Camp Century, City Under the Ice

[olfart]

This is my first attempt at writing anything longer than a letter, so please be patient with me. It's the true (as best I can recall) story of my time in Uncle Sam's Army.

In January of 1960 I was a recent graduate of the US Army Signal School at Fort Gordon, GA after 16 weeks of radioteletype training. When the orders came out, mine said I was to report to Fort Belvoir, VA at USAPR&DC Headquarters. “What the heck is USAPR&DC?” was the first thing I thought. Over the next two weeks at home on leave, I asked everyone I knew what that meant. Nobody had an answer for me.

Upon arrival at Fort Belvoir, I received directions to USAPR&DC Headquarters. Duffle bag in hand, I shuffled off the bus in front of a big sign that said, “Welcome to the US Army Polar Research and Development Center”. That was a shock. Who knew there even was such a thing?

Life at Fort Belvoir was somewhat laid back compared to the rigid schedules at Ft. Hood in basic and Ft. Gordon in radioteletype school, and I quickly adapted to the daily routine. Mostly we reported to the Com Center where we swapped yarns about our past civilian lives and talked about radio. The folks who had been there a while told tales about Greenland, where we would soon be going. One of the guys said there's a beautiful girl behind every tree. He neglected to mention there are no trees in Greenland. Camp Tuto, the base camp, was closed for the winter, and we would all be shipping out in April to reopen the camp. The seasoned troops explained that some of us would stay at Camp Tuto, and others would be assigned to “heavy swing” duty. Still others would be stationed at Camp Century, later dubbed “City Under the Ice” by Walter Cronkite.

When April rolled around, we packed our duffle bags and boarded buses for a nearby Air Force base. I had no idea what to expect until I saw the huge C-124 as the buses pulled up alongside it. It was a 4-engined cargo hauler, and we were to be the cargo. Inside it was bare aluminum walls with a row of web benches down each side. Our bags and gear were piled in the middle, and we rumbled off on our big adventure. The trip was long, LOUD and cold. Did I mention LOUD? We made a fuel stop at Gander, Newfoundland and finally arrived at Thule AFB, Greenland about 16 hours after leaving the States. Thule would become “downtown” for us hicks in the sticks.

At Thule we got aboard buses and made the 14-mile trek up a dirt road to Camp Tuto, located at the edge of the ice cap. Everything was still buried in snow, so the first order of business was to get into the supply hut, a canvas “Jamesway” structure. Once we dug our way to the door and opened it, we found the inside was also packed with snow. That put a dent in our morale, but we set about shoveling aisles to get to the supplies.

Our barracks were orange prefabbed single-story buildings set in neat rows . There was no way to bury pipes in the permafrost, so all plumbing was above ground. There were no toilets or showers in the barracks. We had communal showers and 6-hole outhouses set up in several places throughout the camp, so there were lots of dirty, constipated folks walking around there. Having your butt frozen to a toilet seat was no fun. Emptying the half-drums under the holes was no fun either, but that's another story.

After clearing a path to the doors of the barracks, we made ourselves at home. There were windows down each wall of the barracks, and the experienced troops explained that the windows were how to tell the time. In the morning, the sun shines in this side, and at night it shines in that side. The sun was very low in the sky and only dipped below the horizon briefly for a semi-twilight. It was a little weird getting used to the sun circling the horizon rather than rising and setting.

At the com shack, about ½ mile from the barracks, we were assigned duty shifts of 12 hours on, 12 hours off, 7 days a week. It's not like we had anywhere to go for entertainment anyway, so we might as well work. We got acquainted with the radios and learned that only rarely would we be using the teletypes. Most of our communications would be using CW (International Morse Code) and voice with an occasional incoming teletype. Due to atmospheric conditions, there were times when radio signals would be totally unreliable, and CW was the most reliable mode we had.

As the camp stirred back to life after its long winter nap, there was lots of activity on the edge of the ice cap just above the camp. Trucks were running in a steady stream hauling materials and supplies up to be loaded onto the heavy swing for transport to Camp Century. The heavy swing was a group of sled trains pulled by D8 and D9 Caterpillar tractors on 54” wide low ground pressure track pads. There were usually 5 – 6 trains, each with 5 or 6 cargo sleds. One train was the command train, and it consisted of a command “wanigan” plus a barracks wanigan, a mess hall and a generator sled. As the radio operator, the command wanigan was my office and sleeping quarters. It was linked behind the mess hall, and the barracks was ahead of the mess hall. The generator was right behind the Cat.

