Dr Siple Back From A Year At The Pole

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 7

Dr Siple Back From A Year At The Pole

Th* near-100 per cent, comple"tion of a full scientific programme at the South Pole base was an which—although not as immediately spectacular as the launching of the first sputnik—*was an achievement which ranked equal to the Russian satellite programme in every way. This is the view of Dr. Paul Siple. scientific leader at the pole •station, after spending a year there —to the day. “It would have been a success oeven if we had only been able to exist there —to live there during the winter.’’ he said in Christchurch yesterday. “We credited the Russians with more polar experience than us. We chose to airdrop almost every -piece of equipment and building material for that station, they , sent theirs in by tractor train. But <t»we built our base and worked there —they didn’t reach the site of Vcstok, the base they intended build in the interior at the geomagnetic pole. Another tractor train is now on its way there *pn a second attempt.” U.S. Achievements He did not offer this in an attempt to stir up international strife, said Dr. Siple. but simply to draw attention to the scale of achievements in the Antarctic. “In fact, my greatest disappointjnent was in having to come out "’so soon.” said the man who has

, already lived nearly five years in • the Antarctic. His first taste of • polar exploration was when, as a - Boy Scout in 1928, he went south • with the Byrd expedition to Little America. “A lot of us didn’t want to come ; out at this time. With a double . team there—our wintering party ' and the new group—we could have tidied up many odds and ends which, although not vital, had caught our interest, and could have considerably expanded other • projects. But we got the word to . go.” So little news of I.G.Y. activity ’ was sent to the pole station dur<4ng the winter, said Dr. Siple, that most of their news came through amateur radio contacts. Some _ men did not even know who was going to relieve them until a passenger list was radioed to the station after the aircraft had taken off from McMurdo Sound.

“Some of us, myself included. ( would have taken the risk of getting a ship- out late in the if it meant we would have ’more time for summer work. I Vas there a year, but I spent the first two months in construction of the base and seeing to the installation of the instruments we needed for our work,” said Dr. Siple. The scientists worked the hardest during the winter, he said, but in the summer it was the Navy snen who maintained the station 'who put in the longest hours—particularly in the recovery of air-dropped material. The I.G.Y. men worked alongside the sailors when the going was hardest, but there were often ' times when, because of the observations they had to make, they were unable to spend long out- . side. “A Major Effort” * The airdropping was a major effort, said Dr. Siple. who was standing beside Mr Edwin Flowers. a meteorologist, who was ' struck by a 151 b piece of felt padding which fell from the tractor ; which broke away from its parachutes and plunged 40ft into the soft snow. “We complained about the misfires. like that, but we wouldn’t have been there had the standard on the whole not been so high—probably about 90 per cent., or better.” One airdrop which the pole men are still laughing about is the drop of rafter girders for a new

hut. It landed in an ice-fog which restricted visibility to about half a mile. By a freak chance the parachute did not collapse, the wind caught it, and it took off across the bleak polar plateau. “We didn’t get to it fast enough on foot to cut the straps, and one of the men trailed it for 25 miles in a weasel before the chute finally collapsed of itself and he caught up to it,” said Dr. Siple. Then there was the mailbag which burst open. Both heavy packages and light mail had been packed in the bag and when the parachutes opened “the heavy stuff carried straight on down, bursting its way out of the sack. The letters scattered all over the place. “We picked them up for hours afterward, and a week later Bravo our husky pup. brought home one which we had missed.” The pole station men were sufficiently impressed with the United States Air Force effort to set to and cancel a rush order of Christmas mail for the 53rd Troop Carrier Squadron with the special pole post-mark—and send it out by the next plane. “They did quite a job,” said Dr. Siple.