EXPEDITION TO ANTARCTIC

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27795, 21 October 1955, Page 12

EXPEDITION TO ANTARCTIC

First Ice-Breaker Leaves U.S. FLIGHTS PLANNED FROM HAREWOOD (N.Z. Press Association—CopyngM) (Rec. 8 p.m.) DAVISVILLE (Rhode Island), Oct. 19. The icebreaker Glacier sailed from Davisville late today to mark the official beginning of “operation deepfreeze,” the most ambitious Antarctic expedition in history. The Glacier was loaded with food, tents, blankets, cold weather gear, snow tractors, sleds and other polar essentials. t The ship will stop at Norfolk, Virginia, on the way to the South Pole to pick up an advance party from a Navy construction battalion which is still in training. The primary duty of the advance party of the mobile construction battalion will be to choose suitable sites for the new Little America and for an air base, which will be called AIROPFAC (Air Operating Facility), reports a news bulletin of the New Zealand Antarctic Society. The new Little America will probably be at Kainan Bay, 30 miles east of the old site, and the air base will be somewhere on the Ross Ice Sheld, probably on the bay ice at the head of McMurdo Sound.

Vessels Due at Lyttelton There are two other ice-breakers —the Edisto and Eastwind —which are expected to leave the United States about October 30, and are due at Lyttelton on December 1. Task Force 43 also includes a tractor route reconnaissance party of 21 men, equipped with mechanical transport, a helicopter, and an Otter aircraft, who will reconnoitre a route towards the side of Byrd Station, which will be built in Marie Byrd Land. The transport unit of the force, consisting of the flagship Arneb, and the Wyandot, the Greenville Victory, and the tanker Nespelen, will leave Norfolk, Virginia, early next month, and is due to arrive at Lyttelton on December 10.

On December 17, two R4D skiequipped aircraft (the Navy version of the Douglas Super DC-3), two UF-l’s (tripnibian Gruman Albattrosses) and two P2V’s (ski-equipped long-range Lockheed Neptunes) will fly from Harewood to the McMurdo Sound air base. If the ice has been found suitable for landings by wheeled aircraft, two RsD's (Douglas Skymasters) will accompany the flight. Meanwhile, the ice-breakers and the other ships will have taken up positions 250 miles apart to support the flight. One ice-breaker will be in the region of the ice pack and one in McMurdo Sound. After the flight the ships will meet at Scott Island and the ice-breakers will escort the other vessels into the Ross Sea.

In addition to the aircraft flying from New Zealand, three HO4S-2 Sikorsky helicopters and four UC-1 de Havilland Otters will be taken south on the ships. When the full ship unit arrives at the ice front, the construction of Little America and of AIROPFAC will oroceed. The air base is intended to be a landing ground for wheeled aircraft, including heavy cargo planes. A tanker barge holding 320,000 gallons, will be towed to tne Antarctic for oil storage purposes and frozen in near the airfield. A snow runway will he constructed at Little America for ski-equipped planes. The landing in the South Polar region is part of a base-building operation for the International Geophysical year, 1957-1958, when United States scientists and those from at least nine other nations will conduct co-operative research and exploration.