The trail to Camp Century had been explored and marked previously with poles and green flags. The flags were several hundred feet apart, making it easy to stay on the trail during good weather and daylight. Bad weather, however, brought things to a screeching whoa. Blowing snow obscured vision during storms, so the heavy swing waited until the storm passed to resume travel. That sometimes presented a problem when the sleds' skis would freeze to the surface, and snow would bank against the sides of the trains. That meant every stop of more than a couple of hours would require a Cat with a blade to scrape the snow away from the trains and break each set of skis loose from the surface. Weather wasn't the only reason for delays. Mechanical breakdowns slowed progress as well. The 138 mile trip took a week to ten days each way with weather and mechanical delays.

Since the trains only made about 2 – 3 miles per hour, we often walked alongside for exercise. The dry cold was quite comfortable just wearing a long sleeve wool shirt and wool trousers. Sometimes we played football during mechanical breakdowns. We used frozen reconstituted milk in a quart carton as a ball. Missing a pass could be deadly if it hit the receiver in the head.

Speaking of frozen food, our food storage was the roof of the mess hall. No need for a freezer inside, as Mother Nature handled the task very well. The tractor driver whose ineptitude caused more mechanical breakdowns than most was designated as the cook. His cooking skill was a distant second place to his tractor driving skill. One morning as I entered the mess hall, I asked the cook what was on the menu for breakfast. He replied that we were going to have grapefruit, Spam, eggs and toast, except he threw out the grapefruit. I asked what was wrong with it, and he said he cut one open and it was all pink inside, so he figured it was ruined. He had tossed the whole case of Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit off the train a couple of miles back. I was considering the ramifications of lynching him on the spot, but calmer heads prevailed.

To Be Continued...

[airdrop]

I was stationed near Galina Alaska in the USAF and your right lol the summer sun was a hoot , but winter was weirder with no sun but for 4 hours of twilight around noon . We were not as far north as you so summer was nicer except for the mosquito's . There is a video on youtube about Camp Century and them making it and am glad to meet someone that had to deal with it , thanks very much for posting your story .

[olfart]

Sure thing, Airdrop! Thank you for your service. I'll add the next installment after a few more have had a chance to peruse this one.

If the video on You Tube you're talking about is mostly about the nuclear reactor, I've seen it. I was hoping to find the one Cronkite did in 1960, but there's no trace of it I can find.

[W.Lynn]

The USAF had my dad stationed in Greenland for a while. The stories were, knowing him as I do, a tad mild. I suspect more hijinx than were told.

[olfart]

Part 2

My first trip to Camp Century was a fascinating experience, as we had Walter Cronkite's film crew tagging along to do a documentary. They wanted to see how the trail was explored and marked, so we brought up the Weasel with the crevasse detector mounted on the front of it. The weasel was a small Jeep-like vehicle on tracks, and it had an angle iron framework mounted on the front with several aluminum dishpan-looking attachments that rode on the snow. A tangle of wires trailed back to the control console in the Weasel, where the operator read the output from the sensors. The Weasel maneuvered off the marked trail a few hundred feet to a known crevasse. The crevasse was a cavern under the snow, invisible from the surface. The film crew documented the Weasel's advance, then the console when the alarms sounded. Then things got a little Hollywood on us. The film crew wanted to show how the crevasse was opened and filled in, so we brought out the dynamite. The charge was set in the middle of the snow bridge over the crevasse, the film crew announced “Rolling!”, and the demolition guy pushed the plunger. There was a big boom, and nothing visible happened. All of the blast went down into the crevasse instead of creating a snow geyser for the camera. Well, that wasn't going to work at all for the film crew, so we had to set a second charge just off the crevasse so they'd have their geyser of snow for that scene.

