During the next few days, the battle shifted to the north, while the BoUing raced south with her second load, and the City strove to push north. And all the while the pack threatened to erect an impenetrable barrier between them. The issue remained in doubt for days, and during that period there was little rest for the radiomen or me.
The radios, I think, tell the story.
Feb. 23
COMDR. BYRD:
Ice seems thicker continually and is in pans of several acres. A few minutes ago struck a big area and broke ice about four or five inches thick for more than a mile. Making only about one knot. Freezing seems to be going on continually and in a few hours the City would have made headway only with greatest difficulty. The ice is also freezing in our wake as we pass.
BERKNER.
Later
Feb. 23
COMDR. BYRD:
We have wind SSW force 4. Under steam and sail pushing our way through new ice as far as the eye can see. The thickness of this new ice is from six to twelve inches and appears to be forming between the widely separated ice packs, which are small, but can be seen in every direction. Thus far we have had no great difficulty but it appears that the ice is getting thicker as we go along to the Northwest. Johansen continuously aloft looking for leads. We will keep you constantly advised as we progress.
MELVILLE.
Later
Feb. 23
CAPTAIN MELVILLE:
Suggest that you use kerosene lamps and hold down heating of quarters as much as possible in order to conserve coal. Good luck in your battle. I believe you probably have pack to the North and open water to the West around the 18oth Meridian.
BYRD.
Later
Feb. 23
COMDR. BYRD:
Barometer 29.32. Wind SSE, force 5. Temperature of air 14, water 29. Making good time now through scattered ice pack under steam and sail. Occasional snow flurries but visibility good. Due to the fact that water temperature is rising and the new ice seems to be getting thinner. Both Johansen and I deem it advisable to proceed towards the Larsen. Agree that may be lighter pack westward, and have been setting more towards the 180th with seemingly improved conditions. Regards.
MELVILLE.
Next day conditions were worse, and the City ran her nose against very thick pack. By radio I asked the Larsen, which was then making ready to start north, to stand by and await the City’s arrival. An emergency existed, for the City’s supply of coal, sadly depleted as a result of constant steaming during the stormy weather at the Bay of Whales, was not sufficient to sustain her through a long struggle with heavy ice. If she failed in that struggle, she would in all likelihood become imprisoned in the ice for the winter, with attendant danger to her hull and crew. To discover such heavy pack so early in the season was a blow. It had developed many days in advance of its seasonal appearance, and when the City started north I was quite sure that she had a sufficient safety factor of coal to see her through. These facts I laid before Captain Nilsen of the Larsen, in the following message:
New York has not enough coal to keep her going if she meets further serious resistance from the ice. Needless to say, I did not anticipate the New York would have difficulty in keeping rendezvous with Boiling at position of Larsen to supply the City with coal and food.
I am sure you can understand the great apprehension I have for my comrades on the New York. As I consider the status of the New York perilous, there is nothing I can do but ask your help again.
The New York is now 270 miles from you, making 7 or 8 knots under sail and steam. She should be only 111 miles from you by noon tomorrow. I am hoping that you can delay long enough to give her fresh whale meat and coal enough to get her through the pack and to New Zealand. I can have the Bolling meet you and repay coal. Best of wishes.
I am reluctant to let the Bolling come through the pack as she has developed a leak in after hold.
BYRD.
Later
Feb. 24
COMDR. BYRD:
Lat. 76.52 S. Long. 171.50 W. Water temperature 28, air 21. Wind SSE, force 6. Sea moderate, sky overcast. Visibility good. Widely scattered pack during last four hours. Making good time under sail and steam. Bar. 29.22 falling slowly. After leaving Bay of Whales encountered new ice for at least miles which appeared to close in quickly and freeze behind us. This ice increased in thickness to from eight to ten inches. At 11:30 we were stuck. It was possible to move forward again only by the use of additional sail and steam. Since that time conditions have improved up to the present.
