HOME FOR U.S. EXPEDITION

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27876, 26 January 1956, Page 3

HOME FOR U.S. EXPEDITION

Buildings Erected At Hut Point (Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, Jan. 24. Twelve of the least hospitable acres in the world, cradled on a series of dead volcanoes, are being converted into a United States outpost in the Antarctic by 100 Navy Seabees, said a report in the "New York Times” yesterday. The report was from a “New York Times” correspondent with the United States Antarctic expedition, and was sent from Hut Point,- Ross Island. Battling an enemy composed of merciless blizzards, high winds and frigid temperatures, he said the men were working around the clock in an exhausting but successful effort to establish a community of 34 buildings on a lava-base terrain that never was meant for living. It was an all-out war of construction the men were fighting and nothing less. It is one of two stations—the other is at Little America, 400 miles to the east—that the United States is establishing to support its role in the In-ternational-Geophysical Year. 1957-58. The temperature at’ Hut Point had dropped to 14 degrees and winds had worked up to 65 miles an hour, said the correspondent. Even the frozen earth had refused to surrender more than a few pounds of rocks when the men attacked it with dynamite. Since their arrival at Hut Point a month or so ago, the men, using bulldozers. had been able to level a piece of sloping ground for their up-and-coming village. Some buildings had been erected.

The correspondent said the story of the Seabees’ triumph over the bleak corner of the Antarctic began on December 20. A group of men from the