7. LIFE AT MCMURDO

The popular saying that life must go on is doubly true in the Antarctic, because the weather and the remoteness from civilization makes it imperative that everyone participate actively towards the survival of the group. After the initial shock of Dave Carey's P2V crash had taken its heavy toll of my emotions and after a few hours of sleeping off the long flight from New Zealand, I found myself once again working as an administrative officer for the squadron unit there at McMurdo Station. I had to jump into the steady routine of handling messages to and from the squadron headquarters in Rhode Island, and I was not surprised to find that most of the message traffic had to do with the crash of the P2V. I was assigned the job of seeing that the personal effects of the crash victims were inventoried and prepared for shipment to next of kin. Since I was the only squadron administrative officer at McMurdo, at the time, the details of making squadron reports fell on my shoulders.

One task that was assigned to me was one that I would rather have avoided, and that was to make a positive identification of one of the deceased airmen. When the accident occurred, those on scene at the time sent messages to the States giving the names of the deceased and the injured, as well as brief details of the accident. The families of the deceased were notified of the crash and condolences were given by representatives of the squadron in Rhode Island. In the case of one enlisted crewman who had been killed, there was an unexpected reaction from the family concerned. They told the squadron represented who visited them, that the airman in question had called them by telephone the day after the date of the crash. What had happened is that the airman called his family before he took off from New Zealand and because he was west of the International Date Line, his family was one day behind calendar-wise from the date in New Zealand so they reasoned their son was still alive. While we realized that this was the cause of the discrepancy in their reasoning, I was still told by the squadron Executive Officer that I should take steps to positively identify the deceased airman and then advise our Rhode Island squadron office of my findings.

I went first to the enlisted quarters at McMurdo Station and located a man who had known the deceased man and I asked him if he would be willing to identify the remains of the deceased man. He indicated he was willing to help me and the two of us proceeded to the tent, which had become our temporary morgue. The four corpses had been placed in zippered bags and since the air in the tent was well below freezing the bodies were frozen solid. I unzipped the bag of the deceased in question and asked the attending enlisted man if he could identify the deceased, which he acknowledged that he did. After identification was completed I sent a message to squadron headquarters verifying that the man in question did indeed die in the crash as had been reported on the day of the crash.

The weather in the McMurdo Sound area had become quite poor shortly after all the arriving aircraft were tied down, so we were not able to get airborne again for eight days. In between working, sleeping and eating, I took advantage of my time by studying McMurdo and its surroundings. The camp itself was located at the foot of Mount Erebus, an active volcano. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror combine to make up an island about fifty miles in diameter. On one side of this island is McMurdo Sound, frozen solid about 3/4 of the year and open to ship navigation the other 1/4. On the side of the island facing the South Pole is an ice shelf several hundred feet thick, with ocean water below the ice. This ice shelf runs about 600 miles east and west and about 600 miles towards the south from McMurdo, and consists of compacted ice pushed down from the Antarctic Plateau through dozens of glaciers. The surface of this ice shelf is about 125 feet above sea level and as the ice floats on the sea below it rises and falls with the daily tides.

The view from Main Street at McMurdo Station is a grand one. Towards the west, about forty miles away is the Continental Range which encircles the Antarctic Continent. On good days it looks like a short half hour walk away across the sea ice because the lack of moisture in the air gives everything far away a degree of clarity hardly ever seen in the warmer parts of the world. From Main Street, looking a bit to the left is Observation Hill, a hundred or so feet high, with a prominent wooden cross on the summit. It was erected there in memory of Captain Scott and his team of men who went to the Pole but died on the return trip. One day several of us climbed to the top of Observation Hill, where we could look out over the Ice Cap which extended southwards well past the limits of the horizon. About thirty miles out on that lonely icescape, Captain Scott on his lonely journey returning from the South Pole set up his tent for the last time and died of exhaustion and the cold, while a short distance way there were those who could have rescued him. Looking to the north from Observation Hill, one can see one of Captain Scott's abandoned cabins, left much as it had been when he departed for the South Pole. It is maintained now as a historic site, however, when we were there it was packed with ice and snow from the floor to the ceiling. Sometime in the years gone by the door to the cabin blew open and the snow promptly filled it.

Just over the small hill behind Scott's cabin one could see the mast of a small Navy ship, an oiler, which was brought to the Continent the previous year, containing aviation fuel for our early summer's operations. The small ship was allowed to become frozen to the shore line so the winter storms would not tear it loose and grind it against the rocky shore and thus sink. It wasn't many weeks before our aircraft had gobbled up all this fuel and we had to wait for other ships to arrive with replenishment.

