast to Pearl to Canton to Fiji to New Zealand. i'853 was two months flying down from the States. She was one of the original Goons in Deep Freeze One H9555 and shels still here. A few days later, Lt Morris is taking off for the Beardmore Glacier as copilot of 832,,7 when they discover a bad magneto. As they taxi back to the gas pits, someone says a team of me- chanics will spot the trouble. After chow, the New Zealand field party walks out to the plane where 4'Red'7 Auxford is working on the engine. It is wide open to the wind, and one of the New Zealanders is sympathetic: uThey said a team of mechanics from the Strip would fix itf' Auxford, a huge man with a husky voice, 78

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its belly. uThese queer people,', as they were called by an early explorer, look as if they belong in a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Today the wind is blowing directly from the rookery into the station, with a fearful stench. The chow hall is warm and snug, andthe huge bearded cook, Charlie Bowin, points to slabs of meat left over from lunch. He is steaming knockwurst in a cauldron of beer, for supper. The men who drift in to pick up their mail are not particularly excited by visitors, they are absorbed in their own routine. Fred Kinsky, once a European nobleman, is now a New Zealand ornithologist. john Cranfield, a New Zealand biologist, spent 24 hours on the side of the steep, bare mountain that rises directly behind the sta- tion, to have a better look at the penguins, although he had been warned of avalanches. Later he pitched a tent in the middle of the rookery, right in the guano, painting the penguins different colors to trace their movements. A colleague is studying juvenile delin- quency among penguins at Cape Crozier, in the grant it is called f'Parent-Chick Relationships. N Roy Mangold, a Navy surveyor, with an Adelie penguin at Cape Royds. The penguin is an ideal bird for scientific investigation because it cannot fly. What it lacks in the way of self-defense, it makes up for with charm. These clowns of the Antarctic have fascinated everyone since the early explorers. Edward A. Wilson, who perished with Scott while they were returning from the Pole, wrote in his diary in l9l0: They have lost none of their attractiveness, and are most comical and interesting, as curious as ever, they will always come up at a trot when we sing to them, and you may often see a group ofexplorers on the poop sing- ing 'For she's got bells on her fingers and rings on her toes, elephants to ride upon wherever she goes,' and so on at the top of their voices to an admiring group of Adelie penguins. Meares is the greatest attraction, he has a full voice which is musical but always very flat. He declares that 'God Save the King,' will always send them to the water, and certainly it is often successful.

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ll. S. Navy Above: Hallett Station. Left! Red Auxford, mechanic and plane captain ofa Goon that flew out to resupply a party of scientists on the Ross Ice Shelf. He is responsible for any mechanical problems, in flight or on the ground. Work that would be routine at home is complicated in the Antarctic by the absence of hangars and, above all, by the cold.