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6: South Pole: Dropped From the Sky
- University Press of Colorado
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All of the U.S. IGY stations came forth on a barren landscape, but nowhere was the frigid void more profound than at the South Pole. About 850 miles south of the staging area at McMurdo, at an elevation of nearly two miles, with towering, glaciated mountains en route, South Pole Station could realistically be established only by air in the time available. But the heavy Air Force cargo planes could only land on wheels, which ruled out coming down on the snow of the polar plateau. Airdrops, even of tractors, offered the only hope. Only personnel and delicate equipment would, with luck, be landed on skis by the Navy’s smaller aircraft. In a concentrated feat of retrieving materiel raining from the sky interlaced with the exhausting, clumsy Lower and lower goes the sun at the South Pole, day by day. The last ski plane will soon land. When it leaves, taking with it our last letters home . . . we shall be isolated and alone at the bottom of the world, tucked in for the six-month night. So, we’ll see you in the morning. —Paul A. Siple1 S O U T H P O L E Dropped From the Sky C H A P T E R S I X 153 154 S O U T H P O L E steps of building in extreme cold, the Seabees pounded the little settlement into existence. Then the ice runway at McMurdo gave out. In mid-October 1956 Admiral Dufek, back at McMurdo for the season, listened, impressed, to the nearly completed plans for winning the geographic pole, where only ten pairs of human footprints had ever disturbed the snow. Lieut. (jg) Richard Bowers, “a lanky fellow with a scraggly beard” who, wrote Walter Sullivan, “seemed the kind of practical, commonsense man who would build a community at the South Pole if anyone could,” reviewed the meticulous preparations—construction plans, materials assembly and packing, delivery priorities, and personnel training. Toward Bowers’s goal that his Pole construction crew know what to expect at 90° South, there were only two firsthand accounts to draw from, both forty-five years old. No doubt many of the present pioneers still thrilled, as they had as boys, to Scott’s epic of “‘nerve’ and will and imagination” in the face of hardship and hard luck—what cultural historian Francis Spufford called his “moral triumph over the snows,” wrested from his failure to achieve the real objective. But the Seabees hearkened to theAmundsen model, one in which intensive study, calculation, and practice would forestall “luck” and make success look easier than it was. Now, as he conferred with the incoming aviation, scientific, and naval leaders, Air Force C-124 disgorging a tractor at McMurdo Sound. This front-loading design could not accommodate skis for landing on snow. Courtesy, photographer David Grisez. [35.175.212.5] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:16 GMT) 155 S O U T H P O L E Bowers was pleased with the smooth integration of their respective roles and grateful for Dufek’s assurances that the Pole was the top priority of Deep Freeze II.2 The first of the eight promised C-124s (Globemasters) of the 63rd Troop Carrier Wing (Heavy), 18thAir Force, flew in from New Zealand early Sunday morning, 21 October 1956. They would always take off from Christchurch in the evening to use celestial navigation as far as possible, recalled Maj. Herbert Levack, pilot and operations officer. Chosen for their range and capacity, these “freight cars that fly somewhat like airplanes” would rotate in and out of McMurdo, with four kept on the ice at once. Before beginning their South Pole (and Byrd) airdrops, each made six “round-robin flights” to Christchurch to bring in urgently needed supplies, equipment, and seasonal workers to handle McMurdo’s increased summer needs and replace the construction crew going to the Pole. The planes also ferried out the year’s casualties, including the recent P2V crash victims.3 Landings would ever be tricky. The airstrip was, Dufek wired Maj. Gen. Chester McCarty, 18th Air Force commander, “as good as conditions warrant ,” but he promised to “expend every effort” to grind down the worst humps and bumps “soonest.” Fliers could expect fourteen-foot thickness but must “adhere rigidly” to outline markings and flags to avoid the flanking drifts and the nearby 740-foot Observation Hill. Base commander Canham recorded only that incoming pilots called the ice runway “excellent.” Most...