MELVILLE.
Several days before I had accepted the inevitable, and instructed Captain Brown to give up his attempts to force the pack with the Bolling. No real emergency existed at the base, thanks to the careful planning and foresight which had governed the selection of material taken on the Boiling’s first voyage. Naturally, we might have used the additional houses, the small airplane, and the 14 dogs which Brown had aboard, but we could manage without these. We had already decided to build snow houses to take the place of the wooden structures. Certainly our needs were not dire enough to risk the presence of the Bolting, as well as the lives of her crew, in the pack. It was an unpleasant task to deflect the officers and crew from a job they were determined to accomplish, but it had to be done. I instructed Captain Brown to stand by, outside the pack, pending the outcome of the City’s battle. He radioed me as follows:
Feb. 25
COMDR. BYRD:
Your sad message received. Sorry not to be able to go through. All hands are raring to go. We have seen no ice thus far, so why don’t you let me try? You know that experts said before it would be impossible to get into Bay of Whales. Would a depot at Scott’s last winter quarters in McMurdo Sound do any good? My gang and I will go to Hell for you. Please answer, as we are still hoping.
Later
BYRD,
BARRIER STATION WFA:
This to inform you that we are now ready for departure. At present strong weather with heavy sea and we are trying to get out into clear water. We will ascertain from City her position and will endeavor to locate her. In my opinion it will be impossible to bunker her in this kind of weather and as far as I can see at present the only way will be to take crew on board and abandon City. Will keep you informed on progress if anything should turn up to the better.
NILSEN.
Later
COMDR. RYRD:
Our 8 P.M. position dead reckoning Latitude 74.20 S. Long. by observation 179.30 E. Crossed date line 5 P.M. and steering more west again to find clear water as we have again encountered a heavy pack of decayed bergs and old ice which is probably that reported south of Larsen. Heavy SW swell. Barometer 29.20. Wind SSE. Overcast. Obtaining frequent bearings on Larsen who also reports he is moving westward.
MELVILLE.
The distressing fact in this episode that made me reluctant to press Captain Nilsen more than necessary was that we were asking him to risk the lives of 230 men for those of a score. He had informed me in an earlier message, that heavy pack enfolded his ship, and “it looks as if the packs have spread all over the Ross Sea from east to west.” Nevertheless, he met the issue squarely with the promise, “If there is any real peril to City or any other ship, I will proceed at once with the C. A. Larsen and do our best.” That he did. The Larsen was north of the pack that lay between two ships, and Captain Nilsen therefore dispatched several of his small fast chasers to the City’s aid. A subsequent message reported that they had found passage to the westward.
The affair soon drew to a satisfactory conclusion.
Feb. 26
COMDR. BYRD:
We have direction finder on City New York and two of the chasers racing towards her. We following her. Slight NW wind, Temp. 2 centigrade minus, pancake ice.
NILSEN.
Feb. 27
COMDR. BYRD:
So far we have not picked up chasers but think we should see them nearly any time now.
MELVILL
E.
Feb. 28
COMDR. BYRD:
Arrived at Larsen 11 P.M. last night. Went alongside 12:35 P.M. this morning. Took on board approximately 90 tons of coal and some provisions. Finished 3:30 A.M. and all sailed at 4 A.M. Now going through pack to Northward. All well. Regards.
MELVILLE.
And in this manner a potentially dangerous situation came to an end. Brown, on the Bolling, hove to outside the pack, awaiting the City, sent this message on March 1:
COMDR. BYRD:
Noon position Lat. 5647 S Long. 172.01 E. Strong NW gale, heavy, tremendous sea washing all over ship. Have been hove to since 2 A.M. Am going North. Barometer 29. Air 45°. One of the dogs got six pups during storm. All going well. Regards.
BROWN.
It is, indeed, an ill wind that blows no good. We had hopes of using those pups very nicely in the following spring.
