The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947-97

THE SILENCE CALLING THIS ORIGINAL POEM BY SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON WAS DISCOVERED BY CHANCE BY JONATHAN CHESTER WHEN HE WA...

Author: Tim Bowden

47 downloads 2024 Views 21MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

THE

SILENCE CALLING

THIS ORIGINAL POEM BY SIR DOUGLAS MAWSON WAS DISCOVERED BY CHANCE BY JONATHAN CHESTER WHEN HE WAS RESEARCHING HIS BOOK ON ANTARCTICA, GOING TO EXTREMES: PROJECT BLIZZARD AND AUSTRALIA’S ANTARCTIC HERITAGE. IN 1985 HE VISITED THE SYDNEY HOME OF MARY DAVID, DAUGHTER OF MAWSON’S MENTOR PROFESSOR SIR T W EDGEWORTH DAVID. MISS DAVID, THEN IN HER NINETIES, SHOWED HIM AN ORIGINAL EDITION OF MAWSON’S TWO-VOLUME WORK HOME OF THE BLIZZARD, FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1915. INSIDE THE FLYLEAF WAS THIS POEM, WRITTEN BY MAWSON TO HIS OLD FRIEND WITH THE PHRASE THAT INSPIRED THE TITLE FOR THIS BOOK. TODAY THE SILENCE IS STILL CALLING AUSTRALIANS TO ANTARCTICA.

THE

SILENCE CALLING Australians in Antarctica 1947–97 T

T

H E

A N A R E

I M

J

B

U B I L E E

H

I S T O R Y

O W D E N

ALLEN & UNWIN

Copyright  The Antarctic Division of the Department of the Environment, Sports and Territories, and Tim Bowden 1997 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 1997 by Allen & Unwin 9 Atchison Street St Leonards NSW 2065 Australia Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.allen-unwin.com.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Phone: (61 2) 9901 4088 Bowden, Tim, 1937-. The silence calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947–97. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 86448 311 3 (hbk.) ISBN 1 86448 406 3 (limited ed.). 1. Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions History. 2. Scientific expeditions - Antarctica - History. 3. Antarctica - Research - Australia - History. I. Title. 507.20989 Designed by Textart Set in 11pt New Baskerville Printed by Brown Prior Anderson Pty Ltd, Burwood, Vic. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the relevant copyright, designs and patents acts, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publisher. eBooks Corporation

F OR

THE MEN AND THE WOMEN OF

ANARE

FOREWORD

I

n 1947 the Australian Government established the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) and, for the first time in Australian history, assumed full responsibility for Antarctic exploration and research and for financing all the operations. From this small and tentative beginning, the ANARE has developed rapidly into a large and complex organisation, maintaining Antarctic and subAntarctic stations and carrying out extensive exploration and scientific research. ANARE activities were directed to the 6000 kilometre coastline of the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT) and the vast, almost completely unexplored hinterland. The sheer magnitude of the ANARE task produced a breadth of approach and an attitude of mind rather different from those of nations whose fields of operation in Antarctica were much more circumscribed. Fortune favoured the Australian endeavours. An early start gave ANARE time to consolidate before the advent of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), with consequent benefits in scientific achievements during that momentous period. Moreover, being the first post-war expeditions to seek bases in AAT, the ANARE had the pick of the accessible sites. The selection of the Mawson and Davis sites was fortuitous. I was not to know of the existence of the Prince Charles Mountains inland from Mawson or that of the huge Lambert Glacier. These, together with the Amery Ice Shelf and the ice-free areas of the Vestfold Hills, the Larsemann Hills and the islands of Prydz Bay, presented fascinating fields for exploration and scientific studies.

vii

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

The Americans had discovered the Windmill Islands and built Wilkes Station in that region for the IGY. When Australia took over this base from the USA, another extremely interesting complex was opened to Australian researchers, while the inland ice plateau and Law Dome paid handsome dividends for ANARE glaciologists. The mountainous regions of Kemp Land and Enderby Land at the western, and Oates Land at the eastern, extremities of AAT completed the vast canvas across which ANARE operations over a fifty-year period were to extend. Patterns of Antarctic adventure had been set in the early years of this century, but those men had no monopoly of heroic endeavour. Countless numbers of young people from many nations have, over successive decades, risked their lives and achieved prodigious accomplishments in the face of the extreme hazards and difficulties of the Antarctic environment. Amongst them the men and women of ANARE stand proudly and Tim Bowden’s history is a monument to their efforts. Phillip G Law AC, CBE, MSc, DAppSc(Hon.Melb), DEd (Hon.Vic), DSc(Hon.LaTrobe), Hon. FRMIT, FANZAAS, FAIP, FRSV, FTSE, FAA and Director, Australian Antarctic Division 1949–66

viii

CONTENTS

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIV ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XVII ANARE TIME LINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XX INTRODUCTION: FLYING THE FLAG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

THE BEGINNING 1947–1953 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1 2 3 4 5 6

BIRTH OF ANARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 HEARD ISLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 MACQUARIE ISLAND AND PUSHING SOUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 THE FIRST OPERATIONAL YEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 EARLY DAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 TESTING TIMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPLORATION 1954 –1966 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

. . . . . . . . . . . . 97

BREAKING THE ICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 EARLY EXPLORATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 VIRGIN TERRITORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 SPREADING WINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 ANTARCTICA INTERNATIONAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 1959—A YEAR TO REMEMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 ANARE LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 FILLING IN THE MAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 WHY ARE WE THERE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 ix

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

TESTING TIMES 1967–1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 16 FROM PILLAR TO POST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 17 BUILDING AND MOVING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 18 FIELD WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

LIVING DANGEROUSLY 1982–1988

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

19 LIVING DANGEROUSLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 20 TURBULENT TIMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

CONTEMPORARY ANARE 1989–1997

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 21 TOWARDS 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 22 CHANGING THE CULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 23 SCIENCE AND THE FUTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

APPENDICES I II III IV

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

ANARE WINTERING EXPEDITIONERS 1947–1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 MEDAL WINNERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 VOYAGE LEADERS AND SHIPS’ CAPTAINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538 DEATHS ON ANARE SERVICE 1947–1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

ENDNOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

x

PREFACE

I

n November 1994, while filming an ABC documentary on Australians working in Antarctica, I stood alone on the top of an iceberg just off the coast of Princess Elizabeth Land near Davis Station. The helicopters that landed me had flown away. There was utter silence. The scene was breathtaking. To my left was the great tumbled mass of the Sørsdal Glacier glistening in the spring sunshine. Below me the sheer cliff of the iceberg plunged down into the frozen sea. In such an incredible location, I was gripped with a heady mix of exhilaration and fear. I have never felt so isolated and insignificant—a human speck in the vast emptiness of Antarctica. Humans do not belong in Antarctica. We go there like astronauts entering deep space, taking with us everything needed for survival— accommodation, food and fuel. Every visitor is a transient, staying for limited periods, a few weeks or months, or wintering for a whole year. No one lives indefinitely in Antarctica. Although ANARE—Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions—has been in existence for half a century, I am in no doubt that almost all those who venture south, for short or longer periods, do so because they are still motivated by a strong sense of adventure. For those lucky enough to go there, Antarctica becomes a magnificent obsession, drawing them back again and again. My own journeys to Antarctica in 1989, 1994 and 1995 have made me an enthusiastic polar recidivist. All travel to ANARE’s four permanent Antarctic stations is by ship, and to go on one of these polar voyages is the ultimate travel experience. It would have been extremely difficult, I think, to have attempted to write the history of ANARE without experiencing the classic stages of a journey

xi

T

xii

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

south by sea, visiting Macquarie Island, Casey, Davis and Mawson Stations, and meeting a variety of expeditioners while they were ‘on the ice’. Each small party not only works in and copes with an implacably hostile environment but has to endure living in isolation, with attendant passions, personal idiosyncrasies, occasional medical emergencies and some grinding routine. Inevitably there are ‘good’ years and ‘bad’ years on the sociological front. My feelings on beginning to write the history of ANARE were rather akin to standing alone on the iceberg—a mixture of excitement and fear. How much of the human drama of actually living in Antarctica should the ANARE historian pursue? Indeed for whom is the history designed—the general reader who may want to know what Australians have been doing down south for the last fifty years, or the professionals for whom a corporate history might be more appropriate? What proportion of this history should be devoted to the adventure/action stories of basic exploration, the raw realities of human interaction in isolation? What of the evolving importance of Antarctic science, Australia’s influence on international politics in Antarctica, the changing emphasis from exploiting resources to conservation? And what of the new awareness of the importance of Antarctica in assessing global climate change, and the Antarctic Division’s own struggles to survive against a backdrop of changing governments, contracting budgets and some inevitable internal dissension? For better or worse, I have tried to involve all these elements in The Silence Calling. I have selected events that are not only interesting in themselves but illuminate the most important themes. Some events and good stories have therefore had to be dropped in favour of others. For example, there were many epic tractor-train journeys onto the ice cap and the interior of Antarctica during the last half century, but it is simply not possible to feature them all. So the Vostok Traverse of 1962 out of Wilkes Station is dealt with in some detail as a contrast to the more modern Davis–Mawson–Davis glaciological traverses around the head of the Lambert Glacier in 1993–94 and 1994–95. I have attempted to describe people and events which give an overview of the feel and flavour of the ANARE experience without duplicating themes already explored. Many ANARE expeditioners who have taken part in notable events are not mentioned, but such omissions are an inevitable consequence of tackling a broad canvas and sweep of history. A great deal of the primary research for The Silence Calling has been gleaned from direct testimony and personal interviews with ANARE expeditioners and Antarctic Division staff whose memories extend from 1947 to the present day. These testimonies and interviews are intended to

P

R E F A C E

enlarge and enlighten the value of the written records. Through these accounts, the voices of ANARE participants can speak directly to the reader. Where possible, transcripts of interviews have been checked with the people concerned and drafts made available to many of the key players for verification and comment. Lists of those interviewed are included in the endnotes and transcript material is held in the Antarctic Division Library at Kingston. The Silence Calling is a commissioned work. I was obliged to show drafts to the Antarctic Division’s Jubilee Working Group as the manuscript progressed and they had the right to correct matters of fact, and to make suggestions. But, in fact, I was given autonomy over the writing of the ANARE history. ANARE’s history is a chronicle of life on a frontier, not only an important Australian frontier, but a significant international one. In the past, Australians have been very conscious of frontier life and pioneering, particularly in areas like the Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea. But Antarctica, far removed from broad-brimmed hats and sunburned faces, remains unfamiliar to most Australians. Mawson, in his balaclava, still seems an uncharacteristically alien image. My hope has been to do justice to the story of half a century of endeavour by ANARE expeditioners, whose enthusiasm, bravery, sense of adventure, patriotism and endurance have helped to keep Australia a world leader in scientific research and related Antarctic activities. They are the men and the women of ANARE—to whom The Silence Calling is dedicated.

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

xiv

his project began in 1993 when I was selected by the Antarctic Division’s Jubilee Working Group to write the history of ANARE from 1947 to 1997. The working group has been unfailingly supportive, its members cheerfully ploughing through many thousands of words of early chapter drafts, offering helpful comments and suggestions. Des Lugg and Martin Betts (whose corporate memory goes back to the 1960s), Patrick Quilty, Andrew Jackson, Liz Haywood and Phil Wood were particularly generous with their time and expertise. Peter Boyer, the chair of the group, has steered the project through all its phases with deft diplomacy and unfailing good humour—as well as rescuing the author from occasional lapses into the slough of despond during the manuscript’s four years gestation. The division’s legal officer Wendy Fletcher was extremely supportive. I was able to interview all but two of the Antarctic Division’s leaders and directors—Stuart Campbell, Phil Law, Don Styles (who acted as director for nearly seven years), Ray Garrod, Jim Bleasel and Rex Moncur. Phil Law was unfailingly patient and helpful despite a blizzard of phone calls and letters over the last four years. He also contributed many photographs from his personal collection. It is simply not practicable to list here all those members of ANARE who were helpful with reminiscences, papers and photographs. They are, however, acknowledged in the text and in the captions. In addition we have been able to publish a list of all wintering expeditioners from 1947–97 as an appendix to the history, as well as Polar Medal and Antarctic Medal recipients, voyage leaders and ships’ captains. I hope that will

A

C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

atone to some extent for any omissions. Ian Teague made available his unpublished manuscript Polar Medals Awarded to Australians for Service in Antarctica for reference purposes — for which I thank him. The ANARE Club has been a tower of strength in many ways throughout the writing of the history, not only giving permission to quote from the club journal Aurora, but helping me to amass an enviable collection of back copies. Max Corry, who has been compiling a list of ANARE winterers for many years, made his records available to me at the beginning of the project, which was deeply appreciated. Martin Betts, who took on the herculean task of preparing the final list of winterers for the ANARE history, was able to rationalise division records provided by the librarian Evlyn Barrett with Corry’s independent research. Kathryn Barker keyed the final list on to the computer. Robert Headland, archivist for the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge (whom I met appropriately for the first time in Antarctica in 1995) was kind enough to provide me with a selective computer printout from his authoritative Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions and Related Historical Events. This gave me access to all the Australian related voyages to Antarctica from Sir Douglas Mawson’s era to the present. As I live in Sydney, it was essential to have a researcher operating from the division in Hobart. Alison Alexander, a noted Tasmanian historian, got the project off to a tremendous start before leaving the project after a year to pursue her own writing career. Her expert preparation of source material and oral history interviews—particularly the preparation of a list of key dates and events—was an enduring legacy. Enter Annie Rushton who quickly mastered a complex brief and became a powerhouse of productivity, combining basic research with oral history interviews recorded in Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin. Annie Rushton’s input has been prodigious. I cannot think how I could have written the ANARE history without her. With office space at the division at a premium, Annie was given a desk in the multimedia unit. This was a bonus when it came to selecting photographs for the history. My personal thanks to Kevin Bell, Rene Wanless, Glenn Jacobson, Wayne Papps and Beverley Wood for their help in accessing and processing images from the division’s collection. Rene Wanless in particular worked well beyond the call of duty on this project. Dave McCormack, Judith Wolters and Nick Lovibond assisted mightily, identifying and coordinating contributions from private sources. Research into the early years of ANARE was facilitated by Gillian Redmond at the Australian Archives in Canberra and Chris Taylor, archivist at the Department of Foreign Affairs, both of whom helped me access

xv

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

key original documents. John Pepper and Moira Smythe at the Australian Archives in Canberra were also extremely helpful to Annie Rushton. My thanks also to Kathleen Ralston, then writing her PhD thesis on the early life of Phil Law, for her generosity with her original research. Geoff Munro was similarly obliging in making available the text of interviews he recorded with ANARE Heard Island veterans. At the eleventh hour, Andrew Jackson prepared the excellent ‘time line’ of ANARE history for which general readers and researchers will thank him down the years, as well as the author. ANU historian Hank Nelson provided a knowledgeable and friendly shoulder to lean on in the early stages of planning the ANARE history— as he has done with most of my major projects since 1980. I thank Patrick Gallagher of Allen & Unwin for backing this project before a line had been written, and senior editor Rebecca Kaiser for her cheerful and continuing counsel. Nina Riemer (who has edited all but one of my books) took on the unfamiliar topic of the Antarctic with her usual unflappable aplomb, and was not dismayed when asked to cut my first draft by 30 000 words. Thank you Nina. I don’t begrudge even one of them. And Nora Bonney was equally equable about casting her astute proofreading eyes over the remaining 200 000 words, for which I remain extremely grateful. Designer Mark Davis has created a very fine artefact. Clodagh Jones indexed this volume with speed, erudition and great competence. Transcriptions of all taped interviews were speedily turned around by Rose Eagleton and Robyn Annear. My father, John Bowden, inculcated into his teenage son growing up in Hobart a love of polar literature, and sowed the seeds of future interest in Antarctic history. This was confirmed by the head of ABC Radio National’s Social History Unit Jenny Palmer in 1986 when she suggested I undertake a major radio oral history project ‘Australians in Antarctica’. See what you started, Jenny? My wife Ros has been amazingly tolerant and supportive during my long periods of withdrawal from family life over the past four years. But above all, I am grateful to all those who have shared their experiences so frankly during the research and writing of The Silence Calling.

xvi

Jubilee Working Group: Evlyn Barrett, Kevin Bell, Martin Betts, Peter Boyer, Rob Easther, Liz Haywood, Jo Jacka, Andrew Jackson, Des Lugg, Harvey Marchant, Rex Moncur, Richard Mulligan, Pat Quilty, Phil Wood.

ACRONYMS

AND

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

AANBUS AAE AAT ACAN ACAP ACOA ACS AGSO ANARE ANCA ANCOSPAR APIS APTS ARPAC ASAC ASOC ASS ATCM BANZARE BIOMASS CATSA CCAMLR CEMP

Australian Antarctic Building System Australasian Antarctic Expedition Australian Antarctic Territory Australian Committee for Antarctic Names Advisory Committee on Antarctic Programs Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association Australian Construction Services Australian Geological Survey Organisation Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions Antarctic Names Committee of Australia Australian National Committee for Space Research Antarctic Pack Ice Seals (Project) Antarctic Policy and Transport Studies Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee Antarctic Science Advisory Committee Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition Antarktis und Spezialfahrt Schiffartsgesellschaft GmbH Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks Cooperative Air Transport System for Antarctica Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program

xvii

T

H E

S I L E N C E

COMNAP CRC

xviii

C A L L I N G

Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs Cooperative Research Centre for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Environment CRAMRA Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources CSIR Council for Scientific Industrial Research CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation DASETT Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism [and Territories] DEA Department of External Affairs DUKW WWII Vintage Amphibian—D (date of manufacture), U (utility), K (front-wheel drive), W (with winch) EAAN East Antarctic Air Network EEO Equal Employment Opportunity EPC Executive Planning Committee ERC Expenditure Review Committee FIBEX First International Biomass Experiment GLOCHANT Group of Specialists on Global Change and the Antarctic GPS Global Positioning System IAGP International Antarctic Glaciology Program IASOS Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies IBEA International Biomedical Expedition to the Antarctic ICSU International Council of Scientific Unions IGY International Geophysical Year IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPY International Polar Year JATO Jet Assisted Take Off JMR Joint Management Review LARC Lighter Amphibious Resupply Cargo LCVP Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel LIDAR Light Detection and Ranging LST Landing Ship Tanks NAVSAT US Navy Satellite Navigation System NBSAE Norwegian British Swedish Antarctic Expedition NGO Non-government Organisation NRAC National Radiation Advisory Committee PAC Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts PCM Prince Charles Mountains PSI Public Service Inspector PWC Parliamentary Works Committee SAB Special Antarctic Blend

A

SAE SANAE SCALOP SCAR SCM SIBEX SPRI STOL WOCE WRE

C R O N Y M S

A N D

A B B R E V I A T I O N S

Soviet Antarctic Expeditions South African National Antarctic Expedition Standing Committee on Antarctic Logistics and Operations Special Committee for Antarctic Research (later Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research) Special Consultative Meeting Second International Biomass Experiment Scott Polar Research Institute Short Take Off and Landing World Ocean Circulation Experiment Weapons Research Establishment

xix

ANARE

20 December 1946

March 1947

May 1947

7 July 1947 9 July 1947

17 November 1947 26 December 1947

28 February 1948 xx

TIME LINE

To build on Mawson’s earlier work and consolidate interest in the Australian Antarctic Territory, Cabinet agrees to refit Wyatt Earp for Australian exploration and research in Antarctica. In the lead up to the 1947–48 expedition, RAAF makes three long-range observation flights in modified bombers over the Southern Ocean including reconnaissance flights over Macquarie Island. Executive Planning Committee established and Stuart Campbell appointed to lead the Australian expedition. Phillip Law appointed as senior scientific officer. Executive Planning Committee decides on the title of Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition. HMALST 3501 sails from Melbourne for Heard Island arriving 11 December 1947. Wyatt Earp leaves Hobart for the Antarctic on a voyage that is thwarted by mechanical problems, weather and ice. On the same day, Heard Island is claimed for Australia and Atlas Cove Station opens with fourteen winterers. LST 3501 sails from Melbourne for Macquarie Island, arriving on 7 March 1948. The station opens on 21 March 1948 with fourteen winterers.

A N A R E

3 January 1949

13 July 1950

22 October 1951

6 February 1953

4 January 1954

13 February 1954

9 March 1955 March 1956

Summer 1956–57 13 January 1957

1–17 February 1957 30 June 1957 3 January 1958

1958

4 February 1959 1 December 1959 21 December 1959

T I M E

Phillip Law appointed as director of the Antarctic Division, which was formed in the Department of External Affairs and which, by year’s end, had a staff of eleven. Cabinet decides to establish a permanent station in Antarctica, but progress is thwarted by lack of a suitable ship. Inaugural meeting of the ANARE Club in Melbourne provides a focus for returning expeditioners to maintain contact. The availability of Kista Dan leads to Government approval to establish the proposed continental station in the 1953–54 summer. Kista Dan sails from Melbourne to seek a site for a permanent station in the AAT, arriving in Horseshoe Harbour on 11 February. Mawson Station commissioned with ten winterers who spend the first year erecting buildings, taking meteorological observations, and commencing coastal and inland exploration. Heard Island Station closes. Aircraft hangar erected at Mawson. The first RAAF Antarctic flight photographs 1600 km of coastline. Discovery of coal in the Prince Charles Mountains. Davis Station established for the International Geophysical Year with a winter complement of five. Wilkes is built by the USA for IGY in just 17 days. Official start of IGY with twelve nations having established Antarctic expeditions. Thala Dan commences a voyage which explores almost the entire coast of AAT and Terre Adélie and establishes Antarctica’s first continuous automatic weather stations on Lewis Island. Overland explorations from Mawson reach Amundsen Bay in Enderby Land. Australia takes over Wilkes from the US. Australia takes over Wilkes from the US. Antarctic Treaty signed by Australia and eleven other nations. The first four women to visit an ANARE station

L I N E

xxi

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Summer 1959–60 Summer 1961–62

8 February 1961

23 June 1961 17 September 1962 May 1963 25 January 1965

April 1966 1967 Winter 1968 Summer 1968–69

February 1969

2 October 1970

25 November 1970

27 January 1971 1971 18 February 1972 xxii

arrive at Macquarie Island on Thala Dan to take part as scientists in the summer program. Helicopters used by ANARE for the first time. Using dog teams, a journey from a camp in the Prince Charles Mountains travels south and makes the first ascent of Mt Menzies, the highest peak in the western sector of the AAT. Magga Dan arrives at Mawson carrying, as a guest of the ship, Nel Law—the first Australian woman to visit the AAT. Antarctic Treaty comes into force. Six expeditioners set off from Wilkes for a 17 week, 3000 km traverse to Vostok and back. In Melbourne the Antarctic Division moves from Collins St to St Kilda Rd. Davis Station closes for four years as construction of Repstat begins to replace Wilkes which has been buried by snow. Phillip Law resigns and is replaced by Don Styles as acting director. Australian Academy of Science conducts a review of Antarctic research. Amery Ice Shelf project—four men winter on the ice shelf in ANARE’s smallest wintering party. Prince Charles Mountains Survey commences an extensive field program that continues for another five summers. Davis Station reopens on 19 February 1969 following completion of Repstat which is renamed Casey. Bryan Rofe commences a short term as Director of Antarctic Division until his death in August 1971. LARCs replace DUKWs at Macquarie Island and then, in the same summer, are introduced into Antarctica. First recorded landing on the McDonald Islands. Radio telephone system introduced to improve communication between Australia and Antarctica. Underground cosmic ray observatory opens at Mawson.

A N A R E

8 May 1972 Summer 1972–73 Early 1974 December 1974 19 January 1976

1976 26 February 1977 2 March 1977 13 February 1977

1977

Winter 1977

18 January 1978 16 October 1978 December 1978

Summer 1978–79

2 April 1979 November 1979

T I M E

Ray Garrod commences as Director of Antarctic Division. Deep drilling commences on the Law Dome ice cap. Government decides to relocate the Antarctic Division to Kingston in Tasmania. Advisory Committee on Antarctic Programs reports on its review of the ANARE program. Four women arrive at Casey on Thala Dan to become the first women to visit a continental station as part of ANARE. On Macquarie Island, Dr Zoë Gardner is the first woman to winter with ANARE. Geologists land at Gaussberg for the first Australian visit since 1912. First visit of an Australian field party to the Bunger Hills. Qantas operates the first of a series of one day charter tourist overflights from Australia to Antarctica. Federal budget provides for rebuilding the stations, additional staff for the Antarctic Division, commencement of a marine research program, and planning studies for an Australian Antarctic ship. Rod Ledingham (OIC) and Jean Ledingham (doctor) on Macquarie Island become the first husband and wife team to winter with ANARE. Granholm hut erected at Cape Denison to support a summer program at Mawson’s Hut. Construction of new ANARE headquarters begins at Kingston. As the first stage in plans for a cooperative air transport system, RAAF flies four flights on the Christchurch–McMurdo route. US Hercules lands at Lanyon Junction to deliver scientists and summer support staff to work at Casey. Clarrie McCue becomes acting director following Ray Garrod’s retirement. Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee

L I N E

xxiii

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Summer 1979–80

Summer 1979–80

20 May 1980

December 1980 Summer 1980–81

January 1981

22 April 1981

January 1982 1983

18 February 1984 5 November 1984 xxiv

recommends that Antarctic research place greater emphasis on resources and environmental effects of their exploitation. For the first time it is necessary to charter a third ship, Nanok S, to carry cargo for rebuilding. New living quarters commissioned at Davis, the first of the AANBUS buildings. Six people camp on McDonald Island for four days in March to complete the first survey of the island. Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is agreed at a diplomatic conference in Canberra. Australia signs the Convention on 11 September 1980. Kingston buildings completed and transfer from Melbourne commences. Following her modification for marine research, Nella Dan supports FIBEX, ANARE’s first dedicated marine biology cruise and the start of a long-term commitment to Antarctic offshore research. In Terre Adélie ANARE participates in the International Biomedical Expedition to Antarctica—the first expedition solely for medical research. Dr Louise Holliday arrives at Davis to become the first woman to winter at an ANARE station in the AAT. New Antarctic Division headquarters opened by Prince Charles. Later that year in Tasmania’s Central Highlands the Bernacchi Antarctic Training Centre opens—named after the Tasmanian who was the first Australian to winter in Antarctica. Nella Dan commences a 35-day cruise in Prydz Bay for ANARE’s first marine geophysical survey. Joint Management Review recommends significant restructuring of the permanent staffing of the Antarctic Division. Jim Bleasel commences as acting director. Icebird departs Cape Town for Mawson on its maiden voyage for ANARE. The advent of Icebird allows a large number of expedition staff to be

A N A R E

Summer 1984–85

1985 Summer 1985–86 27 October 1985

Summer 1985–86 Summer 1986–87

18 January 1987 3 December 1987

17 December 1987

1 January 1988

5 February 1988

June 1988

29 October 1988 Summer 1987–88

20 December 1988 1989

T I M E

carried, opening up ANARE to many more participants. Fossil dolphin bones discovered at Marine Plain near Davis, proving this site to be of great palaeontological significance. Antarctic Science Advisory Committee established. Installation of ANARESAT satellite communications terminals commences at the Antarctic stations. Nella Dan becomes beset and, unable to be freed by Icebird, waits until 14 December to be released by the Japanese icebreaker Shirase. Some research is deferred and HMAS Stalwart relieves Macquarie Island. Edgeworth David summer base established in the Bunger Hills. Summer base established at Cape Denison near Mawson’s Hut. Two school students win the inaugural Antarctic School Science Prize and visit Antarctica on Icebird. Law Base in the Larsemann Hills opens as a summer scientific station. Nella Dan grounds in Buckles Bay, Macquarie Island, and is subsequently scuttled in deep water off the island on 24 December 1987. Government announces its intention to negotiate a charter for an Australian-crewed and constructed icebreaker. First live television broadcast from the AAT—a link-up with Davis during Australia’s bicentennial celebrations. As design of the new Antarctic ship proceeds, the prime minister announces a competition among young Australians to choose a name for it. Convention for the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activity is agreed by the Antarctic Treaty nations. Keel laid for Aurora Australis. Dovers Base established providing support for a five-year study in the northern Prince Charles Mountains. New Casey opened. The first woman station leaders, Alison Clifton

L I N E

xxv

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

22 May 1989

June 1989

18 September 1989

21 December 1989

Summer 1989–90

3 March 1990 4 October 1991

Summer 1991–92

August 1992

November 1992

Summer 1992–93

Summer 1992–93 xxvi

at Macquarie Island and Diana Patterson at Davis, take up duty. Prime Minister announces that Australia will not sign the Convention for the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources but instead explore the prospects for a comprehensive environmental protection convention. Inquiry into the Antarctic Division’s management by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts concludes and recommends an increase of staff for the Antarctic Division. Aurora Australis launched at Newcastle to be completed in time for a winter voyage to Heard Island in 1990. Rex Moncur appointed as director after acting in the position following Jim Bleasel’s resignation. A compressed snow-ice runway is constructed at Casey, but heavy snowfalls prevent the trial flights planned for February 1990. Governor of Tasmania Sir Phillip Bennett visits Macquarie Island. Antarctic Treaty meeting adopts the Madrid Protocol which bans mining and designates Antarctica as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science. A temporary station is established at Spit Bay to accommodate five people in the first wintering party on Heard Island since 1954. Antarctic Science Advisory Committee recommends that Antarctic science be restructured into six priority areas. Twenty-two huskies removed from Mawson in accordance with the Madrid Protocol and taken to the USA. Inland from Casey, while the old station is being removed, drilling through the Law Dome ice cap yields a 1200-metre ice core containing climate records going back 15 000 years. ANARE continental stations receive their first tourist visits by US-chartered Russian vessel Kapitan Khlebnikov.

A N A R E

February 1993 August 1993

December 1993 Summer 1993–94

6 April 1994 1994

Summer 1994–95

31 December 1994

September 1995 December 1995

Summer 1995–96

June 1996

May 1996

9 July 1997

T I M E

ANARE enters a partnership with NASA for cooperative research into human adaptation to isolation. Federal budget decides that ANARE should go to a one-ship operation supported by long-range helicopters. A review of ANARE head office staffing and structure commences. Completion of the first traverse around the head of the Lambert Glacier, the world’s largest, to measure ice movement. LARCs are used for the last time in Antarctica ending a 46-year association with army amphibious transport. Australia ratifies the Madrid Protocol. New science strategic plans completed, setting the direction for Antarctic research into the next century. A human impacts research program is established. ANARE operates with one ship for the first time since the summer of 1963–64. Long-range aircraft, S76 helicopters, are used to directly link the continental stations by air. Tourist charter flights to the AAT are re-introduced using Qantas aircraft. Over 2100 passengers see the AAT on six one-day flights. ANARE’s first voyage into winter sea ice. Australian Antarctic Data Centre established to integrate ANARE data sets and make data more widely accessible. With Polar Bird (formerly Icebird) on charter for the summer, this season supports 241 scientists and 116 days of marine research, the highest ever. Government nominates Macquarie Island and Heard Island for inclusion on the World Heritage List. Nineteen of the older buildings at Mawson, the oldest continually occupied station south of the Antarctic Circle, are placed on the Interim List of the Register of the National Estate. The 50th anniversary of the naming of ANARE sees Australia developing plans for the Antarctic program into the next century.

L I N E

xxvii

INTRODUCTION

FLYING

THE FLAG

A

Gypsy Moth biplane droned south over the vast sweep of the Antarctic ice sheet. It was 25 January 1930. Sir Douglas Mawson was sitting in the front cockpit, a leather flying helmet and goggles replacing his usual woollen balaclava. His lips were moving as he read aloud from a document on his knees, but the words, whipped back by the slipstream, were not heard by pilot Stuart Campbell in the rear cockpit: In the name of His Majesty King George the Fifth, King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India. Whereas I have it in command from His Majesty King George the Fifth to assert the sovereign rights of His Majesty over British land discoveries met with in Antarctica. . .1

The reassuring roar of the Moth’s engine at full cruising revolutions became a puny spluttering as Campbell eased the throttle to idling speed, at the same time holding the joystick back to keep the nose of the Moth up as the air speed decreased. It was the classic way to induce a stall. In seconds the nose of the aircraft dropped with a gut-wrenching lurch as the Gypsy Moth literally began to fall out of the air. At that precise moment Campbell flung a Union Jack tied to a wooden pole from the cockpit. The Moth’s engine roared as the aircraft dived briefly to regain flying speed, then circled as the two Australians confirmed they could see the splash of imperial red lying on the crystalline whiteness below.2 Twelve days before, on 13 January, Mawson had read the proclamation under more conventional circumstances beside a cairn of rocks on the quickly named Proclamation Island. On behalf of Great Britain

1

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

he had claimed a generous slice of Antarctica: Enderby, Kemp and Mac. Robertson Lands. While he had not MAP OF ANTARCTICA been on the Antarctic continent itself—as the annexing SHOWING NATIONAL CLAIMS. protocol laid down—it was a distinct improvement on occasional sightings of the Antarctic coastline from the ship Discovery, unable to penetrate barriers of pack ice. Sir Douglas Mawson’s first BANZARE (British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition), supported by the three governments, was to raise the British flag on the long coastline between Enderby Land and Oates Land with the understanding that Australia should control the whole of this enormous segment of the Antarctic continent.3 Although Mawson rated the scientific aims of BANZARE voyages highly, he was equally keen to ensure that Norway, France and the USA did not encroach on what both the British and Australian 2

F

L Y I N G

T H E

F L A G

Governments regarded as their own. There were commercial as well as territorial interests to safeguard, with Norwegian whaling ships active in the area. Australian territorial interest in Antarctica began in the late nineteenth century with the scientific and commercial plans of the Australian Antarctic Exploration Committee, supported at first by Australian learned and scientific societies, but with little encourSIR DOUGLAS MAWSON IN HIS agement at all from colonial legislatures. The Royal CABIN ON DISCOVERY DURING Society of Tasmania was particularly active in making THE BANZARE VOYAGES OF a case for Antarctic exploration, but the first Australian 1929–31. Antarctic Exploration Committee was set up by the (F HURLEY) Royal Society of Victoria in Melbourne in 1866. It tried unsuccessfully for twenty years to lobby for an Antarctic expedition and to raise the necessary funds. The first party to winter on Antarctica, led by Carsten Borchgrevink aboard Southern Cross, established a base at Cape Adare during 1899. Tasmanian physicist Louis Bernacchi, who was among the wintering party, also accompanied Captain R F Scott on his first (1901–04) expedition. Australian scientists seem to have been popular recruits. Ernest Shackleton’s first Antarctic expedition in 1909 included geologist Douglas Mawson and his professor at Sydney University, T W Edgeworth David, who even then recognised the potential of his student: Just as Shackleton was the general leader, so, in all sincerity and without the pride that apes humility, I say that Mawson was the real leader who was the soul of our expedition to the Magnetic Pole. We really have in him an Australian Nansen of infinite resource, splendid physique, astonishing indifference to frost.4

Mawson was a towering figure in every way and his Antarctic achievements over half a century are his greatest legacy. Australia’s claim to almost 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent is based mainly on his exploratory and scientific voyages in 1911–14 and the summer season BANZARE of 1929–31.

3

T

4

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Most territorial claims in Antarctica extend from the coast to the South Pole, the boundaries between the sectors radiating from the pole and dividing the continent like giant slices of a cake. The British, New Zealand and Australian claims are based on priority of discovery, followed by what has been termed ‘a sufficient display of authority’ such as the issuing of whaling licences, the policing of the area and the establishment of scientific and survey bases. Formal territories were defined on these grounds from 1903 onwards. Britain had granted a Norwegian whaling company a licence to operate in Antarctic waters between 45° east and 90° east in 1928 and it was at the end of 1928 that the British, Australian and New Zealand governments decided to support a combined expedition. Britain agreed to provide Scott’s old ship Discovery, at no cost, for an expedition to leave Australia in the summer of 1929–30. Sir Douglas Mawson accepted the leadership and immediately began raising funds. On 12 March 1929 a newly appointed Antarctic Committee held its first meeting in Melbourne to define the territorial and scientific aims of what were to be the BANZARE voyages from 1929 to 1931. The first BANZARE voyage reunited Sir Douglas with Captain J K Davis, who had skippered Aurora on the 1911–14 expedition. In contrast with the harmony of their earlier collaboration, the BANZARE voyage of 1929 was marked by tensions between them. Both men were in their late forties, both in the prime of their professional lives. Relations between them were strained even before Mawson joined Discovery in Cape Town in October 1929. Davis thought Mawson’s expedition untidy, badly organised, haphazard and ill prepared, while Mawson found Davis ‘very difficult. . .a confirmed pessimist, curt, surly, extremely rude and bad tempered’. Davis felt that Mawson did not understand the stresses and pressures a captain had. He found it difficult to get Mawson to make up his mind. Mawson used his diaries on the first BANZARE voyage to rail against Davis’s uncooperative attitude and even wondered if Davis’s lack of stamina and unpleasant disposition were caused by an inadequate diet ‘of pickles and beef’. It says a great deal for their underlying mutual respect—or tolerance—that Mawson and Davis maintained a cordial relationship in later years. On his return to Australia in March 1930 Mawson immediately began lobbying and planning for the second BANZARE voyage. It was fortunate for his ambitions that four Norwegian ships returned to their Australian and New Zealand bases that month with valuable cargoes of whale oil: the international interest in and the economic potential of the Antarctic were on opportune display. The Australian Prime Minister,

F

L Y I N G

T H E

F L A G

J H Scullin, told the House of Representatives on 22 May that a further Antarctic expedition would take place in the coming summer season, and that ‘work in the Australian sector of the Antarctic. . .is of considerable national interest and importance to the Commonwealth for economic, scientific and other points of view. . .’ Discovery was to be skippered this time by the chief officer of the first BANZARE voyage, K N MacKenzie, MAWSON (FRONT COCKPIT) who left Mawson and his scientists in no doubt that he AND PILOT STUART CAMPBELL would be a much more reasonable and indeed bold READY FOR TAKE-OFF ON skipper. But the burden of command fell heavily on A RECONNAISSANCE OF MacKenzie; he became nervous and irritable and made THE MAC. ROBERTSON it clear to Mawson in the latter stages of the voyage LAND COAST. that his whole future depended on getting Discovery (F HURLEY—COURTESY back to port safely. UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE, Although the difficult relations between Mawson MAWSON COLLECTION) and both captains with whom he sailed put some limitations on what was achieved, the BANZARE voyages were strategically and scientifically important. Few landings and flag raisings were possible, but Mawson’s voyages and his advocacy of Australia’s Antarctic interests were strongly instrumental in the British Government making the Order in Council of 7 February 1933 establishing the Australian Antarctic Territory. The Australian Government responded by passing the Australian Antarctic Acceptance Bill through the House of Representatives in May 1933 and the Senate on 1 June—although it was not proclaimed until August 1936.5 Attorney-General J G Latham cited the indiscriminate slaughter of female whales, whale calves and immature whales by the various whaling industries as a prime reason for Australia to take over and administer the territory. The area was close to Australia and might prove embarrassing in the hands of another power. It also had ‘considerable and potential economic importance’. He left the House of Representatives 5

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

in no doubt as to the significance of Mawson’s BANZARE voyages in claiming the AAT: ‘As a result of the voyage of Discovery, the area had been so thoroughly visited and British sovereignty so completely established, that. . .there was no longer need for delay in providing for the administration of the territory, and for taking it over on behalf of the Commonwealth.’6 THREE CHEERS FOR THE KING In summarising the achievements of BANZARE, Mawson gave more space to the scientific achievements ON 13 JANUARY 1930 AS SIR than geographical discovery. The dredging and specimenDOUGLAS MAWSON AND HIS collecting activities alone resulted in ‘the amassing of COMPANIONS TAKE an immense amount of data regarding the region lying POSSESSION OF MAC. south of Australia and the Indian Ocean’.7 ROBERTSON, ENDERBY AND KEMP LANDS FROM Although the outbreak of World War II delayed the publication of the scientific results of BANZARE PROCLAMATION ISLAND. (some 2700 pages in two series) and forced a pause MAWSON IS FIFTH FROM LEFT. on all Australian Antarctic work, Mawson lived long (F HURLEY) enough not only to be able to reflect on the achievements of his two major expeditions and the claiming of two and a half million square miles [six million square kilometres] of Australian Antarctica, but to be a key influence in Australia’s Antarctic policies in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He continued to lobby and take an active interest in future plans, and was influential in getting the Australian Government to establish bases in the AAT and to continue scientific programs, exploration and mapping. Largely as a result of his efforts, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions—ANARE—was formed in 1947, and has operated continuously for half a century. Sir Douglas Mawson died in 1958. Mawson Station, named in his honour, was the first Australian settlement to be built on continental Antarctica and remains today the longest continuously operated station inside the Antarctic Circle. 6

THE BEGINNING 1947–1953

ONE

BIRTH

OF

ANARE

A

s soon as World War II ended Sir Douglas Mawson resumed lobbying the Australian Government to consolidate claims to the Australian Antarctic Territory. In October 1945 the Australian press reported that he was making preliminary moves to organise—but not to lead—an expedition. By then he was 62. Others were also interested in Antarctica. Scientific bodies, particularly the National Research Council, were anxious to renew work there, public interest was stirred by press hints about uranium deposits and there was talk of renewing the Antarctic whaling industry. The activity of other nations meant that if Australia did not do something to consolidate her hold on the territory she claimed, she risked losing it. The British and Americans were active on the Antarctic Peninsula and in 1946–47 Admiral R E Byrd led a large expedition—the biggest ever mounted in Antarctica—to explore, photograph and map the continent and to extend American influence. Byrd’s ‘Operation Highjump’ succeeded in photographing almost the entire coastline of the continent, as well as several hundred thousand square kilometres of the interior—a tremendous achievement even though it was a massive assault organised on military lines, using 4700 men and 13 ships (including an aircraft carrier).1 Photographs taken of the coastline of the AAT were to be crucial in locating and establishing Mawson Station in 1954. The massive United States operation was regarded with suspicion by Australian diplomats, aware that ‘the State Department had always reserved the position of the United States Government regarding all Antarctic claims’. Australian concerns were heightened by the legal opinion that discovery followed by annexation was insufficient for claiming territory

9

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

if that were not followed by a subsequent continuity of ‘effective occupation’.2 A top secret note from the Australian Embassy in Washington dated 6 December 1946 informed the Department of External Affairs that despite Admiral Byrd’s refusal to be drawn into any discussion of claims to sovereignty in the area, there were grounds for thinking that ‘the United States, standing firm on its refusal to recognise any other nation’s claims to Australian [Antarctic] territory, might seek to lay the foundations for claims of its own to any part of the subcontinent which might turn out to be useful’. This note also expressed concern that the Americans were planning to enter the AAT and had made no formal approach to the Australian Government to do so.3 It was clearly time for Australia to think seriously about its claim to 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent. The key to the post-war activity was the prestige and personality of Sir Douglas Mawson. Later, ANARE’s first director, Phillip Law, said that only Mawson could have talked the Government into an Antarctic expedition when its resources were stretched with post-war reconstruction: Mawson was fundamental in persuading the government to set up the ANARE in 1947. . .It was Mawson who revived the whole business of Antarctica post-World War II and said, ‘Look, the war interrupted what we were trying to do, now let’s get back onto it and get it done’. And then he persuaded them to set up a committee. . .which later became the Executive Planning Committee. He was a strong influence.

10

On 2 December 1946 the Department of External Affairs had convened a committee of interested government departments—Defence, Fisheries, Mineral Resources, Supply and Shipping, Meteorological Service and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)— and Mawson himself. The committee recommended that plans for an Antarctic expedition should be made using a naval ship equipped with aircraft, and with the aim of finding a site for a base. Mawson suggested that Wyatt Earp be used as it had sailed to Antarctica before and was made of ‘stout timbers’. Cabinet accepted the recommendation and on 20 December 1946 the Australian public was told that a short reconnaissance voyage coordinated by the CSIR was to be sent to Antarctica ‘this summer’.4 ‘This summer’ was far too optimistic, but the departments concerned did act quickly. Scientific and practical concern with weather made it obvious that meteorological observations and research should be part of the scientific program. In meteorological terms there was a complete

B

I R T H

O F

terra incognita south and west of Tasmania. In January 1947 the South-West Pacific Regional Commission of the International Meteorological Organisation recommended that meteorological stations be established on Macquarie Island and various other islands. As a result, RAAF flights went far to the south to complete a photographic reconnaissance of Macquarie Island, to investigate conditions in waters south of Australia, and to test aircraft performance and crew fatigue.5 By early May 1947 much had been resolved. The Government had agreed to provide £100 000 [$200 000] towards the Antarctic expedition and £50 000 [$100 000] to refurbish HMAS Wyatt Earp.6 An Antarctic policy committee called the Executive Planning Committee and chaired by the Permanent Head of External Affairs, John Burton, had been set up consisting of representatives of the Navy, Air Force, Treasury, CSIR and Fisheries Department, plus Commander Oom, the captain of Wyatt Earp (and a veteran of BANZARE), Mawson and J K Davis. On 5 May this committee decided that Group Captain Stuart Campbell, a third veteran of BANZARE, was the most suitable leader, that he and other team members should be obtained at once, and that another ship would be needed as well as Wyatt Earp. Work the following summer should be limited to reconnaissance of a site for a base on the continent and setting up a station on Macquarie Island.7 The meeting was followed by a conference on the proposed expedition. There was concern whether Wyatt Earp, 28 years old and rather small, could do the job. The aims of the expedition were necessarily limited. Discussion took place about who would have command— a seaman while at sea, and the expedition leader on shore. 8 It all sounded unpromising, particularly for those who remembered the clashes between ship’s captain and expedition leader on the BANZARE voyages. The fragile nature of these plans was not made known to the public, but on 7 May there was an announcement that Group Captain Stuart Campbell had been offered the position of leader. At first undecided whether he would accept the leadership, Campbell eventually did so and set about organising the expedition.9 Later that month the Executive Planning Committee had firmed its ideas. There were to be two island bases and the continental reconnaissance party, with eleven or twelve people in each island group—meteorologists (from the Meteorological Bureau), physicists (from universities), geologists and geomagneticians (Mineral Resources), radio operators (RAAF), surveyors, cooks and diesel mechanics (Army, Navy or civilian).10 Men were to be recruited from government departments as far as possible, then universities and the armed services. As a last resort, advertisements

A N A R E

11

T

12

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

would be placed for the remainder. A scientific liaison officer and a medical officer were needed, and an LST (Landing Ship Tanks) would be used as well as Wyatt Earp.11 Davis, consistent with his nickname ‘Gloomy’, advised Campbell that LSTs were unsuitable for the Southern Ocean because of their shallow draught and box-like design, but Campbell told him that the seaworthiness of the LSTs could not be questioned.12 By July the Executive Planning Committee had ordered scientific equipment, appointed an advisory scientific committee to coordinate scientific activities, and decided on a title: the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition, with the pleasing acronym of ANARE.13 The Antarctic was not in the forefront of the Australian Government’s post-war thinking, although strategic concerns were evident—there was always the chance of other nations moving in on an empty AAT. The Government, with an eye to revenue, was interested in exploring the commercial possibilities of fishing, whaling and any mineral resources that might be found, and the need for meteorological and other scientific observations in the Antarctic was also acknowledged.14 But there was the usual reluctance to begin spending large sums of money. Because of Mawson’s lobbying of the Minister for External Affairs, Dr H V Evatt, to take some action to buttress Australia’s Antarctic claims, the ANARE office was loosely attached administratively to the DEA. The executive officer of the fledgling ANARE, Stuart Campbell, was appointed in May 1947, knowing that the first expedition to Heard Island on HMALST 3501 would have to leave before the end of that year. Campbell came from the Department of Civil Aviation, where he was the Director of Air Navigation and Safety. He was reputed to be a good administrator and one of few people with Antarctic experience—he had directed flight operations during Mawson’s two BANZARE voyages in 1929–31. His flying experience was extensive, including a period in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s, after which he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. During World War II he commanded the famous Catalina squadron from Darwin, and flew many missions against the Japanese. He was a man of action, an adventurer and a hands-on administrator. Campbell had no intention of flying a desk in Melbourne while all the action was elsewhere. He planned not only to accompany the Heard Island team on LST 3501, but to stay on the island for four months and be picked up by Wyatt Earp on its way back from its voyage to pick a site for a permanent Australian station on the Antarctic mainland. He set up the ANARE office in a suite of rooms in Victoria Barracks, St Kilda Road. His small staff consisted of administrative officer Trevor Heath, storeman George Smith and several typists. Smith worked at

B

I R T H

O F

A N A R E

Tottenham, a suburb thirteen kilometres west of the city of Melbourne, where the RAAF had provided a building in their No. 1 Stores Depot as a packing and storage area for the Antarctic venture. Smith’s interview with Stuart Campbell consisted of Smith putting his head round Campbell’s door and Campbell saying, ‘Oh, you’re George Smith. All right, you’re to go back to Tottenham and work with the RAAF till I tell you we want you.’ Six weeks later he told Smith, ‘We’ve got a bit of work for you.’ Smith said, ‘Well I’ve been around for about six weeks—is there any chance of getting a bit of pay?’ George Smith stood six foot four inches in his socks [193 centimetres] and possessed a voice that could THE ANTARCTIC DIVISION’S eclipse that of any sergeant major on parade. He was LEGENDARY STOREMAN to be the indispensable storeman for ANARE for the GEORGE SMITH IN RELAXED next 31 years. With Norm Jones (his clerk) and Trevor AND CONVIVIAL MODE. Heath he had to organise supplies for an unknown (P LAW) number of men going to an unknown destination in the south. Smith and Heath went through RAAF catalogues, choosing anything they thought might be needed. Smith, who understood RAAF procedures, wrote out his own vouchers, typed them up, put them through the RAAF process, and withdrew the material he wanted on the basis that ‘if you wanted it, there and then you took it’. It was ten years before the RAAF caught up with him. Physicists came from the universities, particularly Melbourne University where Dr Henry Rathgeber had his postgraduate students making equipment to study cosmic rays. Four of them became so interested that they joined the expedition. Melbourne University also provided another recruit. Phillip Law, a Victorian and the son of a schoolteacher, had always been interested in bushwalking, skiing and the outdoor life and had read all he could about Antarctica. After finishing school he studied physics at Melbourne University and in 1947 was a lecturer there. His professor, Leslie Martin, was often in Canberra, and one day as Martin and Law were walking down a passage Martin commented that the forthcoming Antarctic Expedition was having trouble finding a chief scientist: I stopped in my tracks and said, ‘Did you mention my name?’ and he said, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that, Law, would you?’ I said, ‘I’d give my right arm to go on that’. He said, ‘Good gracious me, I’ll

13

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

go and ring up’. And within a few weeks I had an interview and I was appointed the senior scientist for the expedition.

