MARIE BYRD LAND BASE

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28161, 27 December 1956, Page 8

MARIE BYRD LAND BASE

FIRST AIRCRAFT LANDS

The main tractor train carrying construction materials for the United States International Geoohysical Year station. 644 miles south and east of Little America on the Rockefeller Plateau in the heart, of Marie Byrd Land, has now reached the station site and a start has been made to build the station. Each of the six tractors in the train pulled two sledges carrying about 40 tons of freight. A United States Navy R4-D, the same aircraft which made the first landing at the South Pole, now also has the distinction of making the first landing at’ the Marie Byrd Land station site [1 was piloted by Lieutenant Harvey Speed. It was subsequently grounded at the station site for a dav by fog. Eight men from the construction team which has been building the scientific station at the South Pole, spent Christmas at Little America. They were flown out by a Navy ski-fitted aeroplane which landed at Little America The men were on their way back to McMurdo Sound. Starting today, three Navy R4-D’s are scheduled to fly from McMurdo Sound to the South Pole station with International Geophysical Year scientific instruments and equipment that are too delicate to drop. These aircraft are expected to fly out further members of the construction team