Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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v v -4 Y Y, ---- A--.- ,. ...-.-..-..-,.-i-i..,..--, , m . ' -f- i Hr..-.....t. L. ' '-'-+- A Lt Ripa. ulim going up the hill tonight, after supper, to run one of themfi He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1960 and is a member of the Civil Engineer Corpsg he is so dedicated that he qualified to drive every piece of heavy equipment in his detach- ment. Outside the new Sick Bay that was being finished inside, he pointed to a transformer platform, which had been assembled on the spot, and said the man responsible for it was his chief electri- cian, john Hansen. 'cThat's as good as the work done by any big utility company at homef' The average age ofthe 99 enlisted men in MCB-6 was 19 to 20 years. Seven of them graded the site for the personnel building in 23 days, bringing 1,800 cubic yards of rock down from the hill, with one bucket loader, two D-Ss, and three dump trucks. I get 70 percent utilization on anytruck they give me, said Lt Ripa. SeaBees with jackhammers were digging a trench for the lines that would carry water from the new desalination plant. Because of the extreme cold, it is not possible to lay the pipe below the freezing level. However, the pipe can be electrically heated by covering it with a special wrapping containing two thin, flat, copper wires which keeps the water from freezing. Other men, under Ens Steve Warwick, constructed a VLF substation 14 miles from Byrd, using three modular vans inside a 100-foot tunnel covered with steel arches to keep off drifting snow. Below: Constructionman Henry Moore, ofthe SeaBees, cuts scrap iron at McMurdo. The skeleton of this phased- out building will be used for repairs to other structures. As many buildings as possible are prefabricated before being shipped to the Antarctic, but, even so, the work of assembling them is considerable. A sign near here reads: URBAN RENEWAL PROGRAM. Building for a better, more comfortable McMurdo Station. USN MCB-6. Detachment Whiskey. At left: Cargo is unloadedfromthe hold of one of the supply ships. ,--..-.-.---F.-.-,-.-.-........,......e.r.r.:.1::1x'1. .-..i.1 ., -- ---v-H - f.-.-.,.-.-.-.- - - - -...-.-i- - -.- A.,-.-i..-.-.--.- .-......... .....- . ., ,,.,,Ai-.f.-.Y...-. ..,-.e...-....-.s,,.,.-..H.-W.-.-.-.f.-.,.-vY.-.-.V.-.-.... g,T.T.-.T-Tv-we--s-W.-.-.-,--+.......-,. ...-.-..,........-...........-.L.1.1.L...,.,. .eve-A i . P

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, . , - ---1-7-Y-----h.Q...-e. .. -.s...'-Y-,-.,:.:,:vgpg---I-r----Asf-1---M1-T,-:QT-L?-T-'J-'TfTLTL'LriiLTlf5.:::,z.TfT.r::fff1Tf'v T 17- -'- --TJ ' T'T'7'T'- C A ' A C C A ' ---flags I 1 i Z E is I 1 I l gi E E 1, il ,t 1 li ' HNukie-Pu,', as it is called from its Navy letters N NPU, is the only place on the ice where there are more chiefs than Indians -thirteen Chief Petty Officers in a total of twenty-three enlisted men. When the plant is running, Lt Boennighausen wears red shoelaces. In the McMurdo office of Lt Carl Ripa, Officer in Charge of Detachment W, Mobile Construction Battalion Six QMCB-6j, the SeaBee detachment, was a diagram showing the 'ccritical pathn on which materials must travel to meet construction dates. Lt Ripa knows how many hours or days each job ought to take, and he fits this in with the weather and the arrival of ships, to make sure that it proceeds in the right order. The day when a man nailed up his own bunk with left-over crating materials is gone. Now that Deep Freeze is recognized to be a continuing operation, the trend is toward larger buildings, to conserve heat, to avoid fires and freezeups, and for economy of maintenance. A new building, to be financed in 1969, will berth 250 men and feed 500. To prepare the site, the SeaBees had to bring in 4,300 cubic yards of fill this season. The only way it could be obtained was by sending a couple of D-8 bulldozers up to scrape the rock off a hill which has a slope of 60 degrees. '4From the cab, you think youire looking straight doWn,', said 92

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At Byrd' Station, 10,000-gallon fuel bladders are coupled together in a side tunnel to feed DFA to the generators. Although Byrd is below the ice, some of the men must go outside to reach several of the scientific buildings. ln Deep Freeze '66, to reduce the chance of their being lost, new poles were placed to support the lifelines, and the flags were set at shorter intervals. The SeaBees, with Ltjg Dave Ramsey and Chief Builder Ger- son Hyatt in charge, set up Plateau Station in about two weeks. A phrase from the Antarctic fournal dryly sums up that hazard- ous operation: HMost of the problems encountered had been anti- cipated by the designers and planners .... H On December 13, Cdr 'cMoeH Morris set his Herc down on the polar plateau. There was over a foot of soft snow, but no dangerous sastrugzl With almost no wind and a temperature of 18 degrees below zero, he described the weather as 'Lpleasantf' The altitude was 11,900 feet, and the uridgei' was at 790 28'S, 400 35'E. The first persons to leave the aircraft were Capt Bursik and Dr. Cowan. They were followed by Ken Moulton, the USARP representative, Bob Flint, the station scientific leader, and meteor- ologist Paul Dalrymple. From Dr. Dalrymple's weather observa- tions the station was oriented with regard to the prevailing wind. The Herc tried seven times to take off before it reached enough speed so that a burst from eight IATO bottles allowed it to become airborne. By january 7 there were twenty-seven men at work on the buildings. Two of the vans were placed end-to-end, the other two opposite, and the SeaBees roofed and floored the space in be- tween. The Diesel generators that make electricity for the station use the utotal energy conceptn - their water jackets heat the vans and warm the fuel bladders. Their exhausts heat the snow-melter that provides fresh water. It was a triumph for the logistics staff that nothing was omitted. As Lcdr John Bell had said at the briefing, HThat,s a long way to fly an airplane with something left out of it. fln 1911, Amundsen forgot to bring snow shovels to the South Pole.Q In spite of all the hearts behind it, the opera- tion was so contingent upon unknown conditions that Admiral Bakutis had been prepared to postpone it until next season. . ' The people who went out there without having been acclima- tized at the Pole found themselves in difficulties for a few days. The men were further slowed down by snow that turned out to be soft as far down as ten feet. Dr. Cowan reported only a few cases of altitude sickness, but the men had to pace themselves carefully. Ken Moulton said, uThe more I see of these small air- transportable facilities, the more I am convinced that this is the way we must go. Plateau Station was completed in time to house the ten mem- bers of the Queen Maud Land traverse party, who arrived janu- ary 29. They had 'fexceptional success, ' and covered 830 miles, although they almost lost one of the Sno-Cats in a crevasse. Dr. Picciotto said the radio ice-sounding mechanism worked perfectly and should give a reliable picture of the land structure below the ice. They made very precise gravity and radio-sounding measure- ments to find out how far above solid earth the top of the icecap was situated. Sir Charles Wright says, HFiftyyears ago a gravity reading took us five hours of observation daily for three days . . . Today the whole affair is accomplished in five minutes. The traverse won't be resumed until 1967, since the vehicles had to be flown back to McMurdo for a complete overhaul. The traverse is expected to reach the Princess Ragnhild Coast in 1969. 94