Deep Freeze: The United States, the International Geophysical Year, and the Origins of Antarctica's Age of Science

2: All Hands on Deck: Logistics for the High Latitudes

When Captain George Dufek reported for command of the U.S. Naval Support Force,Antarctica (Task Force 43), on 16August 1954, charged to ensure all logistical support for the International Geophysical Year, he knew the Navy had “exactly two years and ten months to lay out the red carpet for the scientists.” The scientific community might continue its Antarctic IGY planning right to the eve of departure, but Dufekcouldlosenotimeinmarshalingthenecessarypersonnel,ships, aircraft, land transport, equipment, materials, and supplies. To have seven stations built and fully functioning by 1 July 1957, the first expedition would have to be en route by early November 1955. This would allow one season to establish the first two bases, at McMurdo The Seabees go now and build camps, the stargazers come later. —Seabee, Deep Freeze I, 19551 A L L H A N D S O N D E C K Logistics for the High Latitudes C H A P T E R T W O 47 48 A L L H A N D S O N D E C K Sound and Little America. From these footholds there would be but one more short austral summer to build the two incomparably more difficult inland stations, as well as the three widely scattered coastal latecomers, even as the scientists were arriving. The northern summer and fall would be frantic.2 If Antarctica’s natural menace was not daunting enough, the scope and details of the Navy’s IGY assignment were. As the task-force plan put the obvious, “There are no facilities, equipment or supplies now existing on the Antarctic continent available for use in this construction program.” Everything —every thing—would have to be hauled in. Besides food, fuel, clothing, and shelter, the Navy would have to provide air operations for reconnaissance , search and rescue, and transport. That meant both compacted-snow and ice runways, ground-control approach (GCA) equipment, navigational aids, ground support, and fuel storage. The Navy would furnish communications systems to connect all ship, air, and ground operations and Antarctica with the United States. It would build and maintain repair shops, garages, laundry and sanitation facilities, powerhouses and generators, science structures , photo-processing laboratories, and dog kennels. It would make possible long-distance tractor-train and airdrop operations to supply the interior bases.3 Dufek, promoted to rear admiral, was a good choice to lead the huge, complex Antarctic operation even though he professed to prefer “warm sandy beaches.” In early 1940, on naval duty on the Bear, he had famously earned Admiral Byrd’s disgust for responding to the explorer’s expectant gesture toward the awesome Barrier with “[i]t’s a hell of a lot of ice, but what good is it?” But having now been on four north- and south-polar cruises, he sought the new assignment, probably his last, and had Byrd’s endorsement for it. Once more, the Navy named Byrd officer-in-charge of U.S. Antarctic Programs. Frail and clearly unwell, Byrd was to “maintain effective monitorship” over the political, scientific, and operational aspects of the endeavor. John Hanessian Jr., head of the IGY Antarctic program, perceptively judged Byrd “a perfect enigma.” He had “no operational command,” yet was “impossible to neglect.” In truth, he had no authority over actual events, and Paul Siple, among others, would find this twilight time one of “small discourtesies” and humiliations for the declining hero. Dufek had to deliver the mission and rightly took charge, but “Byrd’s boys” thought there were times when a show of deference would have cost little. The admirals themselves seemed to interact with reasonable harmony, but “friction” persisted between their rival staffs.4 Within a month, Dufek called a meeting at the Pentagon of naval operations officers who might be helpful to the unfolding Antarctic plans. Before it was over he appointed his first staff officer, Cmdr. Edward Ward, a pilot who 49 A L L H A N D S O N D E C K had grown up idolizing Byrd. Ward had flown in the Arctic in the early 1950s with Project Ski-jump and was thrilled for a chance to go south. He spent the next summer recruiting and organizing staff in sweltering offices in Washington , D.C.’s Old Post Office Building before becoming the acting commanding officer of the new polar air squadron, headquartered at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, about seventy...