Resupply Operations For U.S. Expedition

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29067, 2 December 1959, Page 18

Resupply Operations For U.S. Expedition

The American transport ship Arneb is due at Lyttelton today to support the surface operations of the 1959-60 Antarctic resupply of bases. A visitor at Lyttelton every year. since 1955, the Arneb is scheduled to put out for the Ross Sea, on Saturday with the icebreaker Glacier already in port.

The icebreaker Atka is due to leave Lyttelton on Friday afternoon.

The Glacier and Arneb have been designated a task unit bound for the abandoned Little America station on the Ross Ice Shelf. At this station they will offload supplies and equipment for an American resupply tractor station to the inland Byrd station which is still being manned by the Navy, for scientists. The Atka will sail for McMurdo Sound to break out a channel in preparation for the arrival of the Arneb and its supplies to be unloaded there. Later, the Glacier will move to the Bellingshausen Sea and rendezvous with the icebreaker Burton Island. These two vessels will attempt to penetrate the ice bound sea as close to land as possible. This has not been done before.

The area of operations is in a sector of the Antarctic continent which has had many operations by United States expeditions over the years but the United States has never made an official claim there.

The Soviet expedition has previously announced it intended to send a tractor train across the surface of the continent from the South African sector to the Bellingshausen Sea, passing the South Geographic pole on the way.

More American ships on this year’s expedition are not due at Lyttelton for another month. The oiler Atlanta is due on December 28. This ship was at Lyttelton last season and replaces the tanker Chattahoochee which was previously designated the expedition’s 1959-60 oiler.

The United States Coastguard icebreaker Eastwind is due on December 31 and the American Navy freighter Towle is due on January 5.