PUSHED FROM CHANNEL

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30947, 31 December 1965, Page 1

PUSHED FROM CHANNEL

The United States Navy icebreakers Glacier, Atka, and Burton Island pushed this massive iceberg out of the McMurdo Sound shipping channel yesterday.

The iceberg, 800 ft long and 200 ft wide, had drifted half a mile into the channel and threatened to block all shipping movements in and out of the sound.

The radio photograph, supplied by the United States Navy, shows the icebreakers pushing the iceberg out to sea. The part of the iceberg above water is about an eight of its total bulk. The ice-breakers took three

hours to move the iceberg, which towered 80ft above the water-line, dwarfing the three ships. The Glacier, which is the largest and most powerful navy ice-breaker, tried to nudge the iceberg alone, but could not control its direction.

Keeping McMurdo Sound channel free of ice has been the main task of the Glacier, which is now completing its eleventh consecutive year in the Antarctic.

The ship will remain in the McMurdo area until late January, and will then go to Wellington to rest the crew and take on fresh supplies. Her service in the Antarctic will end in March, and she will return to her home port, Boston, in April.