U.S. Antarctic Vessels Nearing Supply Base

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28158, 22 December 1956, Page 12

U.S. Antarctic Vessels Nearing Supply Base

A six-ship convoy headed by the ice breakers Glacier and Atka reached the edge of the bay ice about 20 miles from the United States Antarctic expedition’s main supply base at McMurdo Sound on Thursday morning. The ice-breake.L will now cut through the ice so that the cargo ships in the convoy may sail to a point about five miles from the American base to unload. The icebreakers will have to batter their way through ice from sft to 10 ft thick. Rear-Admiral George Dufek, commander of Task Force 43. has requested that four heavy tractors and men to operate them be brought to McMurdo Sound immediately to extend the airstrip, which is pitted and slush-covered after the heavy Globemaster traffic of the last two months and the effects of the Antarctic summer. Two of the tractors are in the U.S.N.S. Private Joseph Merrell, which is with the convo . but the other two are on the US.S. Ameb. which was scheduled to unload cargo at Cape Hallett—where New Zealand and American scientists will man an International Geophysical Year station —and then sail with the ice-breaker -•orthwind to the Knox Coan, where another scientific base is to be established. The two ships have now been diverted from Cane Hallett and will sail to McMurdo Sound. Captain William Hawkes, resident officer of the United States Navy in Christchurch, said yesterday that it was impossible to estimate the time it would take the ice-breakers to smash their way through to a point near McMurdo Sound ’ ut it was likely that unloading would begin before” they reached that objective. Long Hose A hose will be used to bridge the five-mile gap between the Nespelen with its cargo of aviation fuel, and the tanks, some of which are made of rubber, at McMurdo Sound. When an injection pipe carried

away 26ft below the Atka's waterline, one of the engine rooms was flooded

’.vith icy sea water to a depth of 6ft as it travelled south. The Glacier assisted in pumping the compartment dry. and the Atka was able to sail at a maximum speed of 13 knots. It is expected to return to full operational efficiency within a week. All flights between New Zealand and the Antarctic have now been halted for the next few weeks, according to a dispatch from McMurdo Sound. The Brough, which has been acting as weather station and air-sea rescue guard during the Antarctic flights, has now been auhorised to return to Dunedin. In these circumstances it is unlikely that the P2V-7 Neptune now waiting at Wigram to fly south will go to the Antarctic for some time

Reports from the South Pole indicate that all building shells, major utilities, major wiring, and tunnels linking the buildings will be completed by Christmas Plans have been made for Navy VX-6 Squadron aircraft to fly in delicate scientific instruments and gradually replace the construction party with the wintering-over men.