The Hollywood drama didn't end there, however. When the blade Cat was brought up to start filling the crevasse, the film crew wanted to go down inside and shoot some footage. Heckuva deal, as I'd never expected to be able to see the inside of a crevasse. The blade Cat punched a hole in the snow bridge and pushed enough snow into it to form a steep slope. The crevasse was nearly 100' deep and probably 30' wide. We threw a knotted rope down the hole. One of the film crew members was chosen to “be Cronkite”, because no one would know the difference from behind with a parka and hood. Then they filmed as “Cronkite” descended into the hole. The rest of us followed, not using the rope. Just step out a couple of feet into thin air, drop about 10' and bury up into the powder snow slope. Kick out and do it again until we hit bottom.

The inside of the crevasse was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was like Carlsbad Caverns done in ice. Stalactites, stalagmites, and columns as far as the eye could see in both directions, all in shades of blue and white as sunlight filtered through the snow above. I hated having to leave, but we had somewhat of a schedule to keep. Getting back up that slope was a whole 'nuther story. The top end of that rope was tied to the blade of the Cat, and we grabbed a knot and hung on as it dragged the rope back out of the hole. My shirt was packed with snow inside and out, as the sleeves funneled the snow straight inside. That part I definitely could have done without, but it was fun in retrospect.

Arriving at Camp Century, I saw large snow blowing machines cutting trenches in the ice/snow. The main trench was up to a mile long, and shorter side trenches intersected it. The snow was being blown up and over the side of the trenches. Then cranes lowered curved corrugated steel roof panels onto ice ledges in the walls, and the loose snow was blown back on top of the roof. The snow in contact with the metal would be heated by the activity in the trench enough to melt and form a solid ice roof, adding strength. Prefabbed barracks buildings were set up in the trenches, forming the basis for the “Camp Century, City Under the Ice” title that Cronkite gave his documentary. The documentary aired, I think, in late 1960.

The camp commander at Camp Century told me that he dove under his desk every time I keyed up my radio on the heavy swing. It was an ancient BC-610 transmitter that should have been retired at the end of WWII, and it would not stay on frequency unless it was keyed continuously. Therefore I had to tune it several kc above the operating frequency and hold the key down until it drifted onto the correct frequency, then key the message very quickly to keep it there. That resulted in the signal being heard in his office beginning at a very high pitch and descending rapidly before I started sending the CW message. He had served in WWII, and it reminded him of the sound of a German bomb falling toward him.

One day someone decided to check out a Jeep from the motor pool and make a supply run downtown to Thule AFB. I invited myself along for the ride and ended up driving. That made the trip interesting since I had never driven that road before, and there were few if any road signs. Our entertainment on the trip consisted of a pair of snowshoe hares that loped alongside the Jeep for a couple of miles. We were doing 30 mph, and these huge white rabbits were pacing us and not even breathing hard. They looked like they could weigh 40 – 50 pounds each and stood as tall as a German Shepherd.

Finding our way into Thule, we asked directions to the base exchange. That was to be our primary destination as we had a shopping list from a dozen other guys. Our little post exchange at Tuto had a few candy bars, soap and razor blades, but not much more. We took our time shopping, not wanting to get back too early and have to actually work. We loaded down the Jeep with goodies from the list and started back. That's when things got more interesting. Did anyone notice that road as we came in? Is that where we turned? Why don't any of these darn roads have signs? Unfortunately our hare escorts had gone their own way and were not available to show us the way back. The old saying about the Lord watching over drunks and fools has some merit. I don't drink, but He got us safely back to Tuto in time for supper.

As with any military base in those days, everyone had to pull work details. There was KP (kitchen duty) and latrine duty (sh*t detail). Of the two, everyone preferred KP. As mentioned previously, we had several 6-hole outhouses scattered around Tuto. Each of them had half of a 55-gallon drum with handles welded on two sides sitting under each hole. Latrine duty consisted of checking a deuce-and-a-half (2.5 ton truck) out of the motor pool, picking up 6 empty barrel halves, and swapping them for six full ones. Then we hauled the full ones to the dump, where we kicked the barrels off the back of the truck, praying they'd land upside down to knock the frozen contents out. With a little practice, we got pretty good at that. The incentive was very powerful, as the alternative was chipping the stuff out of the barrels with an entrenching tool. Then we loaded up the 6 empties and went to the next outhouse. After servicing all of the outhouses and dumping all of the contents, we poured a 5-gallon can of gasoline over the frozen pile, climbed aboard the truck and tossed a lighted match. The resulting conflagration could remove eyebrows at 30 feet, so we moved rapidly. On the way out of the dump, we drove through the smoke from the flaming poop pile. It smelled exactly like cooking liver. To this day I cannot look at a piece of liver without gagging, and my wife has been instructed never to cook liver in our house.

