ON MOVING ICE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 31 January 1929, Page 9

ON MOVING ICE

AN ALARMING EXPERIENCE BYRD MEETS DIFFICULTIES. MEN WORK FRANTICALLY TO SAVE GEAR. fiy Bussell Owen, copyrighted, 1928; by the ".New York Times" company and "St. Louis Post and Despatch.” All rights for publication reserved through the world. Wireless to “New York Times." BAY OF WHALES, Jan. 30. Last night, while the men were working on the dock and hauling things up the slope to the Barrier, a blizzard came up from, the north-west. It blew hard, and thick, heavy snow obscured the entire bay, so that it was impossible to see more than a few feet. It caked the clothes of the crew hauling at the crates and getting the stuff over the side, and; the cold wind froze it to them so that they were cased in a crackling armour. In the thick smother of the snow they could hear the sighing and moaning of the ice under the pressure of the wind along the Barrier, a sound like the wind blowing thi-ough the trees of a mountain slope and an occasional distinct rumble caused by a detached piece of the Barrier to the north breaking away. The experience of the dog driver, Goodale, was typical of others. He felt something like an earthquake below. Then he saw a crack opening just behind him. He jumped across and started for the ship, leaping over more cracks which opened all round him. No sooner had he reached one of the larger cakes which hacl been half of our dock than the whole slope slid with a hissing sound down into the water and a piece of the adjoining Barrier fell. Where there had been a smooth, high pathway a moment before was nmy a broken mass of big cakes sliding up and down again in the mush. Filled with water our dock hqd first broken near the barrier. The top edges of the crack were about fjiree feet apart at first, but gradually they opened until they were 10 feet wide. Inside a piece rose until for a time it- threatened 1 to turn over, and if it had done so it would have raised havoc with the ships. As the big crack widened aeroplane skiis. a pedestal, and a heavy piece of wood slid down to the smashed ice between the cakes, and another pedestal hung over the edge. One section of a portable house toppled off into the water. Everything was in movement, for there was just enough commotion in the water, partly caused by the breaking of the: slope and dock and partly by the slight swell, to make the enormous cakes sway and lift their ponderous sides as if to gnaw at us. SAVING THE AEROPLANE. There was a call for all hands,, and the men eagerly tumbled over the side to the broken ice. The most important thing to save was the centre wing of the big Ford plane, which lay on the slope of the inner dock. The cake of ice was so, far down that it could not be seen from the steamer. Bill Gavrokovskys, the stowaway of the Eleanor Bolling, lay down, and while the others held his legs he slipped over into the big crack and got hold of the pedestal and plane sections and pulled them out. Pieces of a house, heavy clumsy things which ordinarily would have been moved slowly, were j aimed from the ice and to the men’s shoulders, and tossed aboard as if they were matchboxes. The ice on which the men were standing sloped more and more, and the crack widened. Commander Byrd ordered all the men to don lifebelts, and directed operations with a megaphone. This was handy in case the men were unable to hear him in emergency. G etting a section of a house out of ( the water was something of a job, but • the rope was passed round it under the slush and it was rescued before it had time to get soaked. We saved everything except half a dozen sacks of coal, which sank to the bottom. Amid a heavy squall the shore lines were cast off.

The ice anchor® were drawn in by winches and fortunately w© did not lose one of them.

The two ships, still lashed together, began to drift out into the hay, and work was immediately begun loading the cargo from the Eleanor Bolling into the City of New York, so that the Eleanor Bolling may get hack to New Zealand and come down again on another trip before the bay begin® to freeze. The remains of our dock drifted out to sea, and the last we saw of them they were far away', a pile of pieces of aeroplane crates lying on top of the cake —hut we do not need them.