The building and organization of Little America was a fine piece of work. It was accomplished mainly under the direction of Dr. Gould and Captain McKinley, and the hammer of Chips Gould, the carpenter. The houses and the plan of locating them had been worked out in New York before our departure by my friend, Edgar Barratt, an architect, and his son, Roswell Barratt. This plan called for the erection of five main buildings, but as three of them were in the Boiling’s hold when she turned back, we fell somewhat short of the blue print requirements. In fact, we would be confronted with considerable congestion in our quarters unless we made use of every plank and box we could lay our hands on. Here the ingenuity and economy of “Chips” Gould came into natural play, and I dare say there was not much more than a sliver of wood that he did not bend and nail to his shrewd designs.
From one of the airplane crates he built a machine shop and storehouse for the aviation mechanics, which was located about forty yards northwest of the mess hall. Parts of another airplane crate served as the walls and structure of a radio storeroom, which was located about halfway between the mess house and the administration building.
For Davies, the physicist, a non-magnetic house was evolved out of odds and ends of lumber. Braathen and Walden, the recluses of the expedition, were at work on a little house; and by quietly, in fact furtively, saving every scrap of wood that escaped Gould (and some that did not escape him), they soon had enough material to build a separate residence for themselves. This they put up about 75 feet south of the mess hall.
All kinds of construction were under way when the City sailed, and Little America was as busy as a boom town. George Black, the supply officer, was at work on his store house. This he created by digging a large hole in the snow just off the main trail between the mess hall and the administration building, about twenty yards from the latter. He caused the boxes to serve as their own protecting walls, and by covering the hole with a tarpaulin had a very snug shelter which was of course soon snowed over.
Several other additions were planned to the growing number of buildings radiating about the mess hall. One of these was the third bunk house, which was to adjoin Czegka’s machine shop and open on a vestibule cut into the snow. On the other end of the mess hall we proposed to build a dark room and photographic laboratory for McKinley, Rucker and Van der Veer.
Hanson and his men were already at work on their radio laboratory, which was no more than a corner of the administration building. Into this limited space they must crowd their cumbersome and complicated apparatus. For power they depended upon the Kohler plant in the machine shop, the juice being carried overland by wires. This same plant also fed the lighting system, such as it was. We had even then begun to conserve gasoline, which this plant normally consumed, and June and Czegka had ingeniously arranged so that it used kerosene instead. It was essential that we save gasoline for aviation operations in the spring. Because the radio department would demand most of the power, the number of electric lights in the camp was limited—one for the cook in the mess hall, one for the radio generator, one for the Norwegian house, and two for the photographic laboratory. Another large bulb was used as a safety beacon on one of the radio towers. Gasoline pressure lamps and kerosene lamps provided the illumination for the other buildings and houses.
The principal structures in the colony were the administration building, the mess hall and the Norwegian House. The first of these was named the Edgar Barratt House; the second, the Roswell Barratt House, after the two men, my friends, who designed them, and the third was named the Biltmore. The first two were portable houses, designed and built in New York to serve a particular purpose. They were divided, for example, into sections of 3 × 8 feet, each section weighing about 106 pounds, so that two men could handle them with ease. In a test in New York, before we left, it was found that either house could be assembled in five hours.
They were designed, naturally, less for elegance than for strength and resistance to cold. The walls were four inches thick. Outside was a layer of stiff building board, one-half an inch thick. Next were two layers of paper, a layer of building board, then one and one-half inches of insulating material, and then more fibrous building board. The outside was sealed with three coats of orange paint. The walls and roof were bolted to a frame of yellow pine. Not a nail was used in the structure, and the bolts with which it was tied together were not allowed to end on the outside. Transmission of cold was thus reduced to a minimum.
The foundation of the houses were set deep in the snow, and then, when the roofs were put on, snow was packed tightly and smoothly about them. In this way they were protected from the wind and snow, and only the fiercest kind of blizzard could injure them.