One interesting sidelight of the dump trip was the Arctic Foxes. They are tiny, not much bigger than a Pomeranian dog, and cute as a button. They come in all colors. I saw black, white, red and grey, but I never saw any with mixed colors. I could only wonder whether the foxes ate the rabbits or the rabbits ate the foxes. No matter how cute they are, the fact that they carry rabies and hang around the poop pile in the dump kept me from wanting to pet one.

My first 90-day tour in Greenland ended on 4 July, 1960. I recall snow falling on me as I waited to board the C-118 transport at Thule. This was first class accommodations compared to the C-124 that carried us up there. It had actual airline-style seats, other than the fact they faced the rear of the plane. The crew was Navy, and our stewardess (actually a gay male flight attendant) pranced up and down the aisle keeping us amused. We landed at Goose Bay, Labrador, for a fuel stop. As we taxied up in front of the terminal, our stewardess stood at the rear door waiting to open it until the engines stopped turning. We were unbuckling our seatbelts when the nosewheel collapsed, flipping the stewardess over two rows of seats and into the laps of the guys in the third row. Once we determined that we were not all going to die as a result of the nosewheel, we couldn't stop laughing. We stayed overnight in the VOQ (Visiting Officers' Quarters) at Goose Bay waiting for a replacement airplane. Those Air Force guys have it made! I've stayed in much worse hotels since then.

There's more to come!

[olfart]

Airdrop discovered a recent news event about Camp Century! Check it out at:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/05/488872411/melting-ice-in-greenland-could-expose-serious-pollutants-from-buried-army-base

Sounds a lot like more global warming BS.

[0utlaw]

With the first you usually get the second

[olfart]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]8388[/ATTACH]

With the first you usually get the second

Agreed!

[olfart]

This is the final installment of this tale.

Back in the States, my first priority was how to get home on leave. I'd heard about getting hops on military aircraft, so I caught a bus to the AFB and put my name on the list. After waiting for what seemed like forever, I heard my name called on the PA system. I reported to the desk and was told that they had a flight to Texas with space available, but it was not going to Dallas. I said I'd take it and worry about a bus home from wherever they dropped me. I carried my bag to the gate and was stunned to see a C-47 sitting on the ramp. These things have been flying since the 1930s, and this one probably had a few million miles on it. I went to the door and tossed my bag inside, then climbed the ladder and stepped in after it. It was an uphill walk toward the front of the plane, and I settled for sitting over the right wing. The seats were rows of metal benches down each side with butt imprints stamped into them. The engines roared to life, and we took off headed for Texas. That was one of the longest, loudest, roughest flights I've endured other than the C-124 trip to Greenland. I was thrilled and delighted to set foot on the ground in San Antonio. The bus ride home wasn't much better. I bought a ticket on a bargain bus line and found myself on an old retired city bus for the 260 mile trip. No restroom, no air conditioning, and stops at every podunk town on the way. At that point I'd have walked home if I thought it would be faster.

Leave time over, my folks took mercy and bought me a ticket on Braniff back to DC. That flight spoiled me for any military flights. Comfortable seats, free snacks, leg room, all I could have wished for.

Back at Ft. Belvoir, things fell into a relaxed routine. Lounging around the post, chatting with buddies at the com center, talking to home on ham radio, life was good. Weekend trips into DC kept things interesting. Historical stuff everywhere you look! I climbed the Washington monument's stairs, took pictures of the White House, visited the Smithsonian, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. I turned 19 just before heading back to Greenland in September.

Stepping off the plane at Thule, it was late afternoon… at 8:00 PM. When I left in July, the sun had been making tiny circles directly overhead, never setting. Now it was back to circling just above the horizon again in its journey toward the south pole.