Phil Law (who would take over the reins of ANARE within two years) was, like Campbell, a born adventurer and a fitness fanatic. A short, vigorous man, clean shaven in those days, Law was then 35 years of age and crackled with energy and enthusiasm for what lay ahead. He was appointed senior scientific officer on 7 July 1947. Two days later the Executive Planning Committee decided that the official title of the expedition should be the ‘Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition 1947’.15 Law was to coordinate the scientific programs and carry out cosmic ray observations during Wyatt Earp’s proposed voyage to the Antarctic. Setting up major expeditions from scratch in six months was difficult and compromises, acceptance of second bests, were inevitable. While the practical problems were being solved, Law had to put in place a scientific program that not only would yield useful results immediately, but would look towards the future of Australian scientific research in Antarctica—if there was one. He was aware that meteorology and geology were the priorities from the Government’s point of view. Australia’s weather was profoundly influenced by the Antarctic, and any advance warning of what was coming would be clearly and immediately beneficial. If there were valuable mineral resources available for easy picking, naturally they would not only benefit Australia, but would help justify the millions of dollars to be spent. There were also longer term scientific objectives to be considered: As a physicist I was familiar with various aspects of geophysics—meteorology, gravitation, seismology, geomagnetism, upper atmosphere physics and cosmic rays—and it was obvious that Heard Island and Macquarie Island would provide opportunities for unique observatory studies in those fields. Even more obvious was the need for investigation of the zoological and biological species and general ecology of these sub-Antarctic islands and of their geology.

14

Law took up his duties as senior scientific officer at the ANARE office at Victoria Barracks on 1 August 1947. Later, he said that his job was to sit at a desk and think up all the possibilities, then try to get appropriate people interested. Law believed that the main scientific interest lay first in meteorology, followed by geology, biology (because of the abundant animal life), geophysics ‘and anything else you could think of’. He knew that the Government’s priority was to establish a territorial claim on Antarctica.

B

I R T H

O F

A N A R E

Having said that the main purpose is political, one must realise that they used science as a pseudo reason for going—as all the nations did—in order to cloak the real reason. No one likes to come out and say, ‘Oh, politically we’re colonialists, we want to go out and grab another bit of empire’. So you say, ‘Well, we’re going down for scientific purposes’. Later on it became pretty clear that Antarctica—apart from the Falkland Islands area—has no strategic importance. But in those days there was a possibility that it might be strategically important, but that’s political, it’s not scientific. So I had to design a scientific program for two reasons: first to produce the facade behind which all the rest could be carried out, but second to try to get some pay-off. . .and get as much scientific work out of it as we usefully could for the big money being spent.

Stuart Campbell set about finding personnel. He did this as far as possible by the ‘old boy’ network, interviewing men who were suggested by their government departments, especially ex-servicemen who could be recommended by their commanding officers. He liked strong characters, people he thought could cope well with the conditions they were likely to meet. For most positions he had plenty of people to choose from. Many jobs were not advertised; however, even limited publicity brought over 500 applications, mostly from men, but also from two schoolboys and one woman. People of several nationalities applied to go to Antarctica, but only Australians were chosen as it was an Australian venture. There was no thought in those days of taking women to the Antarctic, so the woman applicant missed out.16 Nor was there any psychological screening, later an important part of the selection process. Campbell: If they looked like good kids, I put them on. . .you’ve got to make a judgment. Most people are all right—give them a job and they’ll stick to it. Psychological screening came in during the war to screen people to see if they were going to be successful pilots, but it couldn’t be done. You can’t tell what a man is going to be like until you give him a job and he goes and does it.

ANARE expeditioners were recruited by formality, association and random collision. Stuart Campbell told applicants there were to be three parties, one for Macquarie Island, one for Wyatt Earp and one for an unknown destination. Heard Island was being kept a secret. Phil Law: The Heard Island bit was put in at the specific request of the British Government who said Heard Island—our claim on it—was disputed by

15

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

the Americans because they reckoned they discovered it. The British say it was first sighted by an Englishman. But certainly the first person to ever go there was an American. And the French island of Kerguelen is just a few hundred miles to the north-west. . .the Germans had used it as a base for raiders to raid allied shipping in the Indian Ocean during World War II. So you see, Heard Island was pretty important. And the secret instruction or request from London to our government asked that we do something about it. It was all kept very hush-hush in the early part.

16

Alan Campbell-Drury read an article about the expedition in the newspapers. He was in Japan with the navy but wrote to Mawson, whom he had known in South Australia, asking to go on the expedition. Mawson told him to come to Australia, so he did ‘the quickest exit from the navy ever!’ Mawson also recommended John Abbottsmith to Campbell. He was taken on as a diesel fitter. Alan Gilchrist, a young doctor, heard at a British Medical Association meeting that the expedition was having trouble finding medical staff. He loved the snow country, so applied to go. The next essential was equipment, and here George Smith’s expertise and the expedition’s needs came together. If the RAAF did not have what the storemen wanted, they ‘scrounged’. Some cold-weather gear, including heavy white high-necked sweaters made from unscoured wool smelling faintly of lanoline, came from Royal Navy disposals (the Royal Navy having sent warm clothing designed for the North Sea with its Pacific ships). Huts also came from disposals; the best were the fourteen-sided American buildings designed for Alaska. The Australian models, designed for the tropics, were not as successful, despite modifications. Food came from the RAN and landing pontoons from the Army. There were still shortages, and Smith had to forage around Australia for many essential items such as valves for transmitters. As cargo space was not a problem—the LST had plenty of room—he took everything that might possibly come in handy on the stations. Across the road was an old building containing tent pegs, mallets and mallet handles, so he put them in the store. If they could not be used as mallets, they could always be used as firewood, he reasoned. Wood itself was also a problem but, fortunately, the huts at Tottenham stood on wooden supports which were stayed by four-by-two struts. ‘I don’t think there was one left within any of the sheds within two hundred yards of us by the time we finished. How the place didn’t fall down, I don’t know’, Smith said. Many items could be obtained for nothing, but when things had to be paid for there was a problem—money. As a start, firms were asked to

B

I R T H

O F

donate goods, and many were generous: MacRobertsons (as they had done for Mawson’s BANZARE voyages) gave chocolate and confectionery, and Commonwealth Oil Refineries supplied fuel. Other goods were obtained as cheaply as possible. Rather than buy expensive huts the expedition built its own, using the doctor as carpenter’s assistant. In later years Phil Law persuaded MacRobertsons to donate the four-gallon [18.18 litres] tins in which nuts arrived from South America. They became polar toilets—and expeditioners sometimes scored the bonus of a few handfuls of cashew nuts before the containers were pressed into sanitary service. As their work would be finished when the expeditions left—or so it was thought—Campbell asked George Smith and Norm Jones if they would like to join an expedition south. Smith was only just out of the army and did not feel fit enough, but Jones agreed to go and was taken on as a cook. By July the itinerary of Wyatt Earp was fixed. She was to go to Commonwealth Bay in December for scientific work and reconnaissance of the Cape Freshfield area, then to Princess Elizabeth Land to look for a site for a continental station, and refuel at Kerguelen on her return to Australia. LST 3501, meanwhile, would set down the shore parties, first on Heard Island, then on Macquarie Island.17 The Executive Planning Committee held few meetings after July. It had decided the main outlines of the expeditions and the rest was up to Campbell to organise and implement. The Minister for External Affairs, Dr Evatt, then had the pleasure of reporting to Cabinet in August 1947 that scientific and meteorological stations were to be established on the two sub-Antarctic islands, reconnaissance was to be done in Antarctica itself, and a ship was to be obtained for Antarctic work.18 Meanwhile the new chief scientific officer, Phil Law, found he did not have to spend much time in his bleak office at Victoria Barracks. By a fortunate coincidence earlier in the year, Law had been invited by Leslie Martin, his professor at the Melbourne University Physics Department, to join a research team to develop a program of cosmic ray research. Working in conjunction with Dr Henry Rathgeber of Melbourne University’s Cosmic Ray Research Group, the team decided to send cosmic ray equipment on Wyatt Earp and to Macquarie and Heard to study longer term variations in the composition and intensity of the rays. Law, on Wyatt Earp, would measure latitude variations between Australia and Antarctica. Most cosmic rays—charged particles from outer space—are deflected by the earth’s magnetic field, but they occur at much greater frequency near the poles. The measuring equipment to be used had to be tested in the snow, in a hut specially built at Mt Hotham in the Victorian Alps.

A N A R E

17

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

The Cosmic Ray Group included six postgraduate students, David Caro, Ken Hines, Fred Jacka, Jo Jelbart, John Prescott and Leigh Speedy. Getting the cumbersome scientific apparatus to ‘Cosray Hut’ in August was difficult, involving not only vehicles but also packhorses. On the way one packhorse slipped on slushy snow and rolled fifteen metres down a steep slope, neighing shrilly and losing its load. Fortunately the horse was not hurt nor were the instruments irreparably damaged, and by 23 August ‘mechanical counters clicked intermittently and neon bulbs flashed as the incoming mesons of the cosmic rays triggered off the Geiger counters’.19 During the trips to and from Mt Hotham, often under dangerous conditions, Law established a leadership style in field work that changed little over the years. Fred Jacka, a 22-year-old physicist who was to join the Heard Island party, was impressed by Law’s knowledge of the mountain conditions and his capacity to get things done: Phil was a small man but extremely energetic and fiery. His drive, his energy and his determination were very apparent in the beginning. He was very much the leader in the field exercises. . .very effective, very sympathetic, but there was no letting up at all.20

Sometimes the scientists in Cosray Hut were snowed in for days, and Fred Jacka remembers another facet of Law’s leadership style that was to be a hallmark of later years and many Antarctic voyages: Phil took charge in a very masterly way and entertained the gathering very well with a clarinet. . .he played and we sang songs and he told stories. He was very much the centre of the whole social scene at that time.21

18

Law’s own discipline was physics. Oceanography and marine biology would be attempted during the voyages of both LST 3501 and Wyatt Earp, but he could find no professor in an Australian university prepared to take responsibility for the Island biology programs—seals, penguins, flying birds and plants. A young biology graduate, Ron Kenny, was found for the pioneer Macquarie Island party, but no one for Heard Island. It was hoped that Alan Gilchrist, the medical officer, would carry out bird observations in addition to his other duties, with Law acting as his supervisor for the biological work. By September the cold weather testing of the cosmic ray equipment was over and ANARE had more recruits. Jacka and Jelbart had been appointed to take one set of cosmic ray equipment to Heard Island—Hines and Speedy would go to Macquarie. Law would operate the third set on Wyatt Earp.

B

I R T H

O F

A N A R E

On 6 November 1947 the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. J B Chifley, publicly announced that Australia had organised an Antarctic expedition. There was a good deal of media interest which must have pleased the Department of External Affairs bureaucrats who had drafted a top secret Cabinet minute recommending such publicity, ‘with a view to consolidating Australian territorial claims in Antarctica. . .’.22 It was hoped regular broadcasts would be made from Heard and Macquarie Islands—and indeed from Wyatt Earp . Photographers would accompany each party to ensure a wide pictorial coverage of expedition activities, including a flag-raising ceremony to be conducted by Campbell on arrival at Heard Island. The Postmaster General’s Department would also arrange for the special postmarking of envelopes posted from Heard Island. The Government was determined to get maximum publicity and Clause 4 of the Cabinet minute left no doubt as to the real reasons behind the venture: That the leader of the Expedition be directed that in the event of a landing by any other party during the Expedition’s stay on Heard Island, he should peacefully assert Australian rights over the islands [ie Heard and the neighbouring McDonald Island].23

Expedition members did not undertake any special training for the Antarctic; they were meant to know their jobs already. The two cooks worked for a couple of days in a bakery to look at bread making, but there was no fire drill or any other specialist work. The men did have medical tests and Abbottsmith remembered that he had his teeth specially done with different fillings—porcelain, gold and amalgam—so dentists could see which were most successful in low temperatures. All worked well, he said. With no other training to do, the men were sent to Tottenham to organise their own gear, practise assembling huts and other pieces of equipment and help with the packing. This last was an advantage—when they came to unpack the material on the stations, they had some idea of how things had been packed, and they all got to know each other in the packing process. When the radio operators arrived back in Melbourne late in October after training at the RAAF wireless school in Ballarat, they found Headquarters working at full pressure to make the sailing date in the middle of November. They joined the others in choosing gear and packing, and Arthur Scholes was fascinated by one piece of equipment he was given—a silk combination suit, ‘a neck-to-ankle affair’—but without the holes where combinations usually have holes. He never solved the mystery of what to do with it.24

19

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Every morning the men reported to Victoria Barracks where Campbell had his office. Two luxurious hire cars with uniformed drivers, the usual transport for the Department of Foreign Affairs, would arrive. Instead of their normal passengers in dark suits they carried expedition members, dressed in an assortment of old uniforms and overalls, out to Tottenham. There the men crated bags of cement, loaded trucks, boxed and stored different items all day, and then climbed back into the luxury cars for the ride home.25 Already some members of the expedition were standing out. Dr Alan Gilchrist rode to Tottenham each day on his beloved motor cycle. On wet days he wore the expedition clothing to test it, but these tests came to an abrupt end when he skidded off his machine in wet concrete in the middle of Melbourne. Despite this incident, he planned to take his motor bike to Heard Island.26 Expeditioners Bob Dovers and Johnny Abbottsmith were sent to a Melbourne record store to buy records for the Heard and Macquarie parties. Abbottsmith: We said, ‘Look, we want 200 records’. The girl nearly fainted on the spot. She said, ‘Oh, I’ll take you to the manager. . .’ He said, ‘What do you want?’ We said we didn’t know. I wouldn’t know a record from a record in those days. So we left it to them and they made two parcels up, one for Heard and one for Macquarie.

20

The physicists were still working frantically on the cosmic ray equipment. Fred Jacka remembered reading a great deal about Antarctic matters and studying the subject he was to work on. J K Davis told him Heard Island was ‘the most God-forsaken place I’ve seen in all my days’, but this only made Fred all the more anxious to see it. On 6 November Prime Minister Ben Chifley announced the expedition’s aims: to maintain Australian and British interests in Antarctica, to find a site for a permanent base and to undertake scientific work.27 Commander Karl Oom was to command the recently commissioned HMAS Wyatt Earp. Of Swedish ancestry, he had served in the RAN during the war. All the stories about him were untrue, he said cheerfully when interviewed. Oom had experience in Antarctic waters as a hydrographer on Mawson’s second BANZARE voyage in 1930–31. The wooden-hulled Wyatt Earp had been further strengthened against the ice. She would carry radar, echo-sounding gear, instruments to measure cosmic rays, fifteen months’ food supply and the carcasses of thirty sheep. The ship would also carry an aircraft, flown by Squadron Leader Gray, who had never seen the snow and hated the cold.28

B

I R T H

O F

A N A R E

The captain of LST 3501 was Lieutenant Commander George Dixon, an experienced and popular skipper. Dixon had extensive seagoing experience, including rounding Cape Horn in a sailing ship before the mast. Someone, probably Campbell, had drawn up advice to station leaders. They were to delegate responsibilities and give the men as much freedom as possible, always treating them as equal members of a team. They were to remember PHIL LAW MAINTAINING HIS that the aim was the success of the expedition, ‘nothing ELABORATE COSMIC RAY else!’. They were to be fair and impartial, and espeMEASURING EQUIPMENT ON cially nice to the cook, who had a ‘lousy job’. To keep BOARD WYATT EARP, 1948. morale up, they should not allow too much spare time, (E MCCARTHY) and should break the monotony with celebrations, such as special Saturday nights, birthdays, Christmas, and a sweep for the Melbourne Cup. Spirits were to be limited to a nip a day, and port was provided for the Royal Toast.29 Preparations for the Heard and Macquarie expeditions continued at the Tottenham store where the men were loading trucks until two days before the first departure. There was no guarantee that the stores, carefully packed and checked by George Smith, would all get on board. According to Heard Island radio operator Alan Campbell-Drury: There was a lot of pilfering on the wharf. One morning just before we sailed, old Alf Hayter, the bosun on the LST, was in the middle of having a shave. I went up onto the bridge and Alf was waving a shaving brush at the wharfies down below and shouting, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you blokes. You get twice our pay and half the cargo, and you’re still not happy!’ And that sort of stuck in my mind. They were getting into our chocolate and what grog we had. And, mind you, some of this chocolate was our emergency rations! But anything sort of went in those days.

Arthur Scholes remembered how excited and tired the men were as the last truck, loaded to capacity, left the depot. Then the Heard Island

21

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

party was sworn in and signed statutory declarations of allegiance, and everyone headed for the LST, berthed at Station Pier, dwarfed beside two large overseas liners. LST 3501 had been built in Canada in 1943. Before she left for the south on 17 November 1947 she was inspected by the Minister for the Navy, W J F Riordan. Members of the expedition lined up in front of the ship, facing a naval guard of honour, and newsreel and press photographers were busy while Campbell introduced each man to the minister. Arthur Scholes was standing beside Norm Jones, the cook. ‘Ah, the most important man in the party!’ said the minister. ‘How right he was!’ commented Arthur.30 Once this formality was over, the first Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition was ready to leave.

22

TWO

HEARD ISLAND

Heard Island is a very threatening place, the sheer malevolence of it hits you when you go there. It is essentially black and white, stark, because the black volcanic rock cliffs rise out of a grey seething sea, the wind is blowing, and the birds are just floating around in the gale and screaming. The tops of the island’s black cliffs are coated with a thick, 50-foot or so layer of glacier white ice, and this disappears up into the swirling mists that are engulfing this great mountain. I’ve brought men who have wintered in Antarctica into Atlas Cove, and they lean over the rail and say, ‘Jesus what a place!’ Phil Law

F

inding a ship capable of carrying passengers and heavy cargo and able to combat the wild seas and hurricane-strength winds of the Southern Ocean was difficult in post-war Australia but the Naval Board, after some collective soul searching, decided that an LST (Landing Ship Tanks) could do the job. Landing Ship Tanks were substantial vessels mass-produced during the war as multi-purpose, cargo-carrying work vessels. They were designed to run up on to the beach and discharge tanks, troops, and heavy equipment through their blunt bow doors, over a big steel ramp which dropped down for that purpose. (It was unavoidable, considering the speed of construction, that some LSTs were jerry-built. Numbers of them had broken in half in Atlantic storms while ferrying goods from America to England during the war.) They were essentially vast cargo holds with engine, bridge and accommodation tacked on the back, so there was no shortage of cargo space on HMALST 3501 for the Heard Island operation.

23

T

H E

H

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

eard Island has a unique record in the history of exploration. It was ‘discovered’ no fewer than eight times. An active volcano, rising sheer out of the sea to 2745 metres, its peak, Big Ben, is seldom seen through the constant swirling clouds. Situated south of the Antarctic Convergence, where the chilled Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean meet the warmer waters of the Indian Ocean, it is 4000 kilometres south west of Western Australia and some 1500 kilometres from the Antarctic coastline. A 42-kilometre-long island running north-west to south-east, it is heavily glaciated and ice cliffs form much of the coastline. The climate is Antarctic, while the vegetation and animal populations are sub-Antarctic. Winds in excess of 130 kilometres per hour are common throughout the year. The first person claiming to sight it was Englishman Captain Peter Kemp, who in 1833 was exploring the area in his ship Magnet, looking for sealing and whaling opportunities. The island appeared on his track chart.1 Sixteen years later an American, Captain Thomas Long, also reported sighting land, but neither he nor Kemp published his discovery. This was left to another American, Captain John Heard, who saw the island on a trip from Boston to Melbourne in his ship Oriental. If discovering a place means publishing its location so that others can find it, Heard’s discovery of

Heard Island was the basis for America’s claim to ownership.2 News moved slowly, however, and the following year four British captains thought they had discovered the island, as did a German in 1857.3 The importance of discovery lay in the promise of wealth from the thousands of seals found on the island’s beaches. By the 1850s, whaling and sealing had been established in the Southern Ocean for 70 years and in many places the supply of animals was declining. Heard Island was plundered from then on by visiting gangs of sealers for its fur seals and blubber from elephant seals.

After the 1880s, due to indiscriminate slaughter, it was difficult to find enough seals. Few further voyages were attempted and in 1902, when a German group under Professor von Drygalski visited, the island had been deserted by humans for some years.4 In the early years of the twentieth century Heard Island was deserted and little interest was taken in it until in 1908 a Norwegian asked the British Government whether they had claimed the island and if so, whether he ➤

H

could operate a floating whaling factory there. Some whaling was carried on for a short period, and the island was claimed for Britain.5 Whaling was revived in 1926 when a South African firm obtained a licence to operate in the area and in January 1929 one of its ships, Kildalkey, visited Heard Island under the command of Captain H O Hansen. Kildalkey also landed a French geologist, E Aubert de la Rue, who carried out a survey on the northern part of the island.6 Later in 1929 nine members of the BANZAR expedition under Sir Douglas Mawson stayed for eight days and undertook surveying, photography, biology, and exploration. Elephant seal carcasses were abundant, they observed, and had been stripped a few weeks previously, so some sealing continued.7

E A R D

I

S L A N D

In the 1930s all sealing and whaling finally ceased on Heard Island as the price of oil crashed during the Depression, and the next phase in the island’s history was as a possible base for submarines. During World War II the Australian Navy checked it to see if the Germans were operating there. They were not, but German raiders did use the nearby Kerguelen Islands on a number of occasions to shelter, make running repairs, take on fresh water, and change the identity of individual ships.8 After the war the British Government, aware of the American interest in Heard Island based on historical precedent and its strategic importance, asked the Australian Government to occupy the island as part of its post-war Antarctic activity.9

The Captain, Lieutenant Commander Dixon, had encouraged his ship’s surgeon, Peter Blaxland, to put his MG sports car in the cargo space so that the two men could have transport from Fremantle to Perth during a stop-over there. Even with the prefabricated huts, a year’s stores, and a bulldozer, there was plenty of spare cargo space. The expedition’s doctor, Alan Gilchrist, put his prized 500 cc Indian motor cycle on board and took it south. Dixon had selected LST 3501 for the Antarctic expeditions from the LSTs available after the Australian Government had acquired a flotilla of six in 1946. Allegedly the pick of the bunch, she had lost her bow doors in an accident in the Coral Sea in 1946, and without them (they were designed to give the bow a modest convex shape to help steer the ship) looked even more like a shoe box. Dixon, with the help of naval architects, redesigned the devices which held the bow doors in place at sea, enabling them to be opened and closed more quickly in emergencies. This was to be a blessing later at Heard Island. On 17 November 1947, LST 3501 passed through Port Phillip Heads and turned her reconstituted bows to the west. Bass Strait was relatively calm, with a slight swell. ‘Doc’ Gilchrist began the time honoured ANARE tradition of breaking out sea sickness pills for the landlubber expeditioners. He thought they might help 50 per cent of sufferers, but fell foul of his own statistics. He was one of the first to succumb.10

25

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

As the ship neared Fremantle the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh was celebrated with loyal toasts. The party practised landing with an LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel) and were entertained at the Fremantle Town Hall with beer and sandwiches. ANARE leader Stuart Campbell joined the party, and LST 3501 HMALST 3501—LATER sailed for Heard Island on 28 November 1947. Dr Peter LABUAN. Blaxland’s MG sports car had to remain on board, as (P LAW) Dixon was told by the navy that he might have to return directly to Melbourne from Heard. For the first four days south the weather was warm and calm, the nights tropical and balmy, and everyone enjoyed the trip. Expeditioners were allowed a full run of the ship—even access to the bridge at any time, a privilege that became a cherished part of the ANARE experience in later years, with most polar captains allowing expeditioners to come and go at will, except while entering or leaving port. Fine weather left with December, and the Roaring Forties struck. The flat-bottomed LST not only rolled alarmingly (40 degrees from the upright was not uncommon), but the whole vessel flexed and twisted. Dixon was heard to say that they were the biggest seas he had ever seen and later he wrote: An enormous green wall of water would appear ahead. Up the bows would rise, and the white top of the oncoming sea would break angrily and disappear beneath them. Occasionally when the sea had passed, the bows would fall unsupported and pile-drive an oncoming sea with a resounding crash. Seeing is believing the way an LST can bend. The whole structure quivers like a spring board after a diver has jumped off. The decks bend in ripples like a caterpillar in progress. Bulkheads pant with a loud banging noise as the ship gathers for another attack. And so it goes on, making sleep out of the question.11

26

With no land masses to break the onrush of wind and waves around the globe, 30-metre-high waves are not uncommon in the Southern Ocean. When the trough is taken into consideration as well, the towering

H

E A R D

I

S L A N D

walls of water are higher than substantial ships. Sub-Lieutenant John Lavett remembered that first storm: We made only 50 miles [93 kilometres] one day, which would have been even better if it had been in the direction we really wanted to go. The wind shrieked. The swell ahead of us was immense to the point where the waves had separate breakers, of say seven feet [2.23 metres], on top of them. The overall size of the seas was difficult to measure because they towered over the ship. Our height above sea level on the bridge was about 36 feet [10.9 metres], and we were still looking up at walls of water. Fifty feet [15.2 metres], seventy feet [21.3 metres]? Who knows?

At the height of the tempest came a dramatic call over the loudspeaker system: ‘All hands and expedition personnel muster on the foredeck! Deck cargo is loose forward!’ A particularly venomous wave had crashed over the forecastle, and washed aft over the main deck. A bridging pontoon, torn from its lashings, stove in the bows of a motor boat. Drums of aviation fuel broke loose and began rolling about the heaving deck. Stuart Campbell, in tennis shoes and overalls, worked beside navy and ANARE men, slipping and sliding over the oily main deck securing the cargo. Expedition radio operator Arthur Scholes wrote in Fourteen Men: Once I paused in the middle of heaving on a drum, my stomach muscles exhausted with strain. I glanced at the rising and plunging bows. It was an awe-inspiring sight! Magnificent, yet dreadful. Great mountains of turbulent water lay ahead. Down in the trough the water surrounded the ship like the grey walls of a prison. The water walls were higher than the funnel. . .we worked with the energy born of despair.12

Fears that the LST might actually break in two were fuelled by a crack, about one metre long, which developed in the steel deck near the bridge. Johnny Abbottsmith, the expedition’s diesel mechanic, recalled how they watched this crack open and close as the LST bucked and twisted, riding over the huge seas. It could not be welded because of the continual expansion and contraction. The ship’s chief engineer came up with an ingenious solution. Holes were drilled in a steel plate big enough to straddle the fracture: Then when all the holes were drilled everybody stood by. The people under the bulkhead were ready with the nuts, and the sailors up on top had the bolts ready to drop into the holes when they lined up. And when we were down in the trough of a wave they banged in the bolts and they

27

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

had the nuts on the bolts from underneath before we hit the top of the wave again. Then they tightened them up and stopped the crack from developing right across the boat and breaking it in half.

After four days of full gale, the weather began to ease, but it was still very rough. At 9.45 pm, Sub-Lieutenant John Lavett was on the bridge when the engine room telegraph rang. The engines were about to be stopped as there was a problem with the fuel. Lavett said his first thought was: ‘Gee, you can’t stop here!’ But stop we did. The lights went out and the only sound was the loud ringing of the gyroscope alarm bell in the bowels of the ship, working off its temporary emergency supply. We began to wallow and broach. If this had happened a few hours earlier, I do not think our chances would have been better than minimal, but again we were lucky. The enormous pounding the ship had experienced had started a couple of plates, and salt water had entered a fuel tank.

Landfall was made on 11 December, with a rare sighting of Big Ben, the 2745 metre volcano almost permanently cloud covered. Johnny Abbottsmith: When we first saw the island we just looked at it in amazement! We were forty miles [74.4 kilometres] out to sea and all we could see was this big ice-cream cone sticking up in the air, out of the clouds.

With only rudimentary maps and charts available, Dixon approached Heard Island with extreme caution. The first plan was to run down the eastern, more sheltered side of the island and land the expedition at Spit Bay on the extreme south of the island. Then it was hoped to establish a cache of stores at Atlas Cove in the north (where a small dwelling, Admiralty Hut, already existed, built in January 1929 by the crew of the whaler Kildalkey to shelter shipwrecked sailors). With depth sounder pinging and engines at dead slow, the LST nosed towards the inhospitable shoreline of Spit Bay.13 Campbell began to organise a landing party to find a suitable camp site. Aub Gotley, the senior weather man and OIC of the first Heard Island ANARE wintering party, was posted on the bridge to warn of sudden changes in the weather. So sudden and violent are the changes in those latitudes that after one hour Gotley warned the captain the barometer was falling and a change in the weather was imminent. Arthur Scholes: 28

The captain did not hesitate. Preparations for the landing party were abandoned and the order was given to up-anchor. With her bows point-

H

E A R D

I

S L A N D

ing to the NE, the LST steamed out of the bay. The departure was not a moment too soon. The wind came tearing in from the west, whipping up the waves. Grey clouds turned to black ones. Fog descended round the rugged coastline, as if nature herself was laying a smoke screen to hide the secrets of her wild stronghold.14

Several hours later the LST steamed cautiously into the relatively sheltered waters of Atlas Cove flanked by the bulk of Rogers Head to the east (thought to have the profile of a Red Indian) and Cape Laurens to the west. Again Campbell began to assemble a shore party. An LCVP barge—a mini version of the LST with a drop-down landing ramp—was used, and Arthur Scholes was included to operate the walkie-talkie radio between shore and ship. As penguins watched impassively from the shore, the LCVP ground to a halt some twenty metres from dry land. The bow ramp went down, and they were free to land. Scholes said no one seemed to want to make the first move. Eventually David Eastman, the official photographer, took the initiative. ‘Well I’m supposed to get the pictures. I might as well be the bloody hero.’ With his movie camera slung over his shoulder he jumped off and sank to his thighs, shouting over the laughter of the rest of the party that ‘it’s as cold as charity’. Campbell was next, and then they all splashed ashore. Scholes: The barking of the elephant seals in the nearby tussock and the shrill protesting cries of the birds, flying inches above our heads, were the only sounds which greeted the first visitors to the island in many years. The absence of other noises was almost disturbing to ears accustomed to the shipboard cacophony. It was the strange mysterious silence of an unknown land.15

Two hundred metres from the water’s edge stood the tiny Admiralty Hut, still in good condition. Two elephant seals lay wallowing outside the door, but were persuaded to move by Campbell, who belted their tails with a piece of driftwood. Inside, he found seven bunks, emergency rations and a Union Jack left by the Mawson BANZARE party in 1929. After an hour the weather closed in again, and the shore party was asked to return to the ship. The next day the LST again steamed south down the east coast of Heard Island to Spit Bay to try to find a site for the main camp. The weather was fine and clear and an LCVP and a dinghy were sent off to attempt a landing. But a heavy surf was breaking onto the rocky beach. Wide open to the north-easterly winds, without shelter for the landing barges, Spit Bay was clearly not suitable for the main station. The LST

29

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

returned again to Atlas Cove. Taking advantage of the fine clear weather, the Walrus amphibian aircraft was winched over the side and at 4 pm on 13 December the amphibian took off, circled LST 3501 twice in salute, and flew down the east coast to Spit Bay. It was piloted by Flight Lieutenant Mal ‘Smithy’ Smith, and his crew included Warrant Officer Peter Swan to take still photographs, ADMIRALTY HUT WAS BUILT radio operator Warrant Officer C Dunlop, and David IN 1929 AT ATLAS COVE BY Eastman with a movie camera.16 During the first part THE CREW OF THE WHALER of the flight they saw and photographed an unknown KILDALKEY TO SHELTER lake on the west side of the southern extremity of SHIPWRECKED SAILORS. Heard Island. (AAD ARCHIVES) The big surprise was Big Ben, thought to be only about 7500 feet [2286 metres] high. Smithy reported that when his cockpit was level with the top of Big Ben’s dome, his altimeter read 10 000 feet [3048 metres]. ‘But that was nothing! We saw another peak about a thousand feet [305 metres] higher. It was mostly hidden by clouds, but we could see the top sticking up like a pimple.’17 The existence of this second ‘pimple’ peak was unknown, and hidden from view at ground level. At a confirmed 2745 metres Big Ben did not measure up to Smithy’s enthusiastic first observations, but it was significantly higher than first thought. It had been a good day’s work and the historic flight had lasted an hour and a half. Smithy was disappointed not to be able to fly over Big Ben’s summit—he was recalled by radio because of bad weather moving in. David Eastman suffered a frostbitten right hand operating the camera trigger without a glove as he filmed the summit of Big Ben. The Walrus was taxied onto the beach at Atlas Cove and tied down to large stones and concrete blocks brought ashore from the LST. In navy parlance, Walrus aircraft were known as ‘ducks’, and Captain Dixon went ashore to check on ‘the duck’s’ security. Dixon noticed under the aircraft a large almost perfectly oval stone resembling an egg, and ordered it to be taken back on board where it was painted the same colour as the 30

H

E A R D

I

S L A N D

‘duck’. In the wardroom that night he presented it to pilot Mal Smith and sent a whimsical signal to the presumably bemused Australian Commonwealth Naval Board: ‘Duck has laid an egg. Is this unique?’ There was no immediate reply from Melbourne. Campbell was still undecided where to put the main camp. Admiralty Hut on the western side of the Atlas Cove beach had obviously survived Heard TETHERED WALRUS Island’s worst weather, but it was well away from any AMPHIBIAN AIRCRAFT AT sources of fresh water and besieged by elephant seals WHARF POINT, HEARD wallowing and belching in the high tussocks surrounding ISLAND. it. An alternative site (later known as ‘Windy City’) at (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) the eastern end of the bay needed to be checked, and a seven-man party, including Fred Jacka, one of the expedition’s physicists, was sent off in the LST’s work boat with a tent and camping gear to check out the site, make tide measurements, and establish a site for magnetic observations. Two LCVPs were sent to take the party to Windy City, and the first of many near disasters to plague unloading operations took place: one LCVP began to take water and sink, and had to make a run for the shore. At Atlas Cove, the plan was to unload heavy cargo on to pontoons and tow them to shore, augmented by the two LCVPs. But the plyboard pontoons were hopeless in the swells rolling in to Atlas Cove, and the LCVPs were plagued with mechanical breakdowns. One of the expedition’s main radio receivers was badly damaged on a pontoon and after a week’s activity at Heard Island, very little cargo had reached the shore. LST 3501 was burning up so much fuel that there was concern that she might not have enough oil to get back to Australia. The weather, in typical Heard Island style, was capricious and vicious. Dixon made the courageous decision to run the LST up on to a rocky beach so that the heavy cargo could be unloaded directly and quickly—otherwise there would be no wintering party at Heard Island that year. The beaching was made without incident and a party of navy personnel and expeditioners cheerfully plunged up to their waists in freezing water, 31

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

UNLOADING THROUGH THE BOW DOORS OF LST 3501—A RISKY BUT NECESSARY OPERATION.

(A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

32

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

shifting rocks to try to make a primitive jetty to the lowered ramp of the LST. There was a gap between the ramp and the beach, making the manoeuvre to drive the expedition’s tractor ashore a critical task. When a gangway of planks was built Doc Gilchrist decided it was time to get his prized Indian motor bike ashore. The duty officer in charge of unloading refused permission, so Gilchrist waited until he went to lunch and the more amenable Captain Dixon took over: I revved her up and Captain Dixon turned his navy cap back-to-front, grabbed the carrier, and pushed like mad. I zoomed across the bridge and up the beach, and then I hit a grass tussock and the bike went over and I was ashore.

That was Gilchrist’s sole Heard Island motor cycle excursion. The Indian was no trail bike and simply bogged down in the volcanic sand. He claimed to be the first man to ride a motor bike in the Antarctic. LST 3501 had beached early in the morning and unloading went on furiously all day. The most backbreaking task was to roll the 44-gallon [200 litres] drums of oil up over the rocks of the landing beach. The uphill shove became known as ‘The Burma Road’, after the famous wartime supply route from Burma across the Himalayan foothills towards China. Abbottsmith bulldozed a track through the tussocks to Admiralty Hut and at the end of the day 300 drums and tonnes of food were on shore.18 By 8 pm Aub Gotley warned of approaching bad weather and the LST prepared to pull back from the beach. She came off the rocks, but swung around and went aground broadside to the beach. The port and starboard engines were juggled to no avail. Nothing would shift the ship and it was getting dark. All available boats were launched to take out extra anchors to try and winch the ship to safety. It was decided to take the stern anchor farther out in the hope that the extra pull might move

H

her off the rocky bottom. The officers on the bridge signalled to the work boat to take the stern anchor out; there was no response. They hooted irritably on the ship’s siren several times, but the work boat’s engine had failed. The situation was verging on desperate. Even with the stern anchor moved further out and both engines straining, the LST could not be budged. John Lavett recalled that there was nothing more they could do:

E A R D

I

S L A N D

THE ‘BURMA ROAD’— HAULING STORES ASHORE,

WHARF POINT, HEARD George Dixon went below for a cup of coffee and no ISLAND, DECEMBER 1947. doubt to contemplate our next move, leaving me on (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) the bridge alone. I stood there for some time, in a somewhat melancholy state, when I heard a ‘click’, then another, and after a while another. It was the gyro compass. I took the two flights to the wardroom in two bounds to shout to George: ‘She’s swinging sir’. He was half a pace behind me on the way up again. Indeed she was. She came off gently, by herself, evidently as the result of a very soft wind and tide change. We quickly got ourselves further out to anchor, tired but elated. Half an hour later a full gale burst on to the area we had just left. Had we still been there, we should certainly have been finished. We had been very lucky again.

But in weather terms Heard Island had only been toying with the first ANARE expedition. On the morning of 20 December Gotley told Dixon that the weather was changing rapidly and warned against either beaching the LST or attempting another flight. There were two expedition groups on shore; one had access to the Admiralty Hut but the other, at Windy City on the eastern side of the bay and living in tents, was more exposed. By 8 pm a 50 knot gale was blowing in Atlas Cove and so steep was the barograph fall that Gotley decided to keep an all-night vigil on the bridge. By 3 am on 21 December, the pressure had fallen to 28.14 inches [71.47 centimetres], lowering by half an inch [1.27 centimetres] the record for those latitudes, and was still falling. Dixon ordered

33

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

that LST 3501 be prepared for sea. The two anchors began to drag and, even with both engines at full speed, the ship was being driven on to the rocks.19 Dixon later described the gale as the most violent he had ever experienced in a lifetime at sea. No sooner had he cleared Atlas Cove than his radar failed. His dilemma: to ride out the storm at sea, or to nose blindly into the lee of the unknown, shoal infested western shore of the Atlas Roads peninsula to seek some shelter from the 200 kilometres per hour westerly winds: If I remained at sea it was inevitable that, sooner or later, the upper deck would be swept clean. Boats, rafts, precious drums of lubricating oil—would all be swept away or destroyed. The wooden structure of the bridge house quivered and shook. Its sides bulged so that the doors flew open, and one wondered if it would collapse altogether. Ears drummed as though one were at high elevation in an aircraft. At every moment we expected the glass windows to blow in.20

When Captain Dixon stepped out of the chart room on to the rear of the bridge, the wind immediately knocked him down and hurled him against a gun platform. He decided it would be less risky to seek shelter under the lee of the island and nosed his ship blindly towards Heard Island to ride out the hurricane. Meanwhile, at Windy City, Campbell and his small party piled up cases of supplies around the walls of their army tent on the windward side, but it wasn’t long before their canvas shelter was shredded by the screaming wind. They finished up huddled behind the cases. It was a long night. In the morning when the wind eased so that they could actually stand up, Fred Jacka noticed something that they had failed to appreciate before about the effect of wind on their camp site. All the stones that were partly buried in the sand had very clean-cut faces, abraded by the blasting sand. They were three-sided with sharp edges—corresponding to the three directions of the wind. So Stuart Campbell didn’t need any more convincing that it wasn’t a suitable site for us to build a station.

34

Back at Atlas Cove, the Walrus amphibian plane tethered on the beach was completely wrecked after its one successful flight. It had survived 150 kilometre per hour gales in its operational life, but the hurricane had converted it into a sad mess of twisted spars, floats and fuselage. It had not completely outlived its usefulness, however. Fred Jacka and his co-physicist Jo Jelbart found it a treasure trove of fittings and spare parts

H

E A R D

I

S L A N D

for their experimental cosmic ray work during the year. Faced with the task of telling the Naval Board that ‘THE SPECIES IS NOW the amphibian was no more (it was also the last Walrus EXTINCT.’ WRECKED WALRUS in RAN service), Dixon returned to his previous theme AIRCRAFT AFTER HEARD of the ‘duck’s egg’ and cabled Melbourne: ‘If egg is ISLAND HURRICANE, 1947. not fertile, species is now extinct’. The penny dropped, (AAD ARCHIVES) and signals began to fly back and forth. ‘Vintage Dixon’, according to John Lavett. THE HEARD ISLAND POST The LST risked two more beachings before the OFFICE, OPEN FOR BUSINESS last of the supplies were lugged up ‘the Burma Road’ DECEMBER 1947. THE to the growing settlement around Admiralty Hut. Heard POSTMASTER IS ANARE Island even turned on a white Christmas. On 26 LEADER STUART CAMPBELL. December 1947 Campbell conducted an official procla(D EASTMAN) mation ceremony to claim Heard Island for Australia. He had been instructed to do this by the Department of External Affairs, but was unsure exactly how to proceed. ‘I looked through books and books and books and a huge volume of External Affairs papers on how to claim land. We put up a flag, and buried a capsule with the proclamation.’ Sailors from the LST built a cairn of rocks and Campbell and Dixon signed the declaration, claiming the island (and the adjacent McDonald Islands) for the Commonwealth of Australia. On 29 December LST 3501 steamed out of Atlas Cove, and blew a ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’ on the siren as her yellow superstructure disappeared around Rogers Head. She was bound for Kerguelen to land fuel supplies for Wyatt Earp on her return from probing the Antarctic coast of George V Land. LST 3501 would then set a course for Melbourne. Campbell elected to stay with the fourteen Heard Island winterers and help them build huts and settle in, until he could be picked up by 35

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Wyatt Earp in late February or early March. There had been no time, during the frenetic unloading activity, to begin to build the prefabricated huts. Admiralty Hut was too small to accommodate everyone and was used to shelter from the elements and have a cup of tea or coffee. Army tents were pitched among the tussocks and hummocks nearby, competing with the elephant seals which used the area as a wallow. The prospect of being rolled on by three tonnes of bull elephant seal was frightening and also likely, as they came in from the sea at night. Johnny Abbottsmith recalls lying in bed hearing the huge creatures coming towards the tents, making ‘galumphing’ noises as their great bodies compressed the wet sand and tussocks: They got cranky because we were on their spot. We were worried because if one came through the tent he’d squash the lot of us to death. So we tried to shoo the big bull elephant seals away, but they wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and kept coming on. We wondered how the hell we could stop them. We tried firesticks, but they weren’t worried about those, they’d never seen fire, and didn’t know what it was. You couldn’t get near them because when they reared up they would stand eight feet tall [2.4 metres], leaning back on their tails. And then they’d lunge at you. If you were caught, they’d crush you into the sand.

The senior radio supervisor, Louis E Macey (‘Lem’), and one of his operators, Alan Campbell-Drury, got together and contrived an electric prod which proved the most effective deterrent. The first radio broadcasts to be sent from Heard Island were unofficial. Campbell-Drury had bought a war disposals Marconi transceiver, Type A, Mark III for £10 [$20]. It was built into a suitcase, transmitted Morse code only, and operated on very low power—four watts. I set it up in one of our tents, among the elephant seals, got the battery from the Doc’s motor bike—because we had no power on at that stage—and I called Australia and got an answer. I think I can rightly say I’m the first radio ham to work from Heard Island.

36

This channel of communications did not escape the notice of journalist Arthur Scholes. One night Alan Campbell-Drury heard Scholes tapping away on the Morse key of the little Marconi, and was able to ‘read’ his key clicks as he sent his message. He realised Scholes was sending an unofficial story to a Sydney newspaper about the success of the Heard Island landing: ‘I said: “Cut it out Arthur. I’ll lose my licence!”’ No scientific work could begin at Heard until huts had been constructed, concrete slabs poured for the diesel generators and radio masts

H

erected. Building materials were scarce in post-war Australia and a mixed collection of prefabricated huts had been obtained. Four US Signal Corps huts with heaters, light fittings and shelves had been brought to the island. Each hut had fourteen plywood sides, held together by nuts and bolts.21 Some of the other huts had been designed for the tropics and needed to be insulated and lined. By New Year’s Eve the ‘met’ and radio hut was finished, and celebrations were held inside. Several nights later, most members of the party were enjoying the warmth and comfort of the new hut in the middle of a rain storm, when there was a knock at the door. This was as unlikely as a car horn or telephone bell, and Campbell-Drury said they did a quick head count:

E A R D

I

S L A N D

HUT ERECTION AT ATLAS COVE. THE 14-SIDED US SIGNAL CORPS HUTS WERE A WELCOME CHANGE FROM THE TENTS PITCHED IN THE TUSSOCKS AMONG ELEPHANT SEALS.

