DEW Line DYE Sites on Greenland Ice Cap

GREENLAND DYE SITES

The Greenland Ice Cap is an inhospitable land. It stretches for hundreds of miles as a flat, endless, unbroken, windswept, and desolate Arctic desert. No animal or human can live there without artificial shelter. In the late 1950s, the USAF decided to provide such shelter in the form of two DEW Line DYE sites.

DYE II was built at 65 degrees 11 minutes North and 43 degrees 49 minutes West. The site selected for DYE III was located at 66 degrees 23 minutes North and 46 degrees 11 minutes West. Both of the radar installations were built slightly south of the Arctic Circle near Sondrestrom AB. These two Ice Cap radar sites depended entirely upon airlift provided by the C-130D in order to exist.
(Photographs, circa 1965, are courtesy of Gary M. Spets, who was a member of the 5040th CAM Group at Elmendorf AFB.)

The Greenland Ice Cap is an inhospitable land. It stretches for hundreds of miles as a flat, endless, unbroken, windswept, and desolate Arctic desert. No animal or human can live there without artificial shelter. In the late 1950s, the USAF decided to provide such shelter in the form of two DEW Line DYE sites.

	DYE II was built at 65 degrees 11 minutes North and 43 degrees 49 minutes West. The site selected for DYE III was located at 66 degrees 23 minutes North and 46 degrees 11 minutes West. Both of the radar installations were built slightly south of the Arctic Circle near Sondrestrom AB. These two Ice Cap radar sites depended entirely upon airlift provided by the C-130D in order to exist. (Photographs, circa 1965, are courtesy of Gary M. Spets, who was a member of the 5040th CAM Group at Elmendorf AFB.)