THE ICE PATROL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 October 1924, Page 15

THE ICE PATROL.

$ KEEPING THE ATLANTIC SAFE. The iceberg-hunting season has begun, and for the next few months the game will be carried on by the Ice Patrol £o that the trade lanes of the North Atlantic may be safe, writes David Neville in the Daily Mail. After the Titanic disaster in 1912 it was agreed by the nations to send out scouts during the winter and spring to report the movement of €lie ice from the jar north. This was the start of the Ice Patrol, which has supplied much interesting data, but shattered many popular beliefs in the process. For instance, the United States destroyer Breekenridge, which went out to destroy bergs by firing torpedoes at them, found this method only partially successful. The tradition among both mariners and landsmen that icebergs produce an echo was proved inaccurate by a coastguard cutter which encountered .11 large hergs in rapid succession. The cutter sounded her siren, changing her position time after time among the lofty masses of ice, but not once did she get an echo. Other experiments have been carried out, and it has been discovered that the only icebergs which give an echo are those with a smooth, perpendicular face, and even then the echoes are erratic. Another belief which the work of the Ice Patrol has destroyed is that a sense of cold can be experienced near an iceberg. The only instance the Ice Patrol found in which cold was felt was when the ship was to leeward within a hundred yards of a berg and when the wind was blowing freshly. It has been noted, also, that birds, contrary to some theories, do not denote the* presence of ice. Again, there is no iceblink over bergs. To sum up, the most important factor in hunting* icebergs is the eyesight of the look-out man. As for shooting the bergs, some may yield to the persuasion of a heavy shell; but as often as not the huge mass of ieowill just- turn over and present another side to the sky. In many cases when melting had softened the ice the shell or shot just sank into the mass without effect. ' ’ . ‘

The Ice Patrol is composed of nicked men, all quiet, but hardy, we*atherby constant drilling and work. . Time after, time the crews have been landed on some bleak northern , shore to drill and stretch their legs after a soell of watching; then after a short space on the land they are. off again to their labours. Never a month passes hut some survivors of wrecks are saved from the ice; in a recent case a small party was found huddled on a “pancake’ * of ice with few provisions left. How great is the ice* danger in the spring every shipmaster knows. During the early summer, of 1890 five shipsvanished. In the season of-1899 11 were lost. Every season has told the same tale until'the Ice Patrol was established, and' nqw hardly a ship goes north from Newfoundland without an ice pilot aboard—men specially trained to dodge bergs. It is at St. John’s harbour that you meet these men ,all quiet, but hardy, weatherbeaten and resolute. They have snatched their living from watching ice so long that they do not worry even when the harbour is blocked with bergs.