As ours was the largest expedition to winter in the Antarctic, we had our own peculiar problems. The fire hazard was an ever-present worry, for the loss of home by fire during the winter night could have but one ending on this inhospitable continent. We therefore set up the two main buildings 200 yards apart, knowing that if one burned, the other would escape. The supplies and other vital equipment were scattered about for the same reason.
There was still another reason recommending such distribution. The most persistent and insinuating foe to explorers who endure the winter night is monotony. It is a thing, of course, many of us know and for that matter endure even in the center of civilization; but nowhere else can it be experienced to such a degree as in the polar night. For there can be few ways in which to escape monotony. Bitter cold and incessant storms keep all but the hardiest men indoors a greater part of the time; and even they do not care to venture very far. Consequently, men are thrown into the utmost intimacy for months on end, within the narrow, restricting walls of their shacks; and the time inevitably comes when all the topics in the world have been sucked dry of interest; when one man’s voice becomes irritating to the ears of another; when the most trivial points of disagreement become fraught with impassioned meaning. When that point is reached, there comes trouble.
By scattering houses and work places, we hoped to give greater scope to the physical activities of the men. It would not be necessary to remain cooped up in one place. And to assist communication, we ultimately created a fascinating system of tunnels connecting the various units of the colony. The first tunnel was dug between the administration building and the mess hall, a very laborious undertaking. It was six feet deep. Food boxes were laid along the sides. The corridor, then, was little more than the width of a man’s shoulders; and the bigger men such as Clark, Strom and Smith had to go through it somewhat sidewise. Over the boxes we laid a strip of canvas. As the tunnel progressed, passages were opened into the store rooms and workshops so that, when we finished, we had a comprehensive system of subterranean communication which brought all the scattered units of the colony within reach of a traveller who need never once venture above the surface. Both Mawson and Amundsen had built short tunnels about their shacks, but never in the history of exploration was there a system as elaborate as ours. In them we dwelt what Mawson has aptly called a “troglodytic existence,” a reduced and undeniably limited one, but on the whole a mo
re active and diversified existence, perhaps, than most other expeditions were able to contrive.
Space does not permit of a full description of the multiple phases of our operations. The erection of the radio towers, for example, was a romantic accomplishment of itself. Two men who had never engaged in iron work before, Jim Feury and Teddy Bayer, assembled these towers, and the thoroughness with which they did it may be judged from the fact that the structures outlived the worst blizzards.
What busy days they were! And yet not a few of us found them to be happy ones. We met the advancing winter with a great show of industry and the satisfaction that well-ordered and effective labor brings.
Footnotes
1 All Temperatures are recorded in Fahrenheit.
1 Amundsen. “The South Pole,’’ ii. 170-171.
CHAPTER VIII
INCIDENT ON THE ROCKEFELLER MOUNTAINS
THE winter night was in reality close at hand. Deepening shadows on the horizon at the midnight hour heralded its approach, and we now increased our efforts to have all external tasks completed before really cold weather set in. We were most anxious to have the cache on the Barrier transferred to the base; for successive snow storms and high winds had repeatedly covered it with drift and the supplies were buried half the time. After each storm it was necessary for all hands to join the snow shovel squad and retrieve them. Half a dozen dog teams and the snowmobile were assigned to this work, and the supplies poured in at a marvellous rate. The journey to the cache was hardly what one would call a hazardous one: the distance was only 4 miles, the trail was well marked out with flags, and the drivers had by this time become accustomed to the surroundings. But the swiftness with which storms fell and smothered visibility imparted an element of danger even to this short journey, and I repeatedly instructed the drivers to observe caution. In the event of a severe blizzard, I recommended that they try to wait it out, rather than run the risk of becoming lost and perhaps falling off the edge of the Barrier. For this reason, sleeping bags were considered compulsory equipment on all sledges.
Little America Page 18