Tuto was much the same as I had left it, a few patches of bare dirt showing through the dirty snow. A few tiny flowers were beginning to wither after their brief summer life. As days passed, the sun sank lower and lower on the horizon, bringing dark winter to the camp.

Camp Tuto was to remain open through the winter to support Camp Century as engineers and technicians worked to get a nuclear reactor operating to provide Camp Century's power needs. One of the primary missions of Camp Century was to determine the practicality of using a nuclear reactor in an arctic environment. This mission would require heavy swings to make periodic supply runs to Camp Century hampered by darkness on the trail. With darkness and winter came increasingly intense storms. By November we were recording temperatures in the 50 to 60 degrees below zero range.

November also brought us pretty much 24/7 darkness. Storms had dumped several feet of snow on Camp Tuto, and snowplows had created 10' high embankments on both sides of the roads. As I was walking to the com shack one night (difference between night/day being less/no traffic at night), I was between street lights on a dark stretch of road. I heard the sound of horses galloping toward me from behind. Although I had never seen a horse in Greenland, I didn't rule out the possibility. Not wanting to be trampled, I got back against an embankment and waited. Soon I was passed by two snowshoe hares as they loped down the road. If they were aware of my presence, they never indicated it.

On the trail with the heavy swing, we traveled even slower than before due to difficulty navigating the trail in darkness. The Cats had high-intensity lights to help see the trail flags, but a slight breeze would kick up blowing snow, producing a fog-like glare. We had little warning of approaching storms. When the winds kicked up and the snow started falling, we knew we would be sitting still soon.

The heavy swing carried all of the food and fuel we could possibly need, but water was hard to store without freezing and bursting a tank. Therefore we had a snow melter aboard the command train, and every time we stopped someone had to shovel snow into the melter so we would have fresh water. The problem with that is that all of the Cats run on diesel fuel. Sometimes diesel fuel gets spilled or leaks, and it gets into everything. You haven't lived until you've consumed water tainted with diesel fuel. Just the tiniest trace is all it takes to cause havoc. There was only one bathroom in the command train and one in the barracks wanigan. Do I have to draw you a picture?

The hazards of cold weather require constant awareness to avoid injury or death. A tractor driver walked out of the barracks wanigan toward the mess hall without his gloves on. He grabbed a steel handrail and discovered he couldn't release it. He was stuck to the rail yelling for help for several minutes before he was discovered. They had to stop the train and bring an oxy-acetylene torch to heat the rail and get him loose. He was relieved of duty for his carelessness and was airlifted back to Thule for treatment. Getting an airlift was not something done casually in Greenland's winter. The H-34 helicopters couldn't handle the high winds and poor visibility associated with the storms. We had very limited medical capabilities on the heavy swing consisting of an enlisted medic and a first aid kit. Even a minor injury could become life-threatening with no hope of evacuation to a hospital.

During a return trip from Century, we encountered a severe storm that produced conditions deemed “Phase 3”, or 60 mph winds and zero visibility. I had been in radio contact with a “Polecat swing”, a couple of people transporters consisting of a powered front unit with an articulated passenger unit. The driver and radio operator occupied the front unit and 6 passengers rode in the rear unit. The Polecat was the express train of the ice cap, managing speeds of 15 to 20 mph. The Polecat swing had left Tuto a few hours earlier and had encountered the storm without warning. The radio operator, Ski, said they had to stop due to no visibility and were concerned that an extended stop might leave them buried in snow. He asked if we were still moving, but of course we were not able to see either. An extended storm delay for us was nothing out of the ordinary, and we had plenty of fuel, food and water to remain safe. The Polecats, however, carried limited fuel and only emergency rations and water. They were heated by gasoline-fired heaters, and an extended stop could leave them without enough fuel to complete their journey. The storm would prevent any help from leaving Tuto, and we were their best hope for survival. I stayed on the radio with Ski for 36 hours until the storm let up and we were able to travel again. He said they were nearly out of food, water and gasoline. When we got to them, we were greeted like long-lost family. We got them into the mess hall and fed them a good meal while a crew refueled and restocked food in the Polecats, then we all resumed our journeys.

I left Greenland for the last time in mid-December 1960. That put me at home on leave just in time for Christmas, which was great!

