6. OFF TO THE ICE

When October 16, 1956 rolled around our aerologist found that the weather had improved between New Zealand and McMurdo Station, Antarctica, so it was decided that we should load all our aircraft and take departure for the Ice. Just before our takeoff we were handed special orders to fly first to the town of Taieri, New Zealand, an airport about 150 miles south of Wigram Field. The Admiral's staff thought that the extra miles we would be closer to Antarctica would make a big difference in how much fuel we would have left once we reached the Ice. 24

It was just after lunch that we departed Wigram Field, following a sad farewell from our newly adopted Christchurch friends. The flight to Taieri was quite routine, and for us a short hop after having made the long flight from Rhode Island. After landing at Taiera we refueled our aircraft and reloaded the JATO rockets. We were agreeably surprised to receive telegrams sent to us in Taieri from our friends in Christchurch wishing us well on our long flight to the Antarctic. One family even had a case of bottled beer delivered to our aircraft, which was intended as a reminder of the good times we had in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the beer froze in the bottles on the long flight to the Ice and after we had landed in McMurdo there was only a case of cracked glass and frozen beer to greet us. 25

There was no runway at the airport in Taieri, just a grass field for our takeoff. All four R4Ds taxied to the edge of this grass field to await takeoff at ten minute intervals. I watched the first aircraft lumber into the air, with all eighteen JATO rockets firing. It looked impressive and I waited with great anticipation until it was our turn. The ten minute wait seemed much longer than it really was and when it was our turn, Eddie advanced both engine throttles. When both engines came up to full power he released the brakes and slowly we started to roll. The grass field tended to slow the aircraft so the takeoff roll was even more sluggish than the takeoff had been from the paved runway in N.A.S. Alameda, California. About midway across the field, when the trees ahead seemed to be getting ever so close, Eddie fired all the JATOs, even though the tail wheel had not yet come off the ground. With this magnificent push from the rockets we gained flying speed and climbed ahead just missing the trees by several feet. When the JATOs quit firing and we were left with only the two engines turning, it seemed as though we had almost stopped going forward. The coastal hills a few miles away appeared to be too high to surmount for a while since we are barely climbing, but after a few additional miles they passed below us and in crossing the coastline all we had ahead of us was level ocean all the way to the Antarctic. Eddie kept a modest amount of climb power on the engines and we slowly crept upwards at about 200 feet per minute until we reached 10,000 feet of altitude. Using more power than that would have consumed fuel needed at the end of the flight and would have reduced our chances of making it successfully all the way to the Ice. 26

As we climbed in altitude it was nice not knowing what was observed on the ground back in Taieri as we made our takeoff. If we had been told on the radio, I believe we would have been a lot more apprehensive about our flight southwards. Shortly after we left the field we received a message from one of the aircraft still waiting for takeoff asking us if we were having any in-flight difficulties. Feeling that everything was normal with our aircraft, we radioed back that things were proceeding smoothly and we gave no serious thought concerning the call. What happened was that Eddie fired the JATO rockets before the tail wheel came off the ground and the searing rocket blast set the tail wheel on fire. Since the fire was behind us and out of sight we didn't know that the tail wheel was on fire. We trailed black smoke for a long time until the tail wheel burned itself out, doing no further damage except for the tire itself. Our forward speed fortunately blew the flames behind the aircraft so none of the aircraft metal parts were singed or burned. Had such a fire occurred further forward on the aircraft it could have turned us into a magnificent fireball since we were so heavily loaded with fuel. Another situation which could have been catastrophic would have occurred if we had lost an engine after leaving the ground. In such a case we would have started dumping fuel to lighten our loads, and the pipe, which dumped the fuel, ran next to the tail wheel. The burning tail wheel would have lit off those hundreds of gallons of gasoline trailing out of the dump pipe and our aircraft would then have become a burning torch.

And so we started the sixteen and a half hour flight over the worst ocean in the world, a flight that was so long that it seemed at times as though we had been in the air for weeks on end. The flight from California to Hawaii had been almost as long as the flight to McMurdo. The big difference was that much of this flight would be made over the raging and frigid waters of the South Pacific Ocean where a water landing due to an in-flight emergency would have certainly been fatal to the entire crew.

