SOUTH POLE FLIGHT HAD THRILLS AND ANXIETIES

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28222, 9 March 1957, Page 6

SOUTH POLE FLIGHT HAD THRILLS AND ANXIETIES

[Specially written for "The Press”]

[By

R. R. BEAUCHAMP]

T was told to be at the heliport, which is just behind the chapel of Our Ladv of the Snows at McMtirdo Sound, at 8 o'clock. You may be sure I was there on time, to join the parka-clad air crews, standing there as much at ease as city commuters waiting to catch the 8.15 bus—to the South Pole! We piled aboard six at a time: a tap on the pilot's ankle and we were away. It was all so natural that the fact of my first helicopter ride was almost lost in the general blaze of new impressions. I was to travel in the Globemaster, State of Tennessee, the same aircraft that brought me from New Zealand. For today’s work the deck over the big dropping doors had been removed ami forward from this there was a long inclined runway, stretching right to the bows of the ship. Our load was 18 big oil drums, made up in bundles of four - each bundle weighing nearly a ton. The foremost two loads were stacked on top of two others—in all about 11 tons of fuel to be dropped at the pole.

We were the first of three aircraft doing the run that day. A nice easy take-off and steady climb to 5000 feet over the solid ice of the Ross Sea; Erebus and Terror towering white and beautiful on our left: 10,000-foot rockbound Mount Discovery, black and menacing, to starboard, where the land fell away to the west — 80 miles, I suppose, to the long line of snowy peaks that ring the polar plateau. Three hundred miles to the foot of the Beardmore glacier was the first leg of our run: time to write letters to a few earth-bound friends—for who could resist the heading “En route to the South Pole”!

face my friends and allies again. I felt worse and. worse. But to every problem there is a solution. These aircraft are built to carry service personnel. Today that means both sexes, and in the tail there is throughtful provision for their needs. There at least was a refuge to which I could creep unobserved and hole up to "dree my weird” in solitude. This happy solution so relieved my mind that I began to feel much better and soon was back on the flight deck drinking coffee and sharing a tin of some concoction with Sergeant Holz, the Loadmaster. At the top of the Beardmore we squared off to our final course, the magic 180 degrees true, which leads you to the Pole from whatever point on the earth’s surface you may start. After two hours we were nearing our destination, and I moved down from the flight deck to a corner abaft the dropping hatch to settle there with my gear and record the actual drop. The main lashings were cast off: the throttles eased to 150 knots: the great doors swung open to let a rush of 40-below-zero air into our well-warmed ship. One . . . two . . . three . . . from the loadmaster and, with a roar like an express train, out went the first four bundles. The doors closed and we turned steeply under full throttle to make another run. Now The Fun Began But now the fun began. Eight bundles were left, two of them sitting on top of the lower tier. The four nearest the stern were slid down the runners to the dropping position. That left a gap into which the two top loads must be lifted by the crane which runs the length of the roof. The crane had just taken the weight and started to move aft when one of the slings parted and, with a bump that shook the ship from stem to stern, down fell the load and landed on its side!

As we flew in towards the land again the Beardmore came in sight. This glacier, the largest in the world, is about 20 miles wide and 130 miles long. It is a great stairway leading up to the polar plateau, smooth and white when seen from our altitude; but readers of Scott’s journal will remember the days of toil and danger it cost the pioneers to surmount its broken and crevassed surface. The mountains on either side are magnificent, and on that sunny, cloudless day we enjoyed the full beauty of Antarctic colouring—blue sky and gleaming white mountains, set off by steep black lava faces and the green of bare ice where pressure ridges had thrown up their tortured pinpacles and vast crevasses.

We were over the top by 10.30 and settled down at 12,000 feet to morning coffee and the long run over the plateau to the Pole. Did I say settled down? I am afraid that was not. quite accurate in my case. Whether it was the excitement, or the height and lack of oxygen—or both —I do not know; but I began to feel distinctly queer. Was I going to be sick or to faint, or, possibly even to pass right out? Would the captain be faced with the awful decision as to whether to take a moribund dairy farmer back to the base—or would he press right on with his precious load of fuel for the polar base? If I were to upset the party like that I could never

It is quite in order to drop 44gallon drums around in a store on dry land; but the same thing when doing 150 knots in an aircraft over the South Pole is a little alarming. It says something for the airframe of-our ship that only some minor dents resulted. However, the load was down and, being square, could neither fall nor roll further, and it was soon set right way up But when the other top load did precisely the same thing I began to think this was stretching providence a little too far. At this stage the captain himself came down from the flight deck to see what was going on. Fortunately for my tape recorder the noise of the engines drowned his comments.

But in good time all was in order again—the course set, the doors open. One . . . two . . . three . . . and. like bats out of hell went the rest of our cargo, to my profound relief. Something

else had gone too. I had bee reading Cherry-Garrard’s “Wan Journey in the World.” and th< mighty draught when the doo! opened had sucked it out h author never made the South Po)» but at least his book is som* where there! A steep turn, a low run over the little group of red buildings that comprise the polar base, a wave to the men 201 feet below and we were climbin» away to the north.

And now we could relax. The gyro pilot took over; the sue shone from a cloudless sky and visibility was perfect. Lunches, cut from the loaf or spooned from the tin, appeared. The two jugj on the stove boiled away merrily for coffee, tea, and cocoa. had roared up the Beardmore under full power in the morning—now, our freight gone, wt almost floated down between the bright mountains. A Personal Link For me the day had a persona] link with the past, for Edward Wilson, who had passed that way with Scott 45 years before, had been a friend of my father. I cat just remember him sitting beside a Buckinghamshire pond, catchinf tiddlers with us. We children adored him without, in those days, knowing why. He had already been south with Scott’s first expedition and he told us stories d the Antarctic and promised ti try to bring us back a penguin when he went down again. Then, a few years later as a cadet ot board the old cruiser Eclipse, 1 had seen the little Terra Novi steam through the fleet assembled for the Coronation review of Kin; George V. I knew Dr. Wilson was on board, and waved all the harder. At home we had been brought up on the two big. blue volumes of “Scott’s Last Expedition”; with Ponting’s photograph and Wilson’s water colours, so tin the scenes of that epic journey were early engraved upon tty mind. And now, still within the compass of my active life, here I was, looking down on the land they conquered with such toil—the land which beat them and kept them in the end. That I should pass where they had passed, but with so small an effort of mind or body, made me fee] a little ashamed —but profoundly grateful for an experience thi: can come to few.

And now comes the final rut back over the Ross Sea—Erebw rising, .yvhite and majestic, on th starboard bow; now we can we the red huts set among the black lava of the base camp. A helicopter is buzzing over towards u» The last quiet glide with the flap down and engines idling; twt gentle bumps, the roar of the reversed propellers, and we are bad again. To the crew of the Stall of Tennessee it was a routine trip—their ninth—to me it was something quite unforgettable.