When you left Main Street heading westwards, towards the ice runway, you walked down a short hill which led you to the frozen sea ice, which varied in thickness during the summer months but was usually firm enough to support the aircraft which landed there. The runway was about a mile out from the base buildings to give clearance when visibility was poor to the aircraft landing and taking off leaving them free from having to worry about flying into the hills around McMurdo Station. Within a few days of our arrival at McMurdo a snow covered runway was prepared next to the ice runway so the R4D's could land using their skis, thus leaving the ice runways for the wheeled aircraft. McMurdo Station was built on volcanic rock and had two streets, each two blocks long. On both sides of the streets there were Quonset Huts, containing living quarters, a mess hall, administrative offices, washrooms, a laundry room, storage sheds and even a chapel. The station had no beauty in itself since it was built on stark black volcanic soil and the only adjective that can describe it is "drab". As we moved between buildings our shoes picked up the dusty volcanic soil and we then carried it into all the buildings, making constant sweeping a necessity. Even the insides of our living quarters were drab in appearance.

There were two buildings used for officers quarters and both were located side by side. My cubicle was located in the Junior Officers building, which held about 25 double bunk beds. Between the beds there were metal lockers, so there was a modicum of privacy provided, but not very much when you consider Stateside standards. The buildings were not lighted well and since people came and went at all hours of the day and night, each of us had to get used to sleeping with lights on. The dry air of the Antarctic and the 24 hours of daylight helped produce insomnia in all of us and sometimes it was next to impossible to fall asleep, even though our physical time clocks told us we should be getting some rest. The condition was called the Big Eye and since all of us suffered from it from time to time, it seemed that the camp was always awake. Men moved about the base, half awake and half asleep at all hours of the day and night. You could go to the mess hall, the bathrooms, the office spaces, the laundry, or a dozen other places and always there was a small group of bleary eyed individuals killing time until a sleepy feeling returned and they could return to their beds for some sleep.

There was a small sitting room in the Junior Officers Quarters and it always seemed to hold a talkative group and their chatter made sleep impossible for those who were waiting for sleep to come as they lay in their bunks a few feet away. Outside the base buildings, the air was always cold and dry, but if it was windless, as it was a good bit of the time, we found we could go between our living quarters and the next door bathroom in just our long johns. Often we would stop and talk amongst ourselves out in the open for ten or fifteen minutes, wearing just our underwear. The radiant heat from the sun seemed to compensate for the below freezing temperatures and our bodies could maintain its heat for a short while at least, even though we wore only one layer of clothing. Somewhere in my file of old photographs several of us are caught in our underwear enjoying life in the open, with no sign of discomfort on our faces. There is also a bikini-clad mannequin, leaning against the wall of our quarters, giving a false impression that the weather might be warm as toast. Eddie brought this mannequin to the Ice as a joke and it was our showpiece for several months before it disappeared.

Just outside the camp and down the hill away from our living and working areas, was a lonely and seldom-visited building, where the dogs and their keepers stayed. Alaskan Huskies had been brought to the Antarctic, along with sleds and drivers, to be used in case of an aircraft crash in a remote area where air rescue could not be conducted. The dogs were fed raw seal meat and as a result they were very smelly. The trainers lived, ate and slept in the same building as their dogs, because the odor of the dogs permeated their clothing and others in the camp found it difficult to be around them for very long. It was a lonely existence for the trainers but they didn't seem to mind it.

Getting to and from the camp to the ice runway, about a mile away, was accomplished in tracked vehicles, such as the Weasel or the SnoCat. These vehicles were noisy and uncomfortable but they were the only mode of travel we had, other than walking. As the summer progressed the ice became soft and slushy and deep puddles of water collected on top of the hard ice, making walking to the runway an impossibility. One tracked vehicle took an unauthorized short cut back to the camp one day and the vehicle plunged through the ice into about fifteen feet of water. The driver drowned in the icy waters and it caused all of us to use more caution when proceeding out to the ice runway. One of the things you learned quickly in the Antarctic was that danger lurks everywhere. And when you least expect it, tragedy can strike.

Antarctic Facts
- Surrounding Antarctica are the southern parts of the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. The Antarctic Convergence, which encircles Antarctica roughly 1,000 miles off the coast, divides the cold southern water masses and the warmer northern waters. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the world's largest ocean current, moves eastward around the continent at an average speed of about half a knot (1 kilometer per hour). Sea ice up to 10 feet thick forms outward from the continent every winter, making a belt 300 to 1,000 miles wide. Even in summer the sea ice belt is 100 to 500 miles wide in most places.