A few hours after we left the coast of New Zealand, it became dark and the weather, which was predicted as satisfactory, became unusually rough. At one time we started collecting ice on the wings and fuselage, forcing us to climb to higher altitude where conditions were not so conducive to icing. Around midnight we made radio contact with a U.S. Navy destroyer, which had been situated along our flight path near where the Antarctic icebergs started. This ship was placed there to carry out a sea rescue should one of our Antarctic bound aircraft be forced down along the way to the ice. It was a totally dark night and we were flying through heavy clouds as we made contact with the ship, so we couldn't see what was happening in the ocean below us, however, the ship's captain told us by radio that the seas were extremely rough and if we had to make a forced landing it was highly improbable that he could have rescued us in those high seas. This was not a comforting thought, but fortunately for us our aircraft engines continued to run smoothly so we expected no difficulty in reaching our destination.

Somewhere to the rear of us were two of our fellow R4D's heading as we were for the Ice and one R4D was ahead of our flight path. We were all stretched out about 10 minutes apart so there was little chance that we might collide during that long flight southwards. Some hours after we had all passed the Point of No Return, the point on our course where we no longer had sufficient fuel to return to New Zealand, the last R4D in our group, which was piloted by Lcdr. Schinn, reported that he had lost control of his gyro-stabilized compass, the most important piece of navigational equipment for Antarctic flying. (Since the magnetic compass became unusable as we approached the magnetic pole, we had to rely on a special gyro compass for direction.) Should this instrument cease to work properly there was nothing left to give the pilot information as to how he should steer his aircraft. With no stars to steer by the pilot would have wandered aimlessly until his fuel was exhausted.

Just ahead of Lcdr Schinn's R4D, Lt. Harvey Speed, the aircraft commander of the second to the last R4D, reversed the course of his aircraft and flew northwards until he could pick up the disabled R4D on his radar. The two aircraft got together in the dark and Harvey did the navigating for both aircraft all the way to McMurdo. In doing this Harvey jeopardized his own aircraft somewhat since he used up fuel which might have been needed upon reaching his destination. If there were navigational errors made along the way or if the weather was bad on arrival and it was necessary to make several instrument approaches to the ice runway the lack of reserve fuel could have spelled disaster. Harvey was not officially recognized for his brave action, however, his fellow pilots knew what a great chance he had taken and we all admired him for it.

As we approached the Antarctic Continent sometime during the early morning hours we slowly became aware of a change in the light in the sky. At first it was a light grayness on the horizon, which grew brighter in degrees until we could make out the mountains covered with snow that ringed the continent. It was an unusual sight since the grayness turned first to golden pink and then to bright white, so bright that we were forced to put on our dark glasses or suffer snow blindness.

I had seen a few snow covered mountains from the air before but bits and pieces of rock always showed through the snow covering. Here in the Antarctic there was little rock showing through the snow; instead, the mountains appeared like giant scoops of vanilla ice cream. All the mountains were over 12,000 feet high and they fell steeply into the frozen sea with no discernible beach. Since the Continent was just emerging from an intense winter period, the ocean below us was frozen solid and there was no open water in sight.

We had been told that there was a very small Navy unit, located at Cape Adair, near where we first intercepted the Continent coastline. Should one of our aircraft have had to make a forced landing near this camp there would have been other humans around to assist us but there was no fuel or repair facilities to get our aircraft back in the air again. Should this have become a necessity we would have lost days or weeks in repairing the aircraft and this would have jeopardized the summer exploration operations. Fortunately all of our R4D's had sufficient fuel on board as we passed Cape Adair so a forced landing did not become a necessity.

As our four sluggish R4D aircraft slowly plodded our way southwards to McMurdo Sound, there was another of our squadron aircraft making the flight with significantly better airspeed. Lt. Dave Carey's P2V aircraft took off from Wigram Field hours after we did and with an advantage of about 90 miles per hour, he was scheduled to reach the ice runway at Naval Air Facility, McMurdo well before we did. If he had tried to contact any of us by radio when he passed us enroute I never heard his call.

