4. POISED AND READY

Our "mighty armada" was gathered at Naval Air Station, Barbers Point, Hawaii awaiting the arrival of Rear Admiral George Dufek, Commander of the Navy Task Force for Antarctic Operations, who was flying with his staff from Washington, D.C. We were told not to leave for New Zealand until RADM Dufek had flown ahead to New Zealand and had made final arrangements for our squadron aircraft to land at the New Zealand Navy facility, called Wigram Airfield. This wait gave each of us an opportunity to soak up the Hawaiian sun, enjoy Oahu and get mentally prepared for that long over water flight southward.

For the moment at least the aircraft sat idle on the tarmac while our maintenance crews made minor adjustments to the engines, as well as checking over the airframes and flight controls for possible discrepancies. Our venerable R4D, the work horse of our Antarctic flight mission, was a conglomerate of many add-ons to the original DC-3 transport aircraft. A new style radar had been added into the nose of the aircraft making it longer by a foot or so. This radar would prove to be invaluable in helping us to find objects in the snow that our eyes might miss. There were skis on both main wheels and also on the tail wheel. The main wheel skis could be raised and lowered depending on whether we would be landing on snow or on a hard surface runway.

Once we arrived on the Ice the tail wheels were removed to reduce weight. In any case they were no longer needed since all future landing would be on snow. Inside the cabin of the R4D there were two 400 gallon fuel tanks and one 250 gallon fuel tanks, with a rapid discharge system that allowed fuel to be discharged rapidly should an emergency landing be required when heavily loaded. This quick fuel dump would also be used to transfer diesel fuel to rubberized fuel tanks at remote landing sites for use by automotive vehicles. We often carried diesel fuel in the cabin tanks for the tractors traversing the Tractor Trail between Little America V and Marie Byrd Station and once hoses were connected between the aircraft and the rubberized fuel tanks several hundred gallons of fuel could be transferred in a matter of minutes. As stated before racks had been installed along the bottom of the R4Ds that allowed us to mount up to 18 JATO rockets. These rockets gave about 1,000 pounds of forward thrust each and were used for heavily loaded takeoffs. The rockets could be fired from the pilot's seat and the empty canisters later dropped when they had burned themselves out.

For normal flight operations the R4D had a maximum gross takeoff weight of 33,000 pounds. When using JATO for takeoff on our extended flights we frequently grossed as much as 38,000 pounds. Even so, when the JATOs had burned themselves out, had we lost one engine at low altitude while heavily loaded we would have been forced into a disastrous crash on the Ice. If we had sufficient altitude giving us enough time to drop fuel from our cabin fuel tanks it is possible we could have remained airborne and returned to the base runway, so under such circumstances the rapid fuel discharge system could have been our salvation.

The squadron had one P2V-5 Neptune aircraft at Barbers Point. This was a smaller, less powerful Neptune than the P2V-7s which would come to the Ice the following summer, but still an effective aircraft for polar operations. The aircraft had skis and JATO racks and had a considerable speed advantage over the R4Ds. Its long range capability would have helped to make flights to the South Pole Station easier and quicker than the R4Ds.

Next, we had two R5D transport aircraft, with excellent cargo carrying ability. These two birds didn't have skis so they were limited to operating from the ice runway at McMurdo when on the Continent. These aircraft made several long range photographic mapping flights to distant reaches of that icy continent. It also made flights between McMurdo and New Zealand (2.100 miles) when cargo and passengers needed to be transported. During my first summer on the Ice aviation fuel stores ran low early during the summer months and both R5Ds had to be sent back to New Zealand until ships arrived with more aviation gasoline. I presume the flight crews of those two aircraft wearied themselves with Christchurch liberty, and missed roughing it up with us on the Ice.

One of our R5D aircraft commanders was an electronics enthusiast. At his own expense he installed a complete high fidelity sound system throughout his assigned aircraft and he played recorded music for the enjoyment of his crew and passengers while the aircraft winged its way across the Pacific and across the Antarctic plains.

It is no wonder the journalist and news photographers witnessing the DeepFreeze II operations scrambled amongst themselves for a place on R5D flights across the Continent. Could it be that sitting in a warm and comfortable seat, listening to hi-fi music and feasting on kitchen cooked meals could have clouded their appreciation of just how rugged the Antarctic wastes really were. I have no recall of any of these pseudo-explorers requesting to fly with us in our venerable but icy R4Ds. That might have been taking "roughing it" too far, I suspect.

The summer operations has been carefully planned by the Admiral's staff. The R4Ds would first set up an emergency landing and refueling site halfway between McMurdo Station and the South Pole. Fuel would be brought to the site and loaded into rubberized tanks. A small building and a store of supplies would be delivered for the men who would man the site throughout the summer. Next the P2V-5 and the R4Ds would deliver personnel and light cargo to the South Pole, 840 miles from McMurdo, where a permanent camp would be set up. Meanwhile the C-124s would air drop heavy cargo by parachute to be used in building the South Pole camp.

At the same time as the Pole Station supply was in progress, one of the R4Ds was to be used, first, to deliver mail and cargo to Little America FIVE Station, and later to deliver diesel fuel to caches along the proposed Tractor Trail. Giant Caterpillar Tractors, pulling large sleds loaded with cargo would cover 647 miles of snow and ice to reach the inland site of the proposed Marie Byrd Station. During the second summer season of my Antarctic stay our ski equipped aircraft would also supply a SnoCat traverse of the Ross Ice Shelf and a study of crevasse formation and movement, called the Ice Deformation Study.

I do not wish to ignore the most important role the U. S. Air Force Giant C-124s played in delivering giant loads of cargo to both the Pole Station and Marie Byrd Station. Once they successfully air dropped a medium size tractor to be used in setting up the Pole Station building site. Without their help neither station could have been fully outfitted during that first summer. The C-124s were limited to landing and taking off from the ice runway at McMurdo so flights had to be planned when good weather was predicted for the entire flight since there was no other place for the immense birds to land other than McMurdo. One returning C-124 met with an unexpected white-out condition on return from a long flight and landed well up the runway and crashed into the ice at the end of the runway. The aircraft damage was determined to be unrepairable there on the Ice so it was junked at McMurdo. For a while it was used as a parts storage building high on the hill, away from flight operations.

Finally, RADM Dufek and his staff arrived from Washington, D.C. and was quickly loaded aboard one of the R5Ds. His departure southward marked the start of our transit of the South Pacific Ocean and the next leg of my Antarctic adventure.

Antarctic Facts
- The Antarctic ice was formed from the snows of millions of years that fell on the land, layer by layer. The weight of the new snow squeezes the old snow underneath until it turns to a substance called firn, then ice. As the ice piles up, it moves toward the coast like batter spreading on a pan. The moving ice forms into glaciers, rivers of ice that flow into the sea. Pieces of the floating glaciers break off from time to time, a process called calving. These icebergs float north until they reach warm water, break into pieces, and melt. Icebergs as large as 40 miles long and 30 miles wide have been sighted, but most are smaller. In some places the floating glaciers stay attached to the land and continue to grow until they become ice shelves. The Ross Ice Shelf alone is bigger than France and averages 1,000 feet thick.