(A CAMPBELL-DRURY) Well, we opened the door, and there stood Captain Dixon from LST 3501! We couldn’t believe our eyes. He was soaking wet, and said, ‘Quick, let me in and give me some dry clothes. I’ve fallen arse over head out of the boat.’

Dixon later recalled saying that when Macey’s pale and anxious face peered out of the hut door, he said: ‘Don’t worry, the ship’s sunk, but we’re all saved’. Then, ‘Group Captain Campbell forgot his toothbrush, and we’ve brought it back’. Stuart Campbell was in fact still sleeping in one of the tents among the tussocks and elephant seals. He thought Macey was pulling his leg when he was told Captain Dixon was there to see him. But at Kerguelen Dixon had received a radio message that Wyatt Earp (which was to pick up Campbell on its return from exploring the coast of George V Land) had been forced to go back to Melbourne. That meant that Campbell, the leader of ANARE, might be marooned on Heard Island for a whole year unless special arrangements were made to pick him up. As there

37

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

HEARD ISLAND 1948. BACK ROW FROM LEFT: R DOVERS, J LAMBETH, A SCHOLES, J JELBART, F JACKA (OBSCURED), L MACEY. FRONT ROW FROM LEFT: A GILCHRIST , N JONES, A CAMPBELL-DRURY, A CARROLL, K YORK, AUB GOTLEY, J ABBOTTSMITH, G COMPTON (IN BEANIE). (AAD ARCHIVES)

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

was a great deal of organising to be done in Melbourne for the fledgling ANARE, Dixon had been ordered back to Heard Island to get Campbell and return him to HQ. Before leaving Heard, Campbell officially handed over to Aub Gotley, the senior meteorologist, and on 4 January 1948 LST 3501 again headed away from Atlas Cove—but she was still not finally away. Lem Macey had lent his one and only set of long woollen combination underwear to the sodden captain. Macey asked Dixon to return them before the ship sailed, but he forgot. Campbell-Drury radioed the ship, on Macey’s urging, that Dixon had absconded with his underpants. Dixon responded: ‘Terribly sorry, we’ll bring them back to you.’ The LST was some miles out to sea, but she turned about and came back in. The combinations were attached to a buoy, and thrown over the side. Lem and I both sat patiently on the beach at Atlas Cove for an hour waiting for them to drift in. When we went back up to the radio shack, Macey pulled them out of the box and said: ‘Look at that. You’d think he’d have cleaned them first—look at the skid marks in them!’ That was the final straw for Macey.

The fourteen Heard Island expeditioners were finally on their own.

38

THREE

MACQUARIE ISLAND AND PUSHING SOUTH

Macquarie Island is ‘wet cold’. The wind hardly ever stops. There’s generally fog too. You don’t often see the plateau top exposed, and with the wind comes driving rain—very much like the weather you get in a Melbourne winter. When Melbourne has wild south-easters blowing one minute, then heavy showers of rain I call them ‘Macquarie Island days’. The wind is so strong it blows the clouds aside and the sun breaks through—and then there’s another rain squall. Phil Law

L

ST 3501, battered and holed during the Heard Island landings, went into dry dock for repairs at Williamstown on its return to Melbourne on 18 January 1948. It was ready to transport the 13-man Macquarie Island party and 400 tonnes of supplies (including sheep and goats) from Melbourne on 28 February. There was not time to fix everything. Some holes remained in the ballast tanks, and those game enough could lift covers on the floor of the tank deck and gaze directly down into the green depths of the Southern Ocean. The LST called in to Hobart briefly, then set course for Macquarie Island on 3 March. In November and December at Atlas Cove, Heard Island, rigid floating pontoons and LCVP craft had been unable to cope with the demands of unloading cargo, so the LST, in addition to its complement of barges and pontoons, carried two DUKWs (an army code for World War II vintage amphibians), which were essentially 21¼2 -tonne trucks, encased in steel hulls, which could carry cargo directly from ship to shore. Their presence on the LST was due to the persistence of Captain Laurie Stooke.

39

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

S

ituated to the south-east of Australia, approximately halfway to the Antarctic continent, Macquarie Island is so permanently shrouded in mist and rain that it remains ‘the least adequately mapped part of Australia’.1 The small, elongated island, permanently battered by the prevailing westerly winds, is just north of the Antarctic Convergence, and therefore free of pack ice. Snow falls at any time of the year but at sea level seldom lasts on the ground for more than a few hours, or a week up on the plateau. While Heard Island to the west is distinguished by an active volcano nearly 3000 metres high, Macquarie is a long, low-lying island 34 kilometres long, up to 5.5 kilometres wide and no more than 433 metres at its highest point, Mt Hamilton. Much of the island is a plateau, 250–350 metres above sea level. The geology of Macquarie is as fascinating as the dramatic heights of Heard. It is a slice of the oceanic crust elevated above sea level in almost pristine condition, an exposed fragment of the Macquarie Ridge complex which runs south from New Zealand towards the Balleny Islands. Its ice-free shores and proximity to Antarctica make it a haven for wildlife, with a profusion of breeding colonies of seals, penguins, and other sea birds. Australia’s European settlers were quick to realise that seals and other marine life on nearby offshore islands were valuable commodities and from the 1790s seals were killed for fur and oil. As nearby resources were worked out,

merchants were forced further afield. On 11 July 1810, Perseverance under Frederick Hasselburg was taking a sealing gang south to Campbell Island when he discovered another island which he called after Governor Lachlan Macquarie. Hasselburg’s landing led to the ➤

40

M

A C Q U A R I E

I

S L A N D

island’s exploitation. Its beaches and rocky shores were thick with seals, and it was obviously a potential commercial goldmine.2 Hasselburg left a sealing gang on the island and returned to Sydney. He tried to keep his discovery a secret, but news leaked out and soon six ships left for Macquarie Island.3 This was the beginning of several years of intensive slaughter when up to 100 000 fur seals were clubbed to death indiscriminately in a season. But the kill dropped dramatically, and by 1815 the harvest was only about 5000.4 The sealers then turned their attention to killing elephant seals for their copious blubber, which was boiled down to produce oil. When the Russian explorer von Bellingshausen visited Macquarie Island in 1820 he found two gangs of sealers working there. They lived in huts lined with sealskins and grass, used blubber for lighting and ate sea birds and penguins, eggs, the flippers of young elephant seals and wild cabbage—an effective remedy for scurvy. Bellingshausen noted there were wild dogs and cats on the island.5 Many visiting groups left exotic specimens on Macquarie until it was declared a sanctuary in the 1930s. The list includes ducks, fowls, geese and wekas, goats, sheep and rabbits. They were destined for the pot. Dogs, cats, rats and mice arrived by ship. The wekas (flightless birds native to Stewart Island, New Zealand) did particularly well, as did the rabbits. They soon outbred the sealers’ ability to eat them. The dogs ran wild for a while, but died out. Unclaimed in the early years of exploration, in 1825 Macquarie Island was included in the jurisdiction of Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) when it became a separate colony from New South Wales. But for decades the Tasmanian

A N D

P U S H I N G

S O U T H

Government made no attempt to assert its authority there.6 Sealing gangs continued to kill elephant seals, as their numbers waxed and waned, until as late as 1919. When they ran out of seals, they herded the penguins into the digesters and boiled them for their oil. In 1915 Sir Douglas Mawson—among others—was pressing for Macquarie Island to be declared a sanctuary, and in 1919 the Tasmanian Government refused to renew any sealing leases. Macquarie Island was left to the seals and penguins.7 In 1929 Mawson led the BANZAR expeditions to Antarctica, and in December 1930 visited his old base on Macquarie Island built during his 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition. He found the hut in fairly good condition and the wireless masts still there. His party explored and studied the wildlife, and decided that there had been a marked increase in numbers since they were last there. In 1933, Mawson’s original suggestion bore fruit, and the Tasmanian Government declared Macquarie Island a wildlife sanctuary.8 As well as being a haven for wildlife Macquarie Island is a geological curiosity. It represents a piece of the ocean floor that has been pushed to the surface of the Southern Ocean by tectonic plate action—in this case the Pacific plate folding down under the Australian plate. The area is unstable and strong earthquakes occur regularly—sometimes causing rock and mud slides along the cliffs that circle the coast. Geological studies of Macquarie are continuing to the present day. The movement on the island is complex, with various sections moving relative to each other—making it the best place on earth to examine the sea floor above sea level.

41

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Stooke had been at the Puckapunyal army camp when he read newspaper reports of the difficulties experienced unloading cargo at Heard Island:

SOME OF THE 1948 MACQUARIE ISLAND PARTY ON THE WHARF AT HOBART, 3 MARCH. FROM TOP LEFT: N LAIRD, Y VALETTE (FRENCH OBSERVER), C DU TOIT, W MONKHOUSE, A MARTIN (OIC), G MOTTERSHEAD, DR R BENNETT, R KENNY. FROM BOTTOM LEFT: L SPEEDY, J IVANAC (GEOLOGIST RETURNED ON LST), R CHADDER, G MAJOR, C SCOBLE. (COURTESY HOBART MERCURY)

42

I contacted a senior officer at army headquarters and suggested that maybe there was a role for us in this business. He put it to various people at HQ, but then the bureaucracy bought in, of course, and I was reprimanded for having the temerity to suggest that we could tell the navy how to do anything. Anyhow, through perseverance and contacts behind the scenes, it was agreed that the army would provide two DUKWs to go down to Macquarie Island.

This link with the Australian Army provided amphibious vehicles for ANARE operations from 1948 until 1994. On the morning of 7 March 1948 Lieutenant Commander Dixon navigated LST 3501 into the relatively sheltered waters of Buckles Bay on the north-eastern end of the low hills of Macquarie. In contrast to the Heard Island voyage, it had been a quick, comparatively calm passage. As the ship dropped anchor the mist lifted and bright sunshine highlighted the green slopes of Wireless Hill and the plateau, where Mawson’s wintering party had erected aerials in 1911. It was immediately clear that it would not be possible to beach the LST. The shoreline was guarded by rocks above and below the water, meshed with great strands of kelp, and this barrier extended 150 metres out from the beach. Before leaving Australia it had been decided that the Macquarie Island station would be located somewhere on the low isthmus joining the northern end of the main island to Wireless Hill. One of the LCVPs was launched to take a reconnaissance party to shore.9 Staying outside the kelp, the crew of the LCVP took soundings as they moved parallel with the main beach, but there was no sign of a suitable

M

A C Q U A R I E

I

S L A N D

A N D

P U S H I N G

S O U T H

channel until they came to Garden Bay, a small bay between Camp and Wireless Hills. Here the water was calmer and the party, including OIC Alan Martin, was able to make a landing. (Having been to Heard Island, John Lavett from LST 3501 was determined to secure his moment in history. As the LCVP hit the beach he jumped over the side to be first ashore.) They were greeted by elephant seals and penguins. The only sign A LONG-BOAT BATTLES of past human habitation was the derelict hut which BUCKLES BAY SURF DURING had housed Mawson’s 1911 party and those manning UNLOADING OPERATIONS TO the meteorological station until 1915. Martin’s party AND FROM THE LST 3501 AT also looked at an old sealers’ camp in the lee of the MACQUARIE ISLAND, Razorback at the southern end of the isthmus, but bogs MARCH 1948. and elephant seal wallows made the transport of equip(S CAMPBELL) ment down there impractical.10 It was decided to establish the new camp on the site of Mawson’s old AAE hut, straight up the beach from Garden Bay, where channels between the rocks offered the least obstructions to landing craft. Then came the tricky job of actually launching the DUKW from the tank deck of the LST. With good reason Stooke attempted this on his own: You’ve got to come out backwards with a DUKW because, if you drive straight out, the wheels are floating so you get no steerage. The back of the vehicle is still on the boat, so you have no steerage from your rudder—you would just be at the mercy of the seas.

With the bow doors of the LST open, and the ramp lowered, there was another problem. Even in a gentle swell, the bow door was moving up and down two to three metres: So I had to sit there and get the rhythm, because you don’t get any second chances. Once you commit yourself to go, you’ve got to keep going. If you dropped the wheels off the ramp as it was rising, it would be a disaster—it would just lift the bows of the DUKW up, and you’d just spear straight to the bottom.

43

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

With the DUKW safely launched, Stooke drove it alongside the LST. The DUKW had been loaded with tents, survival gear, and rations—essential if the wind swung around to the east, at which point the LST would have to up anchor and leave within minutes or run the risk of being blown on the rocks. The sudden departure of the LST was to become an unwelcome and regular feature of the first Macquarie Island unloading operation in Buckles Bay. Mawson’s old hut, apart from not having a roof, was in fair condition. When the remains of the collapsed roof were cleared away, a case of metal polish and boxes of canned tea, pickles and sauce were found, including a cheese too ‘high’ to sample. On a shelf stood a rusty tin of tapioca, with the contents in perfect condition. (This was later sent to Lady Mawson, wife of the AAE’s leader.)11 MACQUARIE ISLAND OIC ALAN MARTIN SEEMS Fairly soon a temporary tarpaulin provided a roof and tents were pitched ready for use at any time. Laurie REMARKABLY RELAXED IN THE Stooke recalled that the first meal in the hut, after seal COMPANY OF A TRUCULENT and bird dung had been shovelled out, was a stew of LEOPARD SEAL, 1948. M & V (army rations, meat and vegetables) plus half (N LAIRD) a bottle of rum tipped in by French chef Carl (Charlie) Du Toit to give extra flavour. Serious unloading began the next day, 8 March, using DUKWs (which could carry loads up to five tonnes) and LCVPs towing pontoons. Stooke had located a better route to the shore for the DUKWs which could carry stores straight to the camp site, but the LCVPs could not reach the beach. A buoy was laid 200 metres from the shore, and a wire rope, kept taut, ran to an anchorage point on the beach. The LCVPs towed pontoons and other craft to the buoy where they were linked up to the wire running ashore. They were then hauled ashore by the D4 bulldozer when it was landed.12 Charlie Scoble, who had driven the bulldozer ashore, noted a certain 44 cheerful chaos in his diary.

M

A C Q U A R I E

I

S L A N D

A N D

P U S H I N G

S O U T H

11 March. The first sheep and goats came ashore & wandered round enjoying the grass & getting in the way. Snowy [the dog] nearly went mad & wanted to round them up all the time. . .We drifted off to sleep as ‘Rocky’ John read Ulysses’ Odyssey. 13 March. Sea roaring in Hasselborough Bay, mountains wreathed in mist, goats baaing, sea elephants fighting, & the flap of the tent in the wind.13

Although Stooke had located a better run in through the partially submerged rocks and kelp in Buckles Bay for the DUKWs, it was not without its hazards: I found a track through the rocks in which the DUKW could manoeuvre, protected on each side by virtually a wall of rock. Once you got into this crevice you had to curve around a bit, but you could get in. Unfortunately, right at the end of it, there was one [rock]. You wouldn’t believe it, but we chopped two propeller shafts on that same rock. The DUKW would be lifted up by the surge and dumped right on it.

Some craft were lost. One LCVP, disabled by kelp around its prop, was waiting for a tow when a sudden squall drove on to the rocks both the LCVP and the pontoon it was towing and they were completely wrecked. When on 21 March an LCVP began to sink, LST’s bosun, Alf Hayter, had to scramble on to a rock just out of the water. Jack Cunningham edged a DUKW towards him and shouted for him to jump aboard. Hayter, a dyed-in-the-wool navy man, considered DUKWs an abomination—neither boats nor trucks. He told Cunningham in lurid language what he could do with his DUKW. ‘I’d sooner die than get on that so-and-so thing!’ Cunningham brought the DUKW back out to the LST and unloaded the stores that had been on their way to the camp. Not only was the weather worsening, but it was getting dark. A searchlight was rigged on the LST to illuminate the figure of Hayter, stuck on the rock, and turning the chilly air blue with a magnificent stream of invective. Laurie Stooke said: Jack went back, and in a display of beautiful seamanship, put his DUKW right in there amongst the rocks, so that Alf just had to step off. He’d changed his mind about being rescued by us after being there for about an hour. But Alf wouldn’t have a bar of DUKWs. He loved his barges, although he was losing them more quickly than they could be replaced. The rock is now known, of course, as Hayter Rock.

45

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

On land, the road from the beach to the camp site became churned up into a river of grey mud into which men sank to their knees. Constant delays were caused by either the bulldozer or the DUKWs getting bogged in the soft peaty soil, and having to pull one another out. It was hard, gruelling work, carried out in constant rain and gusts of biting wind. Peter King, a radio operator, recalled one night when a sudden wind change marooned a large party on shore: There were forty of us altogether, including the naval crew, and the cook had to make a meal for us. He had a big copper that he boiled water in [fired] with bits of timber and stuff, and then he heated up cans of food on little tins filled with sand with metho poured in. And he fed forty of us that one night, just at the drop of a hat. It was fantastic. We had about four tents and we had to sardine all these blokes in.

It was decided to dismantle the old AAE hut, as it was in a prime sheltered spot. The new fourteen-sided prefabricated huts were supposed to be put up in two hours, but in fact it took much longer. The second hut, ‘Chippy’s Church’, was built by the ship’s carpenters from scrap material. (Chippy’s Church is still in use as a hydroponics hut growing fresh vegetables.) On 20 March the LST returned to Buckles Bay and an eager watch was kept for Wyatt Earp, due to arrive that day after the unsuccessful push to reach the Antarctic mainland. She was sighted at noon, and Geoff Mottershead and Gersh Major climbed Camp Hill with an Aldis lamp to signal her.

W

46

yatt Earp had been commissioned at Port Adelaide on 17 November 1947 in the presence of the Governor of South Australia, Sir Willoughby Norrie, Sir Douglas Mawson, and other dignitaries. Her master was Commander Karl Oom RAN, who had experienced Antarctic waters on Mawson’s BANZARE voyages. The refurbished herring trawler slid stern first into the water, surged back across the Torrens and smashed her spoon-shaped stern into the side of a tramp steamer moored directly opposite. It was an unfortunate start. The fact that a small wooden sail-assisted ship was being sent down to the Antarctic on a voyage of national exploration was an indication of the shortage of suitable vessels in the post-war period. Wyatt Earp had been used by the American millionaire explorer Lincoln Ellsworth as a support ship in his attempts to be the first to fly across the Antarctic continent from 1933 to 1939. After succeeding in this ambition, Ellsworth gave Wyatt Earp to his friend and co-adventurer Sir Hubert Wilkins, who sold her to the Australian Government for £4400 [$8800]—with the

M

A C Q U A R I E

I

S L A N D

A N D

support of Sir Douglas Mawson. Although a wooden vessel, she was stoutly timbered and able to cope, to a modest degree, with the pressures of pack ice. Roundbottomed, like all ships designed for polar ice navigation, Wyatt Earp was reputed to be able to roll violently ‘on wet grass’. Defying superstition, Wyatt Earp sailed on 13 December 1947 and battled through what seemed like one continuous storm all the way to Port Phillip. Able Seaman Norm Tame recalled that Phil Law, ANARE’s new chief scientist, was very seasick:

P U S H I N G

S O U T H

SHARING TERRITORY WITH THE LOCALS. BABY ELEPHANT SEALS AROUND THE RADIO AND METEOROLOGICAL HUTS,

MACQUARIE ISLAND 1948. (N LAIRD)

ISTHMUS,

WYATT EARP AFTER RECOMMISSIONING FOR

ANTARCTIC SERVICE, 1947. On one occasion he was flaked out in a coiled rope, (AAD ARCHIVES) and you could see the marks in his face like the pattern of the rope. We carted him inside with one on each arm and one of us on each leg, and he said he didn’t remember anything about it. He was really out to it, and he was as green as a cabbage leaf.

In Melbourne, navy dock workers were busy for several days making repairs. A Vought-Sikorsky VS-310 Kingfisher float plane was mounted on the deck and the final members of the ship’s company came on board. Captain Karl Oom was so concerned about Law’s chronic seasickness that he recommended he not be allowed to go on the expedition—which would have cut off his Antarctic career there and then. But Stuart Campbell supported Law, and he was allowed to continue.14 Wyatt Earp got away on Friday 19 December 1947, but outside the Heads went smack into a Force 10 easterly storm and suffered a heavy bashing. Almost everyone on board was seasick. All this not even a day’s sailing from Melbourne, and far away from the expected fury of the Southern Ocean and Antarctic waters.

47

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Captain Oom sheltered in the lee of Flinders Island, but the next day the ship’s gyrocompass failed and it was back to the ministrations of shipwrights and engineers when they put in to Hobart on 22 December. They still hoped to get away before Christmas, but as they left the wharf on Christmas Eve to swing the compasses before final departure, salt water was found emulsifying with the engine lubricating oil. HMAS WYATT EARP Wyatt Earp again left for Antarctica at 1310 hours MOORED AT ICE EDGE TO GET on Friday 26 December. An hour later they stopped SNOW FOR DRINKING WATER. to replace a faulty engine valve and eight hours later (P R WHITE) ran into a Force 9 south-westerly gale and hove to in the lee of Eddystone Rock. By 30 December the engines had to be stopped to repair a fuel pump. In addition, the engine revolutions had to be reduced because the gland where the tail shaft passes through the hull astern was running hot. A large rectangle of heavy canvas was nailed over the hull just above the waterline—a tricky operation at sea—to reduce the amount of water getting into the starboard cabins and the radio room. On 1 January the engines were stopped again. The new diesel engines had sunk on their beds, causing the propeller shaft to bend. Chief Engineer Freddie Irwin had loosened the tail gland to relieve the distortion, but water leaked into the bilges and soon rose above the deck in the engine room. That afternoon Captain Oom was ordered by the Naval Board to return to Melbourne. Wyatt Earp was by then well on the way to Antarctica and had reached the Antarctic Convergence. Despite the obvious good sense of the recall, the ship’s company was disappointed and wanted to continue, but by 7 January Wyatt Earp was back in dry dock at Williamstown. It was two weeks before the ship returned to Nelson Pier, Williamstown. It was now very late in the season, and the voyage plans were amended yet again. The Executive Planning Committee recommended that Wyatt Earp go to that part of the Australian Antarctic Territory closest to Australia, and examine the coastline of George V Land. 48

M

A C Q U A R I E

I

S L A N D

A N D

P U S H I N G

S O U T H

ANARE Leader Stuart Campbell (who had returned from Heard Island early on LST 3501 after his option of being picked up by Wyatt Earp seemed doubtful) decided to sail south with the expedition. Phil Law asked for an assurance that he and his geomagnetician colleague Ted McCarthy could land at Commonwealth Bay to make observations of the earth’s magnetic field, but Campbell opposed the A LANDING ATTEMPT AT THE idea of putting scientists on shore in case Wyatt Earp BALLENY ISLANDS. FROM could not get back to pick them up. Although Law’s LEFT, SEAMAN W WALLACE, request was supported by Mawson and Davis, the matter SEAMAN NORM TAME, PHIL was left unresolved. LAW AND AN UNIDENTIFIED The expedition finally got away from Williamstown CREWMAN. on Saturday 7 February 1948. On Wednesday 18 February, (COURTESY P LAW) the first icebergs were sighted, always a significant moment on an Antarctic voyage. Even Stuart Campbell, who was somewhat blase about icebergs following his BANZARE experiences with Mawson, noted in his diary: About 0900 I found everyone on deck getting their first thrill out of the sight of an Antarctic iceberg. And though I’ve seen lots before I must confess that I, too, get a thrill out of that first sign of the Antarctic. They were all around us, at least six of them. Huge flat slabs of gleaming white ice with vertical sides rising 150 feet sheer out of the sea.15

As Wyatt Earp cruised along the fringe of the pack ice zone it became clear to Law that the captain had no intention of pushing into the pack ice itself. Law: The captain tried charging one of the smaller floes to test the ship. I had thought we might crack it and go through, but the ship had neither the weight nor the power and merely bounced off. As an ice-breaker this ship was a gnat.16

On Sunday 22 February Wyatt Earp steamed in the vicinity of the Mertz Glacier hoping to find clear water, but without success. By 24

49

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

February they were near the Ninnis Glacier Tongue, but conditions were ideal for a ‘freeze up’ and Captain Oom was determined to stay clear. There was to be no landing at Mawson’s old base at Commonwealth Bay, and by 27 February Wyatt Earp had turned away from the coast towards the Balleny Islands, where a brief and extremely hazardous landing was attempted on a rocky shore on 29 February. Campbell, Law and THE VOUGHT-SIKORSKY Seaman Wallace were ashore for only a few minutes VS-310 KINGFISHER FLOAT before jumping back on board the ship’s whaler, which PLANE WAS FAR TOO BIG AND was being buffeted by a rolling surf and was already CUMBERSOME FOR THE TINY half swamped. The expedition managed, however, to WYATT EARP, AND ONLY FLEW carry out an accurate running survey of the coasts of TWICE (ON ONE DAY) IN the Balleny Islands (except for Sturge Island which ANTARCTIC WATERS. was surrounded by heavy pack ice). ( J WATTS) For the next two weeks Wyatt Earp headed west towards Commonwealth Bay again, but hopes of a landing continued to fade. On 13 March they managed to fly the Kingfisher float plane for the first and only time on the voyage. The procedures to put it together, winch it over the side and fly it were simply too cumbersome to be practical. RAAF pilot Flying Officer Robin Gray managed two short test flights. Despite the many difficulties of keeping the complex cosmic ray equipment in operation, Law and McCarthy felt they had achieved good results, but Law was angry about the lack of interest shown in scientific work. By Tuesday 16 March any thought of making a landing on the continent was abandoned and Wyatt Earp headed for Macquarie Island. Southern Ocean gales enabled the little wooden ship to attempt new records for severe rolling and when engine trouble stopped her for four hours, the crew trailed a sea anchor and hoisted the fore trysail to try to stabilise their wildly lurching ship. Then a new surprise—a following wind and great swells astern caused Wyatt Earp to achieve an all-time record speed of just on ten knots. 50

M

A C Q U A R I E

I

S L A N D

A N D

Early on the morning of Saturday 20 March the watch sighted the Bishop and Clerk Islands, south of Macquarie, and by 1230 Wyatt Earp had anchored in Buckles Bay, dwarfed by the great bulk of LST 3501. Displaying an appropriate sense of occasion, the LST signalled: ‘THE WYATT EARP I PRESUME’. Wyatt Earp might have been dwarfed by the size of LST 3501, but the final triumph was hers. Because Commander Oom outranked Lieutenant Commander Dixon, the LST had to dip its ensign and defer to the smaller vessel. Laurie Stooke described what happened:

P U S H I N G

S O U T H

CAPTAIN LAURIE STOOKE DUKW THROUGH

EASES HIS

THE ROCKS AND KELP OF

GARDEN BAY, MARCH 1948. (S CAMPBELL)

When they came into sight, the LST crew had to dress ship—stand to on the deck. Commander Oom sailed by and they saluted him. He then anchored some distance away, and because George Dixon was the junior officer, he had to pay the official visit to Wyatt Earp. Here’s this thing which looked like a raft compared with the LST—but tradition, that’s what it’s all about.

Stuart Campbell was ‘most satisfied’ with the general progress made on the island in his absence, and at dusk the next afternoon, the last load went ashore from the LST. Charlie Scoble noted in his diary: ‘Party with Campbell’s lot (on the LST), singing bawdy songs and drinking hard’. A southerly swell kept the LST from its last planned job, carrying reserve supplies and fuel to an emergency base at Lusitania Bay. On the morning of 25 March the wintering party of thirteen went aboard the LST for a last hot bath and a beer in the wardroom and she sailed at 3 pm, signalling as she went: GOOD LUCK TO YOU, SEE YOU AT THE Y & J [Young and Jacksons Hotel]. ANARE’s first two sub-Antarctic stations had been established on Heard and Macquarie Islands without loss of life or serious injury, but the hoped-for establishment of a permanent Australian station on the mainland of Antarctica remained a practical impossibility until a suitable ship could be found.

51

FOUR

THE

FIRST

O P E R AT I O N A L Y E A R

A

s the 27 expeditioners on Heard and Macquarie Islands assembled their prefabricated huts and prepared for the winter of ANARE’s first operational year, they had little time for scientific work. Radio masts had to be erected before any meteorological results could be Morse coded back to Australia, and buildings constructed in which to inflate the balloons to carry aloft radiosonde equipment which would measure temperature and pressure in the upper atmosphere. The cosmic ray scientists had to have a hut (to assemble their elaborate measuring equipment) and a reliable power supply. In reality the men on both stations were concentrating on building shelter, and not spending much time thinking why they were there. According to Phil Law, it was occupation first and science second: There’s no doubt that everyone interested in Antarctica in those days was in it because of the territorial acquisitions, the value of possible minerals, the whaling industry, the fishing rights—all the commercial interests of colonialism. And that was accentuated, of course, by the fact that seven nations had claims in the Antarctic [hence] all this fuss about whether other people would recognise them or not. The scientific work was literally put in as a bit of softening of that hard approach. It was to convince people you were there for good purposes as well as grabbing territory.

52

Each island team had a scratch selection of huts to erect, the best and toughest of which were fourteen-sided American buildings. By contrast, the Australian huts, designed for the RAAF in New Guinea, were difficult to put up. The masonite and hardwood sections were not insu-

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

lated and the wall panels were fitted with opening flaps at the top and bottom so that ‘hot tropic nights would be cooled by the soothing breezes’.1 The scientists pitched in as labourers and builders. Cosmic rays from deep space bombarded Heard Island unrecorded while Fred Jacka and his fellow physicist Jo Jelbart heated water to stop concrete mixes (for the diesel generator pads) from freezing. Jacka was also an enthusiastic competitor in ANARE’s first recorded beard-growing competition: We were using a dreadful thing called a blubber stove, which we fed with seal blubber and any bits of wood and other combustibles we could find. I opened a little door in the front to see how things were going and there was a mighty blast of flame that practically enveloped my whole head, and dealt with my beard very effectively.

After the living quarters were finished, Jelbart and Jacka built their own laboratory. Huts were separated so that a fire would not wipe out the entire station. All structures were guyed with wire cables against Heard Island’s tremendous winds. The radio aerials represented the biggest challenge. Four 20-metre-high sections were to be erected in rhombic pattern for the transmitting aerials. They were designed to withstand a wind of 200 kilometres per hour. Rock under the camp site was so hard it blunted crowbars and picks; blasting with gelignite was also ineffective. Lem Macey had a brainwave and suggested 44-gallon [200.2 litre] drums filled with stones and gravel as anchorages above the ground. Arthur Scholes said they tried to bash in the tops of the oil drums with picks, but after two weeks of cacophonous labour only a few drums were without tops. Bob Dovers tried blowing the tops off with cortex explosive with great success and the mast was hauled into position using the tractor. The rigidity of the Kelly and Lewis mast and its supports was soon tested by a 100 kilometres per hour wind. As the wind built to gale force, the mast and its wire stays reverberated with great booming sounds, like sustained notes on a giant organ. After a time the Heard Island men could accurately judge wind strength by the pitch of the notes from the aerial.2 Similar building was going on at the settlement at Macquarie Island. Thirty sheep and some goats were let loose. Peter King, radio operator, said the smooth-haired Saanen goats from Queensland were unimpressed by Macquarie’s cold, windy, rain-drenched climate and clustered around a fire used to heat hot water kettles, burning their hides in the process. The Border Leicester sheep, more at home in their new surroundings, moved off to graze on the tussocky grass. Charlie Scoble noted the birth of the first lamb in his diary on 24 May.3 To combat the wet cold, the expeditioners were issued with clothing originally designed for British submariners—oiled cloth with a thick blue

53

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

linen lining. Camouflaged British Army windproof parkas and trousers and wool-lined, knee length flying boots as well as tan leather army boots completed their ensemble. The Macquarie party also had to adapt the FROM THE TOP OF THE RADIO RAAF tropical huts to the conditions by securing the MAST, SUMMER 1948. ventilation flaps and insulating them against the cold. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) Later ANARE policy ensured that every expeditioner had some private space, even if it was just a ALAN CAMPBELL-DRURY (TOP curtained-off cubicle within a communal hut, with a BUNK) AND AUB GOTLEY bunk, desk and a few shelves. But in the first year there SHARE HEADPHONES TO ENJOY were only two sleeping huts for the thirteen Macquarie THE SHORTWAVE RADIO men. PROGRAM ‘HOT JUICE’ FROM As the expeditioners settled into their living and MOZAMBIQUE. NOTE THE working routines in both sub-Antarctic camps, ANARE PENGUIN EGG ON TOP OF THE rituals that were to endure were already being created. COCOA TIN. Saturday night was ‘ding’ (party) night, the time to (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) relax and have a few drinks to mark the end of the working week and let off steam. ‘Ding’ was RAAF slang for a party and it has persisted in the ANARE vocabulary. At Macquarie Charlie Scoble noted in his diary on 7 May: THE HEARD ISLAND ‘HILTON’ PHOTOGRAPHED

The ding party getting more & more furious. They were starting a game of table tennis when Ken [Hines] switched [the power] off. . .they were furious. . .There was a free for all for a while, followed by a pillow fight, a letting down of beds & so on. Peace about 1.30.4

54

Both Macquarie and Heard settlements had a piano, radiogram and records and a selection of feature films and a projector. Cigarettes, sweets, toffees and chewing gum were available for issue to each man and a

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

limited amount of spirits and liqueurs. The Heard Island party had a piano, but after ‘Lem’ Macey spent about four hours unpacking it and getting it into the rec room, Johnny Abbottsmith remembers him asking an important question: ‘“Who can play?’’ Dead silence. “Can’t anyone do anything?’’ Dead silence.’ As it happened, Campbell-Drury was a classical organist, but he showed little interest in the piano, and ‘didn’t play it much’. NORM JONES COOKING Scholes reported that drinks were available before MORNING PORRIDGE ON THE the evening meal and on party nights, but half the EIGHT-BURNER KEROSENE party were non-drinkers and the grog ration began to PRESSURE STOVE, HEARD accumulate. Eventually it was just put out in case anyone ISLAND, 1948. wanted it. Occasionally an individual would spend an (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) evening getting quietly and slowly drunk—remaining in the recreation room with everyone else, but drinking alone. Johnny Abbottsmith said that everyone did this at least once, even those who weren’t interested in alcohol. ‘It was a way of letting off a bit of tension.’ But like the Macquarie crew, they often ‘let off steam’ on Saturday nights with a few grogs. Food supplies in the pre-refrigeration era were ample, but basic. The sheep and goats taken to Macquarie were expertly dismembered and served by French chef Carl ‘Charlie’ Du Toit, who spared the party the obligatory bully beef and tinned food whenever he could by using local resources. Rabbits and the flightless wekas, thoughtfully provided by the sealers in the previous century, were often on the menu and Du Toit even ran to the occasional Chinese meal. The men also ate penguin breasts, skuas and elephant seal liver. Fresh meat taken to Heard and kept in snowdrifts near the camp was buried in a small crevasse in the nearby Baudissen Glacier by Doc Gilchrist. But the sub-Antarctic environment was not cold enough. Fred Jacka reported that ‘only a month after the ship had left we noticed a brown stain developing on the glacier. That was the end of the fresh meat.’ 55

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Compared with the Gallic sophistication of Carl Du Toit on Macquarie, Norm Jones was a fairly basic Aussie cook who dished up tinned rations on Heard Island to a group of mostly ex-servicemen who had been eating similar tucker for the past six years. Tinned stew was tinned stew, whether it was curried or buried under a pie crust. The most frequently eaten local food on Heard was penguin and elephant seal. ‘Penguin was more popular’, wrote Gilchrist, ‘as elephant seal was rather coarse, but both were delightful. The chops taken from an eight week old sea elephant pup were lthough elephant seals were easy as delicious as anything I have ever enough to shoot through the brain, tasted.’5 The station log recorded meals penguins presented a more elusive of braised penguin, penguin steaks target. Fred Jacka decided to cook penguin ‘better than rump steak’, elephant seal breasts on one of his Sunday cooking days, brain fried in breadcrumbs, ‘very tasty’, and asked OIC Aub Gotley for a revolver: and elephant seal liver and kidney.6 I went to a nearby gentoo penguin rookery In summer Jo Jelbart caught fish and sat there for a little while till the penwhich were enjoyed, but fishing was difficult in winter and by spring everyguins sort of settled down, carefully aimed one was too busy to fish. Birds were and fired, but no penguin fell over. I really also eaten. Roast skua was ‘not unlike found it an extremely difficult thing to hit duck’, and petrels were edible ‘apart a penguin in the head. There was no point from the fishy flavour’, but it took a in shooting them through the body—they’d good number of birds to feed fourteen just squawk and walk away. men, so they were an occasional treat.7 It was a pretty awful, brutal business, but I finished up by grabbing them and Norm Jones was not keen on cooking sawing their heads off with a carving the local wildlife and those who could knife. If you have a decent, large, sharp not bear to eat it kept to tinned food. knife you can saw through the neck and Those expeditioners who wanted to experiment did so on Sundays, the kill them fairly quickly. cook’s day off. Abottsmith said that penguin breasts were not too bad. ‘They were quite big, like a half-pound steak—black meat—but it was good eating.’ The locally plentiful Kerguelen cabbage, which Gilchrist was keen for the men to eat as a vegetable supplement, was a useful source of vitamin C. It had a very strong flavour and was not popular, but the men were cooperative about eating a spoonful occasionally. Gilchrist ate penguin eggs raw and said they were delicious, but other people preferred them made into omelettes. The eggs had a peculiar feature—the whites would not set when cooked, even when Norm Jones fried one for twenty minutes.8 56

A

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

In general the weekly fare was predictable. Alan Campbell-Drury: Norm used to get so heartily tired of standing there at the servery in the little kitchen, having thirteen men come up to him, one after the other, every night of the week, saying, ‘What’s on for tea tonight, Norm?’ Norm used to reply, ‘Well, tonight we’ve got shit with sugar on—what do you think?’ One Sunday night Bob Dovers was the cook. And he must have anticipated Norm, who said to Bob, ‘What’s on for tea tonight, Bob?’ And Bob said, ‘Shit with sugar on, Norm,’ and he handed him a plateful of seal shit with sugar on! And Norm was taken aback a little bit, I don’t mind telling you. That phrase was never used again.

At both Heard and Macquarie Islands the meteorologist was appointed officer-in-charge. There were no formal selection procedures for such a position at that stage. Stuart Campbell had intended to appoint Bob Dovers as OIC at Heard, but George Smith had noticed, during preparations in the store and packing for the voyages, that ‘the blokes were not going to be happy under Dovers’. Phil Law would later appoint Dovers OIC of the first wintering party on the Antarctic continent at Mawson, but that was six years away. Law: ‘So Campbell delayed making a definite appointment, went down on the ship and apparently sensed enough of it so that during the erection of the Heard Island station—while Campbell was there—he nominated Aub Gotley as OIC.’ The ‘met’ men and radio operators tended to outnumber any other group in those early days because there had to be enough of them to make observations round the clock. On both Heard and Macquarie there were two weather observers and a meteorologist, a radio supervisor and two operators. The parties on both islands seem to have survived any major personal upsets despite bunking and living close together. On Heard, communal harmony was ruffled in November after Doc Gilchrist decided to investigate a sealer’s grave in nearby South West Bay to see if he could establish the cause of death. He lashed a kerosene tin to his back at the camp, causing Norm Jones (a big but rather nervous man) to express anxiety and opposition to the prospect of any human remains returning to base. Gilchrist said he thought he might find out a little bit about diseases on Heard Island: So I sneaked out one fine Sunday morning about 6 am with a shovel and excavated the skeleton. And I’d got the skull and most of the thorax exposed when I was interrupted by three men who had decided after

57

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

breakfast to take a stroll over to South West Bay. They were absolutely furious with me for having disturbed this sealer.

ALAN GILCHRIST INVESTIGATING A SEALER’S GRAVE,

SOUTH WEST BAY, HEARD ISLAND, NOVEMBER 1948. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

Gilchrist thought he had discovered why the sealer had died—as a result of a depressed fracture of the temple bone on one side of his skull. Eyewitness accounts of what happened next differ. Campbell-Drury says that OIC Aub Gotley objected when Gilchrist began putting some of the bones and the skull into his kerosene tin for later examination. Gilchrist says that no bones, other than the skull—and that only temporarily—were lifted from the grave. Campbell-Drury: This was when things flared up, because Gotley got the kerosene tin and emptied all the bones back into the grave. The doctor came up out of the grave and punched Aub Gotley on the nose—and Gotley decided to suspend the doctor [from duty] at once.

Gilchrist says he has no memory of being suspended, and agrees that ‘an altercation did occur and an intense dispute did arise as a result of me having done the forensic investigation, but I’m not prepared to give any details’. Suspension or no, Gilchrist obligingly stitched up a gash in Alan Campbell-Drury’s leg shortly afterwards. There is no mention of suspension in the station log where Gotley wrote on 24 November, ‘Organised expedition to South West Bay where we noticed a grave. Found male skeleton, buried at least 10 years. All was replaced and covered.’9 But personal relations had been badly strained. Fred Jacka, one of the youngest of the party, became the peacemaker:

58

I somehow managed to persuade both of them to come over to the cosmic ray lab to have a quiet talk. They drank a cup of coffee I brewed on the spot and talked civilly to each other and to me. Then, when things had simmered down a little, I introduced a little alcohol into the proceedings. Somewhere near midnight they were patting each other on the back. We were all pretty weary by then. I had a bit of difficulty getting these two guys safely down the snow bank and into the door of the living hut.

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

On both island stations there was an eagerness to explore and there was much basic work to be done. Bob Dovers was a surveyor, and ‘Swampy’ Compton was his assistant. On the basis of one astrofix, Dovers discovered that by his calculations Heard Island was 60 miles [100 kilometres] away from the position shown in the one atlas at the camp. Dovers, Compton and the geologist Jim Lambeth began climbGLACIER TRAVEL, HEARD ing the nearby peaks and started a comprehensive ISLAND STYLE. survey and geological examination of the island. At (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) the end of the year they produced the first accurate map of Heard. Lambeth concluded that Heard Island was not continental, but oceanic (an active volcano like Hawaii built up from the ocean floor) and had never been part of Australia.10 The field work was dangerous. The tent was too small, and the three men were plagued by wet sleeping bags and inadequate field equipment. On one field party to the western face of Mt Olsen in April it got so cold that Dovers’ theodolite froze. They built an igloo to supplement their meagre tent, but a sudden thaw collapsed it. Some of the most risky travel was by sea in a three-metre dinghy (named ANARE) that had been left with the Heard party. It was powered by a capricious outboard motor and a small auxiliary sail. Jim Lambeth suggested to Abbottsmith that they forget about the emergency survival equipment complete with tents and rations that weighed them down in the bow. Abbottsmith: ‘If we get swamped we’ll be alive for two minutes and dead in five’, he said, ‘so what’s the use of all that?’ I said, ‘Well if that’s the case, chuck it out.’ So we got rid of all our emergency crates and it used to be a little lighter in the boat.

One of the jobs with the dinghy was to take soundings in Atlas Cove and its approaches to make entry safer. On one such outing Abbottsmith watched wide-eyed while a huge white whale swam slowly under their

59

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

cockleshell craft. On another occasion, Lambeth said, ‘Look behind you quickly, Johnny’: There was a sea leopard—oh, six feet out of the water—with his mouth open, coming towards us. He could’ve swallowed that outboard motor and spat out the bits. He just kept on coming at us. I always used to carry a revolver in my belt, loaded and ready. I fired a couple of quick shots into him, into his mouth, and I must have hit him in the back of the spine—a fluky shot—and he just keeled over back in the water. When we got to shore this leopard was just a mass of foam where the others came in to get a piece of him. I reckon that was one of the closest shaves we had.

There was no biologist on the 1948 Heard Island party, and Doc Gilchrist agreed to do what he could: When we arrived in December it was obvious that this island was the breeding ground for millions of penguins and sea elephants and several species of petrels [but] no provision had been made to study them. I had no idea of what was scientifically important, so we kept a biology log. We just wrote down the day the first gentoo penguins arrived to make their nests, the day the first eggs appeared, when the sea elephants arrived to start breeding, when the first pups appeared and the location of the albatross rookeries. We had a lot of fun exploring the cliffs to define the location of the very, very beautiful black and brown light-mantled sooty albatrosses. The biology log was of real assistance to the [later] biologists when they arrived.

60

Gilchrist, a doctor in charge of a group of healthy, fit men, was delighted to turn his medical and research skills to biology. He was particularly proud of his identification of Mawsonotrema eudyptala—the liver fluke in the gentoo penguin—and noting the presence of snow petrels, previously unreported on Heard Island. Some individuals found the isolated wintering experience more difficult to cope with than their fellow expeditioners. Norm Jones was intimidated by Heard Island, and never went more than 500 metres from the huts the whole year he was there. He did his job, but was often under stress. However his vulnerability did not prevent the kind of cruel practical jokes that were to be the hallmark of ANARE service for the next 50 years. Alan Campbell-Drury said that at Christmas the station had a telegram from Melbourne asking if the party would mind staying till March 1949 because of problems with shipping. There was no choice whatever of course, and everyone was relaxed about it—except Norm Jones. Campbell-Drury:

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

Lem Macey made something in the radio shack—a stick of wood about four feet long [1.21 metres], with a cross piece, to which he was attaching little lights, one red, one green and one white. He said, ‘Norm Jones is in bed. I want you to go right over there in the dark, amongst the sea elephant mounds, over in the direction of the entrance of Atlas Cove. I’ll light this thing up and you go and tell Norm Jones there’s a ship in the bay, coming into Atlas Cove.’ This is exactly what I did. Norm Jones couldn’t get out of bed quickly enough. We stood outside the sleeping hut and, sure enough, it just looked for all the world like a ship coming into Atlas Cove. Then all of a sudden Macey walked out of the darkness—and Jones nearly killed him. He never ever forgave Macey or myself for that effort. But it was fun.

On Macquarie Island the year was reasonably tranquil in personal terms, although chef Carl Du Toit was at times temperamental. Scoble was late for lunch one day and there was no hot food left: Carl reckoned I should have come and got it. Told him that last time I did I was told to sit down and be waited on. He got wild and brandished a sharpening iron and told me if I went on like that, he’d cut my throat.11

Scoble ignored Du Toit and dined on bread and currant jam. Doc Gilchrist had only a few occasions on which to practise his medical skills on Heard Island. He filled some teeth when hard sweets broke fillings, and removed a papilloma from Gotley’s foot using a special instrument made by Jacka. Towards the end of the year Gilchrist had his surgery in good shape and when one man asked to be circumcised, the doctor was persuaded to perform the operation with the versatile cosray scientist Fred Jacka as anaesthetist. A significant first for ANARE field medicine, although by no means the last. (In later years ANARE medical officers performed many circumcisions while in Antarctica. Expeditioners who had been considering the operation took advantage of their period of enforced sexual abstinence to have the procedure performed.) As soon as radio masts were erected on both Macquarie and Heard, regular weather data was passed on to Sydney. Some reports went to Marion Island and on to South Africa. Reports from Australia’s sub-Antarctic stations filled a valuable gap in assessing weather fronts moving up from Antarctica. Four balloons were released a day, the first at 4 am. They were filled with hydrogen, generated in long cylinders from a mixture of ferro-silicon, caustic soda and water, and gave information about wind speed and direction. Some of the balloons carried a radiosonde to transmit information on temperature, pressure, humidity and wind speeds in the upper atmosphere.

