Shortages Made Winter Rugged At Byrd Station

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 24

Shortages Made Winter Rugged At Byrd Station

[From DENIS WEDERELL, “The Press’’ Correspondent with the U.S. Antarctic expedition.!

BYRD. STATION, Nov. 30. This is the station where whisky advertisements were*used as pinups because there was so little liquor, where timber was so short that two men nearly came to blows over who had first claim to a piece of two-by-four, and where for weeks dinner has almost always been the same: canned beef and canned potatoes. They call themsdlves the “forgotten men.” Their troubles arose because of late decisions last summer on the size of the station. It was not until the last supply tractor train left Little America that it was decided to fly in 23 men, not just 12, to spend the winter here. This led to last-minute disputes over priorities. Scientific equipment was needed for the expanded I.G.Y. programme—the reason for the establishment of the station —but more food and building materials were also important if the men were to have more than the bare necessities of polar existence.

As Captain E. E. Hedblom, staff medical officer, commented after his visit: “At the Pole station they

had a vacuum cleaner —at Byrd they were lucky to have a couple of brooms.” Scores of minor shortages plagued the lives of the scientists and navy men. Fruit juices—a staple at the American breakfast table—ran out in May, a few weeks later there was no more tomato sauce and soon the rice and baked beans were finished. And for weeks these men, who are used to heavily-seasoned meals, had no spices of any sort. “We could have lived until next April on canned beef and canned potatoes,” said Mr Wesley Morris, a meteorologist with th* 3 United States Weather Bureau, “but we were certainly getting tired of them.” Wall panels for the huts were mis-matched. I.G.Y. instruments were incomplete or missing, and timber was short. “I have never seen such commendable ingenuity used for the conservation of heat, comfort and supplies,” commented Captain Hedblom. who, with Captain Eugene Maher, the new United States military commander in the Antarctic, was sent here by RearAdmiral George Dufek, operational commander, to inquire into the conditions during the winter and the handicaps under which the base operated. This ingenuity is shown in many ways. To build their food shelter and the tunnels between the buildings the men welded together 55gallon fuel drums as support columns and used boxwood from crates and piping to conserve the meagre supply of timber and gir ders. This shaky construction was covered with parachutes and strengthened with the pallets used by the U.S.A.F. in airdropping material from Globemasters. Tunnel Fell In

Here at Byrd station the buildings stand on 10.000 ft of compacted snow and ice—at an altitude of 5000 ft above sea level. This ice cap rests on the bottom of the ocean or continental floor. Unlike water, snow is an excellent insulator, and the -static charge held by metal masts and wires is considerable. There is nardly a man here who has not received a shock at some time or another. Now that the Antarctic spring is here every effort is being made to avoid a repetition of last winter’s shortages next year. Lieutenant Dalton did not make many demands by radio, believing that his station was in little worse position than Little America, his closest neignbour, 600 miles away. Now that his needs are known every effort is being made to airdrop or fly in by ski-equipped Navy aircraft all the supplies which will be needed for the winter of 1958. Several of the scientists and navy men who spent the winter here have already been flown out and others will follow soon, as their reliefs are flown in to complete the interchange. “We didn’t expect it to be a picnic—and it certainly wasn’t—but most of us appreciated the circumstances,” commented Mr Morris, one of the first to be flown out. “For myself, I'd not be unwilling to spend another winter here.”

Part of the roof of one tunnei fell in during the winter and had to be repaired. Only constant shovelling kept the weight of snow from building up to crush the whole tunnel system. The diesel generators are housed in the garage-powerhouse about 10 feet from the washroom and lavatories. Water from the snow melter in the powerhouse runs through a pipe carried in a wooden duct from the garage to the wash-room. Through this duct a powerful fan drives hot air from the power-house, which is used to warm the wash-room. In other United States Antarctic bases the lavatories are the coldest seats in camp. Lieutenant Brian Dalton, the 26-year-old Navy doctor who is also the station military leader, received some medical supplies which were required to be kept in temperatures between zero and 10 deg. centigrade. He had no cool store, but placed them on a high shelf where the breeze, blowing through a small crack, kept the temperature at that point constantly between those limits. Normally the Antarctic winter is a time of severe cold, clear skies, and calm weather, but here at Byrd the station was so drifted over by a succession of violent blizzards that this spring only one of several entrances was still open.

Before the first supplies were air-dropped, the only way into and out of the base was by a trap-door cut in the side of one of the tunnels, which was approached by slithering down a gently sloping chute. This has since been considerably enlarged so that crates and boxes can be carried inside. ’ All around the buildings are snow drifts frozen as hard as concrete, ranging from about two

feet to 14ft high. Beautiful they are, but they were treacherous hazards for those men who had to venture outside during the dark months. Among these were the four meteorologists. Twice a day they had to walk and stumble in darkness the 50 yards from the station entrance to the balloon inflation shelter where they filled th? radiosonde balloons with hydrogen. This shelter, which had to be some distance from the other buildings' because of the danger of fire, would have been connected by a tunnel—had there been enough timber. “We had to make at least three trips each time,” said Mr Morris, the senior meteorologist. “On the first two trips we would carry a bucket of water in either hand to fill the hydrogen plant. On the third trip—if we had not spilt any of the water and had had to make another trip—we would carry the 551 b engine for the air-craft-type engine heater at the inflation shelter.” This heater was used to thaw out the hydrogen plant. “After a while I got so sick of lugging out that engine every time that I took a blow torch and thawed the plant out with that,” he said. Static Electricity Time and again the men received shocks from aerial guy lines and other metal equipment outside. In the Antarctic the air is so dry that when a man pulls a woollen jersey off his back there is a sharp crackle as the jersey discharges to the woollen shirt underneath. A man who briskly whipped a terylene blanket up to his chin one night was almost thrown from his bunk by the shock.