From Cape Adair we flew along the coast of the Antarctic Continent, which ran north and south for several hundred miles all the way to McMurdo Sound, our destination. As we drew closer to McMurdo the visibility became worse close to the surface, but at our altitude we could see ahead quite well. On our right was the magnificent row of mountains which encircled the Continent, and ahead and to our left, were Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, both heavily covered with snow. Mount Erebus had a spire of smoke from its peak because it is still an active volcano. Mount Terror, once a volcano, is now quite dormant.

When we were within radio voice range of the airfield at McMurdo, we called the portable tower, just recently placed on the sea ice, next to the scrapped ice runway. We were greeted by a friendly voice which assured us that they had our aircraft on radar and that we would be given a Ground Controlled Approach to a landing. The type of radar used by the tower gave such specific information about our location from the ice runway, that the operator in the tower could direct our heading and descent so as to bring us to the very end of the runway so all we would have to do is to level the aircraft and place the skis on the ice surface.

As we approached the runway and got closer to surface, the reduction in visibility became more apparent to us in the cockpit and when the tower operator told us we were over the end of the runway we were still unable to see any outline of the runway. Eddie got a glimpse of the runway after we had flown halfway down its length, but since there wasn't enough room left to land, he added engine power, choosing to make another approach with the guidance of the tower radar operator. We climbed back to about 500 feet above the surface and followed the radar operators instructions until we were again told we were over the end of the runway. This second time our speed was slower and Eddie was able to get us lined up for a landing. The ice runway wasn't at all smooth but it felt comforting to be at last on the surface after all those hours in the air.

As we taxied from the ice runway to the parking area, I noted in the distance the tail of a P2V aircraft sitting at a crazy angle and almost upside down. For a moment I couldn't surmise what I was looking at. My mind was weary from the long hours in the air and it refused to accept the reality that this was the tail of the P2V that overflew us during the long flight southward. It, and its crew, had come to a violent end there on the sea ice. I communicated this to Eddie, as he taxied the aircraft to our parking spot, and I can still hear his repeated curses as he realized that some dreadful thing had happened on the ice in front of us.

After we had exited the aircraft and got to talking with some of the wintering-over personnel who had worked for weeks preparing the ice runway for our landing. They told us that the P2V had arrived from Christchurch, New Zealand under radar control, just as we had done, however, the visibility was even worse than when we had arrived. Lt. Carey missed his approach to the runway, just as we had done, and he applied engine power to make a second approach to the runway. Instead of climbing to a safe altitude, as we had done, he remained low over the surface, trying to keep the tower and runway in sight. With the visibility quite poor and both pilots looking outside the aircraft they failed to monitor the aircraft instruments, they allowed the aircraft to fly into the ice surface. Since the aircraft was in a steep bank, the right wing contacted the ice and the entire aircraft was thrown into a vicious cartwheel, tearing itself apart on the ice surface. Lieutenant Dave Carey, the Marine Captain, who had the parachute incident in New Zealand, and two enlisted crewmen were all killed instantly. The other three members of the crew were critically injured and were placed in the base dispensary until they could be flown back to New Zealand for treatment.

And so started the first day of my Antarctic adventure. Even though I was dead tired from the long flight, the reality of what had happened to friends and fellow squadron mates imparted a severe sting to my ideals about adventure in the Antarctic. As a result, my first few days at McMurdo were not as joyous as I had imagined they were going to be. In flying there is always a specter of death lurking in the background, however, most pilots seem to ignore its presence until something like a crash happens. During my military career I was a witness to dozens of crashes with fatalities. None of them were easy to accept, particularly when friends were involved, but this accident affected all of us differently. We were there on the Ice twenty-four hours a day and we had no home and family to ease our cares once we left the flight line. None of the crew of the P2V were close friends of mine but we had on occasion shared flight experiences over a drink or two, so it wasn't as though the dead were strangers. Still, you have to go on with living and with flying and you hope that it won't be your turn next time.

Antarctic Facts
- About 2 percent of Antarctica is ice-free. These unusual land areas, called oases, generally are near the coast and include the dry valleys of southern Victoria Land and the Bunger Oasis in Wilkes Land. High rims at the end of the valleys prevent entry of large glaciers. The warm local climate melts the ends of smaller glaciers extending into the valleys.