Eastwind (WAGB 279) - Naval Cruise Book

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Thelmneliest Place in The World ' The cold dark cloak of winter 'isolation covered McMurdo Base it onMarch 5. 1961, as the Coast Guard Icebreaker Eastwind led the last supply ship northward through the ice slick waters of McMurdo Sound. Y i .4 It would be at least seven months before the 150 men winter- ing over at the main U.S. Scientific ' Station in Antarctica would once again have contact with the out- side world. S n g I Except for an occasional Two scientists confer outside Sh ackleton's hut. radio Conversation there would be i ,no letters and packages from home, no additional equipment for the base, no way of leaving the wind-whipped snow covered wastes until the first ski-equipped plane flight landed in the spring. Even thesun would soon make its final plunge over the white infinity of the horizon, and just a thin vermillion streak low in the r 1 sky would proclaim noon each day. ' p At the base, the muddv streets would turn hard from the intense v cold, and the only sounds in the otherwise great stillness of the out- side would be the hum' of t generators 1 p X i S i ,- and the occasional sputter and . cough of a tractor or snow cat laQ i Iboriously grinding up the steep hills leading from the frozen Sound. A ' At other U.S. stations through- 1 i out Antarctica it wouldibe much n 7 . , 1 ,the same. At Pole StationQatgByrd,. . 4. V t A 1 fl? Scientist in helicopterp -1-W -- --..-.. . . , .,.. ..f,J.,,, -..,,,-,.,--V,-,,,f,f1-,,., .,-,,,,.

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..-. N .,., v x , ,' -1-,-H - .. H 'www 'wb' ' 87 1 88 787. Easfwind's engineer officer gets exercise chopping ice from abandoned Navy tanker. 788. Nearly capsized tanker resfs alongside Eastwind. YOG was righfed and secured to shore by icebreaker's crew, later was used as sforage tank. l X ' .YJ man

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