Dartmouth in the Antarctic
Ensign Stephen O. Wilson '55, USNR, has sent the following letter, dated February 15, from Antarctica, where he was serving aboard the icebreaker U.S.S. Glacier. He and at least two other Dartmouth men mentioned in the letter are members of Admiral Byrd's U. S. Navy Expedition to establish a base camp for scientific investigations as part of the International Geophysical Year.
THE scene is in and about the Ross Sea in Antarctica on icebreakers. This ship, the U.S.S. Glacier, is the latest in design not only as the most powerful icebreaker in the free world, but for crew's accommodations, helicopter operations and communications. We traveled from the U. S. loaded to capacity with special equipment such as weasels, sno-cats, sleds, sliding tanks, etc., and with personnel. Among those aboard were Rear Admiral R. E. Byrd, Rear Admiral George E. Dufek USN (Ret.) and members of their staffs. We were loaded with photographers from every outfit from Walt Disney to Life. Also we carried the Sea Bees who are building the camps and airfields and are making a trail toward the interior to establish a camp that will be occupied next year by scientists working on International Geophysical Year projects.
I am a member of the ship's company aboard the Glacier; I have not been able to do much ashore. Jack Tuck '54 will make headlines in that category. I will tell you about him shortly. As Assistant Communications and Electronics Officer in the Operations Department, and as Division Officer, plus many "collateral duties," I have not had to look for things to do. However, it is an excellent job and I am always in the middle of the line when the big decisions and future plans are made and sent out on the air.
Our watches have been exciting. As flag vessel during parts of this operation we have led four ships through the Ross Ice Pack. We established a cargo landing area at Kainan Bay, and in so doing broke out in the ten-foot-thick ice a bay that was more than a square mile in extent. We then off-loaded our cargo and stood by while two of the cargo ships got settled in their berths and the tremendous D-8 Caterpillar tractors started hauling the tons of material across the fast ice and up onto the top of the Ross Ice Shelf where the Little America Station V was slowly taking shape.
I managed to get to this site when Little America V was commissioned, and a lucky thing it was too. There, flying next to the National Geographic Society flag was one that was dark green and white. This flag with the Dartmouth coat of arms at the upper left, DOC in the middle, and the famous "crossed-skis-with-snowshoe" at the lower right, had been put up there by the Task Force PIO Officer, Commander Robin M. Hartmann '40. He had received this flag from Lt. Philip B. Shepard '48 of South Arlington, Virginia. The flag was made by his wife, in lieu of flags that this Cabin and Trail alumnus had not yet received from Germany.
I had my picture taken standing beneath the flag on this balmy January morning (36° F.). I was greatly honored, because on my right was Admiral Dufek and on my left was Admiral Byrd.
Back at McMurdo Sound, which we had visited before meeting the ships, another camp was being established. As the three icebreakers Edisto, East-wind and Glacier ferried tons of fuel and material from the cargo ships to Scott's "Hut Point," four Navy aircraft made long-range flights over the Antarctic continent that made Ellsworth's journey over the American Highland look like a helicopter hop. The aircraft used the bay ice as their airfield, and the tractors with their sled trains and the weasels used the ice as their highway.
So far Jack Tuck has spent all of his time around Hut Point. Let's go back. At Dartmouth Jack majored in Geography and graduated Phi Bete. He was commissioned Ensign USNR and ordered to the StatenIsland, also an icebreaker. He went north for one year and then joined Task Force 43 as the OinC of the Rescue Team. Under his care are 31 huskies, their paraphernalia and all the special survival equipment needed to effect the rescue of downed fliers by dog sled. If circumstances so warranted, he and his team and all their equipment could be air-dropped to the crash site. (Jack is shown training his dogs in New Hampshire in an Article in the 21 November, 1955 issue of Life. The title is "Operation Anti-freeze.")
The men at McMurdo as well as those aboard the ships work around the clock. The life at Hut Point leaves much to be desired. A high wind from the Ice Shelf continually threatens the tents and covers everything with the volcanic ash that comprises "terra firma" there. By winter all the special buildings will be finished, water and electricity will be available, and life's pace will slacken. Then Jack will be able to prepare to be flown to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier, a point some 400 miles from the pole, where he and his men will establish an auxiliary base. He now has the DOC flag and will carry it with him.
In December the Glacier arrived several days ahead of the rest of the Task Force at McMurdo Sound. I flew by helicopter along the ice cliffs of 13,500-foot Mount Erebus. We were following the western coastline of Ross Island toward the south. We came down at Hut Point and walked around Scott's "Discovery Hut." It was full of solid ice, as it had been when Scott returned to it in 1910. A deer carcass that was hanging in the shed looked to be in fine shape even though it was not frozen. The climate here is dry enough to make it a desert.
Next we landed at Cape Royds and climbed the hillocks of volcanic ash and scoria to Sir Ernest Shackleton's hut (1908-09 and 1915-16). The stacks of provisions about the building were only slightly rusted, even though most of them were nearly a half century old. (We use preserves and cocoa from Scott's second hut, 1910-13, aboard the Glacier.) The inside of Shackleton's hut looked as if they had left just a month ago. On the wall one of our officers placed a sheet of paper on which we all signed our names. I lifted this sheet and beneath it was another sheet of paper. On this was "David C. Nutt, USNR." He had visited in 1947-48 when the Navy sent two icebreakers only. Since Shackleton's party left Cape Royds in 1916 no one else had been there except Dave's party, so far as I can determine.
We are now headed for Port Lyttelton, New Zealand, to carry fuel and supplies back to the Antarctic. After ensuring that everything is set for the winter, we will circumnavigate the world by sailing to the west around the continent - Knox Coast and the Weddell Sea. Upon leaving the Weddell Sea we will return to the States via Montevideo, Rio de Janiero and the Barbados Islands. I hope to be in Hanover by May.
When we were in New Zealand last December, Peter Robinson '54, who was studying geology at the University of Otago on a Fulbright Foreign Scholarship, came up from Dunedin to visit us. He has done quite a bit of climbing in the Southern Alps of New Zealand and right now, I believe, he is with an expedition in the Karakoram Range in central Asia.
P.S. Any opinions expressed or comments made are my own and are not to reflect upon the Task Force or the Navy in general.
The Dartmouth flag, in dark green and white, which was flown at Little America V.
