OUA 1964 - Page 9
	of this season to open the fjord leading from the ocean shipping lanes to Sondrestrom. With both harbor facilities and time at a premium, ocean freighters delivering fuel to this lonely bastion have to be unloaded and cleared with all possible dispatch. Of all the heavy materiel and bulk sup- plies brought-in once each year, POL products, especially diesel fuel, are probably the most critical. They are the life-blood of both Sondrestrom and the Dye Sites. Without adequate POL supplies, these listening posts of the the free world simply could not exist.
	q. The Dye Sites themselves are equipped with 10,000 gallon collapsible storage tanks to hold their vital POL stores. These huge cylindrical rubber bladders are buried in the ice and refilled once each year during the April- May-June annual POL airlift from Sondrestrom. Each Dye Site possesses suffi- cient tankage to allow for about an 18 month supply. The main supplies are stored in the Sondrestrom tanks. Profiting by experience gained since estab- lishment of the DEW Line, a resupply cycle has been generated to account for all of these diverse factors. The POL storage capacity at Sondrestrom is not unlimited. Weather permitting, every effort is made to resupply the Dye Sites from the Sondrestrom tanks in April, May, and June prior to arrival of the first surface tanker. This procedure draws the Sondrestrom tanks down to levels which allow surface tankers to pump their cargoes directly into them on arrival. In this manners the harbor facilities are quickly cleared to allow for the fullest utilization during the short summer shipping season. This is a tightly geared sequence of actions. Poor timing anywhere within this chain could spell disaster to the vital defense posture which the DEW Line provides North America. In the final analysis, the success of this annual operation lies largely at the mercy of the unpredictable Arctic weather. The only controllable factor which plays any significant role in this high adventure in the far north is the dedication and skill of the aircrews who carry out the annual airlift operation. For the most part, they and the ski- equipped C-13O's represent the only physical link the ice-captive Dye Sites have with the outside world.
	r. Every landing and take-off made on the ice cap is a calculated risk resting solely in the skill of the men in the cockpit. Airborne radar and "being talked-in" are standard procedures for each landing. The runways and parking ramps servicing the Dye Sites consist of no more than bulldozer smoothed stretches of ice and snow. Diesel fuel and other POL products air- lifted by C-130 aircraft, to the Dye Sites are packaged in 500 gallon collap- sible bladders at Sondrestrom from the main tank farm. These bladders, like the larger ones used for storage at the sites are cylindrical in form. The were originally so designed for quick unloading operations, but unfortunately this is limited to hard surfaces. On the parking ramp at Sondrestrom, they can be rolled out of storage and on to the aircraft by one or two men relying only on muscle power. On ice, especially that covered with a coat of loose snow, this becomes a physical impossibility. Consequently, when the "bladders" are filled at Sondrestrom;, they are lashed in pairs on heavy equipment drop pallets. Three such pallets constitute a full C-130 load which represents three thousand gallons or about 25,000 pounds. From time to time, small amounts of miscellaneous material, supplies, personal mail, etc., are also carried with the three pallets. On arrival at the Dye Sites, bulldozers, winches and sleds are used to drag the pallets from the C-130's cargo hole
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