61

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Sometimes the work of the Heard weather men was not taken seriously by their colleagues. Swampy Compton decided to boost one day’s rainfall by peeing in the rain gauge. The artificially boosted results were radioed to Sydney and had to be corrected later by the unimpressed weather observers. Cosmic rays were to be measured not only on Heard and Macquarie Islands but by Phil Law on Wyatt Earp on its 1948 voyage to the Antarctic coastline. The equipment was bulky and complicated to operate. It also involved the use of a photographic darkroom to develop the film on which the cosmic ray intensity had been captured. Fred Jacka:

A SPECTACULAR LENTICULAR (LENS-SHAPED) CLOUD FORMS IN THE LEE OF BIG BEN, HEARD ISLAND, 1948. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

We were basically recording the variations of the cosmic ray intensity with a number of different systems of Geiger counter telescopes and a device called an ionisation chamber, for measuring different components of the cosmic ray intensity. The cosmic rays come dominantly from outer space, from the galaxy and beyond. A small component comes from the sun. At that time very, very little was known about these cosmic rays except that, as the name implies, they were thought to come from somewhere beyond the solar system.

62

On Macquarie Island Leigh Speedy and Ken Hines were complementing the work of Fred Jacka and Jo Jelbart, but had problems with the cosray measuring equipment. They were also plagued by an erratic power supply, but achieved some worthwhile results. Jacka, on Heard, became so scientifically interested in Antarctic auroras, which fascinated

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

all the expeditioners, that he changed direction and devoted the remainder of his scientific career to upper atmosphere physics: The study of the aurora gives us information about the structure and the dynamics of the upper atmosphere, the atmosphere above the levels that usually interest meteorologists. And it enables one to get a better understanding of the interaction between the outer fringes of the earth’s magnetic field and the so-called solar wind, the outflowing plasma from the sun. These studies have relevance to the whole field of so-called space research, and possible relevance also in the field of meteorology. They have also very considerable importance in radio communications, both by high-frequency—involving reflection from the ionosphere—and by UHF and direct satellite communication.

Expeditioners on both Heard and Macquarie Islands had trouble with power supply in 1948. Although there were three second-hand army Lister 15-kVA diesel generators provided for each island, mechanical problems meant that electric power sometimes had to be rationed. On Heard, Johnny Abbottsmith earned the ire of his OIC and the scientists by restricting generating time, but had it not been for Abbottsmith’s ingenuity all those diesel generators might have ground to a halt. The storage of diesel fuel in 44-gallon [200 litre] drums in the open caused condensation and rust inside. Rust particles came through the filters into the injectors, causing mayhem with the starting and general running of the Listers. After talking with the scientists (who provided a small jeweller’s lathe), Abbottsmith decided to try the sensitive and difficult job of regrinding the plungers in the barrels of the injectors. But we were stuck for a grinding paste. One of the boys said, ‘John, what about trying toothpaste?’ I watered it down a bit and that overcame the injector trouble. But I had to keep half a dozen injectors ready, because as soon as one started to dribble out I had to replace it and clean the old one up. That’s how we kept the diesels going. I believe the Macquarie boys blew their diesels up completely.

There was a tragic reason for the Macquarie Island power crisis. On 4 July diesel engineer Charles Scoble (a keen outdoors man) went for a skiing excursion up on the plateau with one of the cosmic ray physicists, Ken Hines. Scoble, a big heavy man, skied over a frozen lake and broke through the ice. When Hines went to help he fell through too, and got back to shore by using his stock to crash a path through the ice and rest on it. But Scoble disappeared. Hines later wrote: We were close enough to talk to one another and Charlie was of the opinion that we had no chance of getting out and could not retain our

63

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

BURIAL The day we found him was a memory Of all the cold stones of the earth, A reminder of discovery And of adventure, and of the history Of men in the endless searching. We crunched up the side of the mountain With a fog that always touched our sides. Where he lay, spigots of moss were Encased in ice, and around as though For the occasion golden Azorella Formed bright wreaths. Mottershead bowed his fierce face The monkish cowl of his wind cheater Giving him an aspect out of character. He put his strong arms to the spade And turned reluctant sods Where none had turned before, while Bennett and Kenny laced his shroud. When all was done we returned him From whence he came; In a quiet and level voice Speedy Read the Service for the Dead, Then offered up a simple prayer As clean as the cool grass about, And some of us unaccustomed to raw tombs And the words of God, Hung our heads in that wild place And felt the shuddering sea below.

hold on the ice much longer. We knew that the nearest human beings were several miles away and separated from us by a thousand foot [304.8 metre] climb, and it was no use shouting for help. . . .I frequently relaxed my grip on the ice and rested by treading water very slowly, whereas Charlie, perhaps unable to swim, seemed never to relax his hold, but had to waste energy in his efforts to cling to the ice when too tired to make further progress. He became exhausted before covering half the distance to the bank and shortly afterwards disappeared below the surface of the ice. I finally reached the bank and after lying on the ice at the edge until I could walk, somehow stumbled across the plateau, down the cliff and back to the camp.12

Scoble’s body was recovered the next spring and buried beside the lake. He was the first expeditioner to die in the service of ANARE and his death shocked the small party. Many of them were ex-servicemen and that, Peter King believes, helped them to adjust: ‘We just coped with it. It’s the same in the army. You lose mates fighting wars, and carry on. You have to.’ (Previously unpublished poem by Norman Scoble had a wife, Marjorie, and Laird, fellow expeditioner and photographer 13 two small daughters. Excerpts from his on Macquarie Island, 1948.) diary reflect a hard worker who was enjoying life on Macquarie. On 2 June he recorded his daughter Heather’s second birthday—‘we have a birthday cake’. On 30 June ‘telegram from Marjorie & Mother gave away about my birthday unfortunately’.14 Four days later he died. After his death the Federal Government gave £1100 [$2200] compensation to his wife and daughters, provided they took no further action 64 against the Commonwealth.15

T

H E

F I R S T

O P E R A T I O N A L

Y E A R

After Scoble’s death the situation with Macquarie’s Lister diesels worsened. Two of the three generators broke down and the emergency Lister was unreliable. Gersh Major, one of the radio operators, took over as engineer and did what he could. In Melbourne, Stuart Campbell approached the RAAF to fly down a replacement diesel mechanic, Frank Keating. Macquarie CHARLES SCOBLE’S LONELY Island could be reached by air—just. The only aircraft GRAVE ON THE MACQUARIE capable of making the flight was a Catalina which would ISLAND PLATEAU BESIDE THE have to carry fuel for the return journey of 3750 kiloLAKE WHERE HE DROWNED, metres. The amphibious Catalina could use a conventional LATER NAMED SCOBLE LAKE. airstrip from Cambridge Airport, near Hobart, but would (F ILIFF) have to land on and take off from the choppy waters of Buckles Bay at Macquarie. Because of the prevailing swell off the island there were doubts that the heavily laden amphibian would be able to take off at all. As luck would have it the RAAF was testing JATO ( Jet Assisted Take Off) units at Point Cook. It was decided to fit four units on Catalina A24 -104, each giving 1000 pounds of thrust for twelve seconds. The flight crew, commanded by Squadron Leader Robin Gray, and captained by Flight Lieutenant A E Delahunty, went to Point Cook for JATO experience. (Robin Gray had flown for ANARE earlier that year. On 13 March he flew the Sikorsky Kingfisher amphibian carried on Wyatt Earp on two brief test flights off the coast of George V Land.) Flight Engineer Jack Vercoe reported that the rockets gave the stately Catalina a performance comparable to a Sabre jet for a memorable twelve seconds. ‘Unfortunately this only endured to about 500 feet when the old girl returned to her true performance of about 90 knots. End of exhilaration!’16 The flight to Macquarie Island had to be made in the middle of winter, in the most unfavourable conditions imaginable. Campbell (a former wartime Catalina pilot) decided to go along for the ride, and the aircraft flew to Cambridge Airport, Hobart, on 22 July to wait for suitable weather conditions. 65

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

The first attempt was made on 25 July, but the aircraft was forced to return because of thick, low cloud and poor visibility. After another false start, Campbell returned to Melbourne and was not on board the successful flight which left Tasmania on 4 August at 5.13 am. It was a long, hard haul south, fighting the prevailing westerlies which made navigation ‘even more difficult if that were possible’. Flight Engineer Jack Vercoe said that the fuel range did not allow much time to find ‘this miserable speck in the Antarctic Ocean’. When they sighted Macquarie Island, Flight Lieutenant Delahunty ordered all crew not actually involved in the landing to adopt crash positions. The sea conditions were so bad that the commander of the flight, Squadron Leader Gray, made it clear that the pilot did not have to land and gave him the option of returning to Australia. Jack Vercoe: The captain elected to land. This he did in a most professional manner (at 12.50 pm). We taxied very close to a sandy beach where, with the aid of two anchors and running engines, we managed to hold the aircraft into the wind whilst we unloaded Gray and the engineer into the waiting boat. Survival time in the sea at that particular time of the year was estimated at two minutes.17

66

The Catalina’s two anchors failed to hold against the prevailing wind and the courageous decision was made to allow the aircraft to drift three kilometres out to sea. Vercoe said they then taxied back to shore on one engine: ‘This procedure was followed, using alternate engines, until Gray came aboard bringing with him first day covers of the first airmail to Macquarie Island.’18 Vercoe said that Gray’s insistence on going ashore to get the first day covers franked cost them three hours, and it was almost dark when he boarded the aircraft for the return journey. The westerly winds had increased in that time, preventing any chance of a return direct to Hobart. The four JATO rockets catapulted the Catalina into the air with startling efficiency and the aircraft made for the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Wigram, near Christchurch, New Zealand. Doubtless the Catalina’s crew were comforted by the thought that the only back-up aircraft available was a Lincoln bomber, standing by on search and rescue readiness at the RAAF base at East Sale. Unable to land on the water, it could only have dropped life rafts and survival gear had the Catalina come down in the Tasman Sea. Frank Keating ‘regenerated’ the Lister diesels, which powered the Macquarie Island station successfully until the 1949 relief party arrived in late March 1949. He was further challenged by a drastic shortage of lubricating oil, which he overcame by using any grease he could find on the station, including tinned butter and elephant seal blubber.19

FIVE

EARLY

DAYS

B

ack in Melbourne the politics of the bureaucracy of ANARE were becoming as turbulent as the waters of Macquarie Island’s windswept Buckles Bay. In April 1948 DEA Secretary John Burton had expressed reservations about the ability of his department to undertake detailed supply work of ANARE and thought that other government departments should contribute, with the Public Service Board being responsible for staff appointments in Melbourne. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research was also reluctant to take overall responsibility for Antarctic activities, although it was prepared to do much of the ‘collation, coordination and distribution of scientific data’.1 On 4 May 1948 an Antarctic Section was set up in the Department of External Affairs, and by 18 May the Antarctic Division was more formally incorporated into the DEA with Stuart Campbell as officer-in-charge. A new ANARE Planning Committee was formed consisting of representatives of the various departments and organisations that were involved with the expeditions’ activities. One of the committee’s first priorities was to recommend that Campbell go overseas to try to find a suitable ice-strengthened ship to replace the wooden Wyatt Earp. He had no success locating a ship and, faced with the prospect of simply running the Heard and Macquarie Island operation, with no immediate prospects of getting to mainland Antarctica, the restless Campbell began to consider other options. Chief scientific officer Phil Law had been overseas on a visit to Japan in connection with his cosmic ray work and when he arrived back in Sydney from Japan on 20 August 1948 his attention was drawn to an

67

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

advertisement for the job of Assistant Officer-in-Charge (Scientific) for the Antarctic Division that had appeared in the Commonwealth Gazette while he was away. With two sub-Antarctic island stations established and the Government committed to a five-year program to maintain them, it was necessary to formalise ANARE’s structure. Law was uneasy about working with Campbell: He would always try and obstruct or oppose and contradict and you had to justify yourself tremendously strongly in order to get anything through. It was the antithesis of my optimistic approach of encouraging people to come up with ideas and do things. So I couldn’t have worked under Campbell personally.2

Law was encouraged to apply for the new position following a conversation with Colin Moodie, Counsellor-in-Charge of Antarctic Affairs in the DEA, who told him Campbell was considering leaving the Antarctic Division to return to his permanent position with the Commonwealth Department of Civil Aviation. Moodie also indicated that the assistant OIC (scientific) would very likely be appointed as acting officer-in-charge when Campbell left. This was splendid news for Law, who had decided that a pivotal role in the Antarctic Division was the career he wanted: I was fascinated, of course, like all adventurers are, with the exploration and discovery aspects of it, and my interest in mountaineering and snow and ice gave me a strong adventure motivation. But as well as that, I was fascinated by the research potential of the islands and Antarctica, so I was deeply interested as a scientist.3

68

What Law did not know was that Campbell was determined that Law would not succeed him. Before he left for Japan, Law had asked Campbell to let him know of any positions becoming vacant with the reorganisation of the division, but Campbell always told him nothing had been decided. In fact, three days after Law had left for Tokyo, Campbell had written to the DEA and advised that Law’s appointment would terminate on 1 August, adding that ‘in view of the pending reorganisation of this Division, it is not proposed to recommend an extension of Mr Law’s appointment’.4 Fortunately for Law, he had allies in the DEA such as Moodie, while John Burton, the DEA Secretary, had reservations about Campbell.5 On 20 August Burton wrote to Campbell on Moodie’s advice, suggesting a panel of three scientists should sit on the selection committee with Campbell to consider the applications for the OIC (scientific) position. Professor Martin from Melbourne University, who had supported Law’s move to the Antarctic Division originally, was one, and all three knew

E

A R L Y

D A Y S

Law well. Campbell objected to having scientists on the panel but Burton insisted, although he compromised by allowing Martin to be replaced. He also insisted that Sir Douglas Mawson (who lived in Adelaide) should be invited on to the selection committee. On 12 October Campbell attempted to skew the job description towards his favoured candidate, Wing Commander H W Berry of the RAAF. Influenced by Berry’s service background, Campbell believed that ANARE needed someone as second in command who could ‘hack it when things got tough’. He did not believe that Law, from a civilian background, had that degree of toughness compared with someone who had seen military action. Berry was older than Law, had no scientific qualifications, but had good technical and administrative experience making him well suited to the new requirements. When Campbell wrote to Mawson inviting him to Melbourne for the interview, he added: ‘Personally, I very much doubt if it would be worth your while coming’. He also told Mawson that he would soon return to the Department of Civil Aviation, that the new appointee would take over his job and that wide general experience and organising ability were more important for the assistant OIC (scientific) position than academic or scientific qualifications. Mawson decided against going to Melbourne, but arranged to see the interview documentation.6 At his interview, Law was ‘staggered’ to find he had been ambushed, and began a spirited campaign to make sure he got the job. He was unimpressed both by Campbell’s ingratiating friendliness to his face and by his apparent disregard for science. In a long letter to Moodie, setting out his distaste for the way Campbell was working against him, he said what Campbell was trying to do was quite obvious: He never at any time gathers together the whole committee. They write their opinions which he then takes around personally to each. . .in turn, coloring, distorting and twisting the facts to suit his plan.7

Law told Moodie he was pleased that Mawson had apparently refused to be talked around by Campbell and was properly concerned at the short shrift being meted out to science. He ended his letter with an offer: Look, if they appoint a ‘pure administrator’, even the Island programmes will degenerate into routine, unimaginative exercises in ‘logistics’. . .and the Antarctic show itself will just never materialize. . .Pick a good reputable scientific bloke for this job and I’ll withdraw my application. But I’ll fight ‘pure administrators’, particularly heavy-handed ex-service administrators who believe in handling a scientific expedition like a military exercise, as long as I have any breath left.8

69

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

STUART ALEXANDER CAIRD CAMPBELL, BENG, FRGS When it became obvious that the establishment of an Australian station on mainland Antarctica was at least several years away, Stuart Campbell quickly lost interest in his job as leader of ANARE. A man of action, when Campbell saw things that needed to be done, he did them, and worried about the bureaucratic proprieties later. But his autocratic style was causing problems with the Department of External Affairs. He was impatient with his superiors, who in turn were more used to senior officers who observed diplomatic niceties. Campbell decided to return to his job with the Department of Civil Aviation and resigned as leader of ANARE on 31 December 1948. Shortly afterwards, DCA sent him to Thailand with the International Civil Aviation Organisation to design Bangkok’s Dom Muang international airport. Interviewed in 1987 in Townsville, Campbell said: I liked Thailand, so then I resigned after another year with DCA, and went back to Thailand for twenty years, running my own business, importing everything from peas and matches, wine, cement, beds—everything. The confirmed bachelor even overcame his shyness. ‘I got married in Thailand to an Australian girl, and we had seven years of it there.’ When he first arrived in Thailand, Campbell wanted to learn the Thai language but could not find any textbooks so he wrote one—The Fundamentals of the Thai Language, published in 1957.9 The man whom Law felt was not particularly sympathetic to science then wrote another book, A Guide to the Hard Corals of

Thai Waters—illustrated with his own underwater photographs and published in 1980.10 He returned to Australia in the late 1970s.

GROUP CAPTAIN STUART CAIRD CAMPBELL, THE FIRST LEADER OF ANARE. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

Years after his ANARE experience Campbell told a friend, Hugh Philp, that he had resigned as leader of ANARE because he felt he could not work with Law, and their personality clash would not be good for ANARE. He also told Philp he had misjudged Law’s calibre, and that, in the end, Law’s appointment was well justified. Stuart Campbell died on 7 March 1988 aged 85.

E

A R L Y

D A Y S

Campbell finally got the selection committee together on 8 November and recommended that the assistant OIC (scientific) ‘not be filled at present’.11 Burton, well aware of what was happening, intervened, advising the Public Service Board that the appointment be proceeded with and that Law was the most suitable applicant. On 13 December Burton finally advised Campbell of the decision to appoint Law. Campbell continued to fight against the decision right up to 21 December when Law was advised his application had been successful. Mawson’s role in this manoeuvring is unclear. Moodie felt that ‘Campbell had him in his pocket to some degree’. He thought Mawson may not have been ‘sure’ about Law. This may have been partly based on the difference in physical size between the two men. Mawson had been—and still was—a big, strong man, and Moodie had the impression he thought the short, slightly built Law was ‘a bit cautious, not intrepid enough’.12 Campbell was not a tall man either, but he projected a tough, macho image, and shared a long association with Mawson. On 29 and 30 December Law went to Canberra for a briefing. By 31 December Campbell had returned to the Department of Civil Aviation and Law had resigned from Melbourne University. On 1 January 1949, Law was appointed Acting Officer-in-Charge of the Antarctic Division, including the responsibilities of leader of ANARE. He had just twenty-one days to prepare for his first voyage as expedition leader.13 In keeping with the kind of formality he felt should be observed when ANARE ships were leaving and arriving in port, Law ordered all the new Heard Island party to be present at a departure ceremony on 21 January 1949. Three were late, and had been drinking. One resented having to present himself at the ceremony, and it was not until Law ‘made an outright order of it that he came to heel’.14 The new ANARE leader was making it clear who was boss right from the start. As LST 3501, now renamed Labuan, headed south for Heard, Law discovered that the bigger ship made little difference to his chronic seasickness and he experienced for himself the extraordinary behaviour of the LST in the Southern Ocean: It was a unique vessel in a storm. An LST is about 300 feet [91.4 metres] long, and all the works are at the back. It has blunt bows, so as you hit a wave it’s like bashing into it with a brick wall. There’d be this tremendous crash like a thousand kerosene tins being bashed. Then the whole of the front part of the ship would bump up and down like a springboard, and as it flapped waves would come back through the steel decking.

On Heard, waiting for Labuan had become unbearable, and there was much conjecture in the Heard Island rec room who would be the

71

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

first to see the relief ship. Campbell-Drury wrote in his diary on 5 February: After tea, I strolled over to Corinth Head with Macey and took the Aldis lamp with which to exchange words of welcome with the ship as she first hove into view. We learnt by radio that it had first put into Spit Bay, to establish a food dump, and was now bound for this end of the island. As I stood watching out to sea, suddenly, almost magically, through the slight mist, the form of Labuan almost indistinguishable at first, grew, as it were, and became a solid thing. It was all too difficult to realise—the first ship we had seen in fourteen long months. I flashed the words of welcome to her captain, Lieutenant Commander Dixon: ‘Welcome, George. This is Heard Island. Please don’t miss us.’

After the flurry of greetings and delivery of mail, Law—mindful of Heard Island’s tempestuous climate—was keen to begin the changeover. He could not believe his luck—a high barometer and calm weather enabled unloading to start at 4.30 am the next day, and with the advantage of the DUKW’s capacity to take loads from the ship directly to the camp, the changeover was completed in record time. This lesson was not lost on Law, who made it a rule to capitalise fully on every skerrick of fine weather that the Antarctic could provide when unloading stores, or exploring new territory—even if it meant working around the clock. Fred Jacka was impressed with the way Law handled the whole unloading operation: It was just amazing to see them lower these things [DUKWs] over the side and people climbed into them and they just drove over and landed on shore. It was like the Messiah coming. He [Law] was in control of the situation. He came there with a definite idea of what he wanted to get done, and it was done expeditiously.

The dramatic nature of Heard Island, with its towering volcano, glaciers, ice cliffs and savage winds, had a curious psychological effect on some people. One of the three biologists assigned to Heard for 1949 found it so unnerving after one day that he decided he could not cope. He went to Phil Law:

72

He said, ‘Phil, I’m sorry, I can’t stay here, I want to go back to Australia’. He knew he would have to face the contempt of all the other ocker Australians that were there. Thank God he did, because the average bloke would have been too proud to admit that he was frightened, and he would have had a terrible year down there. I thought he showed great moral courage.

E

After calling briefly at the Kerguelen Islands, Labuan returned to Melbourne on 26 February to prepare to relieve the Macquarie Island first wintering party. Trevor Heath, the Secretary of the Antarctic Division, and Law’s deputy, was the voyage leader on the Labuan on this occasion, and the changeover was completed by 14 April. Costs of the first year’s Antarctic operations had exceeded the original estimate of £150 000 [$300 000] and were in excess of £215 000 [$430 000] with £327 000 [$654 000] being allocated for the second year.15 Law had inherited a dog’s breakfast of bureaucratic procedures: The finances on the scientific side were run by CSIR. . .all purchasing was done through the RAAF system, except for victuals which were purchased by the navy. What I did was cut through all those strings and set up our own supply department in the new Antarctic Division.

A R L Y

D A Y S

A RARE BEARDLESS PHIL LAW, THEN ANARE’S SENIOR

PHOTOGRAPH OF

SCIENTIFIC OFFICER AT

VICTORIA BARRACKS, MELBOURNE, 1947. (COURTESY P LAW)

The main objectives of the newly formed division were to develop the scientific work at Heard and Macquarie Islands, looking towards the eventual establishment of a station on the Antarctic continent.16 Law threw himself into the administration of the division, which consisted then of an administrative officer, two typists and a storeman. He was aware of the importance of an efficient home-based organisation, but he wanted it to be as unlike a public service department as possible. He was later to complain that ‘the thing you never get credit for is the administration’. His desire for independence immediately irritated public servants while he campaigned for the Antarctic Division to have distinctively painted premises and its own letterhead. His wife Nel designed an emblem depicting a map of the Antarctic surrounded by a border of Antarctic flora and fauna which was later used on all stationery, official reports and publications, despite continuing DEA disapproval. The fibro-cement premises at Albert Park Barracks had the standard drab olive-green and brown public service interior. Law battled with Department of Works officers to get the offices painted with white woodwork and pastel coloured walls. Later he was amused to see Department

73

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

of Works officers proudly showing visitors ‘the new look that they had introduced’.17 He continued to ignore official requests to stop using his maverick notepaper. The need for the Antarctic Division to control its own purchasing was paramount. Ordering supplies through the Department of Air could mean a delay of eight weeks for a particular piece of equipment. Had it not been for the continuing ingenuity and unconventional approach of storeman George Smith, the expeditions could not have been equipped in time for sailing: You’ve got to beat the system. . .If the boat is sailing tomorrow and you need [something] first thing tomorrow morning, it’s necessary to have contact with people in the right places who are prepared to turn around and put their necks out a little bit and give you the stuff on the basis that you will honour your promise and get the paperwork through in due course. I left after many years with none of them looking for my blood.

Law had complete confidence in Smith’s ability to manage the all-important business of supply: He had a memory like an elephant, he could remember every article he’d packed in a case and what the case numbers were, and he didn’t ever forget to put anything on the ship. He ran the Tottenham Store with an iron hand. He’d make the blokes work, and stand over them—belt them into action. He’d sort out the weedy ones, stimulate the slow ones and annihilate the lazy ones. He had a tremendous role out at Tottenham Store.

Faced with a motley collection of World War II cold-weather clothing gleaned from the British Navy and other services, George formed the idiosyncratic notion that if any of this clothing actually fitted the expeditioner concerned, ‘he must be deformed’. His methods of dealing with complaints endured into the 1960s, according to Des Lugg who was recruited as a medical officer: George, standing behind the counter, would throw you an immense array of clothing and suggest you tried it on. And as a newcomer, you’d come back and say: ‘Well, this doesn’t fit. This is too short, or too long.’ And George would invariably say, ‘You’re pathological, you bastard!’

74

It became standard procedure for selected expeditioners to work at the Tottenham Store to help prepare the stores for the coming year. This also saved money. According to Smith:

E

A R L Y

D A Y S

Everything was done as cheaply as possible. There was no money whatsoever. I can remember the days when we built our own huts; we estimated, including the carpenter’s wages, we were building prefabricated huts for about £350 [$700] each. We were using the doctor as chief assistant to the carpenter for weeks and weeks on end. To get anywhere you broke every rule in the book as far as getting on with the job. You had to. You just couldn’t run with that system because you had only weeks to do a job, not months or years. The money wasn’t there, so we learnt to live with the little we got.

Work in the store made it clear that the specialists, scientists, ‘met’ men and even the doctor were expected to pitch in where necessary down south to assist with essential practical tasks like building huts, digging latrines or helping the diesel mechanic and, of course, the allimportant cook. Although scientific work was acknowledged as a priority (and an important element of establishing national sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory),18 Law had problems developing programs over and above the obviously useful meteorological data being gained and transmitted from the sub-Antarctic stations: Scott, even in his earliest, first expedition, did a tremendous amount of scientific work. . .it helped them get better public support and general acclaim, publicity and money. In our case, I had the greatest difficulty in selling the scientific side of things. There were many people who just thought putting a hut down there with some men was occupation [enough] and that was all you needed to do for your claims. But I had to keep pointing out that the Argentinians and Chileans and British were competing in the Falkland Islands Dependencies area of the Antarctic Peninsula. The British were doing meteorology and one or two other things and the Argentinians and Chileans were not doing nearly as elaborate programs and their prestige and the sort of pay-off, in terms of territorial occupation, were substantially lower than that of the British for this reason. So I had to keep saying, ‘If we don’t do scientific work, our position in the pecking order just won’t be good enough.’

From the time he became acting officer-in-charge of ANARE in 1949 Law had his sights set on gaining a foothold on the Antarctic continent itself. He knew this would have to wait until an ice-strengthened ship was either built or chartered, but he was content to continue projects of scientific research on Heard and Macquarie Islands while the Antarctic Division was built up and consolidated. Sir Douglas Mawson, who remained

75

T

76

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

on the Executive Planning Committee (EPC), was also keen for Australia to establish a continental station. Mawson was generally supportive of Law’s plans, but he was not always predictable. During the EPC meeting of 3 June 1949, the veteran Antarctic explorer threatened the continuing existence of ANARE and the sub-Antarctic program. It was the first time Law had chaired an EPC meeting. Sir Douglas asked the chairman whether it was the Government’s intention to pursue the present Antarctic research indefinitely. He felt there should be some limit to the activities of ANARE unless it could be made to pay for itself. Perhaps before more money was allocated for scientific exploration in the Antarctic, a critical analysis should be made in order to discover if the money ‘might be more usefully expended elsewhere’.19 Law deflected this attack on the sub-Antarctic program by saying that the question of continuity had not yet arisen in his various discussions with the DEA in Canberra. The Government was already committed to an island program of at least five years, and had set up a permanent Antarctic Division in Melbourne for this purpose and to prosecute plans for establishing a base on the Antarctic continent. But Sir Douglas persisted, saying he wanted to make it clear that when he had first suggested an Antarctic expedition to the Government he had not contemplated the present large expenditure, but had considered that part of the cost should be met by proceeds from associated commercial undertakings such as whaling. Whaling expeditions could finance an Antarctic program and, in addition, ‘their ships could take with them aircraft capable of surveying large areas in the interior’. Failing attention to the commercial side, it would, in his opinion, ‘be too expensive to maintain base camps indefinitely’.20 Law, from the chair, turned this sally aside by saying that in his view recommendations for a whaling industry lay outside the functions of the Executive Planning Committee. Dr F W G White of the CSIR weighed in at this point and reminded the committee that, at their last meeting, members had requested direction from the Government as to its future policy on the exploration and development of the Antarctic. The resolution made the point that if, for political or other reasons, the Government wanted to embark on a long-range, extensive program of Antarctic development, the committee could draw up such a program but ‘does not consider that this scientific work alone could justify the despatch of a major expedition’. Had any reply to this resolution been obtained from the DEA? Law said it had not, but ‘the department had been given all possible information and must be presumed to realise the position’. In his opinion

E

A R L Y

D A Y S

the question of the period of operation of ANARE was a matter for his department but that in any case ‘further consideration of this matter should be postponed until near the end of the five-year period to which the Expedition was committed’.21 It had been a tough first meeting of the EPC for the new chairman, but it demonstrated Law’s determination to make sure the committee operated only as an advisory body, while he ran the Antarctic Division and called the shots. The committee’s comment that scientific work could not justify a major expedition was an acknowledgment of the territorial imperative driving Australian Government Antarctic policy at the time. Ever since the beginning of his Antarctic career Law had believed that the future of a continuing Australian Antarctic program lay in carrying out a vigorous program of scientific research: In a number of speeches I had to hammer the point that governments don’t operate by taking money from you and putting it into something else. If they cut it out of one thing, they just cut it—it doesn’t go anywhere else. I used to say to the scientific community in Australia: ‘You ought to be jolly glad that we’re spending this money, because that’s money being spent on science that otherwise would not be spent’.

In June 1950, conscious of the importance of public support for the ANARE program, Law wanted to brief two journalists on Australia’s proposed plans for Antarctica. As public service rules dictated, he applied for permission from the DEA to do so. But there had been a change of government in 1949 to a Liberal–Country Party coalition. Alan Watt had replaced Burton as secretary of the DEA and Richard Casey was the minister. Charles Kevin was made assistant secretary (administration), with responsibility for the running of the Antarctic Division. Even Watt admitted that Kevin’s position was a ‘thankless post’ and concluded that ‘no one in this position ever achieves fame or glory. . .’ Although Law had no problems with Watt, who seemed reasonably well disposed towards the Antarctic Division, he had most of his dealings with Kevin and their relations were at best cool—mutual animosity only lightly masked by the stilted, impersonal language used in their memoranda.22 Kevin knocked back Law’s request to brief the two journalists on future ANARE plans.

O

n 20 July 1950, Law received a message from Jim McCarthy, OIC at Heard Island, that the medical officer, Serge Udovikoff, had diagnosed himself as having appendicitis. Udovikoff had had an eventful year. First he broke his ankle skiing, put it in plaster himself and spent three weeks in bed.23 Then followed a violent episode of food

77

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

poisoning. Udovikoff was one of the ‘refugee doctors’, medical practitioners from Europe who were not registered with the State Licensing Boards but who, through a special arrangement, were allowed to practise in Antarctica. (Many of these doctors with European qualifications also worked in Papua New Guinea after the war.) With no other expeditioner capable of performing an appendicitis operation, Udovikoff’s plight was serious. Law requested assistance from the Royal Australian Navy who refused point blank. It was the middle of winter, ‘they had no suitable ship and they couldn’t spare one anyway’. He then arranged for an SOS to be sent to all ships within a certain distance of Heard Island asking if they could divert to the island. The story was front page news all over Australia and by 21 July it was reported that a passenger steamer, Port Phillip, travelling from Australia to London, had answered the call and was heading towards Heard Island. Despite this development, Law was horrified when he heard that Udovikoff was planning to operate on himself: I was of course in touch with the Medical Adviser at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Our strong advice. . .was, ‘Certainly don’t try that. Use every conservative method you have and hope the thing will go away. . .you’ll kill yourself if you try to operate on yourself.’

Expeditioner Peter Wayman noted in his diary on 23 July that Udovikoff was marking his stomach and reading medical books, and had fresh symptoms all the time. On 26 July a home remedy for relieving the symptoms of appendicitis was received by radio: mix 1 teaspoon coffee grounds with l dessertspoon of castor oil in half a pint [0.3 litre] of warm water and drink every four hours.24 Ignoring advice to concentrate on palliative methods, Udovikoff got ready to operate on himself. Phil Law: He prepared everything down there—the boys helped rig up everything—to the point I believe of actually lying on the operating table and beginning to have them shave his pubic area and then he lost his nerve and decided not to.*

78

* On 30 April 1961 a Russian doctor, L I Rogozov, successfully removed his own appendix in Antarctica, at Novolazarevskaya Station on the coast of Queen Maud Land.25 With self-diagnosed signs of possible perforation of his appendix and localised peritonitis and no help possible, Rogozov decided the only solution was to operate on himself. He prepared local anaesthetic and instructed a meteorologist in the use of surgical retractors while another expeditioner held a mirror so Rogozov could view what he could not otherwise see. The resourceful doctor was back on duty within two weeks.

E

A R L Y

D A Y S

Rescue by ship was looking more and more unlikely. The captain of Port Phillip radioed that he could not continue the dash to Heard Island in dangerous weather conditions—the passengers were all complaining, the furniture was getting broken, and the grand piano had broken loose.26 Another ship, Perthshire, responded to the call with two doctors on board standing by ‘day and night to broadcast detailed directions to the expedition should Dr Udovikoff decide to remove his own appendix’.27 The press was in a high state of hyperbole. On 22 July the Sunday Telegraph headlined: DOCTOR WITH KNIFE POISED, STOPS OWN OPERATION.28 Meanwhile the biologists Peter Young and Les Gibbney were practising removing appendixes from seals. OIC McCarthy thought that Young was capable of doing the operation with a bit of advice from a Melbourne surgeon, but Udovikoff did not choose that option.29 Gales raging in the Southern Ocean forced Perthshire also to give up attempts to reach Heard Island. Law was having such a hectic time that his wife Nel shifted all his clothes and personal gear out to the lounge room at his Canterbury home, and he lived beside the phone for two weeks snatching catnaps as the Udovikoff affair gained momentum.30 Eventually the navy decided to help, and on 27 July it was reported that HMAS Australia would be sent ‘on her 3200 mile [5120 kilometres] mercy dash to Heard Island’ with two doctors aboard.31 Law had been contacted two days before by the navy and told to arrange cold-weather clothing for the entire ship’s company: We descended on Myers, and Buckley and Nunn’s, and London Stores. We bought all their long johns and their woollen singlets. . .and tried to get everything done in a period of 36 hours.

Meanwhile on Heard Island things were less hectic. Peter Wayman wrote in his diary that Udovikoff was still reading medical books, ‘but unfortunately he read the wrong one and developed symptoms of childbirth’. By 27 July there were signs that Udovikoff’s condition was easing and, three days later, Jim McCarthy was relaxed enough about the situation to go on a short mountaineering expedition.32 The press was still in a frenzy of excitement. ‘A thin white line of hope for a man in danger was cut through the Southern Ocean today as HMAS Australia sped towards Heard Island’ was typical of the coverage even though the big cruiser was making heavy weather of the Southern Ocean gales.33 On 2 August Heard Island reported one of the year’s worst blizzards with wind gusts reaching 160 kilometres per hour. But by 7 August the seas were calm enough for the Australian flagship to take Udovikoff on board for the return journey. The Canberra Times of 11 August reported

79

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

that HMAS Australia was speeding to Fremantle. No immediate operation was necessary. The doctor, a thin grey-eyed man, ‘clenched his teeth as he was helped to the ship’s surgery, but said he felt fairly strong and had little pain’. Law said the voyage back was very rough: They were struck by an immense wave that stove in about six frames on the side of the ship. By the time they got back to Fremantle the conservative measures taken by the doctor had proved effective.

The arrival in Fremantle was a public relations disaster, with Udovikoff walking ashore unaided. Law thought the least that could have been done was carry him off on a stretcher: There was an uproar by ignorant people and the media, querying whether he had ever been sick. This was during the cold war with Russia and some even went so far as to suggest that Udovikoff was a Russian agent and he’d deliberately designed this illness so he could divert Australia’s main flagship away from Australia! It was a tremendous drama. But I might just say Udovikoff was [later] qualified for medical service and he had a long and quite distinguished career as a medico in Western Australia.

80

One immediate outcome of the Udovikoff crisis was that the Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey, made it clear to Law that the navy would not be available in the future to attempt this kind of rescue (HMAS Australia had sustained expensive structural damage). He also told Law that no doctor could go to an Australian Antarctic station in future without his appendix being prophylactically removed. The British Medical Association, however, considered it was unethical to operate on a person to remove a healthy appendix. Law solved this problem by simply ignoring the BMA’s concerns, but it did add to the problems of finding doctors for Antarctic service, because ‘not everyone is prepared to walk “cold’’ into a surgery and have his appendix out just to get a job in the Antarctic’. The Udovikoff affair underlined the pressing need for Australia to have its own Antarctic ship. Labuan was not available for the emergency dash to Heard Island to bring back Dr Udovikoff and whether she could have managed the journey in winter is doubtful. Law had hoped to mount an expedition to the Antarctic continent in the summer of 1951–52, but the prospect of chartering an overseas ship was complicated by the outbreak of the Korean War and the uncertain international situation. Law urged the Executive Planning Committee to discuss the practicality of a plan already drawn up by the Antarctic Division to design and build an Antarctic ship in Australia. The committee

E

A R L Y

D A Y S

resolved to recommend to the Government that a ship be chartered in 1951 and that a sub-committee be appointed to prepare detailed specifications for the new vessel.34 Cabinet agreed and on 13 July 1950 decided ‘that an expedition should be sent to the Antarctic to establish a permanent station in the Australian sector’ and ‘that a new ship should be built for this purpose’. Costs of the ship were estimated to be in the region of £700 000 [$1.4 million] to £800 000 [$1.6 million].35 For two years from December 1950, a sub-committee including Law, Sir Douglas Mawson, Captain J K Davis and Commander Peter Peak RAN met and worked painstakingly with the chief naval architect from the Australian Shipbuilding Board, Claude Barker.36 The general requirements for the proposed ship were that it be capable of breaking three-foot-thick sheet-ice [91.4 centimetres], carry 50 passengers and 50 crew, and have a helicopter deck and space for an aircraft, amphibious vehicles, laboratories, oceanographic winches and other equipment. Specifications for this Antarctic ship were actually completed ‘right down to the furniture and the crockery’. The vessel was never built. Australia would not have its own Antarctic ship until the launch of the Newcastle-built Aurora Australis in 1989.

81

SIX

TESTING

TIMES

I

n February 1951 the whole sub-Antarctic program was thrown into chaos by the breakdown and removal from service of HMAS Labuan on her way back to Fremantle while relieving the 1950 Heard Island party and landing the 1951 expeditioners and their supplies. This was something Phil Law had feared from the time of his first Southern Ocean voyage on Labuan in 1949: There’s no doubt that the Naval Board in Australia had great misgivings about sending an LST to Heard Island. They argued about it for a long while and finally agreed reluctantly to send an LST because there was just nothing else. The thing that will always amuse me is that, having argued for so long and worried so much about the chance of survival of the LST. . .when it returned successfully from Heard Island everyone threw their caps in the air and said: ‘Hooray, we made it. Good old LST. A wonderful job.’

The voyage to Heard had been rough, with Labuan performing her usual remarkable twisting and corkscrewing motion through heavy seas that Law estimated were twelve metres high. On the night of 28 January it was blowing up to hurricane force, ‘60 mph [96 kilometres per hour] with gusts up to 90 mph [144 kilometres per hour], a pitch black night with mountainous seas’. It was so bad that Law thought he would check on how the ANARE men were faring in the cabins on either side of ‘this great flapping foredeck’:

82

They were all sitting up very worried, and they said, ‘Phil, the crew’s all gone.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ They said, ‘Well, there’s no one next

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

door.’ So I went to the crew’s quarters and sure enough there was no crew there. . .So I went back aft and there in the mess decks were all the crew with their knapsacks packed with all their personal belongings. I said, ‘What goes on?’ They said, ‘Well, if this ship is going to break in half, we’re going to be in the half that’s got the works in it!’

The steering gear failed before they got to Heard Island and while there the ship ran short of drinking water after cracks in the hull polluted the fresh water with salt. The captain, Lieutenant Commander I Cartwright, JO JELBART (LEFT) AND insisted on taking Labuan to neighbouring Kerguelen ‘SHORTY’ CARROLL WITH A Island to replenish the fresh water stocks before the HAUL OF ANTARCTIC COD, Heard resupply was completed. They got back to the HEARD ISLAND 1948. island on 13 February and completed the resupply, to JELBART DIED IN AN ACCIDENT Law’s great relief. The first day out on the return journey WHILE ON THE NORWEGIANthe steering gear failed again, but one of the crew BRITISH-SWEDISH ANTARCTIC devised an impromptu gadget with belts and pulleys EXPEDITION IN 1951. from a refrigeration electric motor to maintain steer(A CAMPBELL-DRURY) age. Law said later that the ingenious young engine artificer was later court martialled for drilling holes in the deck without the approval of the Naval Board. On Wednesday 21 February Labuan wallowed without power for eight hours in mid-ocean while engine repairs were attempted. Law was also told that a crack (by no means the first in the LST’s Antarctic history) had opened up right across the steel foredeck—a reminder that LSTs had broken apart in the Atlantic during World War II—and sea water had entered the fresh water tanks and the condenser tubes. During this dismal time Law was shocked to get a radio report that the physicist Jo Jelbart (who had been one of the original Heard Island party in 1948) had been killed while working as an Australian observer with the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition. Jelbart and two other men had driven over the ice cliffs in thick fog into the sea near the base camp of Maudheim in a Weasel over-snow vehicle. This was a double blow for Law. Apart from his personal friendship with the bright young physicist, Law had been grooming Jelbart to succeed him if ever he left the Division.1 83

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

I

n 1948 when Phil Law returned from the voyage of Wyatt Earp with his newly-grown beard, he believed himself to be one of only three men in Melbourne to sport one, and it excited comment wherever he went. In 1951, little had changed: The breakdown of Labuan and her diversion to Fremantle meant that men of the returning Heard Island party were in a strange city, far from home, with no money. I had radioed from the ship to Canberra requesting that the Public Service Inspector’s office in Fremantle be authorised to pay the men a fortnight’s salary upon their arrival. So, as soon as we berthed, I gathered the men and we all trooped along to the PSI’s office. We entered the building and I found the office. Saying, ‘Wait here till I check’, I left the men in the corridor and went in to speak to the girl at the reception counter. Behind

84

her was a large room with numerous typists working in an ‘open plan’ layout—about twenty in all. I asked the girl was the money for the Heard Island men available. After she had enquired and answered ‘Yes’, I went to the door and said, ‘All right men, come in.’ Into the space before the reception counter trooped eighteen men, almost all wearing beards. The beards were all types, sizes and colours, and some men with long, black, luxuriant growths looked very fearsome indeed. Every typist stopped work and there was a deathly, wide-eyed hush. After a few moments of shocked silence, there erupted a few giggles and a murmur of excited conversation; then the heads bent again over the typewriters and work resumed. I never again was to see beards have such an impact.2

On Tuesday 27 February a tug finally reached Labuan, but she was finished. After some weeks undergoing repairs in Fremantle she limped back to Melbourne for further work, and then to Sydney where she was tied up. She never put to sea again. The 1950 Macquarie Island party was following these events with more than average interest, because the men were effectively marooned, with no suitable vessel available to relieve them despite Law’s efforts to contact every organisation controlling shipping around the Australian coastline. They had a difficult year in many ways. There was friction over the management style of OIC Dick Cohen, which caused four members of the party to write to Phil Law complaining about his behaviour.3 The letters were able to be delivered because of a visit to Macquarie Island in September 1950 by a New Zealand naval frigate, St Austel Bay. This caused the unexpected departure of the cook, Norman Figg, who arrived on the beach at Garden Cove with his kitbag just before the frigate was due to sail. Weather observer Reg Frost said:

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

‘Where are you going Norm?’ ‘I’m going home’ said the cook, all done up in his best clothes. And he did! We couldn’t stop him, providing the captain of St Austel Bay was prepared to take him.

Figg had injured his leg playing a particularly robust form of Macquarie Island football—a melange of rugby and Australian Rules ‘with no written rules’, played on the soft fine sand of the isthmus. That became the official reason for his ‘repatriation’, but the reality was he just decided to quit, having received some disturbing news from home. Fred Doutch, the assistant cook/storeman, took over culinary duties for three months until the British oceanographic research ship Discovery II dropped in a replacement chef.4 Another member of the party became so depressed during the year that he used to sit on top of Camp Hill near the station and shoot any seals ‘that put their heads up’ with a .303 rifle. The rest of the men thought it best not to interfere. According to weather observer Trevior Boyd, one of the enduring station slogans was, ‘Every bastard down here is mad except me’. Dissatisfaction with the OIC reached the point where a palace coup was actually planned. Biologist Bill Taylor: We had a series of informal meetings, and we were going to have a new King, Eric Shipp [the other biologist]. Nobody disagreed, but there were two or three who wouldn’t vote in favour of it, so we decided that unless we were all unanimous, we wouldn’t do it. But [the OIC] got a big scare and behaved himself a bit better after that.

All these group tensions were overtaken by the illness of meteorologist John Windsor, who developed severe symptoms of appendicitis in December 1950. Windsor was not keen to have an operation on the island. The doctor, Kostos Kalnenas, was a Displaced Person with European qualifications (like Serge Udovikoff) not recognised by Australian medical authorities. Kalnenas was an ear, nose and throat doctor without much general surgical experience.5 Windsor knew that the surgical instruments were in poor shape, as Bill Taylor recalled, ‘because [when we arrived] Kostos made the mistake of showing us the state of some of the instruments. They were all rusty, which Windsor didn’t like one bit.’ According to Taylor, Windsor delayed reporting his symptoms because he had heard a French polar ship, Commandant Charcot, was due to sail past Macquarie Island, and could call in to pick him up. When it got fairly close to Macquarie he reported sick and wanted the ship to come in. But the doctor said, ‘You have no time. You have delayed reporting it, and it’s obviously burst.’ And he still would not agree to an

85

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

operation. It wasn’t until there was an exchange of cables and he was told that the ship wouldn’t be coming—because he would be dead by the time the ship got there—that he agreed to an operation.

Kalnenas operated on 2 January 1951, but it was too late. Windsor’s appendix had ruptured, and the incision revealed ‘one big pussy mess’. There was little Kalnenas could do other than clean up the infected area, put in a drain and administer antibiotics. Windsor died on 5 January and his widow agreed to her husband’s burial on Macquarie Island.6 To compound these traumatic events, Cyril Park, the diesel mechanic, also developed symptoms of appendicitis. Bill Taylor: Cyril was a real tough mechanic, a good guy. Everybody liked old Cyril. But for some reason he started to get the same vomiting and pains. . .it was a combination of gall bladder and appendix symptoms.

