Monday, March 31, 1952 |
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Arctic OutpostWhen
"Project Icicle" was first discussed, few Air Force people besides Lieut.
Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher had any real enthusiasm for it; the idea of a
weather station floating lazily through the Arctic Ocean on a huge island of
ice seemed just too fanciful. But Joe Fletcher, then C.O. of the 58th
Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron at Fairbanks, Alaska, kept wheedling and
nagging at his superiors. Last week Fletcher's party finally fought their way
on to the ice island some 100 miles from the North Pole. With a
double-thickness tent, a month's rations, primus stoves and a minimum of
meteorological equipment, they set up camp. New Landmark.
Fletcher's crusade began over a year ago when the radar operator of a B-29
flying the dogleg "Ptarmigan" track (Alaska to the Pole) reported
that he had picked up a strange target—an "island" of some sort
where there should have been nothing but spongy, saltwater ice pack (TIME,
Nov. 27,1950). Because the 16-hour weather hops over the white wastes of the
Arctic get monotonous, the crews took a lively interest in searching for a
new landmark. To Fletcher, T1,
as the first island was named, looked strangely like the great glacial
ice-foot that puzzled Peary at the turn of the century. But if it was Peary's
giant ice-foot, it was circling slowly across the top of the world in the sea
currents that swirl through the Arctic. It might make an ideal, stable
platform for scientific observation. Alert Ptarmigan
crews turned up two more islands, named them T-2 and T3. Fletcher studied
them, picked T-3 for his weather station. Then he convinced Major General
William D. Old that it was time to organize Project Icicle. The time to land
on T3, they decided, was shortly after mid-March. The earth would be tilted
properly on its axis and they would have the benefit of 24-hour daylight. Nightmare White.
Last week a ski-equipped C-47 of the 10th Rescue Squadron ferried Fletcher,
Captain Marion F. Brinegar and Norwegian-born Dr. Kaare Rodahl, Arctic
expert, to T3. C-54 mother ships flew along to navigate and drop supplies.
The only newsman on the expedition: LIFE Photographer George Silk. In a nightmare of
white haze, white snow and blinding Arctic glare, the C-47 pilot picked out a
landing area. Time after time he skimmed low over the island, slapping his
skis on hummocks of ice, skipping from crest to crest like a stone over
water. For nearly an hour he made passes at the island before he landed and
slued to a halt. Photographer Silk crawled from the plane to shoot his
pictures.* General Old, who had flown as copilot, trudged back up the plane's
ski tracks in the 60°-below-zero cold. "I don't see how a man can live
here," he told Fletcher when he had staggered back. But Colonel
Fletcher had come too far to quit. The two-men stood within a foot of each
other, their hands over their faces, mumbling against the cold that numbs
men's minds. Every now & then they would drop their hands and jump about
violently for warmth. Eventually Fletcher won the argument. He and his two
assistants were permitted to stay, and General Old pitched in to help unload
supplies. Hillbilly
Beacon. T-3 has been officially named "Fletcher's Ice Island." Its
three inhabitants are busy setting up their instruments and clearing a
runway. Soon they will be sending back information from the heart of the
polar factory that manufactures much of the world's weather. And they will
set up radio navigation aids for the steady flow of Ptarmigan and other
Arctic flights. Whatever else
Fletcher's expedition accomplishes, airmen will be glad to home on its radio
beacon. Navigating in the Arctic has never been like flying along well-marked
southerly airways. Compasses go crazy in converging magnetic lines of force.
The ice affords few check points. Celestial fixes are often impossible. But
T-3 will be easily recognizable; its beacon will broadcast the cheery lyrics
of an Alaskan hillbilly tune: "When the ice worms nest again . . ."
* Which he
developed in Manhattan, 23 hours later, after hitching a flight from
Greenland on a M.A.T.S. transport.
Article courtesy
of Time magazine.
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