January 1961 found me back at Ft. Belvoir looking at new orders. I was to report to Ft. Monmouth, NJ, to my primary unit. I didn't realize until then that my duty at Ft. Belvoir was TDY (temporary duty). Since I wasn't actually a part of USAPR&DC, they couldn't promote me. My primary unit at Ft. Monmouth wouldn't promote me, because they'd never even seen me. Therefore I became a grizzled PFC with more time in grade than most of the other guys had in the service.

Arrival at 595th Signal Company, Ft. Monmouth, only deepened my disappointment with the Army. Regular inspections, PT, KP, the usual stuff, and I still was no closer to being promoted. The one high spot of my stay in NJ was the day when my platoon leader asked if I wanted to take a ride with him. He was a pilot and needed to put in some hours to remain current. Having been a fledgling pilot myself since 1957, I leaped at the chance. We went to the airfield, where he signed out an L-19 (Cessna Bird Dog). I was so thrilled I was beside myself. I climbed into the back seat and strapped in, and we took off and headed for an aerial tour of New York City. We flew up the Hudson and circled the Statue of Liberty not much higher than her torch. That was a spectacular sight!

The time at Ft. Monmouth was not all wasted, as it introduced me to submarine sandwiches, pizza and my second car, a 1957 Ford 2-door that I bought for $695. That car and I had many adventures together, some I'd rather not detail here. But in the long run, it was my transportation when I got a “Stateside Swap” to Ft. Hood, TX. The Army Times newspaper had a column where they allowed folks like me to search for others who wanted to change locations. As it turned out, I found a radioteletype operator at Ft. Hood who wanted to come to Ft. Monmouth. After exchanging information and presenting the idea to our respective commanders, the swap was approved. I set out in my '57 Ford headed for Ft. Hood, TX, where I'd only be about 150 miles from home! I made it to Dallas in about 24 hours of straight driving and was worn to a frazzle.

At Ft. Hood, I reported to my new unit, Headquarters Troop, 1st Recon Squadron, 15th Cavalry. No, we didn't have horses. We did have a white mule named Casper as our unit mascot, though. I was assigned to Spc. 5 Murphy, and my new steed was an M-59 armored personnel carrier equipped with an HF radio (AN/GRC-19), with no teletype capability. Our operations once again were mostly using CW with a little voice thrown in occasionally.

We went out on maneuvers pretty regularly, which got to be a pain in the backside (literally) as the old APC bounced over rough dirt trails. It reminded me of the heavy swings in Greenland, but lots faster. The only way I could use CW while mobile was with the leg key I was accustomed to in Greenland. There were a couple of HAMs in the unit, and we spent a lot of time talking radio. There were times when one of them was needed on our military net, but he wasn't answering. I'd change frequencies up into the HAM bands and find him in a QSO (conversation) with someone else using CW. I'd send a quick BT (break) to get his attention, then tell him to “QSY down” to get him back where he was needed on our net.

I stayed with that assignment to the end of my enlistment, then took my discharge and got on with the rest of my life.

[kickstand]

Great stories OF. Do you still do CW on the ham bands?

[olfart]

I haven't worked CW in many years. However, when I was taking my General written test in 1989 the guy behind me was taking his Extra code test, and I was copying it in my head. Once upon a time I could send 20 wpm on my leg key and copy 20 - 25 in my head. Now, anybody's guess. With practice I probably could get my copy speed back, but arthritis and old age would limit my send speed.

[kickstand]

I hear ya. I took my General in about 1991 or there about. Had hell passing that 13wpm, but I did. I've had a few CW QSOs, but as with you, not in many years. When I was studying for the General, I'd mentally convert everything possible into CW...Stop signs, street signs, business signs, etc. Just about everything I saw while driving was mentally converted to CW.

As a side note : my son Ben is actually my step son. Dad before me (Jim) was a big time Ham, with stories of his DXpeditions to Africa and other points written up in magazines like CQ and ARRL. I didn't come into the picture until Ben was 12 years old. I'm told of the time that when he was 6 or 7, Ben would run around the house singing "dah di dah dit, dah dah di dah".

[olfart]

Di dah dit. Dah di dah.