86

By this time the French polar vessel Commandant Charcot that Windsor had hoped would rescue him was close enough to Macquarie to be diverted to pick up Park, who was evacuated on 12 February. The 1950 Macquarie Island party was depending on Phil Law to find a suitable ship for them. The rumour mill had it that a ship would actually have to be built to relieve the island, and that could take twelve months. But a more conventional solution was at hand. The Australian Shipping Board finally offered ANARE River Fitzroy, a 9000-tonne ship used for transporting iron ore for BHP, then about to load iron ore at Whyalla. It was far from suitable, but at least it was a ship, and Law accepted it gratefully. The Shipping Board offered the seamen’s union £1 a day [$2], and the union responded with a ‘take it or leave it’ offer of £2/10/0 [$5] a day. Law took it.7 This was the first time ANARE had worked with a merchant crew, rather than the navy. Fortunately the army was able to provide two DUKWs to replace the beaten-up vehicles that were still on Labuan . The landing of stores from River Fitzroy was organised by Dick Thompson, ANARE’s new supply officer. Thompson was an ex-navy man with wide experience, a good organiser and widely respected by those who worked with him. It was 1 May before River Fitzroy cleared Hobart for Macquarie Island, arriving in Buckles Bay on Friday 4 May. By then it was late in the season, dark each day at 4.30 pm and unloading from the ship was illuminated by floodlights. Beacons were also lit on the beach to guide the DUKWs in. Gales and snow storms interrupted the unloading, and pontoons and a disabled DUKW were blown out to sea and had to be rescued. On 13 May River Fitzroy sailed down the coast of the narrow island to Lusitania Bay to land emergency supplies for a hut there. One of the two DUKWs

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

was stranded on rocks just off the beach where it was pounded by a heavy swell and had to be abandoned. Law, Thompson and the landing party were rescued by a whale boat from River Fitzroy after a cold and uncomfortable night in a small shelter hut. Eleven men trying to sleep in a hut only 2.4 by 2.6 metres reminded Law of ‘sea elephants in a wallow’.8 Despite the odds, however, the 1950 party had been relieved—even though it seemed at one stage that they THE 9000-TONNE IRON-ORE might have to sit down to their second mid-winter CARRIER RIVER FITZROY, dinner in 1951. But the problem of finding a suitable SHOWN LEAVING MELBOURNE ship to support ANARE activities remained. IN APRIL 1951, WAS THE ONLY After the Udovikoff evacuation from Heard Island VESSEL AVAILABLE TO GO TO in 1950, and John Windsor’s death early in 1951, MACQUARIE ISLAND AFTER Antarctic Division staff in Melbourne were alarmed to THE COLLAPSE OF LABUAN. hear from Heard Island in October about another (COURTESY P LAW) medical emergency. Jack Starr, the cook on Heard Island, had been diagnosed with acute appendicitis. There were no ships available for a rescue, so after an exchange of cables with the division and the consultant surgeon of Royal Melbourne Hospital an urgent operation was recommended. The medical officer on Heard Island was Dr Otto Rec who, like Udovikoff and Kalnenas, had European qualifications not recognised in Australia. He was a physician and had never performed an appendicectomy. Law’s insistence that certain expedition members from each wintering party had three weeks’ training at the Royal Melbourne Hospital as a theatre assistant and anaesthetist was about to be put to the test again. The radio supervisor on Heard Island, Nils Lied, noted in his diary: Dr Rec wanted the following assistants: biologist Ken Brown as assistant surgeon to help him underbind the tissues and arteries etc; myself to hold Jack’s guts open while he and Ken did the digging; biologist Max Downes to be in charge of instruments; OIC Frank Hannan to be the anaesthetist, and Kevin Johnson, radio operator, to be general ‘sister’ to fetch and carry.9

87

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Photographs taken at the time show a professional-looking gowned and masked operating team gathered round an operating table in the galebuffeted recreation hut. The table was hastily knocked up by radio operator Dave Cheffins from scrap timber and a masonite desk top. The whole area had been scrubbed with lysol. Nils Lied:

DR OTTO REC (CENTRE) AND HIS ANARE THEATRE ASSISTANTS OPERATING ON

JACK STARR FOR APPENDIHEARD ISLAND, 1951. (R DINGLE)

CITIS,

It took us all hours and hours to get scrubbed up. . .at first we used sandsoap, then ordinary soap, then when seemingly all the skin had been thoroughly removed from hands and arms, we held our hands in pure alcohol for ten minutes. This was, of course, considered a terrible waste by several of the party.10

The cook, by general ANARE consensus then and now, is the indispensable person on a wintering station. Rec began the operation with the words of diesel mechanic Peter Lawson ringing in his ears: ‘If you kill the bloody cook, they’ll kill you!’ Starr was brought in, putting on a bold front. He told his masked and gowned colleagues that their appearances were much improved. Lied:

88

We made a mask from gauze and we had ether. We kicked him off with Pentothal, and he got very drowsy. Somebody said, ‘Where are you Jack?’ And he said, slurring, ‘Sydney Cricket Ground’. I said, ‘Oh he’s all right’ so we slapped the mask on him. Even so, it took an hour to get him under because. . .he had such a bushy beard that oxygen got through the beard and mixed with the ether. But we got him under in the finish. We tried several times, but every time Doc touched his belly with a knife, he’d draw his knees up. Anyway we finally got into him, and Doc said, ‘I cannot find the bloody thing!’ We had all Jack’s entrails spread over his stomach and finally we found the appendix, and that was not in the best of condition.11

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

The discovery of the elusive appendix triggered a muffled cheer from the operating team and the anxious spectators. Lied said the job was finished just in time: The last stitching was as fast as possible, and soon after the last stitch was in and a dressing clapped on his belly, Jack came out of the anaesthetic and said ‘Shit’!—which may well have been appropriate under the circumstances.12

Radio contact with Melbourne was lost during the operation and it was some hours before Cheffins could get a message through to the Antarctic SHE WAS SMALL, BUT SHE Division (relayed through Scandinavia on an amateur DID THE JOB. TOTTAN IN band) to a relieved Phillip Law that the operation had ATLAS COVE 1952. been successfully completed. Starr made a slow recov(P LAW) ery, but managed to return to duty. At the end of 1951 the absence of a suitable ship to recover the Heard and Macquarie parties and replace them with the 1952 winterers was still the most urgent practical problem confronting the Antarctic Division. It was thought a motor ship, Kabarli, would be available for charter from the Government of Western Australia, but the offer was withdrawn ‘at the last moment’.13 The charter of vessels from overseas was ruled out as too expensive. Law pinned his hopes on a Norwegian sealer, MV Tottan , used by the French to resupply their station on Adélie Land. There were some difficulties to be overcome. Tottan was scheduled to take the French expeditioners back to Europe and its owner-master, Captain Engebretsen, was returning to Norway to take part in that season’s sealing operations off Newfoundland. Law sent administrative officer Jerry Donovan to Adelaide to sound out Captain Engebretsen on his way south, and asked Westralian Farmers Transport Ltd in London to act as agents for the Antarctic Division and open negotiations in Norway. After prolonged negotiations between London and Oslo, a charter was arranged to relieve both Heard and Macquarie Islands within Law’s budget estimate of £50 000 [$100 000]. There were no objections by the French, because they found it cheaper to fly their expeditioners home rather than continue their charter.14 Tottan was a small vessel of 500 tonnes, not ice-strengthened but—although about the same size as the wooden-hulled Wyatt Earp—at 89

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

least with a steel hull. She was not big enough to carry army DUKWs, and alternative methods of getting cargo ashore at Heard and Macquarie islands had to be worked out. Supply officer Dick Thompson and scientific officer Lem Macey chose inflatable pontoons. They were US wartime stock, they came in 10 2 metre sections, had timber decking on top of them, and were originally used as a quick method of bridging rivers. Thompson: Lem Macey and I became the masters of pontoon technology. . .these big inflatable pontoons proved to be a lifesaver for the Antarctic Division for a long, long time. We cut our teeth on Tottan because we didn’t have the navy any more. Before [on the Labuan] there were sailors to do things. Tottan had a small crew, and they would handle the cargo in the hold, we’d load it on to the pontoon, the ship’s motor boat would tow us in—we had no more than four people on a pontoon—and then when we got on to the beach all our troops would unload it.

Tottan sailed for Heard Island on 9 February 1952 under the command of Captain L Frederiksen. Law rated her on a par with Wyatt Earp for comfort, which was not a ringing endorsement. Peter Lancaster Brown, a Heard Island expeditioner, wrote that Melbourne harbour regulations forbade the dumping of foodstuff into the river and a week’s accumulation of galley scraps lay rotting on the burning hot steel decks: Little imagination is required to visualise the scene, and with the putrid odours percolating through from the old, leaking blubber tanks in the ship’s hold, it was only too easy to realise that we were in for no luxury cruise.15

Law described the seventeen-day voyage to Heard Island as ‘not enjoyable’, with most of the ANARE men being sick all the time. A pen containing twelve sheep was stove in by a heavy sea and the bedraggled beasts were moved on to one wing of the bridge—courtesy of the captain—for the rest of the voyage.16 The new pontoons proved effective in moving cargo and, anxious to take advantage of calm weather on the evening of 27 February, Law decided to throw 44-gallon drums [200 litres] of fuel overboard to float ashore.

90

After the first twenty-five drums had been put over I noticed that they were floating alongside the ship and not moving towards the shore, so I stopped the unloading and work ceased. Soon afterwards the wind went around to the south-west and most of these twenty-five drums were

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

not seen again. They will probably turn up on one of the adjacent beaches.17

The next morning the experiment was tried again and ‘drums now put overboard floated ashore rapidly and were dragged by the men above high-water mark’. The unloading and changeover was completed by 2 March and Law was extremely impressed with the cooperation ANARE had from RUBBER PONTOONS CARRY the master Captain Frederiksen and the crew of CARGO ASHORE FROM Tottan. TOTTAN, MACQUARIE Before leaving Heard, Law gave his permission for ISLAND 1952. the crew to do some sealing as a bonus for their good (P LAW) work. A score of bull elephant seals were lying up on the rocks near Wharf Point, near the camp. All of them were youngsters not more than four or five years old but, even so, they were over three metres long and each weighed about a tonne. Peter Brown described the scene: Armed with long flensing knives and rifles, the Norwegians approached the dozing seals that lay shoulder to shoulder in a wallow of stinking ooze and rotting faeces. . .An old sealer called Thorsen picked up a length of driftwood. Whacking the unfortunate beasts about the head, he tried to separate them to give the men more room for flensing. With thunderous, raucous bellows, the victims arched their bodies as they scattered to avoid the rain of blows. Some tried to lollop back into the sea to escape their tormentor, but a snap shot by the riflemen quickly ended their flight. It was horrible to witness the great seals die. The huge masses of flesh quivered in the death agonies and spouted plumes of bright red blood. As life became extinct their eyes glazed over—turning green and expressionless.18

The dead seals were quickly flensed and within half an hour the strips of white blubber were deposited into Tottan’s rusting blubber tanks. Law was impressed by the operation and its commercial possibilities and noted in his voyage report:

91

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

As a result of discussions on board this sealing ship and (later) at Kerguelen, together with observations of these men at work, I am convinced that the time is ripe to commence sealing operations at our Islands.19

92

Within five days of her return to Melbourne on 10 March Tottan was on her way to Macquarie Island where the technique of unloading cargo on inflatable pontoons was to be put to its toughest test. With the beach at Buckles Bay guarded by rocks and kelp, and a surf to contend with as well, the pontoons could not be towed straight to shore as they had been at Heard Island. Instead a buoy was anchored just beyond the breaker line, near a narrow strip of open water about twelve metres wide and leading into the beach between the rocks and kelp. The pontoons were towed to this buoy by the ship’s motor boat and then were hauled from the buoy to the shore by a continuous line running from the buoy to the beach—a method devised and rigged by the ingenious duo, Macey and Thompson. Law later wrote that only the flexible pontoons could have operated in the heavy surf in Buckles Bay. Tottan left for Melbourne on 9 April. It had taken two weeks wrestling with cargo, cold, surf and gale-force winds to complete the changeover. Back in Melbourne, a smooth rhythm of annual expedition administration was now operating, tied irrevocably to the shipping schedule that took men and supplies to the sub-Antarctic islands. In 1951 Law requested that his title ‘officer-in-charge’ be changed to ‘director’. He was not confirmed in his job, however, until 27 March 1952, more than three years after he had taken up the acting position. On 11 June 1952 the Antarctic Division moved from its Victoria Barracks location to 187 Collins St, Melbourne. From a complement of four in 1949 when Law first took over, there were now eighteen permanent staff including Law, director; Jeremiah (Jerri) Donovan, administrative officer; Fred Jacka, physicist (in charge of a small staff of scientists); Dick Thompson, supply officer; George Smith, storeman at Tottenham; Alan Campbell-Drury, photographic officer; Mynwe (Mrs Mac) McDonald, cables officer; a librarian and other support staff. The Antarctic Division’s planning system was set out in a monthly time line beginning in April when Law returned from overseeing the last changeover voyage of the summer season. Plans, forward estimates of costings and budgets were prepared for the next expedition. Staff positions were created and approvals sought. Ordering of overseas supplies began in May and vehicles, aircraft, radios and general equipment were overhauled or purchased. Advertising for expeditioners for the following year began in June and the budget was prepared and presented

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

to Treasury. In July Law travelled to State capital cities to interview expeditioners who had applied to go south. In the latter half of the calendar year the island stations ordered food and equipment for the resupply. The all-important operations manuals were written or updated during September and ship itineraries and passenger lists finalised. The selected expeditioners began training in October. Trial erection of new huts was an important element and the men began packing stores under the ‘guided democracy’ of George Smith in the Tottenham store. This work went on through November and into December when the first ship sailed. In the first few years of island operations there was little training for expeditioners. Two men went to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to learn basic anaesthetic and nursing techniques to help the doctor in an emergency, and the cook was checked out and further trained if necessary in the all-important art of baking bread. The doctor also did a quick (but essential) course in basic dentistry at the Dental Hospital. After Dick Thompson joined the division in 1950 he suggested to Law that a properly designed training program be set up for all expeditions, to enable them to handle better the extreme conditions in Antarctica. It became the practice for all expeditioners to attend a week-long program at the University of Melbourne in November. There they had lectures on the aims and ideals of the expedition, survival and first aid, hygiene, fire precautions and the use of fire extinguishers, Antarctic clothing, how to travel by tractor and dog sled (when the Antarctic stations were established), films of life at a station, photographic techniques, supply problems, reordering, stores procedures, administration and how to deal with morale problems. An expedition member was selected as station photographer, trained by Alan Campbell-Drury, and issued with cameras and film to undertake moving as well as still photography during the year. While every photographer was credited, the film exposed remained the property of the Antarctic Division and the release of any publicity material was controlled by the director. The dangers of Antarctic (and sub-Antarctic) life were many and a trap for the unwary. Getting there involved a potentially dangerous voyage fraught with cyclones, pack ice, submerged rocks and unknown coasts. Loading and unloading stores under risky conditions could and did cause injuries to those taking part. Those who ventured away from the stations faced risk of exposure, frostbite, snow-blindness, slipping on ice and breaking a limb, white-outs, being lost in a blizzard, falling into crevasses or being killed or injured by aircraft, vehicles or machinery. On station there could be fire, carbon monoxide poisoning (an insidious danger in huts warmed by burning fossil fuels) or industrial accidents.

93

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

Weather observers manufacturing hydrogen for balloon launches were vulnerable to explosions. These dangers were no less potent on the sub-Antarctic islands than on the yet-to-be-attained Antarctic continent. Heard Island, with its 2745 metre volcano Big Ben, generated a full range of polar conditions. Savage blizzards, glaciers, snow and ice posed grave risks for those undertaking pioneering field work. Those who broke established rules or took unacceptable risks through inexperience could pay a terrible price. In April 1952 radio operators Jim Carr and Peter Brown set out to walk from the station at Atlas Cove to conduct a seal count at Saddle Point along the coast—only about ten kilometres as the metaphorical crow flew, but considerably longer in practice because of the steep slopes and glaciers of Heard Island. When they came to a feature sometimes called the Baudissen Glacier (later renamed the Little Challenger Glacier) it looked easier to walk along the beach in front of its ice cliffs, instead of climbing over. Carr: These glaciers have ice walls at the shore, 150 feet [45.7 metres] or so high, and then a beach as wide as the average lounge room, twelve or fifteen feet [around 4 metres]. So we thought we’d take a risk because it would be quicker.20

94

Brown agreed that the short cut would save ‘hours of back-breaking toil’, and they began to walk across. Brown wrote: ‘I felt uneasy—like a kind of foreboding. The sand strip was terribly narrow and forced us to walk directly under the vertical ice wall looming menacingly above. . .’21 Carrying packs weighing over 30 kilograms, the two men began running and fast walking along the front of the glacier. Halfway across they went down to their knees in soft wet sand. In Carr’s words: ‘As though there were some malignant force guiding it all. . .a wave leapt up in the air and ran straight in. Now that water’s very cold, and it just engulfed us.’22 Driven back against the ice cliff, the two men drove their ice axes in and held on as the next wave surged over them. ‘This is the end’, thought Brown. But the waves held back, and they scrambled to safety, ‘lucky to be alive’. On 26 May, impatient to get away from base camp for an excursion, dog handler Alastair ‘Jock’ Forbes, radio operator Dick Hoseason and weather observer Laurie Atkinson decided to walk to Saddle Point to conduct another seal count, over the same route Carr and Brown had pioneered. The three men had not done a great deal of field work, and Brown and two companions walked with them for part of the way. After seeing them over the worst of the Baudissen Glacier, Brown and his party decided to turn back. Brown recalled saying to Forbes:

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

‘Don’t be tempted to cross beneath the ice cliffs—no matter how easy it looks.’ Forbes said he understood and gave me a look which made me feel rather pompous.23

Next morning Brown was about to enter the mess hut for morning tea when the door burst open and medical officer Jeff Faulkner rushed out ‘with his face as white as a sheet’: ‘Lorry’s back!’ was all he could utter. ‘Lorry’s back. . .Dick’s dead for certain!’ I dashed into the kitchen where Teyssier and Ingall were supporting Lorry Atkinson on a chair. He was almost unconscious; his hands puffed and white—utterly lifeless. His eyes were bloodshot, and his bare dishevelled head dripping wet like the rest of his body. Teyssier was trying to pour some hot soup down his throat, and the scalding liquid burnt his lips—jarring him back into consciousness. He looked at us vaguely and said, ‘I’m damned sorry. . .I’m damned sorry. . .Dick’s drowned under the Little Challenger Glacier. . .Jock set off last night. . .to cross the Baudissen. . .Haven’t you seen him’? Then he lapsed into incoherency.24

Despite being warned, the three men had tried to take the short cut under the ice cliff, and been overwhelmed by the surf. Like Carr and Brown earlier, they had managed to hold on to the ice cliff with their ice axes, but a second wave caught Forbes off balance. When he recovered, Atkinson described what happened: Hoseason and I grabbed hold of him [Forbes] and held on until the water receded. . .then we threw away our packs and ice-axes and ran for it—trying to reach the safety of the next moraine before any more rollers broke. . .But another one smashed clean over our heads. We held on to each other, but poor Hoseason was dragged away by the undertow—we were powerless to stop him. He shouted to us to save him, then I saw him disappear and we didn’t see him again. . . Forbes and I managed to hold on, then we dashed towards the moraine. Our clothes were soon frozen solid; I was terribly cold and frightened. We couldn’t believe that Hoseason had really ‘bought it’ and we expected him to show up at any moment. Everything was lost when we threw away our packs. Hoseason carried the emergency chocolate inside his windproof.25

Atkinson collapsed and Forbes started over the Baudissen Glacier to get help. Atkinson came to and dozed through the night. He decided

95

T

H E

B E G I N N I N G

DIGGING ALASTAIR FORBES’ GRAVE AT ATLAS COVE, HEARD ISLAND, 1952. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 5 3

to return along the beach, risking the waves, knowing that he had no strength to climb over the glaciers. Forbes’s body was recovered from the Baudissen Glacier on 28 May but Hoseason’s remains were not found until spring. Forbes was buried near the station on 31 May. OIC Les Gibbney noted in his log that there was no prayer book ‘so we are forced to make up a burial service. Perriman did this’.26 The twelve remaining Heard Island expeditioners gathered in the mess-room for a prayer, and then carried the coffin to the prepared burial mound. Brown:

As we paid our last respects, the wind screamed through wireless masts, and two sledge dogs broke out into a mournful chorus, accentuating the scene of utter desolation. There could never have been a more fitting ‘Last Post’.27

96

E S TA B L I S H M E N T A N D E X P L O R AT I O N

1954–1966

SEVEN

BREAKING

THE ICE

B

y 1953 there was still no Australian presence on continental Antarctica and the lack of a suitable ice-strengthened ship remained an insuperable obstacle to ANARE’s main aims in the Antarctic. During the summer of 1949–50, Phil Law gained valuable Antarctic experience when he travelled as an Australian observer on the Norwegian British Swedish Expedition (NBSE) to Queen Maud Land on a 700-tonne diesel-powered ship Norsel, sailing from Cape Town. Norsel had only fair icebreaking capacity but managed to deliver the wintering party to the Maudheim base through the pack ice. Law was particularly impressed by the use of Auster aircraft carried on board to assist navigation through the ice, and carry out general reconnaissance and mapping work, using floats and skis. And he always had his future plans in mind: They had to leave one of their major huts behind, and I persuaded them to sell it to me so I could put it in store [and] if we ever went to Antarctica we would have a major hut. [Also] I got them to promise that they’d sell me the two Austers.

As well, he acquired first-hand experience of the stores and equipment needed and an understanding of the conditions to expect when setting up a base in Antarctica. From Cape Town he travelled on to Europe to visit people and institutions involved with polar work. He was particularly interested in a warm cotton windproof cloth called ‘Ventile’ manufactured in England, ideal for polar tents and clothing. From the French polar explorer Paul-Emile Victor he learned about the availability of Weasels, the over-snow tracked vehicles he had seen used on the NBS

99

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

expedition, and investigated dog and cargo sledges used by the Norwegians. He also visited shipbuilders MAWSON STATION ON in Glasgow, studied plans of ships, and wrote specifiMAWSON COAST cations for Australia’s requirements. Buoyed by the whole experience, he wrote to his wife Nel, ‘I am more and more certain that the thing to do is to BUILD A NEW SHIP! And I think I can sell the idea to the Govt!’1 Law’s advocacy was effective. On 13 July 1950 Cabinet decided that in order to establish and maintain a permanent Antarctic station, ‘a new ship should be built for this purpose’.2 But the availability of icegoing vessel Kista Dan, just built by Danish shipping firm J Lauritzen Lines, put the Australian project on indefinite hold. Law was alerted to the existence of Kista Dan by Westralian Farmers Transport Ltd, the Antarctic Division’s shipping agents in London who had previously arranged the 100 charter of the Norwegian sealer Tottan.

B

W

hy was a company called Westralian Farmers Transport in London assisting the Antarctic Division in Melbourne in the chartering of Antarctic ships from Denmark? Westralian Farmers Transport (Wesfarmers) was one of the few companies that represented Australian interests on the Baltic Exchange in London—essentially the centre of world shipping. It has handled the Antarctic Division’s foreign charters for almost half a century. Westralian Farmers began in the 1920s, in the depression years when farmers realised they would do better as a cooperative. John O’Rourke was managing director of Westralian Farmers Transport from 1960 to 1987: John Thompson was the general manager of Westralian Farmers from the late twenties through to 1957. In the early days there wasn’t a great deal known about shipping in Australia. We relied on England for everything—the mother country—and companies such as the P&O ran regular shipping lines here, and you had to dance to their tune. They had the ships, we had the produce; we had no ships, they had the bulk of the

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

market. And there was a time when the farmers were suffering dreadfully. John Thompson went to the overseas shipping representatives and said: ‘Look, unless you do something to stabilise wool and wheat freight rates, we’re going to have to do something for ourselves’. They looked at him rather benignly and said, ‘Well, precisely what did you have in mind?’ So he said, ‘We’d have to charter ships of our own’. And, of course, they all thought this was rather a joke—an Australian farming cooperative chartering ships. What would they know about shipping? But that’s precisely what he did when they wouldn’t listen to him. One of his first ventures was with refrigerated ships. He went out and chartered three Swedish refrigerated ships to carry the Western Australian apple crop to Europe. The ships were superb; they were new, they were fast, they were well-controlled. So Wesfarmers got its fruit to market quicker, cheaper, and got the best of the market. This was an enormous shock for the established shipping lines out here and they really sat up and started to take notice of this little company, Westralian Farmers Transport.

Kista Dan was built for voyages between Denmark and Greenland in the Northern Hemisphere summer. Despite the Australian ship on the drawing board, Law could see advantages in chartering a good new ice ship with an experienced ice captain and crew. He was also relieved he would not have to work in Antarctic conditions with an Australian crew who were likely to want to work to rule, whereas he knew a foreign crew would labour round the clock, if necessary, to take full advantage of short periods of good weather. (He had experienced problems with an Australian crew on the ship River Fitzroy at Macquarie Island in 1951.) Law went to the Government about Kista Dan:

101

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

I said, ‘Look, I can get Kista Dan. We can now go down and set up an Antarctic base on the continent, I can arrange it so it won’t cost you much, we’ll only put ten men ashore. . .and if you like I’ll close down Heard Island Station so that the money can be applied to the Antarctic continent. Further, I’m prepared to pick up the radio sets and the diesel engines and the tractor and various things from Heard Island, and one or two of the huts. . .so it really won’t cost you much at all and then we’ll get a foothold on the Antarctic.’

102

Law had little difficulty in carrying the Executive Planning Committee—and Sir Douglas Mawson—with him in abandoning plans to build an Australian ship, and deciding to get down to Antarctica quickly with the chartered Kista Dan.3 The sweetener for the Government was to trade off the station at Heard Island for the first continental base—saving an estimated £40 000 [$80 000]. Keeping both sub-Antarctic stations open and getting to the continent would have cost an extra £100 000 [$200 000].4 There was opposition from the Meteorological Branch who argued that the whole system of weather forecasting in Australia’s southern States had been profoundly influenced by the results from Heard Island.5 The reports from Macquarie Island, to the east, were of more benefit to New Zealand than to Australia. This objection was not significant and Law’s Antarctic plans were enthusiastically embraced by the Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey. During 1951 Casey had succeeded Percy Spender as Minister. Antarctica was, according to Casey’s biographer W J Hudson, one of his lifelong interests. He was involved with Antarctic work when he was stationed in London during the late 1920s as Australian political liaison officer when Mawson’s BANZARE voyages were being planned. In 1937, when he was Australian Treasurer, Casey was chairman of a polar committee that recommended to the Imperial Conference in London that the dominions cooperate in setting up one or more permanent meteorological stations in the Antarctic. 6 A qualified pilot, he keenly supported Law’s use of aircraft in the Antarctic and because he had an office in Melbourne, Law saw him on a regular basis.7 On 21 March 1953 it was announced in the press that the Government had decided to send an expedition to the Antarctic continent during the next summer to set up a scientific research station in the Australian Antarctic Territory.8 Casey outlined the plans and ended: ‘Today the Antarctic is a challenge—which cannot be ignored—to Australian courage and imagination, and the proposed expedition shows that we will grasp our opportunity.’9

B

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

The Government’s plans were also endorsed by the leader of the Opposition, Dr H V Evatt, who said ‘this territory is of great strategic importance in the confused state of the world today’.10 ‘Such unanimity of political opinion’, the Antarctic historian Robert Swan commented, ‘boded well for the future of Australian Antarctic activity’.11 The Cabinet submission of 6 February 1953 pointed out: ‘It would demonstrate that Australian statements during the last five years concerning our intentions in Antarctica were not hollow boasts. . .’, and concluded: ‘Australia would be in a good position to build up the station to a full-scale scientific observatory in time to participate in the International Polar Year 1956–57.’12 There was some argument in the Executive Planning Committee of ANARE about where the new station should be. Sir Douglas Mawson had a nostalgic attachment to King George V Land and the region around Cape Freshfield, near the site of the base he occupied during the 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition. There was unfinished exploration work to be done there and he believed this location, near the Magnetic Pole, would be interesting to the physicists. Law argued in favour of Mac. Robertson Land, to the west. Mawson’s BANZARE voyage had sighted Mac. Robertson Land and Kemp Land from the sea and landings had been made at the Scullin Monolith, Proclamation Island and Cape Bruce. The Norwegians had been active in the region, and the United States had conducted aerial mapping during ‘Operation Highjump’ in the summer of 1946–47: If Australia’s claim to its Antarctic territory were to stand up, the original reconnaissances of Mawson’s BANZAR Expedition would have to be consolidated. Sightings of Mac. Robertson Land from the sea had shown interesting mountain ranges inland, contrasting with the featureless ice plateau of George V Land, while comparatively close was Prydz Bay and the fascinating ice-free rock of the Vestfold Hills. . . . I and my fellow physicists of the ANARE. . .considered that the Auroral Zone (an annular belt of maximum auroral display surrounding the Magnetic Pole at a radial distance of roughly 221¼2 degrees) was a more interesting phenomenon than the Magnetic Pole itself, and this zone intersected the coast of Mac. Robertson Land.13

Once the Planning Committee decided on Mac. Robertson Land, Sir Douglas Mawson supported the collective decision. Law managed to get sets of the ‘Operation Highjump’ photographs of the coast of Mac. Robertson Land through the Australian Embassy in Washington, and with the aid of a magnifying glass was able to observe possible sites for an Australian base: ‘Mawson would often come to my home in Melbourne

103

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

and we’d have dinner together. One of my wife’s keenest remembrances of Mawson is he and I kneeling down on the floor in our flat in South Yarra peering at photographs and maps of Antarctica on the floor.’ Outcrops of rock were of particular interest, because if an Antarctic station were built on ice, it would inevitably be pushed out to sea and float away on an iceberg. From the American aerial photographs Law picked out a little outcrop of rock in the shape of a horseshoe on the coast of Mac. Robertson Land which looked as though THIS PHOTOGRAPH OF THE it might be a natural harbour, if the water proved to COAST OF MAC. ROBERTSON be deep enough. It was decided to make that the first LAND, TAKEN BY THE US choice for a landing. NAVY DURING OPERATION Kista Dan arrived in Melbourne from Europe on HIGHJUMP IN THE SUMMER OF Friday 11 December 1953. Law watched her berth at 1946–47, WAS INVALUABLE IN No. 3 North Wharf just south of Spencer St Railway HELPING TO LOCATE THE SITE Station. He was impressed with the look of her, mindful OF MAWSON STATION. of the polar ships he had been used to like Wyatt Earp HORSESHOE HARBOUR CAN and Tottan. Built in 1952 in Lauritzen’s shipyards at BE SEEN IN THE ROCKY Aalborg, Denmark, Kista Dan was 65 metres long and OUTCROP IN THE TOP THIRD 11.2 metres broad with a gross tonnage of 1250 tonnes. OF THIS PHOTOGRAPH. Her diesel engines produced a maximum of 1560 (US NAVY) horsepower. She was strengthened for navigation in ice to the standard of Finnish Ice Class 1A, had a range of 14 500 nautical miles, and accommodation for 24 passengers—twelve of whom were in the forecastle. For cargo the ship had two large holds and a heavy lift derrick and the larger hold could accommodate one of the two Auster aircraft. Kista Dan had already been to the Antarctic and the Weddell Sea the previ104

B

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

ous summer (making a feature film starring Alan Ladd called Hell Below Zero) and Law was anxious to meet the captain, Hans Christian Petersen: He was a large man, with a round face and blue eyes. He laughed easily and was a good raconteur. We were to find that he was an immensely competent person. He was highly intelligent and prided himself on his technical ability. He had come up the hard way and had seized every possible opportunity to learn how to operate and repair the equipment with which he had to deal—engines, winches, motor boats, radios, echo sounders, gyro compasses and so on.14

He and Law were both strong-willed people, and were about to test each other’s authority—Law as the voyage leader, and Petersen as the ship’s master. The complex details of a ship’s charter were new territory for Law and the Antarctic Division: I rapidly became familiar with the intricacies of chartering ships, in which meticulous attention to detail and the instincts of a bush lawyer were required. I conducted long negotiations with Knud Lauritzen, the head of J Lauritzen Lines, through our agents, Westralian Farmers Transport Ltd, in London. Up to three or four months would be involved each time a new charter was arranged, that being every year at first and, later, every two or three years. We stood in a weak bargaining position, for the Lauritzen ships were the only ones in the world that really suited our purposes, and Lauritzens knew it. Nevertheless, by hard argument we were able to wring from the company a number of important concessions. I gained the impression that Knud Lauritzen thoroughly enjoyed the negotiations, treating them like a kind of chess game, which added savour to an otherwise pretty routine set of operations.15

Mindful of the appalling food he had endured with the Norwegians on Norsel during the NBS Expedition, Law included a clause specifying that the Australians would not only supply their own food on board, but their own cook. His other main aim, which he endeavoured to spell out in an additional clause to the charter, was ‘to have a ship and captain completely under my control’.16 This was wishful thinking. Kista Dan was to resupply Macquarie Island before heading to Heard Island and then the coast of Mac. Robertson Land on the western side of the AAT. The Macquarie cargo included 24 Border Leicester sheep, and the army amphibious DUKWs—now back in action with a ship large enough to carry them. This operation was completed efficiently in three weeks during December 1953. After some hectic loading of supplies in Melbourne, Kista Dan sailed for the Antarctic on 4 January 1954—four

105

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

days earlier than planned—farewelled by Minister for External Affairs Richard Casey, Mrs Casey and an enthusiastic crowd of 300, including press, radio reporters and photographers. The Point Lonsdale lighthouse flashed a good luck message as they headed out through the Rip.17 Nine Australians had been selected to pioneer the first Australian Antarctic station. The OIC was Robert Dovers, a surveyor who had been a member of the first Heard Island party in 1948, had spent six months on Macquarie Island and a further twelve THE HISTORIC 1954 months in Adélie Land as an observer with the third DEPARTURE FROM French Antarctic Expedition. Lem Macey, the Division’s MELBOURNE. FROM LEFT: technical officer, had been a member of the same PHIL LAW, MRS CASEY, Heard and Macquarie parties. John Russell, an engiRICHARD CASEY (MINISTER neer, had also been on both sub-Antarctic stations. FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS), Robert Dingle, a weather observer, had been on Heard DICK THOMPSON (BACK TO Island, and William Storer, a radio operator, had been CAMERA), LEM MACEY, on Macquarie Island. Robert Summers, the medical FLIGHT LIEUTENANT DOUG officer, was a University Ski Club member; Bruce Stinear, LECKIE, FLIGHT SERGEANT a geologist, had experience in the New Zealand Alps; RAY SEAVER. Jeff Gleadell, the cook, born at South Georgia, had (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) accompanied Sir Hubert Wilkins’ expedition to Graham Land; and William Harvey, a carpenter, was from Scotland. The tenth member of the party, a French observer and dog handler, Georges Schwartz, would join Kista Dan at the Kerguelen Islands. Schwartz was an experienced polar traveller with experience in Greenland and Adélie Land.18 The rendezvous at Kerguelen was necessary for another reason. There was simply too much cargo for Kista Dan to carry. After the Heard Island resupply, the ship would load water, petrol and diesel fuel taken to Kerguelen earlier by the French. A second French observer, André Migot, would also join Kista Dan for the round trip to write a book on the expedition. As well as stores and food for a possible two years’ stay on the continent, Kista Dan also had on board the two Auster aircraft (with skis and floats) and the prefabricated wooden hut obtained from the NBSE, other prefabricated huts, three over-snow Weasel vehicles, and 30 huskies picked up from Heard Island. The RAAF had taken responsibility for the operation 106

B

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

of the Auster aircraft and provided two pilots and two mechanics. They were under the command of the prinKISTA DAN HEADING SOUTH cipal pilot, Flight Lieutenant Douglas Leckie. The IN ROUGH SEAS, 1954. aircraft and the RAAF personnel were to return to (COURTESY P LAW) Australia on Kista Dan at the end of the summer. As Kista Dan headed south, Law knew that he had guaranteed funding for only one year, but was optimistic: ‘I hoped that, with a toehold on the Antarctic continent, I could persuade the government to expand the bridgehead in 1955, and gradually build up a full program of research.’19 With such a small party and a new station to establish, Law was aware that building and establishing the station would take priority. There would not be much time for science in the first year: The scientific work was limited to survey and cartography, geology, meteorology and biology. It was not possible to include programs of observatory work in geomagnetism, seismology and cosmic rays similar to those at our island stations, although Stinear was briefed to carry out spot observations on the earth’s magnetic field and gravity at points visited by field parties.20

Kista Dan reached Heard Island on 9 January and, despite the usually atrocious local weather, managed to change over the 1953 and 1954 parties, unload stores and take on board thirty vociferously quarrelling

107

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

huskies—all in three days. Unfortunately the weather broke before a Caterpillar tractor could be loaded and it was left behind. Shortly before midnight on Friday 22 January the French lit beacons to guide Kista Dan into their station at Port aux Français, Kerguelen Islands. There, over the next five days, also in foul weather, the hospitable French assisted in the loading of fuel, water, and a third Weasel. Law wrote in his voyage report: Not only did the French bring all our supplies, including fuel, freight free from France, but they completely disrupted their normal routine of work at Kerguelen to provide men and equipment to load these supplies and water into the Kista Dan even though this involved working on a Sunday. No charge was made for any of these services. Finally, as our aviation fuel was of the wrong octane value, the French gave us eight 44-gallon [200.2 litres] drums of 100 octane aviation spirit. I cannot speak too highly of their friendliness, cooperation and generosity.21

It was a good start, and typical of the unique international fraternity in Antarctica to be experienced in the decades ahead. On 27 January 1954 Kista Dan turned her specially strengthened steel bows towards an unknown destination on the coast of Mac. Robertson Land. The first ice—a small bergy bit—was sighted on 30 January, followed by icebergs and Antarctic petrels. A sense of excitement was palpable. The French observer André Migot was even a little disappointed that they had arrived at latitude 64° south so soon: If we kept up the same speed we should be in sight of Mac. Robertson Land the next day and ready to land. . .I had been looking forward so much to the prospect of steaming through the pack ice, to the splendid scenery, to the difficulty and excitement of it all, and to the adventure of a polar expedition that I should be cheated if we arrived too quickly and met no obstacles on the way.22

108

The expression ‘A-Factor’ (the Antarctic Factor—meaning unexpected difficulties or disasters) had not then been coined, but M. Migot was about to experience it. That evening they encountered scattered pack ice which became gradually more thick. Already it was clear that Kista Dan was a vast improvement on ships like the wooden Wyatt Earp, which Law once said had the icebreaking capabilities ‘of a gnat’. Cameras clicked as the ANARE men delighted in their first experience of steaming through pack ice, although the more experienced Law cautioned them not to waste too much film as better opportunities lay ahead. André Migot joined in the general delight of the new ship’s performance:

B

The Kista Dan’s bow was specially shaped in a gentle curve just above the water. When she hit small floes or lumps of iceberg she merely brushed them aside without trouble, but when she came upon a more solid mass of ice, she slid up on to it like a sledge. When the ice was thin she broke it with her own weight, but when it was too thick the ship was jammed in the ice and could go no further. So she went astern and charged the ice again, gradually driving a sort of furrow across the floe, until finally it gave way and broke in pieces, letting the ship subside heavily into her natural element.23

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

THE ABILITY TO OPERATE AUSTER AIRCRAFT ON FLOATS FROM KISTA DAN WAS CRITICAL TO THE SUCCESS OF

1954 ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. (AAD ARCHIVES)

THE

The next morning, 2 February, Captain Petersen called to Law from Kista Dan’s protected crow’s nest control platform above the bridge that he could see some islands ahead. Law joined him, and immediately recognised the Henderson, Masson, David and Casey Ranges he had studied in the ‘Operation Highjump’ photographs in Melbourne. By 0745 he could see ‘the cream slopes of the Antarctic plateau’. A long line of grounded icebergs was a spectacular feature, flanking a deeper channel that led towards the coast—later familiar to visitors to Mawson Station as Iceberg Alley. At midday the ship entered a long open lead and Law suggested to Captain Petersen that the Auster seaplane carried on deck be used for reconnaissance: He was most reluctant to comply. I think he probably would have preferred to find his way in without aerial assistance, but I insisted and he finally agreed. (Later the captain became an enthusiastic supporter of aerial reconnaissance as an aid to ship navigation.)24

The Auster carried on the deck could be quickly lowered over the side. With Law as his passenger pilot Doug Leckie climbed to 1000 metres. There, Law’s earlier optimism about reaching the coast was tempered

109

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

by the reality of what he saw. Only about three nautical miles of open water lay ahead. Then an unbroken stretch of winter ‘fast’ ice continued for some sixteen miles [25.6 kilometres] to the shore. As they approached the coast Law noted that the horseshoe rock formation he had been aiming for seemed ideal for the proposed station—if the ship could get in. After a flight lasting 1 hour and 35 minutes, with Law furiously photographing, sketching and note taking, they returned to the ship for a safe landing on the water. Before the end of that day Law asked the captain to experiment by breaking some of the unbroken fast ice he had seen from the air: The captain tried charging it with the ship and found he would break through it for a distance of about half a ship’s length on each charge, and this gave me some comfort. Although it would be a slow business, we would eventually break through to the coast.25

On the morning of 3 February ice-breaking began in earnest, and Kista Dan began to forge a narrow channel towards the coast. As the ship progressed, Law described a remarkable sight he was not to see again in the rest of his Antarctic experience, as hundreds of Adélie penguins approached over the ice, and dived into the channel made by the ship: We were later to discover that the fast ice had remained unbroken much later in the season than usual, and that instead of being able to feed in open water close to their island rookeries, the penguins were forced to march about 16 miles [25.6 km] to reach the sea. Back at their rookeries their chicks were starving to death. . . The open wake gave the penguins close access to food and the churning up of the ice and water by the propeller had provided planktonic material for them to eat. Whatever the reason myriads of the creatures were porpoising in the wake of the ship. The limited area of water was entirely black and boiling with them. . . Their method of leaving the water was itself intriguing. With a last powerful sweep of their flippers they would propel themselves out of the water and land on their feet, vertical, on the ice. They were popping out like champagne corks, in scores, along the edge of the channel.26

110

Had the ice broken out, as it normally did, in late January (the conventional wisdom is around Australia Day, 26 January), Kista Dan could have sailed straight in to what would be known as Horseshoe Harbour. In 1954 the ‘A-Factor’ was well in evidence. As Kista Dan was now well and truly in the fast ice, Law asked the RAAF crew to fit skis to Auster 201 and pilot Ray Seaver flew Bob Dovers in to have a look at the coast. The Auster ‘behaved splendidly’ on skis.27

B

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

On 4 February Leckie flew Dovers in to Horseshoe Harbour for the first landing on the polished blue sea ice. They broke a tail wheel in the process. On the next flight, Captain Petersen squeezed his bulk into the cockpit of the Auster to inspect the ice ahead. He estimated it would take him a week to break in, and he had the fuel to do it.28 Law conferred with Dick Thompson and Dovers about the best way to use that time. They agreed to push on with the program of aerial mapping of the coast and nearby mountains, but to unload stores onto the ice to cargo sledges and use Weasels No. 1 and No. 3 to transport them to Horseshoe Harbour over the fast ice. They would also establish a shore party and begin erecting the first hut. The huskies would be camped on the ice, as they were bored with life on deck. The next day Law flew in for his first landing at Horseshoe Harbour to inspect the proposed site for the station from the ground: We landed just outside Horseshoe Harbour, on this polished blue sea ice, and there was an iceberg about half a mile [0.8 kilometres] ahead, in the line of direction of our landing. We didn’t take much notice because we [thought we’d] stop in a couple of hundred yards [182 metres]. But skis on polished blue ice had practically no friction at all and we went careering on and on. We were showing no signs of slowing down and this iceberg was looming closer and closer. When we were about a hundred yards [91 metres] off it, Leckie put the plane into what he called ‘a ground loop’. He just spun it and it went forward in a series of spinning circles. And the friction of the skis side on was much greater than the friction when they’re pointing straight ahead. We finished up about thirty [27.3 metres] or forty yards [36.4 metres] off the vertical face of this iceberg!

The Auster was also used to direct the ground party, led by Dovers, to the best route over the ice. He was accompanied by Macey, Russell, Schwartz and Harvey. Some of the cracks in the ice were so wide they had to be bridged with timbers carried for the purpose. Schwartz was supposed to have taken the 30 huskies with the shore party, but for some reason had not done so. When Law asked Captain Petersen to take them on board again there was a heated altercation: He complained about the time wasted unloading which prevented him going ahead, although I had discussed the whole plan with him the night before. . .As he had just succeeded in jamming the ship, wasting an hour and necessitating work alongside with crowbars as well as winching on ice anchors in order to free her, his bad temper was understandable. He said he was not going to unload and load things again, but when I

111

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

reminded him sharply that it was my place to decide when and where cargo was to be unloaded he calmed down. He had on a number of occasions used obstructive tactics, but I had refused to be provoked and this was the first time our relations had deteriorated into a verbal exchange.29

The second aircraft, Auster 200, was brought out of the hold and assembled for its first flight that afternoon but, with no space for it on board ship, Seaver and Leckie flew in tandem to THE EMERGENCY CAMP ON an offshore island near Horseshoe Harbour where it DOVERS’ ISLAND, MARCH was tied down on the ice. Auster 201 was hoisted back 1954, WITH LEM MACEY IN on Kista Dan. On the 2300 radio schedule with Dovers, FOREGROUND. Law was dismayed to hear that No. 1 Weasel had broken (P LAW) through the ice about half a mile from its destination, but fortunately had floated. Dovers asked for a 2-tonne chain block to be flown to him to help salvage the half-floating Weasel.30 The next day, 6 February, the weather deteriorated and flying was out of the question. Dovers radioed that he had hauled up his caravans on to an island ‘a mile north of the horseshoe’ and that men and vehicles were safe. No. 1 Weasel had now frozen into the sea and was secure. By nightfall it was blowing a 60-knot blizzard. Law was mindful of Auster 200, unattended and tied down on the sea ice. French observer André Migot’s earlier fears that he would feel cheated of a polar adventure if they got to their destination too quickly were now assuaged. Early on the morning of 7 February Law was wakened by a sailor who said: ‘The ice is breaking up’. The storm had caused the fast ice to move: Ahead on the port side cracks were appearing in the fast ice, running out as far as the eye could see. A report like a shotgun would be followed by the appearance of a great crack. . .The ship began to shudder as the pressure built up around her. The question in our minds was, ‘What will break first, the ice or the ship’s hull’? I peered over the side and was somewhat reassured to see slabs of ice cracking, sliding up the steel hull and collapsing back in great heaps of jagged pieces.31

112

Even at that stage, Law saw possible benefits from the ice break-up. If they could sail straight into Horseshoe Harbour it would even balance the probable loss of the Weasels. At 0700 the Captain requested all

B

R E A K I N G

T H E

I C E

expeditioners on deck as he was worried about the safety of the ship. Law: The shuddering of the ship increased, as did the noises of groaning, creaking and grating accompanying the movements of the ice. At this stage the ice cracking against the sides of the ship had piled up so high that pieces were falling over the bulwarks onto the foredeck. The ship was slowly rising and listing as the pressure forced ice down under her keel. Pressure ridges of rafted ice ran out for hundreds of yards to starboard from our bows and to port from our stern.32

At 0800 the movement suddenly ceased, and one of the major hazards to an Antarctic ship, sideways pressure by moving ice, had been overcome. ‘Thank God for a KISTA DAN LISTING HEAVILY welded steel ship with close frames and thick plates’, DUE TO THE PRESSURE OF THE commented Law. They were effectively stranded, PACK ICE FOLLOWING A however, until the ship could be extricated. How long VIOLENT STORM NEAR THE this would take was unknown; it could be a week. Law COAST OF MAC. ROBERTSON hoped the islands off Horseshoe Harbour would hold LAND, FEBRUARY 1954. the fast ice in place long enough to rescue the Dovers (J BROOKS) party and Auster 200. At 1600 hours a faint Morse message came through from Dovers to say that they and the Auster were safe. Fine weather the next day enabled Leckie to fly to the island where the field party had taken refuge, and bring back Dovers to give his report. Dovers told Law he thought the winds at Horseshoe Harbour would be too strong for a permanent camp and was pessimistic about even being able to erect the six huts brought from Australia. He suggested instead that he haul all the stores on to his island, stay there for a year with a couple of huts and explore the coast the following year to find a better site for a permanent station. Law: Then there was an interesting psychological problem. The morale was very low—this storm really knocked the stuffing out of these boys who were camped on that island and they were very timid and worried. I just had to bulldoze them through and say, ‘No, I’m going to get ashore at

113

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

KISTA DAN IN HORSESHOE HARBOUR, THE ONLY NATURAL HARBOUR ON

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Horseshoe Harbour. That’s the spot, and we’ll bend every effort to do it. There’s no use being on an island. We want to get onto the continent so we can go inland. If you’re on an island all through the summer months you’ve got water around you and you can’t get ashore.’ I said I would not agree to the island proposal under any circumstances and asked him to move everything at the earliest opportunity to Horseshoe Harbour. He agreed to do this after he had rescued Weasel No. 3.

THE ENTIRE COAST OF

It took two days to dig out Kista Dan from the rafted slabs of ice that had nearly crushed her. A combination of crowbars, shovels and dynamite—exploded as a last resort under the ship’s hull—finally broke her free. Good weather and clear sunlight lifted the morale of those who had been stuck on the off-shore island, and both No. 1 and No. 3 Weasels and their sledges and caravans made it across the sea ice to Horseshoe Harbour, where work was begun on erecting the first hut at the selected site. Late on Thursday 11 February Kista Dan nosed her way between the encircling arms of the ‘horseshoe’, into the harbour still covered with fast ice. This was a critical moment. It was thought there might be a reef across the entrance that would stop a ship getting in. The depth was an adequate 15 metres. Inside the harbour the bottom fell away to a surprising 90 metres. The Auster aircraft had been invaluable in charting a course through the islands that masked the entrance to the harbour. Law felt the expedition had much to be thankful for:

GREATER ANTARCTICA, FEBRUARY 1954. (P LAW)

114

Captain Petersen had done a splendid job of ice navigation and had managed to extricate the ship from its desperate situation in the pressure ice. Doug Leckie and the RAAF Flight had provided us with invaluable reconnaissances, without which the whole approach exercise would have been more difficult and time consuming.33

EIGHT

EARLY

E X P L O R AT I O N

K

ista Dan had arrived in the only natural harbour on the whole coastline of Greater Antarctica. In later years visiting ships would lay out mooring lines directly to the encircling West Arm of the ‘horseshoe’—tying at first to large rocks, later to bollards sunk into the solid rock, thereby being able to ride out the most severe Antarctic blizzards and cyclones. Phil Law later described it as ‘one of the best sites for 4000 miles’ [6400 km]: Not only is there this lovely enclosed harbour where a ship can just run cables out fore and aft to the shore and hold itself, but it’s an amphitheatre. The arms of the horseshoe are elevated, then it comes around like the curve of a horseshoe—saucer shaped—sloping up to a high ridge at the back. In this hollow we built the station so it got semiprotection from the ridge at the back. . .and it was on hard polished rock, no sand, no earth, just hard granitic type rock, polished by glacier action thousands of millions of years ago. And there was good access [to the interior]. The permanent ice cap started just behind the station. [When] you got onto that you’d go straight inland with a lot of crevassing for the first ten miles because of the rising slope, but once you were ten or fifteen miles in, the crevasses stopped and away you went. It was a perfect choice for a station.

Behind Horseshoe Harbour the peaks of the Framnes Mountains broke clear of the ice cap, thrusting through like the backs of great dinosaurs, curving down towards the coast. No one was admiring the view early on the morning of Friday 12 February 1954. Law was woken by Dick Thompson at 0415 with the

115

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

unwelcome news that the two Auster aircraft secured on the top of No. 2 hatch were apparently damaged beyond repair. Overnight the wind had built up to over 70 knots and, with Kista Dan broadside to the wind, the aircraft were exposed to its full fury. This had not been the case when Law retired to his cabin the previous evening: The captain didn’t want to leave the ship pointing into the wind [towards the land]. He wanted to turn the ship and face out the other way because he was frightened that the ice might freeze up and he’d like to be pointing out towards the entrance so that he could get out—rather than have to back and turn. That worried me because I would have preferred him to just stay where he was. He’d got into a very good position. I didn’t think the ice would cause trouble for the next month. Anyway he charged around a bit and broke up the fast ice in the harbour and then he tried to turn his bows to face out, and he only managed to get it half way around and had to give up. And that left us with two aircraft on board. . .with the wind blowing side on and under the wing of the aircraft, so overnight both were very severely damaged. And it was all because the captain wouldn’t leave the ship the way I wanted him to leave it. So I was furious.

Relations between voyage leader Law and Captain Petersen had been patchy at best. Now they were icy. Both men had reason to regret the loss of the aircraft. For Law it meant the end of hoped-for coastal exploration and photographic surveys. Petersen, now a convert to aerial reconnaissance, was worried about navigating his way back to the open sea once the new station had been established. The wind had picked up Auster 201 and dumped it on Auster 200. At first sight it seemed both aircraft were damaged beyond repair. All starboard mainplanes, stabilisers and rudders were damaged. Flight engineer Frank Morgan inspected the situation and said ‘Well, that’s it’. Law glumly recorded in his diary: ‘Fridays are not our lucky days’, cancelled all activity and went to his cabin to sleep until 11 am.1 When he woke Law had a flash of inspiration, and asked the RAAF team whether they thought they could cannibalise the two Austers and make one serviceable aircraft out of the two. This was a tall order. The aircraft were second hand when Law obtained them from the NBS expedition in 1951. Leckie thought it would have been more economical to buy new aircraft, because they were badly rusted and corroded when they came to Australia:

116

I think the Australian Government thought they were getting something on the cheap, and they certainly weren’t because they had to be rehabilitated at Richmond [NSW] and it was a pretty big job.

E

A R L Y

E X P L O R A T I O N

B

ob Dovers’ penchant for breaking through sea ice with Weasels achieved legendary status before Kista Dan left Horseshoe Harbour in 1954. A song, composed at the time by Bill Harvey, and sung to the tune of ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean’ was enthusiastically performed by expeditioners and crew: Bob Dovers has ditched his new Weasel Bob Dovers has done it again; Three times he has been in the ocean, It’s odds on he’ll be there again! CHORUS Chain blocks, chain blocks, Oh bring back my Weasel to me, to me Chain blocks, chain blocks, Oh bring back my Weasel to me. Bob Dovers he’s crash hot on sea ice, He’s good on the land and the sea. He’s what you might call the new version, Of the good Lord on Lake Galilee.

‘BOB DOVERS HAS DONE IT AGAIN.’ RESCUING FRENCH WEASEL WHICH BROKE THROUGH

THE

THE SEA ICE DURING UNLOADING OPERATIONS IN

HORSESHOE HARBOUR, FEBRUARY 1954. (P LAW)

(Chain blocks are portable winches used for field emergencies. This song, and variations, has been popular at ANARE reunions ever since.)2

Fortunately Frank Morgan was the man who had made the Austers airworthy at Richmond and he and his RAAF colleague Sergeant Ken Duffell began to reassess the wreckage to see what could be done. Meanwhile, some progress towards unloading was made when Dovers came out and took the huskies ashore, although on his second trip from the ship to shore at about 2300 hours he broke through the ice again with his Weasel—but again it floated. As he was alone at the time Law made a rule that no Weasel was to run after 2000 hours.3 Before retiring that evening, Law sent off telegrams to Minister for External Affairs Casey, HRH Queen Elizabeth (still on tour in Australia) and Sir Douglas Mawson announcing their arrival at Horseshoe Harbour.4 Law’s relations with Captain Petersen soured again the next day when he asked that Kista Dan be positioned so there was good strong ice beside the holds to support Weasels and sledges for unloading, but his relations with the officers and crew were ‘never anything but excellent’. First

117

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Officer Mikkelsen offered his crew to help with the unloading from the ship to the ice, an offer which was gratefully accepted.5 RAW MATERIALS TO BUILD MAWSON STATION OVER THE The ship’s derricks unloaded cargo onto sledges which were pulled to shore by Weasels Nos 1 and 2. SEA ICE IN HORSESHOE Weasel No. 3 (the only vehicle with rubber tracks, HARBOUR, FEBRUARY 1954. picked up from the French at Kerguelen) manoeu(P LAW) vred the loads over the jumbled ice and tide cracks that separated the fast ice from the shore. The Ferguson UNLOADING STORES AT tractor was useful in transporting loads over bare rock. MAWSON STATION SITE, Kista Dan had to be moved from time to time to stronger FEBRUARY 1954. DONATED ice, as the unloading weakened it. MAC. ROBERTSON The ice conditions in 1954 were unusual. Horseshoe CHOCOLATES SUSTAINED SIR Harbour is generally free of ice by the end of January DOUGLAS MAWSON’S or early February. Law wrote later, ‘It is interesting to BANZARE VOYAGES note that never again in my subsequent twelve years AS WELL AS ANARE. of operations at Mawson did we have to unload over (P LAW) fast ice’.6 The wind dropped to almost twenty knots by lunchtime on Saturday 13 February, enabling the two mangled Auster aircraft to be lifted on to the fast ice beside Kista Dan where Morgan and Duffell stripped the wings and salvageable fittings from the fuselages. By late afternoon Law decided it was time for the official ceremony to celebrate the commissioning of Australia’s first post-war station on the Antarctic continent. He was unsure just what he was supposed to do or say on such an occasion, but composed a form of words and conducted a ceremony he hoped was appropriate. A flagpole was rigged on one of the barge caravans that served as living quarters while huts were being 118 KISTA DAN UNLOADING THE

E

A R L Y

built, and in the presence of all the ANARE men Law raised the Australian flag and made the following declaration: In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia I raise this Australian flag on Australian Antarctic Territory; and I name the site of this new ANARE station ‘Mawson’ in honour of the great Australian Antarctic explorer and scientist, Sir Douglas Mawson.

Then they sang the national anthem and gave three hearty cheers. Law wrote that the gathering was duly photographed by all those who had cameras and it then dispersed. The work of clearing the cargo heaps continued until 2230 hours.7 André Migot was moved by the occasion: Everyone was in working clothes, having worked hard and uncomplainingly, with no thought but to get the job done. The glistening ice cliffs around this little corner of the frozen continent lent beauty and splendour to the ceremony.

E X P L O R A T I O N

THE FUSELAGE OF AUSTER 201 TETHERED NEAR HORSESHOE HARBOUR. BACK IN AUSTRALIA IT WAS REBUILT AND EVENTUALLY RETURNED TO

ANTARCTICA TO FLY FOR MANY YEARS. (P LAW)

RAISING THE FLAG AND NAMING MAWSON STATION, 13 FEBRUARY 1954. PHIL LAW IS STANDING AT THE FOOT OF THE FLAGPOLE. (R THOMPSON)

Before the end of that day, the wings of both aircraft and the fuselage of Auster 200 were hoisted back on board into the now free ’tween-decks space of No. 2 hold. The fuselage of 201 was tethered to a large boulder on shore. Law retired to bed that night ‘suffused with an emotion compounded of immense relief and considerable satisfaction’. The job was not finished, but he felt the most difficult part of establishing a permanent Australian Antarctic station had been achieved. There was little time to dwell on that historic occasion. Law and Thompson had the ANARE men up and unloading cargo by 0500 the

119

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

following Sunday morning, which prompted Dovers to complain about the early start, saying that Law would ‘tire out my men’.8 Law would not budge, acting on his firm belief that the Antarctic gave few windows of opportunity with the weather, and when it did the occasions should be exploited to the full. There would be time for rest later. The RAAF team had worked miracles and had actually constructed a composite Auster that looked as though it might fly—but it would not have qualified for an airworthiness certificate in Australia. The left wing had a bracket of struts on it reminiscent of framework used to tie down the roof of an outback bark hut. There were no flaps and no tail fin. The hybrid was now officially Auster 200. Captain Petersen said it should have been called Auster 200.5!9 On 17 February, Leckie flight-tested it on skis, taking off from the fast ice: We just got through by the skin of our teeth. I took a longer run than normal to get it airborne because there were no flaps to give you lift off. You landed much faster naturally because you didn’t have flaps to slow you down on approach, and without a [tail] fin you lost a lot of stability as well, so you required more rudder to get the aerodynamics to work. . .but we were operational, that was the main thing.

The fast ice provided plenty of runway, and over the next five days aerial photography, scintillometer (to check for radioactivity) and reconnaissance flights were made along the coast, east and west of the new Mawson Station. Each sortie became more difficult and exhausting for the RAAF crew because the aircraft had to be pushed physically three kilometres to the take-off point. No more than two flights a day were possible. Flying was intensely uncomfortable. Temperatures of 39°C at 2400 metres caused co-pilot Ray Seaver to suffer from cramps. At Horseshoe Harbour, Mawson Station was taking shape as prefabricated huts were erected. The main living hut, purchased by Law from the NBS expedition in 1951, was in wooden sections to be put up by the expeditioners like a jigsaw puzzle after the Kista Dan left. That proved a daunting and difficult task even with an instruction manual. The works hut, fabricated by the firm of Explastics Ltd in Melbourne, had been designed in consultation with Law, Dovers, Macey and Thompson so it could be erected in one day to avoid the dangers of being blown down by a sudden storm when half built. Law:

120

The process resembled that used by a child in building a house of playing cards. The secret of success was the highly accurate machining of the panels and the boring of the tubes that took the tie rods. Explastics Ltd had done their job well and the pieces fitted together with perfect precision.10

E

A R L Y

One day was spent laying foundations, uncrating panels and setting out the floor. Next day six men completed the hut and it was occupied the same evening. (All furnishings and fittings, including electric wiring and lights, were installed during erection.)11

E X P L O R A T I O N

HYBRID ‘AUSTER 200.5’ ON THE SEA ICE IN HORSESHOE HARBOUR, FEBRUARY 1954. NOTE THE ROUGH

The only limitation on these excellent aluminium FRAMEWORK ON THE UPPER clad, insulated huts was cost. More were to grace the EDGE OF THE LEFT WING AND rocky shores of Horseshoe Harbour in coming years THE ‘FROZEN’ TAIL PLANE. when they could be afforded. (AAD ARCHIVES) The scientific program at Mawson Station got off to a shaky start. Finding the site and establishing the ERECTING THE COMBINED station were obvious priorities, but Law was keen to RADIO, METEOROLOGICAL advance a scientific program as soon as possible. AND OIC’S HUT AT MAWSON, Meteorology was to be the first priority as the station FEBRUARY 1954. was established, with regular weather data radioed back (P LAW) to Australia by three observers. Geophysicist Jim Brooks had been included on Kista Dan as a round tripper, however, and his main task was to make a magnetic survey of the station site. The ‘A-Factor’ was against him. He was a late addition to the expedition and had to rely on the Instrument Section of the Bureau of Mineral Resources to check, pack and dispatch his equipment to the ship. Law was disgusted with the result: First, the tent provided was quite unsuitable for the work concerned, apart from the fact that no supporting poles had been provided! The chronometer they had supplied stopped when placed outside the tent in the cold wind. The magnets were a disgrace—rusted and pitted and correspondingly unbalanced. The magnet box of the magnetometer would not come down cleanly to sit on the two pins that positioned it and Brooks therefore had difficulty in levelling it. The small subsidiary magnet usually supplied to damp the oscillations of the suspended

121

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

magnet system was missing. Finally there was no spare thermometer, and the one supplied read only as low as 0°C!12

122

The two men persevered and obtained readings. Law’s conclusion— that a basic precept for all Antarctic science was to make sure all equipment sent had in fact been tested for environmental conditions and checked in every detail—was to be ruefully endorsed by all field scientists in Antarctica similarly nobbled by the ‘A-Factor’ over the next half century. By Wednesday 17 February unloading was completed and all available hands helped with the building of huts. On 20 February Law was delighted to receive congratulatory cables in response to his reports on their arrival and landing at Mawson Station from Minister for External Affairs Richard Casey, from Brian Roberts, a friend at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England, and from Mawson’s old captain J K Davis. Law was especially delighted to hear from Davis who had a reputation for meanness. ‘He is a nice old boy—fancy spending a couple of pounds on a long cable!’13 The weather held while building and scientific work continued and by 22 February Law was relaxed enough with progress achieved to declare a half-day holiday. The crew of Kista Dan built crude toboggans for the icy slopes behind the Mawson Station site and one enterprising lad even produced a makeshift ice yacht for runs on the sea ice outside Horseshoe Harbour. Dovers was grateful for the extra meat for the huskies (now staked out on the western side of the station) from seals shot by some of the crew on a hunting expedition. That night a celebratory party was held on Kista Dan. Law made hot, spiced glühwein for the occasion, and played his piano accordion during the festivities. Captain Petersen was concerned about the refreezing of his track in through the fast ice and it was decided to leave at 0530 on Tuesday 23 February. Many photographs were taken as the ice anchors were hauled on board, the engines started and the propeller began to churn. It was an anticlimax—the ship refused to budge and the chilled expeditioners retreated to their new huts. It took until 1115 to break her clear with picks and crowbars. As the siren blew, the 1954 wintering party emerged to wave farewell and Kista Dan slowly began to break her way out towards open water. The next objective was to reach the spectacular Scullin Monolith on the coast of Mac. Robertson Land, some 160 kilometres to the east of Mawson Station. The Scullin and the nearby Murray Monoliths are the only rock outcrops of any significance on the stretch of coast between Mawson Station and Cape Darnley, at the western extremity of Prydz Bay. The Scullin Monolith had been visited by Sir Douglas Mawson in 1931

E

A R L Y

E X P L O R A T I O N

and on 30 January 1937 by the Lars Christensen Expedition from Norway. Neither party had been able to take an astrofix to locate its position accurately, but Christensen had photographed the coast, resulting in the Hansen Atlas which Law and Petersen had used during the approach to Horseshoe Harbour. Law was anxious to pinpoint the correct position of the Scullin Monolith in order to correct errors in the THE FIRST WINTERING PARTY Hansen Atlas, and to position the coastal photograAT MAWSON STATION, 1954. phy taken during the 1954 ANARE voyage. FROM LEFT: G SCHWARTZ On Thursday 25 February Kista Dan anchored (FRENCH OBSERVER), about a kilometre off the massive bulk of the Scullin L MACEY, W HARVEY, Monolith, and a ship’s boat was launched to attempt R DOVERS, W STORER, a landing. Second Mate Bill Pedersen and Dick J GLEADELL, J RUSSELL, Thompson (an ex-navy man) were on board with Phil B STINEAR, R DINGLE, Law, Jim Brooks and Arthur Gwynn. R SUMMERS. Law was very keen to get ashore, but while Law the (P LAW) ANARE director was uncompromising in enforcing safety procedures for his expeditioners, Law the adventurer did not always apply the same standards to himself: It was windy as usual, the sea was rough and at the foot of this great wall of rock there was a surge—waves breaking and smashing onto the rocks. We found a place where there was a sloped rock rising sharply out of the sea but the surge would hit it and sweep up and then suck back again. That looked like the only place one could get ashore but there was no way of getting the boat on to it. So we got up within ten yards [9.14 metres] of this and had a look at it surging back and forth and finally I said, ‘Look I’m going to jump, I reckon I can jump and claw my way up onto that rock and at least say we’ve been ashore. Then I can jump back into the water and swim out to the boat and you can haul me back.’ Dick Thompson, my lieutenant, was very harsh on me. He cursed me and said, ‘You stupid so-and-so, you’ll kill yourself. I won’t allow you to do it—it’s too damn risky.’

123

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Then I cogitated and realised there’s not much point in one man getting ashore if you can’t take your theodolites and instruments ashore and get an astrofix.

Thompson aborted the landing and they returned to the ship where he and Law had a stand-up argument on the deck. Thompson reiterated that there was no way Law could have landed without endangering his own and others’ lives. The next day Kista Dan headed north and then east towards Prydz Bay. Always the keen explorer, Law wanted to survey as much of the coast of Princess Elizabeth Land as possible and make a landing at the ice-free Vestfold Hills. He calculated there were six days in hand before returning to Melbourne within the agreed time for the charter.14 His enthusiasm was not shared by Captain Petersen, who considered his job effectively done and was anxious to turn his bows homeward to avoid any possibility of being caught in pack ice so late in the season. Kista Dan passed over the Fram Bank, which extends out from Cape Darnley, on 26 February. The line of grounded icebergs, detached from the Amery Ice Shelf, is one of the most spectacular sights along the coast of the AAT. Later that day the ship encountered new pack ice, and Law was not surprised to have Captain Petersen tell him at dinner that ‘he was sorry, but he reckoned we had seen the end of Antarctica for this year’. Law deflected Petersen by suggesting they proceed during the night in open water, and then follow the ice edge to see if a landing on the coast of Princess Elizabeth Land was possible. The captain agreed, but when Law went to the bridge at 0630 the next morning, Petersen told him he believed survey work was not included in the charter, and he had cabled his owner for advice on whether the ship was covered by insurance for such work. Although he was still heading south-east, Kista Dan was at half speed. Law wrote: ‘I suspected that he intended to commit the ship as little as possible on a southerly course until he obtained an answer to his cable.’15 Law decided to call Petersen’s bluff and sent his own cable to ANARE’s shipping agents, Westralian Farmers Transport Ltd in London: WESTAUST LONDON.

124

CAPTAIN KISTADAN HAS REFUSED SURVEY MACKENZIE SEA AREA AS REQUESTED BY ME NOT ON GROUNDS OF SAFETY TO SHIP BUT BECAUSE HE STATES CHARTER DOES NOT COVER THIS TYPE OF WORK AND INSURANCE WOULD BE VOID STOP HE HAS CABLED OWNERS FOR INSTRUCTIONS STOP PENDING REPLY

E

A R L Y

E X P L O R A T I O N

MY TIME IS BEING WASTED AT £375 STERLING DAILY STOP AS I SUPPLIED OWNERS BEFORE LEAVING WITH MY ITINERARY STATING MY INTENTION OF PROCEEDING EASTWARD AFTER LANDING WINTER PARTY I TAKE STRONGEST EXCEPTION TO CAPTAIN RAISING THIS QUIBBLE AT THIS STAGE STOP I CONSIDER VESSEL SHOULD BE DECLARED OFF CHARTER FOR PERIOD WASTED AWAITING OWNERS INSTRUCTIONS (Signed) LAW16

It took two days to sort out the disagreement. On Sunday 28 February Law prepared a formal statement for Petersen outlining what he wanted, and ‘summoned’ the captain to his cabin to give it to him. Petersen’s demeanour was conciliatory: He told me he had received during the night a cable from the owners stating that survey work was in line with the charter. I told him I considered he had been stalling yesterday and that I strongly objected to being messed around. He replied that now the insurance was cleared up he would go anywhere I wished. Everything after that was so smooth I could hardly believe it. He turned south and proceeded at good speed and by nightfall we were further south than the latitude of the ranges south of Mawson!17

That same day, following some good leads through the ice but in overcast indifferent weather, Kista Dan moved in towards the Vestfold Hills. The next day, 1 March, the weather was overcast and very cold with new, black ice forming on what had been open water only a few days before. At the end of the day Law was elated to see the brown rock of the Vestfold Hills loom up, and Kista Dan anchored near a group of small rocky islands. It was very cold and Law’s hopes of a quick landing were dashed the following morning by strong winds and bad weather. Conditions improved on Wednesday 3 March. There was no wind but it was overcast, extremely cold and snowing steadily. The shore party set off at 0945, Law dropping Jim Brooks and Fred Elliott on a nearby island (soon to be named Magnetic Island) to take an astrofix and magnetic observations and make notes on the bird population. Law, Thompson, Gwynn and Shaw (and a coxswain John Hansen from the ship) set off towards the mainland, weaving their way through scattered offshore islands and aiming for a small sloping beach. They moored against an area of fast ice joined to the shore and carefully stepped on to the mainland at 1030 hours. Law reflected that there had been only two previous landings in the Vestfold Hills, which comprise about 300 square kilometres

125

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

of ice-free rock on the eastern side of Prydz Bay. The first landing was by the Norwegian Klarius Mikkelsen on 20 February 1935; the second was by the American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and his Australian adviser, Sir Hubert Wilkins, on 11 January 1939. Ever conscious of making history, Law ordered Thompson ashore with an Australian flag, while he took pictures with a cine camera. Thompson: We struggled ashore, built a cairn out of rocks, planted the flag on its pole while Phil took our picture. Then I took photos of him with the flag, and a cine film of the three of them waving their caps like a trio of scat singers.18

Because overcast conditions had prevented Law from obtaining an astrofix to pinpoint their position precisely, on Thursday 4 March a survey party was put ashore at Magnetic Island. Law and Thompson had to row them there because the boat’s engine had seized. It was decided to attempt a final flight in the patched-up Auster for photographic and scintillometer runs over the Vestfold Hills. Captain Petersen was champing at the bit to be away, but Duffell worked on a jammed starter cartridge for four and a half hours and at 1100 hours the battered Auster was lowered into the water on floats. When it drifted away towards some nearby icebergs before it could be secured, two sailors chased it in a dinghy but could not tow it back against the wind. The ever-resourceful Leckie climbed down from the wing into the cockpit, managed to start the engine, and taxied back to the ship.19 Leckie’s takeoff was almost certainly the most risky of the voyage. A previous effort to take off from floats near the Scullin Monolith had to be aborted when he could not break free from the water. Only too aware that the Auster was without flaps and tail fin, and with ice drifting in to the takeoff area, Law watched from Kista Dan with trepidation: For a long while [Leckie] could not get the aircraft up on the ‘step’ of the floats, and ahead of him we saw a strip of sludge and new ice.20 We called to him over the radio to stop his run, but apparently he felt he was almost airborne and so stuck to it. He finally made it, after a run of 83 seconds, pulling up off the water only a few yards short of the black ice. He told me later he didn’t stop sweating until he was 4000 feet [1219.2 metres] up!21

126

Leckie had pushed his luck to the edge and had actually hit a chunk of floating ice which fortuitously broke his floats clear of the water at the crucial moment. He was the first to see the remarkable lakes and fjords of the Vestfold Hills, later to be the site of Australia’s second mainland

E

A R L Y

E X P L O R A T I O N

establishment, Davis Station: ‘The inland lakes were of a different colour from the ones near the coast. The former were a bright emerald green, the latter were the same colour as the sea, which is nearly black from the air. The emerald green lakes inland were completely ice free. I could see the rocks around these lakes extend about a hundred yards into the water, which was crystal clear.’22 RAISING THE AUSTRALIAN It was the last flight of the voyage. As soon as the FLAG IN THE VESTFOLD hybrid Auster was lifted on board, Captain Petersen HILLS, 3 MARCH 1954. FROM weighed anchor and headed for the open sea. LEFT: PETER SHAW, PHIL LAW Law was a happy man. Although the weather was AND ARTHUR GWYNN. now deteriorating badly, he could reflect on consid(R THOMPSON) erable gains. There had been a landing on the Vestfold Hills, Brooks had fixed the position of Magnetic Island accurately and this fix, allied with Leckie’s photographic runs in the Auster, would help to correct the Hansen Atlas’s depiction of this part of the coast. Rock specimens had been gathered and navigational knowledge had been gained of the approach to ‘this fascinating area’.23 He was not to know that the next day would be the most frightening of his life—and that of every living soul on Kista Dan. They were heading out into a full-blown hurricane. At 0130 on Friday 5 March, Leckie woke Law to tell him that the Auster, lashed down on the deck, had been wrecked: The wind was now blowing at Force 14 (more than 100 knots) and the ship was hove to into the wind and rolling and pitching violently in heavy seas. Doug and I stumbled along the heaving passage and pushed through the door at the end on to the boat deck. It was wild out there. We clung to the handrails as the wind buffeted us and freezing spray lashed our faces. The scream of the wind and the flapping of our parka hoods around our ears made conversation impossible. . .The aircraft certainly was a mess. Gusts of wind under the starboard wing had caused the main strut, connecting the port float to the fuselage, to collapse and the plane

127

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

had lurched over on one side, crumpled and twisted, with the port wing tangled up in the lifeboat davits.24

They climbed up to the bridge to tell the captain. He was having great difficulty holding the ship into the wind. Kista Dan was bow light and stern heavy after having discharged her cargo at Mawson Station. Her bows were riding so high in the water that the helmsman could not hold her into the wind, now blowing at 160 kilometres per hour. Great waves were sending sheets of water and spray over the foredeck and against the bridge windows, and turning into sludge ice. Law asked the chief engineer whether the forward tanks had been ballasted to keep the bows lower in the water. He said they had tried, but the pipes had frozen up. Law: There was little conversation on the darkened bridge. The helmsman’s repetition of the Captain’s steering orders and an occasional comment by the First Mate or myself were the only words spoken. The radar shone green under its hood and the First Mate seldom left it . . . About 0200 hours the Captain lost control of the ship. No combination of rudder and engine revolutions could counteract the force of the wind on the bows, and Kista Dan broached to. Lying over on her port side, she drifted helplessly, pounded by every breaking wave and held in a permanent list by the hurricane.25

That spelt the end for Auster 200, which was blown over the side. The second mate cut the lashings to let the wreckage drift away, carrying with it—to Law’s chagrin—the valuable scintillometer which could not be retrieved. (It was not, however, the end of the Auster contribution to ANARE service. The fuselage of Auster 201, cannibalised to augment Auster 200, was safely stowed in the hold, and was rebuilt to return to the Antarctic to fly in 1955.) The situation was critical. Kista Dan lay on her side held to a permanent list of 30° by the force of the wind and rolling from that point, so that the limits of the rolls were vertical or 10° to starboard, then 60° or 70° to port. Law was aware that the stability of the ship left a lot to be desired. He had noticed on the voyage to Macquarie Island that ‘the ship feels top-heavy’ and tended to ‘hang over’ at the end of a roll. (After she returned to Denmark at the end of this voyage the owners added 70 tonnes to her keel.)26 In his book You Have to be Lucky—Antarctic and Other Adventures, Law wrote: 128

There have been a number of occasions in my life when I have been afraid, but never have I experienced, before or since, terror extending

E

A R L Y

E X P L O R A T I O N

unrelieved over such a long period of time. I don’t think anyone on the ship really expected to survive and, over a period of 12 hours, each large roll seemed likely to be the last.27

With no steerage, Captain Petersen could only use his engines to move ahead or astern with limited effect to try and avoid icebergs and large bergy bits. After Kista Dan sideswiped one iceberg, Doug Leckie joined other volunteers to go on deck to try and throw ice off the ship. Frozen spray on the deck and rigging was making the stricken vessel even more top-heavy and unstable: We had to use crowbars, anything we could to break ice off the decks and the rigging—one of the boys got quite nastily hurt with falling ice off the rigging.

Law said later that neither he nor anyone else on the ship took a photograph during the next twelve hours—and he was the official photographer—because they all thought they were going to die. Doug Leckie shared a cabin with his three RAAF colleagues:

THE HYBRID ‘AUSTER 200.5’ MOUNTED ON THE REAR DECK OF

KISTA DAN. IT WAS LOST

OVERBOARD IN A HURRICANE

VESTFOLD HILLS MARCH 1954. (AAD ARCHIVES)

NEAR THE IN

I remember saying to Ray Seaver and Frank Morgan that it might be an idea to say a quick prayer, because I thought this might be the end. I heard a muffled voice saying, ‘What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two and a half bloody hours’. That was Ken Duffell, my flight engineer.

The ship’s professionals were not immune from raw fear. One engineer was so distressed he had to be given sleeping tablets. His job was cleaning the strainers of ice slush to get cooling water to the engine. He later had a nervous breakdown, could not work for a year, and never went back to sea again.28 Like most of the passengers, Law could do nothing but lie in his bunk most of the time and hope for the best: The most horrible moment of the whole night was when I stood in my cabin, in semi-darkness, leaning against the bulkhead, with my face pressed against the porthole, peering out on the port side over the tormented water. . .Suddenly, struck by a fierce gust of wind and a particularly

129

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

high wave, the ship heeled over until I was lying on my stomach on the bulkhead, practically horizontal, with my nose flattened against the submerged glass of the porthole, gazing down into the green-black depths. There I waited and waited for the recovery that would not come, as successive waves ground the ship further and further down on its side as my terror mounted. . .

130

Law remembers that, when confronting what seemed like certain death, he felt mostly anger and intense resentment. There he was, a successful expedition leader, returning home with a story of accomplishment and a load of important scientific records and photographs. Was all this to be lost? And would anyone ever know what had happened? Captain Petersen, during the twenty-four hours he spent on the bridge, was also resentful at finding himself in this situation. During one of Law’s visits to the bridge, Petersen shouted at him: ‘Have you now got enough?’29 Law later reflected that had the captain not procrastinated for two days on the way to the Vestfold Hills about the charter, they would have been well on their way home by that point.30 Daylight on Friday 5 March brought little relief, except that later in the day Kista Dan drifted into an area of brash ice—pulverised pack ice with the consistency of a thick concrete mix. But giant swells persisted, and remnants of larger ice floes bumped and grated against the ship’s sides ‘with horrible menacing sounds’.31 During the next night the crew managed to free the frozen pipes that had prevented the captain at the beginning of the storm from pumping sea water into his forward tanks, and there was a noticeable improvement in draught and stability. By Saturday morning 6 March the worst was over, normal watches were resumed and the captain at last retired to his bunk after forty hours continuously on the bridge. Kista Dan returned to Melbourne via Heard Island and, after taking on fresh water at Kerguelen Islands without any further major dramas, berthed at North Wharf on the morning of 31 March 1954. Despite the triumph of establishing Australia’s first permanent continental station on the Antarctic continent against considerable odds, the return was oddly anticlimactic in contrast to the hoopla of the departure. One reason was the press preoccupation with the visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to Australia. However, one journalist did comment that ‘a handful of Australians have been taking part, almost unnoticed, in an exploit which, under normal circumstances, would have made headline news’. The DEA had irritated Law by cabling him on 28 March that he was to limit any press interviews with himself and the expeditioners on arrival

E

A R L Y

to ‘events, personal experiences and sidelights’. Statements on achievements and the value of the expedition would be preserved for a report to the minister ‘and may be the subject of a later statement’.32 Law wrote in his diary: ‘This is typical. The first chance to give the newspapers some serious scientific stuff, and I am reduced to nattering about penguins!’ Apart from the Heard Island expeditioners’ relatives there was no great crowd to welcome the explorers on 31 March. The Minister, Richard Casey, was there though, and came on board to chat informally with Law and Captain Petersen. Conscious that Mawson Station was far from ‘permanent’, Law took the occasion to remind Mr Casey: . . .that although we had ten men now at Mawson, we had no government approval for a relief expedition to pick them up in 1955, or for the appointment of a new party to replace them. One quarter of the year had passed, and we in the Antarctic Division would need an immediate decision by the government if we were to be ready in time to sail in January.33

E X P L O R A T I O N

RICHARD CASEY, MINISTER FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, TALKS TO CAPTAIN HANS CHRISTIAN PETERSEN AFTER KISTA DAN’S RETURN TO MELBOURNE ON 31 MARCH 1954. (I FOX)

Casey told Law there was a meeting the next day to talk about all this. However, Law was surprised to hear from administrative officer Jeremiah Donovan that it was not a full meeting of the Executive Planning Committee—the principal Antarctic policy-making body. He suspected that there were moves afoot to undermine the role of the EPC and determined to fight for its retention. As it happened, Law’s domination of Australia’s Antarctic agenda had been under attack on a number of fronts while he had been down south. Despite the fact that the establishment of Mawson Station fulfilled the final requirement set down by the Government in 1947 for Australia’s involvement in Antarctica, Law—fatigued and drained by his long and arduous voyage—would have to act quickly to retain his control of Antarctic-related events. 131

NINE

VIRGIN

A

132

TERRITORY

lthough supportive and influential in promoting post-war Australian Antarctic activity, Sir Douglas Mawson thought that more attention should be paid to the eastern sector of the AAT, near Cape Freshfield, and Commonwealth Bay where he had his base in his 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition. There were also scientific benefits, he felt, in being near the South Magnetic Pole. Phillip Law, on the other hand, favoured the western sector of the AAT near the Amery Ice Shelf, where there were coastal ice-free areas and interior mountain ranges to be explored. The Norwegians had also been active in this area and Australia’s claims needed to be strengthened. During the Executive Planning Committee meeting in November 1953, Law convinced the committee (including Mawson) that the Kista Dan expedition in 1954 should go west, to the coast of Mac. Robertson Land. Law regarded the EPC highly. It brought together the main players in ANARE—the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (formerly CSIR), Bureau of Mineral Resources, the armed forces, Treasury, National Mapping, the Australian Academy of Science, the universities and ANARE’s parent department, the Department of External Affairs, as well as influential Antarctic experts like Sir Douglas Mawson and John King Davis. The committee was chaired by Law who valued its role in breaking down ‘selfish’ departmental barriers, creating long and short-term Antarctic policy and playing a powerful role in getting government acceptance of that policy. He orchestrated it skilfully to support his Antarctic plans, and made sure he always drafted the minutes of its meetings:

V

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

It is terribly important that the Minutes are written in such a way that they contribute constructively to the direction in which you want to go. . .I didn’t believe in falsifying Minutes or ‘rigging’ them in any way but I am sure that if you write the Minutes with an object in view you can, over the years, influence the way a thing goes.1

Sir Douglas Mawson was well aware of Law’s strong guiding hand on the EPC. On Wednesday 20 January—while Law was heading towards Antarctica on Kista Dan —External Affairs Minister Richard Casey asked Sir Douglas to see him in Canberra to discuss future Australian plans in Antarctica. Mawson pressed his views on the importance of the Cape Freshfield area of the AAT as a site for a future base and told Casey that the Government should abandon the Heard Island station and ask New Zealand to take over the ANARE station on Macquarie Island, or at least share the expenses of maintaining it, as the meteorological data was of interest ‘only to New Zealand’. In a confidential minute to the DEA Casey wrote: I asked Mawson what sort of a body the Antarctic Committee [EPC] was. He told me confidentially that he did not think it was a very active or useful body—as it only met once or twice a year—and then largely to be told by P G Law what it had been decided to do.2

This struck a chord with the DEA’s Keith Waller (who had vexed Law by cabling him on Kista Dan to stop him making press statements of substance on his arrival in Melbourne). Waller wrote to DEA Secretary James Plimsoll on 22 February 1954: Minister is concerned at the lack of control over Law’s activities. I have suggested (and Minister agrees) that Law is playing the Department off against the Antarctic Committee [EPC] and vice versa. Minister has agreed that we should set up a small executive Committee of the main Antarctic Committee, consisting of Law, White (CSIRO), Treasury representative, J K Davis (an Antarctic expert) and me, under his Chairmanship.3

In March when Law returned from Antarctica and was alerted by his administrative assistant, Jeremiah Donovan, he moved to counter-attack. He rang the chief geophysicist of the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Jack Rayner, whom he regarded as one of the important figures on the EPC, and found he had not been invited to the meeting: I then rang Keith Waller in Canberra, who admitted that the Minister was thinking of replacing the [EPC] with a much smaller committee consisting of a few selected men from the present committee. I told him

133

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

to inform the Minister that if he proceeded with this idea I would immediately resign.4

The meeting on 2 April passed smoothly with Casey in the chair. At the end, Law asked the minister bluntly how often he intended to call this small committee together and whether it was intended that it should usurp the functions of the EPC. He received Casey’s assurances that this would not be so. Law, who had chaired the EPC since 1949, continued as its chairman until 1963, when it was allowed to lapse.5 The next EPC meeting, on 16 June 1954, was extremely important. Law, once again with his hands firmly on the reins of Antarctic policy, presented a draft five year plan to ensure stability and continuity PHIL LAW SHOWS SIR of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic stations. A submisDOUGLAS MAWSON THE FIRST sion to Cabinet sought approval for expanded activities PUBLISHED PICTURE OF at Mawson Station with a fifteen-man party for 1955. MAWSON STATION AFTER HIS The Heard Island station was to be closed to help pay RETURN TO MELBOURNE IN for the expanded activity on the Antarctic mainland. MARCH 1954. Exploration was stressed, with qualified surveyors and (MELBOURNE AGE ) aircraft provided by the RAAF to investigate and chart territory within 100 miles’ [160 kilometres] radius of Mawson, supported by coastal exploration from Kista Dan. Law also spelled out his proposed scientific program: a boosting of meteorological activity (including experimental automatic weather stations), geology, geomagnetism and seismology, cosmic ray and ionospheric work, biology and glaciology. As no glaciologist was available in Australia, Law hoped to recruit from overseas.6 At Mawson, blissfully unaware that the station was not yet assured of a future, Bob Dovers and his nine companions continued to build huts and prepare for their first winter on the Antarctic continent. All were without their appendixes. Bob Dingle, a weather observer, was one of eight team members operated on by the doctor, Bob Summers, for prophylactic reasons before embarking on Kista Dan. ‘He said it was a good idea for him to do the operation because it would give us faith in him.’ A certain amount of faith in Summers was lost, though, after he buried their entire year’s supply of fresh meat in the ice. Dingle: ‘The first blizzard came down and removed the marker flag. . .When you bury something in a featureless bit of ice or snow, unless you take bearings on it, you never find it again.’ Fortunately for all, Summers located the cache two months later—but there was still only enough meat for one meal a month plus birthdays.7 134

V

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

However, there was plenty of tinned meat, and the choicest cuts of seal killed for the huskies also found their way on to the expeditioners’ table. The prefabricated wooden hut Phil Law had obtained from the NBS Expedition was the main living quarters and mess. Five sleeping bays and bunks on each side of the hut meant little privacy—although towards the end of the year plyboard partitions were put up to create minimal personal space. A communal dining table filled the centre of the hut and, at the MEDICAL OFFICER BOB end, a slow combustion Aga stove was presided over SUMMERS IS THE MAN IN THE by the cook, Jeff Gleadell. ICE MASK AFTER RETURNING Despite the cramped living conditions, personal FROM THE MAWSON DOG LINE relations remained cordial despite ‘a few grouches’ IN A BLIZZARD, WINTER 1954. and there were agreed ground rules to avoid friction. (R DINGLE) Bill Storer: ‘We had a policy that we would not discuss religion or politics while we were there. In other words, that was our own little private affair. We could pray in our little cubicles if we wanted to.’ Talk about women was allowed but, according to Storer, did not dominate conversations in the NBS hut. For recreation the ten men played cards (canasta), listened to gramophone records or read from the excellent polar and general library provided by the Antarctic Division. There was little time to relax. The huskies had to be fed and looked after each day, snow had to be continuously carted to the snow melter for fresh water, and equipment prepared for field trips. Everyone did a day’s turn as ‘slushy’ for the cook and cooked for the rest on Sunday, Gleadell’s day off. Night watches were kept to guard against fire—a very real hazard in a wooden hut with a combustion stove and pressure lamp lighting. Dingle, the sole weather observer, began his daily weather reports and balloon launches in April. He had no radiosonde apparatus to send aloft, but measured the upper winds by sighting the released balloon with his theodolite. Any spare time remaining was often spent instructing other expeditioners in specialist tasks, in case of death or injury. Storer: I taught the guys how to operate the radio, the surveyor [Dovers] taught us how to take bearings and things like that. [Bob Dingle] taught us all how to read the weather. We all had our little lectures—not every night—but at least once a week.

135

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

OIC Bob Dovers was keen to begin exploring the virgin territory surrounding them and in April led a party of ROUTE OF 1954 PARTY FROM five on a four-day field trip up to the plateau behind MAWSON STATION TO Mawson Station into the Framnes Mountains, to find SCULLIN MONOLITH AND a safe route onto the ice cap towards Mt Henderson. RETURN. This was a preliminary canter to test equipment and vehicles for a much more ambitious journey—Dovers wanted to push east along the coast to the Scullin Monolith. He proposed to travel along the sea ice with two Weasels each towing a wooden barge caravan and a sledge loaded with fuel. Dovers would lead a party of four, including the carpenter Harvey, geologist Stinear and radio operator Storer: The sledge [barge] caravans were ordinary caravans with a roof on the top like a triangle or diamond, and in this we stored all our equipment. One caravan had all our survival gear and the other had our scientific equipment.

136

They set off on 17 May and made such good progress over the sea ice that they sighted the bulk of the Scullin Monolith two days later. But on the morning of 20 May a gale burst upon them. That night Dovers was forced to camp on the sea ice in front of the sheer rock face of the monolith. He was uneasy about camping on the ice but noted in his log that it was two feet [0.61 metres] thick and that he ‘was not unduly worried about our situation’.8

V

The Australians woke early on the morning of 21 May to find themselves in a desperate position. The sea ice was heaving up and down in a heavy swell and breaking into floes. Dovers started the motor of No. 1 Weasel and alerted Stinear and Storer in No. 2 to do the same. Unfortunately neither vehicle had been refuelled the night before, but there was no time now for that. Dovers:

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

THE FORBIDDING CLIFFS OF THE SCULLIN MONOLITH SEEN FROM KISTA DAN, 1954. (AAD ARCHIVES) NO. 1 WEASEL BROKE THROUGH THE ICE AND

STARTED TO SINK, 1954. We tried to make the eastern tip of the bay which was (W HARVEY) lower lying. . .however the rapidity with which the ice was breaking up precluded this. Already the floes were individual sections heaving up and down in the swell. The Weasels were truly magnificent scrambling from floe to floe. As the weight came on a floe it would sink and tilt leaving a gap and step to the next, but the Weasels managed to proceed, dragging their loads.9

They could not make it to shore, and were stopped by open water and brash ice about 200 metres out. Survival, uppermost in their minds, necessitated securing the barge caravan containing their food and emergency supplies to the shore. Leaving the Weasels and all the other equipment on ice floes, the four men began to winch the vital barge caravan towards the land by hand, precariously balanced on a tongue of non-tidal ice, clinging to hollows in the ice hummocks. Dovers: How we managed to cling on there in that merciless wind was a mystery. We saw the manhandled sledge fully loaded flying through the air before crashing into the tide crack near us, narrowly missing Stinear in its trajectory. Our heavy bridging timbers wafted about the bay like matchsticks. The second barge caravan was turned completely over in a gust. Then a few minutes later a subsequent gust righted it again. Even the sledges each carrying a ton and a half [11¼2 tonnes] of petrol were moved about.10

137

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

THERE WAS A DESPERATE STRUGGLE TO MANHANDLE THE REMAINING BARGE CARAVAN ASHORE,

1954. (W HARVEY)

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

By this time all four men were suffering badly from exposure. Not only that, the survival barge caravan had a large hole punched in the side, and certainly would not float. Dovers asked carpenter Harvey and Storer to patch it. While this was going on, No. 1 Weasel heeled over on its side on its ice floe and started to sink. Fortunately Storer had already removed all their sleeping bags from both Weasels, and put them in the caravan. Dovers realised that they could not survive on land without shelter, and their only hope was to get in the caravan tethered on the ice for the night and hope for the best:

A very worrying night. . .The caravan was under constant bombardment by ice fragments that rattled on the plywood walls. The floes outside were all detached and moving. We could hear water lapping against the hull and the caravan was continually bumped by moving floes that scraped loudly against the thin plywood hull. No water came through the patch.11

138

At 0400 hours conditions eased a little, and they even managed some sleep. All had minor frostbite, and Harvey had a badly cut hand he had jammed in a Weasel door. Dovers had a deeply frostbitten hand. They dressed their wounds and next day managed to winch the caravan closer to the shore and make a cache of emergency food on land. On 28 May after five days in this desperate situation, Dovers decided to take advantage of better ice conditions to try and winch the survival caravan to shore. It was resting on ice, but they succeeded in tethering it to a rock face in such a way that if the ice did move out to sea, they would be left suspended like a lifeboat in ship’s davits. They slept better that night, Dovers noting in his log that ‘the gentle rocking motion of the ice under the swell was not missed at all as an aid to sleep, and the groaning and growling of the tide crack had lost its sinister significance’.

V

On 2 June ‘there was a frightful crash’ and the barge caravan gave a sideways lurch as the ice bank beneath it collapsed, and left the four men hanging in mid-air. Dovers noted laconically in his log: ‘Radio contact [with Mawson Station] interrupted by the foregoing episode. We will have to find a new home, this is no place for anyone who likes a quiet life.’12 By 4 June the party was in its best shape since the ice break-out. The surviving No. 1 Weasel had been able to drag the barge caravan from its precarious position to dry land at a location nearby dubbed ‘Weasel Beach’. No. 2 Weasel and the second barge caravan were lost on the sea ice. However, the party had ample food, fuel, accommodation and a working Weasel to get them back to Mawson Station if and when the sea ice froze again. If not, there was still an option. Storer:

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

HOME AWAY FROM HOME. THE BARGE CARAVAN WAS SUSPENDED OVER THE SEA ICE BY CABLES GUYED INTO THE

SCULLIN MONOLITH, 1954. (W HARVEY)

ROCKY CLIFFS OF THE

We knew we could survive at that particular place even if we had to be rescued by ship in nine months’ time. While we were there we couldn’t do anything because the sheer cliffs were too steep to climb up. Our only exit was via the way we came—by sea.

Bruce Stinear made good use of the enforced stay by collecting geological specimens, later received with great joy by Sir Douglas Mawson, who had not been able to land at the Scullin Monolith during his BANZARE voyages in 1929 and 1931. By the second week in June the sea ice seemed strong enough for an escape attempt, but the Scullin seemed unwilling to let them go. On 10 June a blizzard struck with such ferocity that it tipped over both the barge caravan and No. 1 Weasel. At last, on 13 June Dovers and his three companions set off with the battered Weasel towing the barge caravan and two sledges, and were back at Mawson Station by the evening of 19 June. The saga was not quite over. Dovers:

139

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

At 2300 hours just as everybody was settling down to bed, Schwarz burst into the hut reporting that No. 1 Weasel was on fire. Despite our best efforts the fire damaged the machine beyond repair before it was put out. This was the crowning blow of an ill-fated venture.13

The loss of two of the three Weasels caused a rethink on plans for further exploration.

T

140

he huskies had not been brought to Mawson to be cuddly canine companions for expeditioners. They were working dogs, on the cutting edge of existing polar technology. The vulnerability of heavy tracked vehicles running over sea ice had been demonstrated during the Scullin Monolith venture. Both George Schwartz and Bob Dovers had experience driving huskies and after much discussion it was decided to take two dog teams along the coast to King Edward Gulf, 230 kilometres to the west of Mawson, and carry out scientific work along the way.14 Apart from filling in blanks in the map, they planned to take tidal observations, astrofixes from rocky features, magnetic observations, collect geological and botanical specimens and make a ‘rough’ survey of animal and bird life along the way.15 They set off on 12 October and in comparison with the Scullin Monolith debacle had a smooth run, proving the advantage of dogs over machines on sea ice—the first of many such journeys that would be made by ANARE expeditioners until 1992. Dovers planned to be away for six weeks, but only fourteen days’ rations of dog pemmican were carried—they planned to kill seals to feed the huskies. On 21 October they saw many emperor penguins, and followed these magnificent birds in to the coast to discover what was later named Taylor Rookery. Radio contact was maintained with Mawson during the coastal run. Dovers’ dog team led and he reported little trouble, ‘but George was furious with his undisciplined crew tonight’. Dovers summed up the Western Coastal Journey as workmanlike—‘nothing extraordinary except remarkable in the smoothness of events’. They were out for 41 days, and had run 880 kilometres with the dogs, which had set out a rabble and returned as well-trained teams, with ‘all objects achieved’.16 This was a valuable training run for the Southern Reconnaissance—the major field journey for the year—that Dovers was itching to begin. The territory inland from Mawson Station was totally unexplored and he was aware that ‘Operation Highjump’ aerial photographs taken by the Americans in February 1947 had shown a tantalising glimpse of what might be a mountain range to the south of Mawson.

V

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

This expedition was carried out in three stages. The surviving Weasel No. 3 now sported a wooden cabin, ingeniously constructed by John Russell.17 Dovers, Russell and Jeff Gleadell, the cook, began by taking the Weasel on a route reconnaissance past Mt Henderson to 69°40'S, where it broke down. Leaving it there, the three men went back to Mawson and Dovers returned with Dr Bob Summers, Lem Macey and two dog teams to survey the terrain further as well as find a track south. On 13 December, Dovers, Summers and geologist Bruce Stinear left Mawson with the repaired Weasel and one dog team and pushed into the unknown.18 Again the dogs proved more reliable than the Weasel, which plagued them with fuel blockages. On Christmas Day the three explorers sat in the Weasel cabin to enjoy their specially provided Christmas dinner. Dovers wrote: ‘A Xmas present to Summers from his people was opened and it contained some gum leaves which were ceremoniously burnt, filling the Weasel cabin with the nostalgic fragrance of the Australian bush.’19 On 27 December the party sighted five peaks about 240 kilometres south southeast of Mawson Station—later named the Stinear Nunataks after the expedition’s geologist. The excitement of raw discoveries in virgin territory was palpable. Summers later wrote: The culmination of my year at Mawson was the Southern Journey. I found it extremely satisfying putting my big feet down on to territory that one knew no one had ever trod before and wondering what the next day would bring.20

The following day the Weasel, followed by the dogs, laboured up a great snow drift to the peak of one of the Stinear Nunataks, and a major discovery could be claimed. Dovers: A most interesting surprise awaited us here. As soon as we topped the crest we saw a great range of mountains leading away to the south-east. Up to this time we had not the least suspicion of the existence of this range. It was a magnificent spectacle and a very fitting climax to the journey; well worth the petty annoyances of the Weasel.21

Dovers, Stinear and Summers were the first to see the northernmost ranges of the Prince Charles Mountains, extending about 300 kilometres southwards in an arc from their northern extremity. These great mountains form a barrier through which streams the Lambert Glacier, which in turn feeds the vast Amery Ice Shelf. The Lambert Glacier drains a third of the AAT as its immense rivers of advancing ice move inexorably off the Antarctic continent and into the surrounding ocean. It is an area

141

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

of great drama, beauty and scientific importance, and major ANARE summer programs are carried out there to this day. The Dovers party could go no further. They did not have enough fuel or supplies to go on, and time was running out as Kista Dan was due to pick up the Mawson party in a matter of weeks. They returned reluctantly to Mawson Station by 7 January 1955—the same day Kista Dan left Melbourne for Heard Island and Mawson. It had been an important year for ANARE. Dovers and his men had made significant discoveries along the coast and inland from Mawson. They had tested, in the field, methods of travel that would be adopted and adapted by the ANARE parties that were to follow, exploring and conducting research in the AAT. The relief voyage was led by Phil Law, assisted by Dick Thompson, with Kista Dan again skippered by Captain Hans Christian Petersen. This time the ship was carrying two amphibious army DUKWs to help with the cargo operations at Heard and Horseshoe Harbour, but no aircraft. Law was eager to continue exploring the fascinating ice-free Vestfold Hills, so briefly visited the previous year. The party was astonished at the first sight of the outlying islands, now snow free, with their rocky terrain teeming with rookeries of Adélie penguins. Captain Petersen was seeking Magnetic Island, but approached another island by mistake. Instead of retreating and coming back along last year’s track, he tried to edge over to Magnetic Island directly. Mariners in uncharted Antarctic waters usually try to keep to corridors of known safety, and Petersen’s sideways move nearly led to disaster. Law: At 1140 hours there was a grinding jar, the ship lurched and bucked several times before the way could be taken off her, and we found ourselves stranded on top of a sharp pinnacle of rock which had passed to one side of the echo-sounders without registering and had struck the ship amidships. It took half an hour’s manoeuvring by the Captain to get clear again.22

142

The DUKWs made landings easier, although both machines became bogged inland and had to be winched out. Land parties were able to explore the remarkable lakes, frozen fjords and ice-free extent of the Vestfold Hills for two days, although Law regretted not having aircraft to assist in an overview of the area. On 1 February, Kista Dan sailed towards the Larsemann Hills 100 kilometres to the west, until the ship was stopped by fast ice 20 kilometres from the coast. Law judged the ice to be much stronger and thicker than that across which they had unloaded cargo at Horseshoe Harbour the previous year. An attempt to reach the Larsemann Hills over the fast ice to take an astrofix was abandoned after the Weasel

V

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

in which Law and his companions were travelling nearly broke through on several occasions.23 A PRECARIOUS OVERNIGHT On 3 February Law decided to risk a sledge journey CAMP ON SEA ICE AMONG over the sea ice to the nearby Bolingen Islands with a GROUNDED ICEBERGS IN six-man party. John Béchervaise (the incoming OIC PRYDZ BAY NEAR LICHEN at Mawson) took part in this expedition, which managed ISLAND, FEBRUARY 1955. to get an astrofix from one of the small rocky islets (P LAW) amongst icebergs and highly unstable sea ice. At 0300 hours on 5 February, Law woke to a fresh PHIL LAW LEADING A PARTY north-east wind and an ominous outlook. ‘The prospect MANHAULING A SLEDGE TO of a hurricane setting the whole area into heaving LICHEN ISLAND, PRYDZ BAY, motion. . .was not pleasant.’ He woke the rest of the FEBRUARY 1955. party and they moved camp onto the rocky islet the (J BÉCHERVAISE) Norwegians had named Lorten Island. By later that day surveyor Bob Lacey completed his observations and geologist Peter Crohn had gathered samples of a rich profusion of both rock and lichen samples. Perhaps because of Adélie guano deposited there over the years, the Norwegians had named it Lorten—literally ‘The Turd’. Law decided to change the islet’s name to Lichen Island, which he thought more aesthetically pleasing.24 The weather looked threatening, and the party set out to return to the ship over the sea ice on skis, towing a sledge. As they did so, they realised the ice was beginning to break up around them. Béchervaise: This is a very unhappy prospect, to cover some miles over ice floes which are breaking up. . .the floes were up to 30 feet [9.14 metres] across and we had to wait till they moved together and then make a crossing from

143

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

T

he OIC of the 1955 Mawson party, John Mayston Béchervaise, was a man of many accomplishments. School teacher, classicist, poet and mountaineer, ‘Béch’ was 45 years old when he arrived at Mawson. He had been co-editing the travel-adventure magazine Walkabout when Law asked him to go to Heard Island as OIC in 1953. With the magnet of a major unclimbed peak drawing him to it, Béchervaise led two attempts in August and November 1953 to climb Big Ben, but the notoriously wild weather around the 2745 metre volcano beat them back. On the first attempt Béchervaise and his two companions, Peter Shaw and Fred Elliott, sheltered in a snow cave and were nearly killed by carbon monoxide poisoning when their ventilator shaft was blocked by drift. Béchervaise was not a scientist and in later life seemed mildly puzzled why he, a generalist, should have been selected to lead parties of scientists in Antarctica. His strengths were in leadership, and he represented a break from the policy of appointing a senior scientist—often the head meteorologist—as the OIC of an ANARE station. This emphasis on management rather than scientific expertise became more evident in later years when the administration of a modern station became a far more complex logistical and staffing exercise. John Béchervaise had that rare combination of infectious enthusiasm and an instinctive ability to motivate people. ‘Perhaps’, wrote fellow bushwalker Graham Wills-Johnson of Béchervaise in 1981, ‘the very first qualification of an Antarctic leader, therefore, is to be a good generalist. Good generalists are in much shorter supply in the twentieth century, the age of the specialist, than they were in the eighteenth.’25

POET, SCHOLAR AND EXPLORER JOHN BÉCHERVAISE RELISHED THE EXCITEMENT AND PRIVILEGE OF ‘FIRST FOOTING’ UNDISCOVERED FEATURES IN ANTARCTICA. PHOTOGRAPHED ON HEARD ISLAND, 1953. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

In the 1940s and 1950s keen climbers could still find new peaks to conquer in remote areas of Australia. Béchervaise had led the first ascent of Federation Peak in the south-west of Tasmania in January 1949. His delight in finding himself in virgin territory at Mawson was palpable: We were extraordinarily fortunate. . .all round the horizon were these mountains which had never been climbed. And some of them had been named from the sea by Douglas Mawson in 1930. There was the Casey Range, for instance, named after young Richard Casey, who was Official Secretary in London and was a big help to Mawson. We had all these virgin peaks. . .we were very lucky in having them.

V

one to the other—sort of floe-hopping. It’s a slow and anxious business. The nearer we got to the ship the happier we were.

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

THREE MEMBERS OF THE ANARE PARTY THAT MADE THE FIRST ASCENT OF MT HENDERSON IN FEBRUARY 1955. FROM LEFT: PHIL LAW, JOHN BÉCHERVAISE AND PETER SHAW. THE FOURTH MEMBER, TONY HALL,

Petersen, an experienced ice captain, was aware of their problem and was moving towards them as fast as he could with the ship. As they got closer Béchervaise realised that the ship itself was helping to compress the ice floes they were traversing, ‘And when we got to within hailing distance, over the very clear, still TOOK THIS PHOTOGRAPH Antarctic air came the skipper’s voice through his ON THE SUMMIT. megaphone: ‘‘Make straight for zee ship! I am holding (A HALL) the floes together!’’.’ Béchervaise said it sounded ‘like God Almighty making a pronouncement that he had control of everyone’s destiny’. After further coastal survey work along the western end of the Amery Ice Shelf, Kista Dan arrived off Mawson Station on 9 February to find Horseshoe Harbour free of ice. Law was delighted with what had been achieved at Mawson, which he found ‘in immaculate condition—orderly, 145

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

clean and attractively laid out’. He was concerned, though, to find OIC Dovers far from well: The strain of his various field journeys and of his responsibilities at the Station had told heavily on him and he had been under treatment for some time for a chronic gall bladder. All told me he had driven himself without respite for months.26

Dovers was ordered onto Kista Dan for complete rest and he improved rapidly. The incoming doctor, Bob Allison, did not agree with the gall bladder diagnosis but said the affliction was a psychosomatic condition. After Dovers had made a rapid recovery on the ship Law formed the view that extreme stress had been the cause. The DUKWs handled the cargo easily and the changeover was smooth. Ten extra huts were built, a BOB LACEY (USING radio mast erected, and ‘40 seals killed and stored for THEODOLITE) AND ERIC winter dog food’. Law even found time to achieve the MACKLIN (WITH first ascent of Mt Henderson with Béchervaise (a keen CHRONOMETER) SURVEYING IN mountaineer), Peter Shaw and Lieutenant A T Hall, THE PRINCE CHARLES officer in charge of the DUKWs. In contrast to the first MOUNTAINS, 1955. Kista Dan voyage, Law lavished praise on Captain (J BÉCHERVAISE) Petersen who, he said, ‘had been cooperative in every way’.27 From Mawson it was back to Heard where Law had the sad task of closing down the station, sacrificed to help finance the development of Mawson and an expanded continental program. With Mawson Station now well established, an expanded program of science and exploration was begun. Cosmic ray research was a priority and during 1955 two large meson telescopes comprising 150 Geiger counters (which had been built at the University of Tasmania under the direction of Drs G Fenton and N R ‘Nod’ Parsons) were assembled on converted anti-aircraft gun mounts set in concrete piers weighing four tonnes, and screened with one tonne of lead. The cosmic ray building was designed to withstand winds of up to 250 kilometres per hour. Nod Parsons wintered at Mawson to establish the cosmic ray laboratory. By 146

V

I R G I N

T E R R I T O R Y

the end of 1955 there were nineteen buildings in use, and the station operated the most elaborate scientific establishment the Antarctic had seen to that date.28 In August Béchervaise with five companions and a dog team inspected he Weasel was a World War II vintage the emperor penguins at Taylor Rookery vehicle, originally built as an all-terrain west of Mawson in what was becoming Bren gun carrier and designed for only an annual Mawson Station ritual. Dogs a short operational life. It was not really were not used on the follow-up expeadequate for Antarctic field work, although dition to reinforce Dovers’ sighting of ANARE engineers nursed them past the limits the Prince Charles Mountains (PCMs). of the possible. It could be fitted with a demoAfter a depot-laying exercise early in lition charge to allow its destruction in combat. November 1955, Béchervaise, with six (Surveyor Syd Kirkby thought that was its companions and two Weasels towing best design feature.) sledges, set out for the PCMs on 14 November. Important geological and surveying work was achieved, but the Weasels were not equal to the task and the party was plagued with breakdowns. They did, however, reach the northernmost range of the PCMs, enabling Béchervaise to write in his diary of 26 November:

T

This was a good day, containing our longest outward run of the expedition so far. It ended with us being first-footers in the Prince Charles Ranges; with our having gone further south in Mac. Robertson Land [than] any previous party.29

Leaving one ailing Weasel abandoned in the field (but retrieving its engine) the PCMs party returned to Mawson on 7 December.

147

TEN

SPREADING

WINGS

P

hillip Law had little difficulty in persuading DEA Minister Richard Casey to approve the purchase of aircraft (to assist exploration) and the construction of a hangar at Mawson Station. The RAAF agreed to send an Antarctic Flight which would remain at Mawson during 1956 to carry out flying operations. The Antarctic Flight would again be led by Squadron Leader Douglas Leckie, supported by Pilot Officer John Seaton and two engineers, G Sundberg and G Johansen, but the choice of aircraft was more difficult than selecting personnel. The Auster aircraft were under-powered for Antarctic work, with minimal cargo-carrying capacity. The RAAF briefly considered using a World War II vintage Wirraway training aircraft but then decided to import a de Havilland DHC2 Beaver from Canada. This single-engined high-winged monoplane had a roomy cabin, could operate on wheels, skis or floats, and had been used successfully in the Canadian Arctic. Leckie: The Beaver was an ideal aircraft for the job. It could carry trimetrogon cameras for taking vertical and oblique [photographs] which is absolutely necessary for detailed aerial mapping and surveying. . .and when stripped down it was an ideal transport aircraft. We used to carry 44-gallon [200 litre] drums of fuel and also take passengers and field crews around to their various locations. It had a good range—with extra petrol tanks it would fly well over 1000 miles [1600 kilometres].

148

A back-up aircraft was needed to rescue the pilot in the event of a forced landing or crash and, with light aircraft in short supply in post-war Australia, Leckie remembered that the fuselage of Auster 201 had been

S

returned to Australia after its wings and other fittings were cannibalised in February 1954: It was now owned by the Royal Victorian Aero Club. So after quite a bit of negotiation we purchased [it] back, with skis and floats. We’d also [need] a hangar to erect at Mawson to keep the aircraft serviceable for all-year-round flying.

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN PRINCE CHARLES MOUNTAINS SHOWING THE LAMBERT GLACIER AND AMERY ICE SHELF

A prefabricated steel and corrugated iron hangar was designed by the Department of Works and loaded on Kista Dan with the two aircraft. Kista Dan left Melbourne on 27 December 1955 and by 5 January reached Davis Bay close to the French Antarctic sector, Adélie Land. The Beaver was launched on floats and Law accompanied Leckie on its first flight in good weather, reporting the new aircraft ‘steady as a rock’.1 During the voyage along the coast of Wilkes Land, Law reported that he and Leckie managed to photograph 1600 kilometres of coastline. On 21 January the Australians on Kista Dan visited the Russians who were building their first Antarctic station at Mirny (on Australian territory situated half way between the present Davis and Casey Stations). This was the start of a friendly association that was to continue through the years ahead.

149

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

BEAVER AIRCRAFT FITTED WITH SKIS BEING OFF-LOADED FROM KISTA DAN ON THE SEA ICE OFF THE COAST OF

MAC. ROBERTSON LAND FOR A RECONNAISSANCE FLIGHT, 1956. (M CHRISTENSEN)

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Despite being beset in heavy pack ice for ten days, Law was reasonably happy with what had been achieved—‘Many valuable soundings were taken throughout the voyage and important magnetic, gravity, geological and biological observations were made whenever we landed’—although disappointed that the delay made it impossible to visit the Prydz Bay area.2 Kista Dan reached Mawson on 17 February and work began immediately on building the hangar at the water’s edge near the east arm of Horseshoe Harbour. This construction work was supervised by the incoming medical officer, Dr Don Dowie, a man of many talents. Dowie’s construction expertise came from his experiences as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II, building timber bridges on the Burma Railway. He was also a pilot. Law reported that the hangar site was on one of the most exposed areas of rock at Mawson where conditions were so bitter the men christened the area ‘Siberia’. He later wrote:

The men who bolted cross-braces to the arches 30 feet [9.14 metres] above the ground, sitting astride the steel girders and working with gloved hands while the freezing wind plucked savagely at them, carried on hour after hour uncomplaining, working in ten-minute bursts up aloft and then thawing out before a coke brazier behind a packing case wind-break.3

The ever present ‘Antarctic Factor’ made their task more difficult. A contractor’s error caused them to be short of 250 bolts for the frame and 300 hook bolts for attaching the corrugated iron sheeting.4 Fortunately Dr Dowie’s genius for making do on the Burma Railway was no less effective in colder climes. Dowie:

150

The problem of erecting the pylons and getting them to stand up in 40 knot winds was considerable. We had guy ropes everywhere with a tractor on one side and an army DUKW on the other, holding things vertical, while a few idiots like myself were climbing up these things with nuts and bolts trying to put in the arches.

S

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

Swaying precariously eight metres above the granite rocks, Dowie found that the only way it was possible to bolt cross-members to the arches forming the hangar roof was for men to feed a rope over their shoulders, haul up the new girder and wait for the wind to blow it into position—at which point a bolt was slammed through as the two holes became aligned: THE FIRST HANGAR EVER Bolting on the corrugated iron sheeting was worse. BUILT IN ANTARCTICA UNDER Initially the thing had been designed to have neoCONSTRUCTION AT MAWSON prene rubber discs [as washers]. I pointed out to Phil STATION, FEBRUARY 1956. Law that this was probably not going to work and (P LAW) that the snow—it’s like powdered salt down there, not nice fluffy flakes—would seep through. The idea was to have a snow-free hangar. I suggested we dice this neoprene washer idea and use piano felts, which we did, and it worked like a charm and never gave any trouble.

Since the aircraft could not be put in the hangar until the sea ice froze on Horseshoe Harbour, keeping them from being bashed to bits by Mawson’s notorious katabatic winds was a challenge. They were tethered in the lee of the new hangar, with wire mesh suspended above to stop ice falling on them and a three metre wire netting fence to act as a windbreak. They successfully weathered winds of up to 160 kilometres per hour before the sea ice formed and they were moved inside in April 1956. This was the first hangar ever built in Antarctica and it is still standing. The 1956 party had great hopes of air-supported exploration because the number of huskies at Mawson had been reduced following a decision to donate the best of them to a planned Trans-Antarctic Expedition as part of the International Geophysical Year in 1957–58. Don Dowie was critical of this decision, which left only one rather poor team on the station: The program for the year was looking a bit thin on the ground if we were to rely entirely on tracked vehicles, and the huskies were very

151

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

depleted. . .I think it was a miscalculation really, in Melbourne, where the huskies were looked on as not being useful any more, when in fact they were vital.

Surveyor Syd Kirkby was more scathing, describing ‘the motley collection’ as ‘three strong, mature dogs, two old, old men, a village idiot, a shiftless lurk-merchant, one old lady and two breeding bitches’.5 Pups were eagerly awaited. Nils Lied, a radio operator who had wintered with huskies on Heard Island in 1951, took a special interest. As a boy growing up in Norway, Nils had an Eskimo friend who taught him how to handle sledges, harnesses and dogs. When one of the bitches did whelp in 1956, a blizzard was blowing, and the six puppies were almost snap frozen as they were born: There was only one thing to do. I bundled all these little pups into my parka and raced up to the surgery and brutally woke Doctor Don Dowie from a deep sleep and said, ‘This is important! What can you do?’ So Doc Dowie eased his bottom over and lifted his blankets and said, ‘Put them in here’. Two looked very dicky—lifeless and cold. He said, ‘Now you knead this one like a piece of dough and let him get the temperature of your hands into him.’ I did this, and he slowly warmed up and jack-knifed and squeaked like a mouse and he was right. Under the blankets with him too! The last one we thought we’d lost, but Doc took two bowls of water, one cold and one hot. He dipped this pup into cold water, then into the hot and rubbed him with a piece of old towel. And, so help me, he blew down his mouth and got life back into him!

152

Fortunately Sunday was the cook’s day off. ‘Jock’ Mackenzie was adamant there would be ‘nae dawgs in ma kitchen!’ Lied alleged the obliging medical officer ‘slipped him a mickey’ and the cook slept blissfully through his day off while the bitch and six puppies enjoyed the sustaining warmth of the Aga combustion stove during that vital first 24 hours. This building up of the husky population would be of benefit to expeditioners in the following years. The scratch collection of adult dogs available was nevertheless to play a vital part in the 1956 exploration program, backing up the mechanically fragile Weasels in the field. The pilots, surveyors and geologists waited impatiently for the sea ice in Horseshoe Harbour to form so that flying could begin. This was the first time flying with fixed-wing aircraft had been attempted during the winter. Mawson Station at 67°36' south has an hour or two of twilight each day, even at midwinter.

S

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

On 20 April flying operations began with the Beaver, and ambitious probing flights were made in the available daylight to the south and south-west. Drawn by the lure of fresh geographical discoveries, Leckie and Kirkby flew on occasions much further south than was officially notified. Correctly calculating that they were beyond any search and rescue capabilities by the back-up Auster aircraft anyway, a practice developed of switching off the radio and pushing on to the limits of fuel consumption. Kirkby: We would get to the maximum range and then we would switch the radio off and say, ‘We’re just going to stooge in this area for a while. . .’ and we would fly on. It was one of those unsaid things because the minute anyone knew it, then Bill Bewsher the OIC would have had to stop it.

Not all the sightings, however, could be verified. Syd Kirkby is ribbed to this day about the sighting of the ‘Princess Anne Mountains’ during one of these early winter flights: In April 1956 we set out on a long flight south-west of Mawson, ‘trudged’ along for a couple of hours—went quiet on the radio—and trudged on a bit further. Lo and behold, what should we see coming up to the front of us and to our right but mountains, quite extensive mountains. They looked to be about 40 to 50 miles [64 to 80 kilometres] away. A big discovery, the ‘Princess Anne Mountains’!

They flew back to Mawson in high excitement and radioed a report to Phillip Law in Melbourne, who suggested further flights to confirm their location. The problem was they never found them again. Kirkby believes that the American navigator Charles Wilkes had a similar problem in 1840 when he reported sighting various features, which later explorers could not verify, on the coast that now bears his name. Under certain weather conditions and low light a phenomenon occurs a bit like over-the-horizon radar: The Russians subsequently quantified it. They named it the ‘Novaya Zemlya Effect’ from the island in the Arctic where they did a lot of work on it. It’s a situation where you get very, very dense cold air over plateau, and relatively warm air over sea ice or sea—and you get lensing. You’re actually looking right over the horizon. And what we had seen when we saw the ‘Princess Anne Mountains’ apparently 40 to 50 miles [64 to 80 kilometres] away were the Scott and Napier and Nye [Mountains] way, way over the other side of Enderby Land 150 miles [240 kilometres]

153

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

away. I was somewhat pleased when the Russians quantified it and came up with shifts of this sort of order. . .many years later.

Later that year the quirky Antarctic light deceived Kirkby again during a dog sledge run through the southern Prince Charles Mountains with geologist Peter Crohn. Emerging from their polar tent one morning, he was elated to see a great range of black and brown mountains in the distance. The weather was clear, but ‘whiteout’ conditions prevailed with high cloud and reflected light off the snow. No horizon was visible. ‘You just have a bowl of white’ said Kirkby: We were in a high state of excitement until someone walked a little way away and realised that the mountains were moving very much relative to the tent. . .They were actually husky turds about 30 or 40 metres away, and we had no idea. They looked for all the world like mountains 80 kilometres away. So it wasn’t a great discovery. It was almost as bad as the Princess Anne Mountains that Doug Leckie and I didn’t discover.

They were exciting, pioneering times. John Seaton flew the Beaver 300 miles [480 kilometres] along the 63rd meridian and noted a continuation of the Prince Charles Mountains (PCMs) swinging gradually westward.6 Although in May there were only four hours of daylight, field work supported by aircraft continued west of Mawson at Stefannsson and Scoresby Bays where Syd Kirkby and Peter Crohn were doing a survey. Crohn was wintering for the second consecutive year, and had accompanied Béchervaise’s party into the northernmost reaches of the PCMs the previous year. The Beaver and Auster were used to lay fuel and food depots at Edward VIII Gulf in preparation for the exploration of the Amundsen Bay area, on the western extremity of the AAT, in the coming spring and summer. Flying into the interior of Antarctica means climbing up the ever-rising ice sheet. The Beaver carried no oxygen, and on one of the autumn exploratory flights Leckie was flying at 4500 metres above sea level, but only 600 metres above the ice cap. He noticed that Syd Kirkby’s fingernails and lips were turning purple:

154

I looked at my fingers and they were going purple, so we were running out of oxygen. I said to Syd, ‘We’ve got to do an about turn and head for the coast as quickly as possible and lose height, otherwise we’re going to pass out.’ So we turned, but it seemed so gradual. We were trying to go down but we couldn’t beat the rate of the contour of the ice sheet, otherwise we would have flown onto the ice surface.

S

Syd Kirkby queries Leckie’s version and says he was the first to pick Leckie’s hypoxia. ‘I looked over his shoulder and saw him resolutely flying along, wing down about ten to fifteen degrees and I raised the alarm.’ (Syd’s notes taken at the time show an illegible scrawl!) As the daylight merged into twilight, landings on the ice at Mawson were interesting. Leckie: We’d drop a scientific group about 60 or 70 miles [96 or 112 kilometres] away at a penguin rookery. . .and then we’d come back, and Corporal Cooper would turn on the headlights on the Ferguson tractor and we’d land over the headlights with our lights [showing] on to Mawson harbour. So it was quite dicey flying all the year round.

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

MEMBERS OF THE RAAF ANTARCTIC FLIGHT, MAWSON STATION, 1956–57. FROM LEFT: P CLEMENCE, D JOHNSTON, R PICKERING, N MEREDITH. (AAD ARCHIVES)

(Corporal Noel ‘Toby’ Cooper was an army man, not RAAF. He had sailed on Kista Dan as an engineer with the army DUKW team for the 1955–56 changeover, and had volunteered at Mawson to stay down for the 1956 year to help with the flying program.) Flying continued until 25 May and then closed down for winter maintenance. As soon as the daylight began to lengthen in July flying resumed and by August both pilots had made a series of flights west to the Amundsen Bay area, photographing previously unseen mountain peaks, a new glacier and many islands. Some flights were of more than seven hours’ duration. Leckie recorded that he and Seaton were sometimes notching up seventeen hours’ flying in a twenty-four-hour period. While acknowledging that Antarctic flying is conducted in the world’s most extreme weather conditions, and that a certain amount of good fortune is necessary, 28 October 1956 was nevertheless a frightening day in the history of Australian Antarctic aviation. Seaton (in the Auster) and Leckie flying the larger Beaver were laying fuel dumps to assist a field trip to Amundsen Bay, an area not previously

155

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

visited by ANARE scientists. They met at King Edward VIII Gulf, 300 kilometres west of Mawson, because Leckie needed Seaton to help him lift two 44-gallon [200 litre] drums of fuel into the Beaver. It was too cold to risk switching off their engines and they left the motors of both aircraft running while they worked. Seaton then took off to return to Mawson to the east, and Leckie (with his two drums of fuel) headed further west to Amundsen Bay. Some 130 kilometres out from Mawson, just after passing Cape Wilkins, Seaton realised that his elevator controls were jammed, although he was able to maintain straight and level flight by juggling his engine power: I considered the position for some fifteen minutes. . .and decided to attempt a landing in an area a few miles west of Taylor Glacier. A very long final approach had to be made. . .every time power was reduced the nose dropped and it was impossible to hold up due to the state of the elevator controls.7

What Seaton had to do was to fly the Auster on to the ice at full cruising speed. Only then could he reduce power, and he had no brakes. A dead calm existed at the time and as a result the aircraft continued to run over the blue ice for what seemed miles; however the speed was dropping off enough to see that the end result would not be particularly hair-raising. Even so, avoiding action had to be taken when approximately 150 yards from the glacier tongue, and eventually the aircraft came to rest amid a [group] of Weddell seals.8

Seaton found that the rear support of the radio compass control box had snapped, dropping it down on the control system beneath the instrument panel. He removed the control box and took off again for Mawson ‘without further trouble’. Meanwhile Doug Leckie in the Beaver was going through one of the most traumatic incidents of his flying career, and which was not logged on the official record at the time. As he approached Amundsen Bay he climbed to clear the Napier and Tula mountain ranges ahead. The tops of the mountains were poking through cloud, and there was a higher level of cloud which Leckie decided to climb above also. The party at Amundsen Bay had reported quite good weather there, so he pressed on:

156

I’d been flying for an hour or so and I looked at my radar-altimeter. It indicated zero—that I was over sea ice—and I thought, ‘I must have struck a tail-wind’.

S

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

Leckie was not over the sea ice at all. His radar-altimeter had actually broken at that very moment, and his eye had been caught by the sinking indicator. Thinking he had to get down quickly or he would overshoot Amundsen Bay, he let down through the cloud beneath him: There was another bank of cloud below me. . .and as I broke through, there was a sheer rock face coming straight at me. Well, my heart nearly stopped. So all I could do was a violent turn to the left. . .and there was rock facing me on the left. I finished up doing a complete 360° [turn] and I had rocks running straight up into the cloud all round me. I thought, ‘This is it!’

It was a pilot’s ultimate nightmare. Leckie’s only chance was to go on instruments and try to climb out of those rock-filled clouds, but he was ‘a bit rusty’ on instruments: It was no good delaying things. I could have stayed until I ran out of fuel. . .or just climb and face the music. If I climb out of it clear, I climb out of it clear. If I go into a rock—well, I’ll know nothing because I had two 44-gallon [200 litre] drums at my back and it would’ve just been a ball of flame against a rock.

Going back into the cloud was ‘more than flesh and blood can almost stand’. Leckie was flying blind and had to concentrate on maintaining his climb on instruments to the exclusion of all else: That was more frightening than before, because of the varying changing shades of the cloud. You feel it start to get dark and you would think it could be the rock face, but you’d have to trust your instruments that your turn was accurate. . .and then it would start to lighten until eventually I could see the blue sky above me. Then you are inclined to do what all seats-of-the-pants pilots do and go for the blue sky and then, of course, your instruments start toppling and you start losing control.

Leckie was so shaken by the time he climbed clear that he set course back home to Mawson Station without delivering his drums of fuel to Amundsen Bay, and did not speak of the incident publicly for 37 years. Despite flying on the edge of operational limits, the aircraft not only dramatically expanded the ability to map and explore the surrounding coastline and interior of Enderby, Kemp and Mac. Robertson lands but were able to support wide-ranging field parties. Original discoveries were being made. For instance it was found that Amundsen Bay was really two bays and not one.9 The major field operation for the year was a journey from Mawson into the Prince Charles Mountains in November to extend the work done

157

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

in 1954. Depots of food and fuel were established first by Weasel and aircraft. Picking a landing spot from the air was extremely hazardous as crevasses covered in snow could not be seen. On 4 November, Leckie flew the Beaver 200 miles [320 kilometres] south with OIC Bill Bewsher and geologist Peter Crohn. The aircraft was laden with food, fuel and dog food to establish a supply depot for the ground party. Ice flowing around mountains is invariably heavily crevassed but Leckie thought he saw a fairly smooth stretch of ice and landed. Before he switched off his engine, he asked Crohn and Bewsher to get out and check the area: Peter Crohn stepped straight into a crevasse. Well, that was it. I then told them that they had to unload the aircraft, all the spares and everything they could, and I would take off with an empty aircraft and while I was away refuelling at Mawson they could put down an airstrip for me with lots of flags.

Leckie was confident they could probe and explore the ice sheet nearby to find a safe landing area. While he was away, though, a blizzard blew up and he could not find any trace of them when he returned. Bewsher and Crohn were sitting in a grey pyramid tent almost impossible to see from the air, and with flapping of the fabric in the high wind, they did not hear the aircraft. It took three flights from Mawson to locate them. The supplies off-loaded from the Beaver in the crevassed area remained there deep frozen in perfect condition for 30 years. The alternative site, located on a stretch of stable blue ice, was named Aerial Depot (or 250 Mile Depot). On 19 November 1956, Bill Bewsher, Syd Kirkby, Peter Crohn, John Hollingshead and Lin Gardner left Mawson with two Weasels, two cargo sleds, one man-hauling sledge and a wooden ‘Nansen’ sledge pulled by a small team of six dogs—Mac (leader), Oscar, Horace, Streaky, Brownie and Dee. Plagued with the usual Weasel mechanical troubles and delayed by having to winch them out of crevasses, they did not get in to Aerial Depot until mid December. There, the dogs came into their own as Bewsher, Kirkby and Crohn sledged through crevassed areas of the PCMs the Weasels could not have negotiated. Syd Kirkby:

158

We used the dogs fairly ruthlessly—as we used ourselves pretty ruthlessly. But it’s bloody hard work. Any of this precious nonsense about dog-sledging being. . .you know, lovely and beaut and fun. . .Serious dog-sledging is about as hard a bloody thing as you can find to do. You run the best part of a marathon distance in 30 lbs [14 kg] of clothing day-in, day-out, and then climb a mountain at the end of that. . .You stand up on top of

S

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

it, do some work for anything up to eight hours and then on your way back—just in case you might break into a run in your enthusiasm —you and your geologist mate pick up a half a hundredweight of rocks to keep you from breaking into a canter. It’s hard, it’s very hard work.

Surveying was crucial. Kirkby climbed mountains to take an astrofix from a point other than moving ice. Distance travelled was theoretically measured with a wheel trailing behind the sledge. But the wheel seldom worked for more than a few days: We measured distance by pacing as we ran beside the sledge (in my case 900 double paces to the nautical mile). After a while one becomes very adept at counting paces while simultaneously assessing the terrain, yelling at the dogs, noting features for inclusion on the map and perhaps carrying on a conversation.10

A WEASEL WAITS AT 90 MILE DEPOT IN THE PRINCE CHARLES MOUNTAINS FOR THE RETURN OF THE SLEDGING PARTY

1956–57 SOUTHERN JOURNEY. (S KIRKBY)

DURING THE

The downside of this technique, Kirkby noted, was a tendency to count paces in your sleep. Some idea of the pioneering nature of the work being done on this field trip can be gauged by the fact that all five members of the expedition have major peaks in the Prince Charles Mountains named after them. The names of the six huskies were put forward as well, but the Australian Committee for Antarctic Names (ACAN) was not convinced. ACAN did accept an alternative suggestion and Husky Dome is on the map a few kilometres southwest of the Aramis Range—their furthest point south.11 This ‘poor old mob’, as Kirkby described the huskies, certainly merited the honour, as he, Crohn and Bewsher pushed on through the mountains, while Gardner and Hollingshead remained with the Weasels for weeks at a time, qualifying in Kirkby’s opinion for ‘leather medals’ for

159

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

their fortitude (although Hollingshead did go on the second of the three main dog sledging runs). During this enforced wait, two more verses of the ANARE ‘Chain Blocks’* song were composed and ‘written in tears of blood on the walls of the Weasel’: (Tune—‘My Old Man’s A Dustman’) We sat in the Weasel for hours and hours, We stuck it as long as we could We stuck it, we stuck it, and then we said: ‘Blow [?] it! Our arseholes are not made of wood!’ CHORUS (Tune—‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’) Chain Blocks, Chain Blocks, Oh bring back my Weasel to me, to me. Chain Blocks, Chain Blocks, Oh bring back my Weasel to me. The tracks are in very good order The springs they are right on the dot, The engine it goes tick-tock, But the lot’s down a bloody great slot.12

Unlike the previous year in the PCMs with no aircraft available, Weasel spare parts could at least be dropped by the Beaver on the way in, and helpful notes were dropped to Bewsher after aerial reconnaissance indicating that it would be unsafe to take the Weasels near the eastern end of the PCMs due to extensive crevassing.13 Syd Kirkby recalls the pioneering dog sledging runs at that time: We sledged up and down the ranges, Peter geologising and I doing astrofixes and rounds of terrestrial photographs from the mountain tops and triangulating. We had a glass plate camera that mounted on top of the theodolite but we had a limited number of plate holders, so every 24 plates you had to change plates somehow. We had no [photographic] dark bag, there had been one at Mawson but it was moth-eaten and ratty and let in the light and everything else. So I used to climb into the bottom of my sleeping bag inside the double sleeping bag to load fresh plates into the plate holders. You probably can’t imagine what a sledging sleeping bag is like. After you’ve been sledging for a while and the dogs pee on you to show they like you, and you get filthy and grotty (and of course, you’re going to bed virtually fully booted and spurred all the time) the bottom of the sleeping bag

160

* Chain blocks are a portable winching system used to extricate vehicles from crevasses, and a ‘slot’ is ANARE parlance for a crevasse.

S

gets absolutely foul! I always reckoned that if you put a pit canary in there it would’ve died instantly!

Aerial reconnaissance in September had convinced Kirkby that the ice flowing down from the PCMs joined the Amery Ice Shelf, which extended inland some 250 kilometres from its seaward edge. This was later found to be so. The second major sledging journey of the PCMs field trip was to run down the Charybdis Glacier between the Porthos and Aramis Ranges right down to the Amery:

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

A HUSKY TEAM RESTS, PONDERING THE STUPIDITY OF THE HUMANS WHO HAD STEERED THEM INTO IMPOSSIBLY ROUGH TERRITORY.

PRINCE CHARLES MOUNTAINS SOUTHERN JOURNEY, 1956–57. (S KIRKBY)

RESCUING BROWNIE FROM A We’d come down from high cold to relatively warm, down near sea level, and we were pretty tired by that CREVASSE DURING THE stage of the game. It was very, very hard going down EXPLORATION OF THE PRINCE the glacier, a lot of crevassing and broken-up country. CHARLES MOUNTAINS, We had a couple of days down at the bottom of the 1956–57. glacier there. We did a lot of walking, and we walked (S KIRKBY) over to Jetty Peninsula and Peter discovered the coal there—which was the first location of coal in the AAT. Then we went around on the east of what came to be known as the Amery Peak and I have a diary entry of the day we saw Beaver Lake for the first time—with no name then, of course—saying that it was so wonderful to sit there beside this fresh water in the amphitheatre. The sun was shining on the rock behind us and it was warm and relatively calm. We ate a block of chocolate and everything was beautiful and sweetness and light.* * Curiously enough Beaver Lake has never been seen as open water since. It is regarded as a perennially frozen, tidal, freshwater lake.

161

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

quiz question might well ask: ‘Who has explored and surveyed the most Australian territory?’. The answer is not Burke or Wills or even Charles Sturt. It is Sydney L Kirkby, surveyor in the service of ANARE, in Antarctica. Kirkby wintered at Mawson in 1956 and 1960 and was OIC Mawson (at the ripe old age of 47) in 1980. First into the Prince Charles Mountains with dogs in 1956–57, he again used dogs for a remarkable 400 kilometre journey through Enderby Land from the Napier Mountains to Mawson Station in the autumn of 1960. He went south on coastal exploration and resupply voyages in the summers of 1961–62 (including a visit to Oates Land on the eastern extremity of the AAT), 1962–63 to George V Land (on the east of the French sector, Adélie Land) and to Enderby and Kemp Lands (on the western extremity of the AAT) in 1964–65. There are features named after Syd Kirkby along 6000 kilometres of the coast of the AAT, inland at the PCMs—Mt Kirkby—and even outside the AAT. Kirkby Glacier in Victoria Land is actually just within the New Zealand sector. Kirkby Shoal can be found near Casey Station (off the coast of Wilkes Land) and, to the extreme west, Kirkby Head on the Tange Promontory is near the Russian station Molodezhnaya, just on the Australian side of the border with Norway’s Queen Maud Land claim. He has personally surveyed more Antarctic territory than any other explorer—including Scott, Shackleton and Mawson. Syd Kirkby was an unlikely candidate for Antarctic exploration. At the age of five, growing up in Fremantle, Western Australia, he developed poliomyelitis and was severely disabled

1954–1966

for years. His father (who admired the pioneering work that Sister Kenny was achieving with an exercise program for polio victims) quit his job to help Syd, and ‘rebuilt’ him: He would take me down to the South Fremantle baths—it was a sandy beach—and unstrap the irons from my legs and sit me on the beach. He’d then go in and swim. I hated anyone to look at me—the cripple—so I would crawl down in the water and splash around. My upper body was always fine. We’d swim and swim, and then he’d rush out saying, ‘Oh, see you later, son’. It was a deliberate ploy to force the crippled boy to crawl up the beach, or stay in the water. Either way he had to exercise to the limits of his endurance. Later, standing beside Syd at the pool, he would often stumble against his son and knock him back into the water, so that he would have to do another half lap. I hated being a cripple. I really hated it. I loathed it. Don’t let people tell you that suffering ennobles you and makes you a better person. It doesn’t at all, it makes you ratty and cranky. This treatment was effective, however, and Kirkby recovered his strength. He could not run and jump as fast as other boys, so his father suggested boxing, saying it ‘was the most mental and least physical of all sports’. It’s a matter of dominating your own fear and thinking about your opponent carefully. And if you look through boxing you’ll find quite a number of famous boxers over the years who have been people with some level of physical disability. In my case, my ➤

162

S

most severely impaired movement was with my right leg. Boxing in an orthodox style meant that leg was behind me. So I always found it relatively difficult to retreat in the ring, which was something of an advantage. It’s one of nature’s incentives—you keep punching or you get into trouble. In 1960 the Commonwealth Medical Officer examining Syd Kirkby picked up that he walked with a limp, as a legacy of his polio, and was not going to pass him medically fit for Antarctica. He bluffed his way through, saying to the surprised medico that he had already been to Antarctica. This doctor would have been even more surprised to learn later that shortly before leaving Mawson in 1961, Syd Kirkby and his companion Graham Dyke ran 67 nautical miles [124 kilometres] with a dog team from Depot A, behind the Framnes Mountains, back to Mawson Station in one day. That is more than a double marathon! In 1956, during his first year at Mawson, surveyors were beginning to develop the technique of using daylight stars to make an astrofix from rocky features in Antarctica—essential for accurate mapping: The few brightest stars are visible through a theodolite telescope in full daylight, in conjunction with sights to the sun to determine position. Before this it had been the practice, by surveyors from all nations, to use only sun sights, which gave rise to many problems.14 Surveying in Antarctica was heavy work, often involving rock climbing on virgin peaks with heavy packs. By 1964–65 astrofixes had

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

been replaced by electronic distance measuring, but it was still necessary to reach the pinnacle of the peak to be measured, carrying batteries, theodolite and other essential gear. The ‘hardest and longest’ climb of Syd Kirkby’s career was on Leckie Range in Kemp Land in early 1965. He had to hang off the peak with a rope around his waist to sight his theodolite. During the six-hour climb a rope broke on a steep pinch and Kirkby dropped some nine metres with a 40 kilogram pack on his back. At the time he was concerned about spraining his ankle, but the more serious injury was a whiplash which broke two vertebrae in his neck. He managed to climb Leckie Range a further three times, however, and finish his work. The discomfort was offset, in his view, by being awarded an MBE for his services in Antarctica, to complement the Polar Medal awarded in 1957. He maintained his contact with Antarctica by working with the Division of National Mapping (NATMAP) full time from 1965 until 1980, when he returned to Mawson Station, this time as OIC. He hopes to return to Mawson in the year 2000 but has been told he is ineligible because of heart bypass surgery. Perhaps this will not stop him. While Syd Kirkby seized all the Antarctic pioneering opportunities available to him with great gusto, he never ceases to marvel at his good fortune: We’d climb a mountain peak and look out and say: ‘Wow! In all time, certainly no human being and probably no creature has ever seen it.’ It’s a funny feeling. It’s not a possessive feeling, it’s a privileged sort of feeling—‘How did I get this lucky?’ 163

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

This euphoria was balanced by the necessity to climb back up the glacier, over crevassed territory, into the high country again with a heavily laden sledge and exhausted dogs. By that time Mac had died in harness and the other dogs were weakening. The three explorers took turns helping to pull in harness with the dogs. Falling down crevasses became so common that one photograph taken by Kirkby at this time shows the THE HUSKIES HAD TO BE overturned sledge straddling a large ‘slot’ on the FITTED WITH MAKESHIFT Charybdis Glacier, while one of the huskies, Streaky, BOOTS OF LEATHER AND rests seemingly unconcerned, taking full advantage of CLOTH TO PROTECT THEIR the delay. As they climbed back up the glacier, the FEET FROM THE SHARP-EDGED dogs’ feet were cut by the granulated ice caused by GRANULAR ICE NEAR THE rock dust blowing off the mountains. Kirkby: ‘We made JUNCTION OF THE AMERY them little boots of leather and ventile and strapped ICE SHELF AND THE them on to protect their feet. Then you had to watch PRINCE CHARLES the dogs constantly to stop them eating the boots MOUNTAINS, 1956–57 because they were starving.’ SOUTHERN JOURNEY. On the way back to Mawson, on 4 February, Dee (S KIRKBY) died after eating a lump of cotton waste with oil or grease on it, to the great sadness of the PCMs party. It is part of a husky’s nature to work and work, literally to death if need be. Syd Kirkby recalls the final moments of Brownie during the third major PCMs sledging journey:

164

He got very tired and very weak, so much so that he couldn’t run in the traces and we let him off hoping that he could just follow us along for a day or two and then with a bit of rest maybe he’d pick up. It was fairly early in the morning and by the time we’d been travelling for a few hours, he was maybe half a mile back behind us and repeatedly falling over. It was quite clear that he wasn’t going to be able to keep up with us, so I took the pistol and walked back to him.

S

I’ll never forget this old fellow as I came up. He’d been struggling and trying to walk and falling and struggling. . . and when I got within twenty or so metres of him, he sat down and waited for me. While I patted him and talked to him he looked at me with these bloody great eyes and you could see him saying, ‘Oh, gee, everything is right now, me old mate’s come back to look after me’. His old mate put a pistol to his head and shot him. So, it’s not all sweetness and light. But they’re fantastic things.

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

LEAD DOG STREAKY, WEAK BUT DEFIANT, HOMEWARD BOUND AT THE END OF THE

1956–57 SOUTHERN JOURNEY. (S KIRKBY)

The PCMs party did not return to Mawson until 10 February 1957—eight days after the arrival of Kista Dan to relieve them. Their return journey had seen the chain block winches in constant service, winching the battered Weasels out of the crevasses into which they had crashed. On their return to the Framnes Mountains just behind Mawson they had the unusual experience of being greeted by the director of ANARE, Phil Law, fresh from Kista Dan, who had driven up by Weasel for that purpose. Law described how they appeared over a rise—‘two battered Weasels hauling four sledges followed by a dog sledge drawn by [three] lean huskies with a man running beside’: They drew up beside us and five bearded, grimy, gaunt men strode towards us amidst much laughing, back-slapping and affectionate abuse. These men had been in the field for three months. . .15

While the PCMs party was away, John Seaton flew the last major Beaver flight of the year on 28 November. Seaton flew a passenger to Aerial Depot to undertake magnetic observations and then, with radio operator Pat Albion as his ‘key man’ (to handle communications while he concentrated on navigation, photography and flying), headed south-east until at 74°south he could see the southernmost peaks of the PCMs beyond which ‘only the eternal white of the plateau could be seen’:

165

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

In this position I could see the gentle sweep of the stream onto the eastern end of the Prince Charles Mountains and finally the Amery Ice Shelf. The small subsidiary glaciers flowing into the main stream from the west were very clearly outlined from this position; their stream lines and crevasses stood out distinctly.16

Returning to Aerial Depot to refuel, and without the necessity to take trimetrogon photographs, Seaton altered course to observe some of the western mountains, noting vast tributaries of ice running through them into a main glacier:

THE LAMBERT GLACIER, LOOKING SOUTH, 1960. THE WORLD’S BIGGEST GLACIER, IT WAS SEEN FIRST FROM THE AIR

RAAF PILOT JOHN SEATON, FLYING A BEAVER, ON 28 NOVEMBER 1956. (R RUKER) BY

T 166

From my observations on this flight, I would say that the glacier is roughly 200 miles [320 kilometres] in length, varying in width from 15 [24 kilometres] to 40 miles [64 kilometres]. At 73° south its height is approximately 3200 feet [975.3 metres]. . .The mountains on the east are upwards of 6000 feet [1828.8 metres] while those to the west go to an estimated 8000 feet [2438.4 metres].17

Seaton had been the first to fly across and observe the whole of the Lambert Glacier, the largest glacier in the world, draining one-third of the entire AAT.

he advent of the RAAF flight based at Mawson had lifted the horizons of Australian science and exploration in Antarctica. During the year the robust Beaver and the smaller but essential Auster had transported 11 tonnes of food, fuel and equipment on depot-laying flights, and transported some 150 passengers, mostly scientists and support staff on field excursions. The trimetrogon camera had been flown on 27 sorties, capturing 12 000 photographic exposures over an area of one million square kilometres, including 2000 kilometres of coastline. The RAAF pilots had logged a remarkable 1200 flying hours.18 Using fuel

S

P R E A D I N G

W I N G S

depots, the Beaver had on several occasions flown 800 kilometres from Mawson. Law was delighted with the success of the scientific program, noting in his report that the cosmic ray and magnetic observatory work—and the marine biological investigations—had been meticulously carried out and some excellent results obtained, as well as the expanded exploration, geology and field geophysics made possible by the use of aircraft.19 This was a useful and timely prologue to the most ambitious science program yet attempted in Antarctica—the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58.

167

ELEVEN

A N TA R C T I C A I N T E R N AT I O N A L

T

168

he International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–58 not only raised the profile of Antarctic science worldwide but was an important stepping stone to the Antarctic Treaty negotiated in 1959. The first International Polar Year (IPY), held in the Arctic in 1882, concentrated on the gathering of magnetic, auroral and meteorological data. The second IPY of 1932–33, again confined to the Arctic, had similar scientific aims but suffered considerably from cutbacks caused by the Great Depression. On the evening of 5 April 1950, in the United States, a notable group of scientists attended a dinner party at the Silver Spring, Maryland, home of James A Van Allen (for whom the radiation belts around the earth were later named). Although the tradition was for an international polar year every half century, the scientists felt that science was moving too fast to wait that long and the concept of a new IPY was suggested by Dr Lloyd B Berkner who had been a radio engineer on the first Byrd Antarctic expedition.1 After some discussion the concept was broadened to include simultaneous observations of geophysical phenomena over the entire planet—on the land, in the seas, and in the atmosphere. This proposal went before the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) which set up a committee to organise what had now been named the International Geophysical Year.2 For Antarctica, the major geophysical questions were defined as the volume and structure of the ice sheet, the nature of the land beneath the ice, the influence of the ice cap on global and southern hemisphere weather, the aurora, and the high atmosphere with emphasis on the

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

ionosphere. For instance, it was not known what happened to the ionosphere—an electrified region of the upper atmosphere which supposedly formed only in sunlight—during the long polar night. The plans for the IGY came at a critical time for the Antarctic Division. Director Phil Law (who began his Antarctic career as the division’s senior scientific officer) had been pushing science as the enduring reason for Australia’s activity in the AAT, but his sense of priorities was not shared in Canberra. On 24 March 1955 Keith Waller of the DEA wrote to him: ‘As you know I do not think of our Antarctic effort as a scientific expedition. To me the scientific work is secondary to the political consideration of maintaining our claim to this territory.’3 Waller was simply stating the obvious, for the DEA view at that time was that occupation was more important than scientific work. Australia’s claim in Antarctica of nearly 42 per cent of its land mass was ambitious to say the least, and while the AAT was considered strategically important, there was little evidence of Australian activity to bolster its sovereignty other than one scientific station on the western extremity of the AAT’s 6000-kilometre coastline. Australia did not even possess a ship capable of reaching Antarctica, so the IGY was the trigger for a flurry of increased activity. Law: The advent of the International Geophysical Year solved my major political problems. Up until then it had been a great battle trying to persuade politicians that we should be doing something in Antarctica. But when the IGY occurred, the Russians set up three stations in Australian Antarctic Territory. This embarrassed the Australian Government in relation to the Australian claim. Naturally there was nothing they could do to prevent the Russians going in, so they saved face by sending the Russians an official invitation to do what they had done. The Russians, of course, couldn’t acknowledge that, otherwise they’d be acknowledging the Australian claim, which they didn’t recognise.

Law, who had been closely involved with international conferences set up to organise the IGY, saw the opportunity to put an Australian station on what he considered one of the choicest sites in Antarctica—the ice-free Vestfold Hills on the eastern end of Prydz Bay. He had visited the area briefly after establishing Mawson Station in 1954 and managed a more thorough reconnaissance in 1955: This gave us the opportunity to approach the Government and say, ‘Look, Australia must have a second station in order to try and neutralise the activities of the USSR’, and I said, ‘There’s that wonderful

169

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

site. If we don’t get in quickly to the Vestfold Hills, the Russians will put their station there.’

170

Approval for a small station was obtained, despite an earlier suggestion by Waller that it would be politically more advantageous to have six extra stations each staffed by ‘two or three men’, as effective occupation was the important thing. Law’s view prevailed after he explained that finances limited ship charter to 100 days and it was impossible for one ship to visit and relieve so many stations in one season.4 In 1957 Antarctica was about to be visited on a scale not seen before or since. Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States and USSR planned some 60 stations on the Antarctic continent and sub-Antarctic islands. Not to be outdone by the American decision to build a station at the symbolic heart of Antarctica, the South Pole, the Russians proposed a station at the Pole of Inaccessibility—the point on the ice cap most distant from the coasts.5 In order to take advantage of the aim of simultaneous observations of meteorological, magnetic, and upper atmosphere phenomena, the stations in Antarctica were distributed as widely as possible over the continent. As it happened, all of the IGY stations planned by the USSR were in the Australian claim, giving rise to increased Australian concern about Russia’s real aims on the continent. An Antarctic radio communications network was set up to coordinate the sharing of meteorological and other scientific data from all stations using a ‘mother–daughter’ model. For example, Australia’s ‘mother’ station was Mawson, and the various ‘daughters’ included Norway Station, Syowa (Japan) and Roi Baudoin (Belgium). Smaller outlying bases were ‘granddaughters’, like Shore Base (Norway) and Advanced Base (Japan), in this case all reporting by Morse code through to ‘mother’ Mawson. The IGY was the first big test of Antarctica as a zone of peace and cooperative science and it is a tribute to the scientists and support staff of all the nations involved that the ‘Cold War’ never invaded Antarctica. In Australia, anti-communist, anti-Soviet sentiments were fuelled by the Petrov Affair in 1954, following the defection of Vladimir Petrov and his wife from the Russian Embassy in Canberra and their request for political asylum. The Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Australia until 1959. Remarkably, none of these international tensions seemed to impinge on the IGY. On 30 January 1956, on his way to relieve Mawson Station, Phil Law called in to the Russian station, Mirny, then being built on the coast just east of Cape Filchner, about halfway between the present Australian

A

N T A R C T I C A

stations of Casey and Davis. There was an initial awkwardness in that first meeting between Australians and Russians in Antarctica:

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

VESTFOLD HILLS REGION NEAR DAVIS STATION.

This was the period of the ‘cold war’—we were not sure how the Russians would react, and they were not sure how we would react—so there was a sort of inhibition on both sides. We were both standing off looking at each other very warily.

The Russian expedition was led by a distinguished Arctic explorer, Mikhail Somov, whom Law considers one of the greatest leaders he ever

171

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

IGY STATIONS IN ANTARCTICA.

A

N T A R C T I C A

met, and the two men quickly established a rapport. Somov was keen to get Law’s opinion of their site, which left a lot to be desired. There were a few pimples of rock sticking through the ice, but some of the huts were on ice, which meant they would eventually have to be replaced. Law’s main message to Somov was to work non-stop building the station while the good weather lasted. He said, ‘The curtain comes down at the beginning of March and the station must be ready by then. Later Somov told him the weather did break up on 3 March and it had been good advice. Law:

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

THE MINISTER FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS RICHARD CASEY IS ADDRESSING THE CROWD FROM THE DECK OF

KISTA DAN BEFORE ITS DEPARTURE FROM

MELBOURNE IN 1955. PHIL LAW IS STANDING ON A FUEL DRUM JUST BEHIND CASEY. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

During that time our scientists mingled very closely with the Russians and there were some furious arguments, because we had some young 23-year-old scientists and they had some young vigorous scientists. They were each representing a different doctrine, and the arguments pro and against communism and other forms of government became very heated. I remember once going in to visit some of the men and finding one of these furious arguments raging. I kept telling my men, ‘Cool it, cool it, we must preserve good relations with these people’. . .and we got through without any eruption or any great problem.

173

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

174

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

The advent of the IGY saw an increased Australian Government financial commitment to Antarctica. In 1955, £67 000 [$134 000] was made available to the Australian Academy of Science to enable universities and other interested organisations to take an active part. Government organisations such as the CSIRO and the Commonwealth Government departments of National Development, Supply and the Interior undertook to expand their normal functions during the IGY. In 1955 External Affairs Minister Richard Casey announced that a new Antarctic station, staffed by four to six men, would be set up in the Vestfold Hills as recommended by the Executive Planning Committee. Law had told the meeting of 29 August 1955 that if the Vestfold Hills area was not occupied by Australia it would be by some other nation.6 The final Australian commitment to an IGY project in 1955 was £25 000 [$50 000] towards the cost of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1957–58. This traverse of the entire continent was based on the plan of Shackleton’s failed attempt in 1914–16. A British party led by Sir Vivian Fuchs would travel overland from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea via the South Pole, using ‘Sno-cat’ tractors and dog teams. The party would include one Australian, geologist Dr Jon Stephenson (who became the first man since Amundsen to drive dogs to the South Pole). Plans for 1957 were the most ambitious and complex ever attempted by ANARE. They were previewed at a symposium to publicise the work of ANARE held by the Royal Society of Victoria in Melbourne on 3 December 1956 and opened by the Duke of Edinburgh. Among the speakers were Sir Douglas Mawson, still taking an interest in Australia’s Antarctic program as an active member of the Antarctic Executive Planning Committee (EPC), and the Antarctic Division’s Director Phil Law.7 With so much cargo to load on Kista Dan in December 1956 (including the huts and stores for the new Vestfold Hills station) arrangements were made for the US Antarctic Expedition to pick up seven Australians and the USA observer in New Zealand and a rendezvous was organised at the Windmill Islands, on the eastern side of Vincennes Bay, after Kista Dan had established what would be named Davis Station at the Vestfold Hills. Even so, Law was disappointed to have to leave an automatic weather station on the dock at the last minute. Kista Dan carried a Beaver aircraft to augment the RAAF flight (commanded by Flight Lieutenant Peter Clemence) at Mawson Station for the IGY-associated field activities. The master of Kista Dan was Captain Kaj Hindberg. It was the first time for three years that Law had sailed on a Lauritzen charter without Captain Hans Christian Petersen. Finding a suitable site for a station at the Vestfold Hills was extremely difficult. The Norwegian-style fjords that looked so spectacular from the

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

air were too shallow for ships to enter, and the approaches to the coast shelved gradually so that ships could not get closer than two or three kilometres to possible landing sites. The Vestfold Hills in high summer is reminiscent of a chunk of the Simpson Desert transplanted to Antarctica. In January 1957 Law was dismayed to find no snow banks remaining on the brown rocks and hinterland, a source of water for the station being essential. For three days from 10 January he and the ANARE expeditioners searched unsuccessfully for a suitable site. Law had earlier sent a radiogram to his minister, Richard Casey, following an aerial reconnaissance, saying that if the Vestfold Hills were blocked by fast ice, there was a possibility the site for a station could be established in another similarly rocky region nearby—the Larsemann Hills. Casey became concerned and consulted Sir Douglas Mawson in Adelaide. A radiogram was sent to Law relaying Mawson’s advice, which was that the Larsemanns would not be as good as the Vestfold Hills but would do if that were the only alternative. Law: This was amusing on two counts. First, neither man had any idea of what the new land was like. Secondly, I was the only living [Australian] to have detailed first-hand experience of Prydz Bay; yet Casey had sent me advice from Mawson who had never been there! I did not blame Mawson—he was just trying to be helpful. But I thought Casey should have had more sense.8

On 12 January Law returned to Kista Dan in the ship’s motor boat from yet another search of the coastline, tired, cold and disconsolate: I began to turn over in my mind two other possibilities—making do with one of the outer islands of the Vestfold Hills, or abandoning the region altogether and trying the Cape Ann region in Enderby Land. However, we passed another small sandy beach and decided to land and examine it as a last resort.9

Although far from perfect, this site looked as though it could be reached by the army amphibious DUKWs. Kista Dan could probably approach within two kilometres of the shore. Law, accompanied by the incoming OIC Bob Dingle and four others, landed on the beach: There was a flat terrace about halfway up the steep headland on the left of the cove which looked promising for huts. We clambered up to it and decided that it would be possible to clear enough boulders away to make a rough track for the DUKWs. The terrace was very flat and obviously

175

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

the site of a great snow drift, for the pebbles constituting its floor were flattened as though from a giant steam roller. The outlook to the horizon on every side from the top of the rise was perfect.10

On the down side, water would have to be found somewhere during the summer. There was no time for further searching, and unloading began on the same day. By 1600 hours the next day, 13 January, a remarkable amount of cargo had been landed. Work stopped and all hands assembled around a flagpole which had been strapped to the wall of the first hut being erected. Law: All our party and Captain Hindberg attended. I made a short speech in which I stressed the importance of the new station in IGY research and wished it and its men under Bob Dingle success and good luck. I then broke out the flag and officially named the station ‘Davis’. There followed a short account of the achievements of Captain John King Davis. . .We then sang God Save the Queen, gave three cheers, and returned to work again.11

176

By 20 January Davis Station was established enough for Kista Dan to sail. Five men only were to winter there. The weather observer Nils Lied, who had wintered at Mawson the previous year, volunteered to double up, and was dropped in (with a small team of huskies) by Kista Dan on her return trip. The station had no doctor, but there was the possibility of evacuation by air to Mawson Station. The first flight from Mawson to Davis by Beaver took place on 1 May. One of the passengers was an extra husky for Nils Lied’s dog team.12 In August the geologist Bruce Stinear was flown by Beaver aircraft 637 kilometres from Davis to Mawson to continue his geological work. (The ability of ANARE to transfer people between stations by air ended in 1960 when fixed wing aircraft capable of extended flights were no longer stationed in the AAT. Long distance flights did not resume until more than 30 years later with the advent of twin-engined Sikorsky 76 helicopters in 1994.) The use of two Beavers and the seemingly indestructible Auster based at Mawson during the IGY enabled an impressive program to be completed. The Beavers ranged as far east as the Russian station at Mirny, south beyond the southernmost ranges of the Prince Charles Mountains, and west to Enderby Land near the Norwegian sector, as well as supporting parties in the field. Pilots Peter Clemence and Doug Johnston flew all through the winter, clocking up 213 flights. Some were on the edge of safety. During August, one of the Beavers landed at Davis with only six gallons [27 litres] of fuel remaining in its tanks.

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

The modest dog team at Davis was used to good effect. On 10 May 1957, Nils Lied, Bruce Stinear and a visiting surveyor from Mawson, Morris Fisher, sledged along the coast of the Vestfold Hills and located the proclamation canister left by Sir Hubert Wilkins on 11 January 1939, claiming the coastline for Australia. The proclamation note inside was wrapped in a copy of Walkabout magazine dated 1933 and between the pages was a typewritten note signed by Sir Hubert referring to the Order of Council of 7 February 1933 which established the AAT, and recording his landing at several places in the vicinity.13 Lied, Stinear and Fisher signed their own names and replaced the canister at the site now known appropriately as the Walkabout Rocks. International Polar Years only take place during cycles of maximum solar activity. Australia was able to contribute to the recording of upper atmosphere phenomena with both Macquarie Island and Mawson Station ideally placed for magnetic, auroral and other associated observations. Phil Law believes there has not been adequate recognition of the immense amount of exploration and scientific work achieved by Australia during the IGY: Australia, I think, produced more of significance than any other nation, including the Russians and Americans, mainly because we were the only ones, apart from the British, who’d had enough experience beforehand to set up a decent scientific program. Even the British and Chileans and Argentinians in the Peninsula area were only minuscule stations, literally only doing a bit of biology and meteorology. They hadn’t got stuck into the hard core science—geophysics and so on. So then the IGY came on. Here was Australia with its experience in geophysics at Heard and Macquarie for a number of years, and Mawson for three. We’d ironed most of the bugs out of the equipment and the procedures. So we just flowed on and produced a lot of good, solid data. And almost every other nation that went down in the IGY produced a bit of a shambles in the first year because their equipment broke down, their people were not properly trained, and so on. After the IGY, of course, the Russians and Americans just left us for dead with their immense power. But power itself was not enough, in the IGY, to put them ahead of us.

That was on the ground. In space, the rockets and satellites of the US and the Soviet Union made fundamental discoveries during the IGY, the most spectacular of which was the discovery of the Van Allen radiation zones around the earth. Yet Australia from the ground could claim some success in space research which had more relevance in later

177

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

years—when the break-up of the ozone layer over Antarctica in the winter was first measured by British scientists in 1981. In something of a victory for the principle of pure as opposed to applied science, ANARE scientists were among the first people in the world to do ozone measurements, now a source of global concern in Antarctica. Law: In 1950 I was looking for a program of something to do, and I heard there was a man in England called Dobson who had invented an ozone spectrophotometer, so I bought one and put it down on Macquarie Island. Then Fred Jacka [ANARE’s chief scientist] arranged for it to go down to Mawson. We had results. . .[but] we had no idea what these measurements meant. And from being about the purest form of science, you now find that it’s fundamentally important to mankind.

The IGY work mapped and assessed the structure of Antarctica in a way that changed our perceptions of it dramatically. Seismic traverses revealed the details of mountain peaks and troughs hidden below the great Antarctic ice cap. Only a little more than 2 per cent of Antarctica’s bedrock is visible as mountain peaks or coastal ‘oases’, but intensive geological studies during the IGY provided strong evidence in favour of continental drift—an unpopular hypothesis before the IGY but now generally accepted by the great majority of scientists. So successful was the IGY that—by mutual consent of all the nations involved—it was extended for a further year into 1959, known as the Year of International Geophysical Cooperation. Clearly the evaluation of so much primary data needed even more time, and it was agreed that three World Data Centres would be set up, one each in the United States and the USSR, with the third being spread over a number of institutions in Western Europe, Australia and Japan.

T HE A NTARCTIC T REATY

178

Neither the USA nor the former USSR has ever claimed any part of Antarctica or recognised other nations’ claims. The US made its position clear in 1924 under the Hughes Doctrine, and in 1939 when Norway claimed territory in Queen Maud Land, the USSR announced that it did not recognise any Antarctic claims. Both the superpowers, though, had historical precedents. The United States could cite the extensive explorations of Greater Antarctica by Wilkes, Admiral Byrd and aviator and explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, who in 1939 flew in his Northrop Delta aircraft 300 kilometres into the interior of Princess Elizabeth Land (already claimed by Australia) and dropped a copper cylinder and proclamation claiming 43 000 square kilometres for the US, naming the area the

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

American Highlands. Although these territorial initiatives were never formally advanced by the US Government, the possibility of an Antarctic claim at some future date could not be ruled out. The Soviet Union had the historical basis for an even more sweeping claim, following the exploratory voyages of Captain T von Bellingshausen—who actually circumnavigated the Antarctic continent between 1819 and 1821. The sector under the tip of South America, and encompassing the Antarctic Peninsula, became the most hotly contested part of Antarctica, with overlapping claims by Britain, Argentina and Chile during World War II. The establishment of two bases on Gamma Island and Greenwich Island by Argentina and Chile was countered by formal protests from Britain in December 1947—followed by further British indignation about an Argentine base begun on Deception Island in the same month. Britain suggested that the disputes over Antarctic claims between the three countries be brought before the International Court of Justice at The Hague for settlement—otherwise Britain reserved its right to take ‘appropriate action’ to ensure its territory was respected.14 Both Argentina and Chile rejected this option and called for an international conference to settle claims over the entire Antarctic continent. Argentina and Britain sent warships to the region, and 1948 looked like ushering in a warm time indeed on the coast of the coldest continent. The United States was keen to mediate between Britain and Argentina and suggested the internationalisation of Antarctica in the form of a United Nations trusteeship. After advice from Britain, the US Secretary of State George C Marshall suggested an eight-power condominium (joint sovereignty over a territory) made up of the seven nations with Antarctic claims plus the US as an intending claimant—and excluding its superpower adversary, the Soviet Union. Britain and New Zealand were the only supporters of the condominium idea. Argentina, Australia, Chile, France and Norway were against.15 Dr Evatt, then Australia’s Minister for External Affairs, was keen to retain Australia’s own sovereignty over the AAT so as to be able to exploit any minerals that might be found there. In July and August of 1948, Professor Julio Escudero (a legal adviser in the Chilean Foreign Ministry) put forward another suggestion to solve the dilemma of competing national claims in Antarctica, known as the modus vivendi proposal, to effectively freeze all claims so that nations could proceed with their scientific programs. Eventually this ingenious compromise was taken up and became a key element of the final draft of the Antarctic Treaty eleven years later. In January 1949 the All-Union Geographical Society in the USSR made a public statement that no agreement on Antarctic sovereignty

179

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

without the participation of the Soviet Union was going to be legitimate—an assertion taken seriously by the US, which began to explore Professor Escudero’s modus vivendi idea as a basis for an international Antarctic agreement in discussions between 1949 and 1952 with nations claiming territory in Antarctica. The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950 distracted attention from attempts to formalise an international regime in Antarctica, and the modus vivendi concept being explored by the US suffered a severe setback when its own Department of Defence opposed it. In 1952 tensions between Argentina and Britain over their Antarctic claims were further exacerbated when a party of armed Argentinians fired over the heads of a British party attempting to re-establish a survey base at Hope Bay.16 There were further incidents in 1953. In February two Argentine nationals were deported from Deception Island (part of the South Shetlands) by British authorities, and several Argentine and Chilean buildings were dismantled. In 1954 the USSR announced it would participate in the IGY.

T

180

here is a view that the noble cause of science in Antarctica led to the agreement known as the Antarctic Treaty, but there is compelling evidence that although scientific cooperation was a useful practical lubricant, the primary reason for negotiating the Treaty was a negative one—fear of chaos. Unless an international solution for the Antarctic could be found, a confrontation on a world-wide scale could easily have erupted in that area.17 The Antarctic Treaty has been described as ‘an elegant mixture of US self-interest and international high-mindedness’.18 So the question is why the Soviet Union supported it at the height of the so-called ‘cold war’. The answer is a blend of pragmatism, the tyranny of distance and perhaps just a dash of idealism. The Soviet Union’s decision to take part in the IGY had spelt the end of US attempts to quarantine the Russians from Antarctica. The US, together with Britain, Australia and New Zealand in particular, was concerned that the Russians might establish military bases in Antarctica during and after the IGY. By the early 1950s both superpowers were concerned to find ways and means of avoiding flashpoints that might involve sudden escalation into nuclear war. This was difficult enough in the Northern Hemisphere. The prospect of extending this tension to remote Antarctica was unattractive to both superpowers. By establishing a presence in the Antarctic without the risk of conflict, the Russians could demonstrate their global reach—as well as establishing themselves as a legitimate force in future Antarctic developments.19 On the other hand,

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

the Soviet Union was prepared to concede the dominance of the US in Antarctic affairs. Considering the state of the cold war at the time, it was remarkable that anything was agreed at all. Negotiations for the Antarctic Treaty lasted eighteen months. There were sixty preparatory meetings held in Washington between June 1958 and October 1959. Then there was the full-scale conference which concluded with the signing of the Treaty on 1 December 1959 by the representatives of the governments of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, the French Republic, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the Union of South Africa, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America. Australia played a key role in the negotiations leading to the Antarctic Treaty through the diplomacy of Richard Casey, the Minister for External Affairs. The crucial objectives for Australia were freedom of scientific research, non-militarisation of the area, and the freezing of territorial claims. Clearly, without the last two points any treaty would be worthless. As it happened, Australia was extremely influential in convincing the Soviet Union that it should accept the freezing of all territorial claims. The Russian position at the beginning of discussions was that the Treaty should say nothing at all about territorial claims and that any reference to those claims placed claimant countries in a superior position—indeed ‘if Russia was required to renounce the right to make a claim, other countries, in fairness, should renounce the claims they had already made’.20 This position was totally unsatisfactory to Australia and the other claimant states. Malcolm Booker was Australia’s chief negotiator in the preliminary negotiations for drafting the Treaty. He was aware that ‘Australia’s absurd territorial claims’ of 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent were very weak in international law: My problem was to get the Government to realise this and insist that the Treaty should embody their claim. We had the same problem with the Chileans and the Argentinians. Their original position—like our original position—was that these claims must be respected. Then we had the bright idea (I’m not sure that I can claim the authorship of it) but. . .with my Chilean and Argentinian colleagues, we said: ‘Why don’t we put these claims on ice?’ And we thought that was a funny thing to say.

The ingenious formula of Article IV—in essence to agree to disagree on the freezing of national claims—was the cornerstone of the success of the Antarctic Treaty, but it was by no means certain it could be achieved in the early stages of negotiation.

181

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Yet Russia’s flexibility on other aspects of the Treaty was surprising Australia’s diplomats who had been expecting a harder ‘cold war’ line. Diplomacy away from official discussions was vital to progress towards the Treaty. Malcolm Booker was keen to explore the possibility of the Antarctic being a nuclear-free zone: . . . that in spite of the ‘cold war’ there could be areas of the world that could be kept free from nuclear competition and from any possible nuclear conflict. It was accepted, of course, that this wouldn’t really solve the nuclear problem, but that it would establish a principle that might later be applicable in wider circumstances. And interestingly, the other delegate who was keen on this idea was a Russian.

Booker had known one of the Russian delegates, Andrei Ledovski, when they were both posted to the Nationalist capital Chonqing in China in 1943 and 1944. They had become friends during this chaotic time, when the USSR was an ally of the West. While in Washington the Australian diplomat bent the rules to sound out Ledovski on the Russian position on Treaty matters in a series of private conversations and meetings: The Government requirement on us all was to report whenever we met a Russian, or Soviet, official, and give details of what they said and what I said. . .Well, this was absurd in this situation, because we were meeting regularly discussing the Antarctic treaty and it was very much the matter of achieving a successful combination between him and myself in getting acceptance for the idea of a nuclear-free zone. So sometimes I reported when I met him, and sometimes I didn’t.

Booker and Ledovski would arrange to have lunch together in one of Washington’s busier restaurants, confident that they were totally secure: Nobody could have known you were there and nobody could hear—because of the background noise—anything that was said. And it often struck me how all these enormously expensive spy services could easily be evaded by anybody who wanted to evade them. But anyway our meetings were entirely innocent. . .we were serving our governments loyally and there was no possibility of any espionage on his part. Of course there wasn’t on mine. . .he was a very intelligent, witty, cultivated bloke . . .

182

Ledovski worked for the principal Soviet representative, Grigory Tonkin, an international lawyer who, Booker maintained, dominated the final Treaty conference intellectually.

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

The problem for me was that the Americans did not want the Antarctic as a nuclear-free zone, they. . .felt they had to have the option of using the Antarctic for nuclear defence, nuclear surveillance—at the worst, nuclear war. And the Australian Government in those days was, of course, entirely subservient to the United States—more subservient than at any other time probably. So it was very difficult to persuade our Government that, in effect, they should oppose the American wish to reserve the right to use the Antarctic for nuclear weapons.

In fact Australia enthusiastically supported the use of the Antarctic for ‘peaceful’ nuclear explosions in Antarctica—a concept not ruled out by the Russians at first, although later they hardened their position. In October 1959 Argentina was pushing for a total ban on nuclear tests or explosions of any kind in Antarctica and Casey was advised by the DEA to oppose the Argentinians on this point. Commonwealth Attorney General Sir Garfield Barwick cabled Casey on 24 October: Taking into account our best scientific advice, I would think on balance, the potential scientific and technical advantages of peaceful nuclear explosions in the Antarctic outweigh the possible risks (i.e. the fallout hazard if adequate precautions are not taken and the possibility that some information of military value might be gained from an essentially peaceful explosion).21

Correspondence between the DEA and the National Radiation Advisory Committee (NRAC) at that time also gives an interesting insight into the more relaxed attitudes of the day towards the disposal of nuclear waste. On 2 October, NRAC Secretary J R Flanagan advised that it could be reliably stored in deep stable ice away from the seaboard for long periods: It may be unnecessary to separately contain the radioactive material when depositing it in the ice, but this aspect would need very careful examination before being put into practice. If it were proven acceptable, it would probably constitute a considerable saving in cost.22

On the nuclear explosions issue, however, the USSR won the day during the final conference, with the banning of both nuclear explosions and disposal of radioactive waste material in Antarctica being enshrined in Article V of the Treaty. Looking back, Booker believes that the Soviet premier, Nikita Khruschev, intended to use the nuclear issue in Antartica as a signal to the west that he wanted to improve relations between the Soviet Union and the United

183

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

States—an early expression of glasnost and perestroika. But he faced resistance from his hardline generals who favoured continuing an ironclad Stalinist policy of isolation. Booker: Khruschev was hoping, I believe, to achieve a settlement in the nuclear area which would relieve the Soviet Union of the enormous burden of constantly having to keep pace with the American developments. I can only believe that when Ledovsky at these negotiations surprised us all with his readiness to see the nuclear free zone apply to Antarctica—this was a reflection of Khruschev’s own policy of a more cooperative relationship with the west.

184

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 ended any immediate prospects of détente on the question of nuclear weapons, and the arms race between the USSR and the US continued for another two decades. In early 1959 prospects for agreement on Article IV (the freezing of claims) seemed remote, despite some encouraging remarks by Ledovski to Booker in Washington that ‘he still felt sure that something could be worked out’.23 The breakthrough occurred at an unlikely location—Broadbeach in Queensland. The occasion was a meeting of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, and the leader of the Soviet delegation was Deputy Foreign Minister Nicolai Firubin. On 12 March the Australian Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey, had a private conversation with Firubin about the mutual reinstatement of their embassies in Moscow and Canberra (following the break in diplomatic relations in 1954 caused by the Petrov affair). He also raised the issue of Antarctica and ‘explained Australian objectives and interests in orthodox but forceful terms’.24 Firubin responded by outlining the Soviet position—that the matter of territorial rights and claims in the region should not be dealt with as part of the current debate—but agreed to study a letter from Casey outlining the Australian position. In his letter, delivered the next day, Casey made two main points—that the freezing of claims would have the effect of keeping all national differences ‘quietly in abeyance’, and that it would create a legal situation in which no activity in Antarctica by any country, claimant or non-claimant, would improve its legal claim to sovereignty.25 He also stressed that he was seriously apprehensive about the risks of future cooperation between nations operating in Antarctica if the Treaty was not concluded.26 Firubin’s verbal response to Casey ‘that all would be well’ was confirmed on 11 May when, at a luncheon at the Russian Embassy in Washington, the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Mikhail Menshikov, made it clear to US Ambassador Paul Daniels that there was no basic

A

N T A R C T I C A

I

N T E R N A T I O N A L

disagreement between the two states on the peaceful use of Antarctica, that there had been an apparent misunderstanding in regard to the US draft article on the subject of rights and claims, and that he and his colleagues were ‘willing to get along with the conference’. Confirmation of Casey’s contribution to this breakthrough was received in early June in a letter from Firubin, through the British Embassy in Moscow, in reply to his Broadbeach letter of 13 March. Firubin went on to say that he was pleased to be able to tell Casey ‘at the present time that the Soviet side is prepared to agree to the text of Article IV in the form indicated. . .[and] the representative of the Soviet Union at the talks in Washington has been given instructions to agree to Article IV of the draft Treaty’.27 The breakthrough had been made. Richard Casey’s diplomatic skills were to be needed again, however, on the persistent issue of the freezing of claims. Three days before the final conference to negotiate the Antarctic Treaty was due to begin in Washington on 15 October 1959, the French representative, Ambassador Pierre Charpentier, dropped a bombshell, saying that his instructions were ‘positive and definite’ that ‘under no circumstances was France to agree to an article such as Article IV. . .’28 Casey and Charpentier met to discuss ‘the devastating French decision’. In his diary, Casey wrote: I made no attempt to hide my feelings on this. . .I suspect it is a de Gaulle decision. Charpentier showed signs of personal disagreement with his instructions. I said if the decision was an unalterable one, it would destroy the Conference and the Treaty.29

Casey immediately sent a long telegram to the French Foreign Minister, M. Couve de Murville, explaining that Australia would not have attended the conference unless an understanding among all twelve parties had been reached on Article IV, and detailed the role he had played in convincing the Russians to accept it. He concluded: If, therefore, the conference fails, the responsibility might well seem to rest solely upon France. . . . It would therefore cause me great personal regret if it were to appear to the Australian people that the French Government, at the eleventh hour, refused to accept a treaty that would provide such valuable protection for Australian national interests. I would therefore most earnestly hope that you might feel able, in advance of the conference on Thursday, to reconsider the French position on Article IV.30

This appeal had no immediate effect. On 20 October, the French moved to delete the paragraph of Article IV relating to the freezing of

185

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

territorial claims. They did not, however, pursue this opposition following the US announcement that it was accepting the Soviet formula on Article IV, with the agreement of most of the other nations involved. Charpentier did tell Casey on 26 October that Couve de Murville had said that if he had had copies of the correir Douglas Mawson retired from acaspondence with Firubin at the time, demic life in Adelaide in 1953. He his attitude about the freezing of claims was 70, and his interests had ranged would have been different.31 So it is far beyond Antarctica. For 30 years he reasonable to assume that Casey’s interheaded the Geology Department of the vention was influential. Twelve nations University of Adelaide, and was also active signed the Treaty on 1 December 1959. in the fields of conservation, farming and International recognition of Richard forestry. Casey’s role in the successful resoluHe died unexpectedly on 14 October tion of the Antarctic Treaty was marked 1958, following a cerebral haemorrhage, by the selection of Canberra for the survived by his wife Paquita and two daughfirst scheduled Antarctic Treaty ters. His role in establishing ANARE in 1947 Consultative Meeting which began on had been pivotal, and he lived to see 23 June 1961. Australians established in two permanent The Treaty has been successful in stations on the mainland of Antarctica, and keeping Antarctica insulated from frica third on Macquarie Island—which he had tions generated between member been instrumental in having declared a sanccountries elsewhere. It has also ensured tuary in 1933. a peaceful mechanism for growth, with The Mawson Institute for Antarctic Re43 states adherent to the Treaty by 1996. search was established within the University Its consensus decision-making system of Adelaide in 1959. Its library incorporates has remained intact and although there Mawson’s collection of polar literature, his is no permanent secretariat, its conAntarctic diaries, and a substantial collecsultative arrangements have been able tion of papers, photographic records and to accommodate questions not objects of historical importance. The Douglas addressed in 1959—like pollution Mawson chair of geology was created in control, tourism, political status, and 1983. living and non-living resources.32

S

186

T W E LV E

1959—A

YEAR

TO REMEMBER

I

f any year in the half-century of ANARE operations can be singled out as momentous, 1959 is a good candidate. Events included the occupation of Australia’s third continental station at Wilkes, a tragic death midway through the year, mental illness involving visits by Russian and United States aircraft, disastrous fires at Macquarie Island and Mawson stations, and the total destruction of two aircraft at Mawson in a violent storm. The curtain-raiser took place on 16 January 1959 when Thala Dan ran onto an uncharted pinnacle of rock approaching Davis Station. John Béchervaise (who was on his way to Mawson Station as the incoming OIC) recalled that it was an absolutely still sunny day, ‘with all that marvellous calmness that comes inside the pack ice’: Suddenly we struck a rock. This was really a tremendous shock, in every sense of the term. I can remember the masts quivering and making a strange noise, as though they were vibrating, and a few men were almost thrown off their feet.

The master, Captain Hans Christian Petersen, immediately signalled the engine room for full astern, but without success. It became clear that Thala Dan was impaled on a pinnacle of rock and had been holed. Oil gushed from a pierced fuel tank and spread over the surface of the sea. Béchervaise noted at the time that it had a singular effect on the penguins, and this was not a pleasing sight: ‘I think it caused a change in the refractive index of the sea surface—for they started leaping straight out of the water, as though onto invisible ice floes.’1

187

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Thala Dan was not in immediate danger, but the ship had grounded near the top of the tide, so it would be 24 hours at least before any realistic efforts could be made to free her. Half an hour after hitting the rock, Captain Petersen called the ship’s company. Béchervaise recalled that moment: ‘To prevent rumours an’ all ’dat sort of bullshit, I will tell you what we now know. The ship she is not in danger.’2 Petersen said he was confident that he could get Thala Dan off the rocks. There was little the ANARE men could do, so they marked that evening by having a shipwreck party. Béchervaise later wrote: ‘It lasted until well after dawn. The oily water, almost motionless round the ship, carried scores of floating beer cans.’3 Over the next fifteen days, Captain Petersen displayed remarkable seamanship in extricating his ship from this isolated and dangerous situation. After shifting ballast to raise the bow, Petersen took the same

WILKES STATION ON THE COAST OF VINCENNES BAY, WILKES LAND.

188

A N D

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

traditional course of action that Captain Cook had taken on the Great Barrier Reef in 1770, and ‘fothered’ the ship. Béchervaise: A sail was passed under the hull which prevented the inflow of water, the water was pumped out of the tank, and the captain prepared a number of wooden wedges to be driven into the gash from the oil tank just inside the hull, which had taken the strain.

The next day, Captain Petersen prepared for high water. His plan was to put out a stern anchor and then winch Thala Dan off the rock, with engines full astern. The most immediate practical problem was how to get the anchor—weighing more than a tonne —to its position. None of the ship’s boats could possibly carry it. The ingenious solution was to suspend the anchor underneath a dinghy, where it would weigh less under water. Béchervaise: This allowed perhaps an inch or two inches [21¼2 to five centimetres] freeboard. The captain and the second mate rowed very cautiously—with this great anchor hanging below—until they got to the position astern. Then he took a broad axe, and with one swipe cut through the rope that held the anchor. . .the ship’s boat fairly leapt out of the water with the sudden relief of the strain.

Everything went according to plan. At high water the engines went full astern and the ship’s winches began pulling against the ingeniously placed anchor. Thala Dan came off the rock to the cheers of all on board. But it would be twelve more days before the ship could continue her journey a further five kilometres to Davis Station. Ship’s boats ferried rock and sand from nearby Magnetic Island as aggregate for concrete, which was poured in to reinforce and seal off the damaged tank. The repair was successful, but the waiting was taking its toll on the Davis Station people, desperate for their mail. On 20 January, a Beaver aircraft on floats was launched from Thala Dan and an airdrop of mail and a well-padded crate of Carlsberg beer was made by RAAF pilot Jim Sandercock.4 At the same time, the second Lauritzen Line ice-strengthened ship Magga Dan was approaching Vincennes Bay with the ANARE wintering party for Wilkes Station to establish Australia’s third base on the Antarctic continent. Law had assigned his deputy Don Styles as voyage leader on Thala Dan to relieve and resupply Davis and Mawson, while he oversaw events at Wilkes, as well as continuing the yearly program of coastal exploration. Wilkes had been established by the United States Government in 1957 as part of its contribution to the IGY. Although built in a mere seventeen days, it was a lavish complex compared with the simple frugality

189

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

of any of the Australian stations. Because it was constructed in a hollow, even in its first year of operation its buildings were buried under a relentless accumulation of ice and snow. Nevertheless the heated buildings and enormous supply dumps were an eye-opener to the Australians when they first saw it. As the IGY wound down in 1958 American scientists were hopeful that the scientific observations carried out at Wilkes could be continued. Phil Law: The Americans found themselves over-committed. . .and their scientists came to me and said: ‘Look, Wilkes is a good station, scientifically it’s extremely valuable. It fills an important gap as an observatory for meteorology, geomagnetism, seismology and scientific work generally. It would be a great pity if it just closed down. We are going to be forced to close down; what say we come to an agreement where you take it over. We would love to see the Australians continue to run it, because we’re just as interested in the results that come out of it as you are.’

Law said he would try to persuade the Australian Government that resources could be stretched to this extent, particularly as nothing had to be built—a ready-made station was just sitting there. As early as January 1958 the US State Department was pressing the Australian Government for a response. There were two alternatives: to hand over Wilkes to Australia as a going concern, or to share its operations. The Department of External Affairs recommended the first option. The secretary, Arthur Tange, wrote: I would believe that it would not be practicable for us to share the operation of the Wilkes Station with the United States. The political future of the Antarctic is at present uncertain and probably will remain so for some months at least. I believe our best policy in the interim would be to continue to consolidate our sovereignty. Granted this, the opportunity of replacing the last United States base in our territory by an Australian base presents obvious political advantages. The advantage might be lost if we only participated in the operation of what would still be a United States base.5

This reflected Law’s preferred position on Wilkes and he urged his minister, Richard Casey, to take a tough line with the US on the issue:

190

I had stressed to him that we were in a powerful position to impose our complete demands on the situation. They wanted the stations preserved—not us. It was either us or nothing! The Americans knew it, and we knew it.

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

The US State Department argued that there could be trouble with Congress (and the American taxpayer) if it was all just handed over, and proposed it should be a joint station, 50 per cent Australian and 50 per cent American. Law: ‘At least I managed to get an assurance that the leader would be an Australian, but they had a deputy put in who was an American, so you had almost a dual control of the station’. US-BUILT JAMESWAY HUTS AT The awkwardness of this arrangement was evident WILKES DISAPPEARING UNDER from the very first contacts with the Americans at Wilkes. THE RELENTLESSLY Law and Dick Thompson, his chief supply officer, had ACCUMULATING DRIFT, 1966. spent three weeks in Washington organising the logis(P LAW) tical arrangements and examining lists of equipment at the station. But External Affairs had not briefed Law about the protocol of taking over a station from another nation: The first thing I ran into was the question of what we do about flags. I was going to pull down the American flag and put the Australian one up [but] they promptly reminded me that that wasn’t on. So on our ship I was going to fly the Australian flag with the American flag on the same mast. And someone said: ‘You can’t do that Phil—protocol. You can’t put some nation’s flag underneath one of ours.’ So we had to fly the Australian flag on the foremast and the American flag on the aftermast.

On 3 February 1959 Law signed a document accepting custody of all the American buildings and equipment at Wilkes for use without charge or liability, and guaranteeing the eventual return of the property to the United States.6 This was impractical, and the whole Wilkes complex, with all the stores, abandoned equipment and spent fuel dumps now lies entombed in the ice. What to do about the historic rubbish at Wilkes remains one of the unsolved Antarctic environmental dilemmas to this day.

191

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

The changeover ceremony at Wilkes went smoothly on Wednesday 4 February, with Australian and American flags on separate poles, but the dual arrangements between the Australians and the Americans soon led to diplomatic difficulty. The senior US member of the Wilkes party, Herbert Hansen, a meteorologist (who had objected to the way the flags were flown during the changeover) demanded the right to radio his communications direct to the US base at McMurdo and not through Antarctic Division channels.7 This caused a bureaucratic flurry within External Affairs as officers in Canberra tried to unravel the complex web of events that led to the joint facility. As Law had predicted, it all got too hard for both the Americans and the Australians: After two years it was obviously so unworkable that the State Department devised a formula where they lent all the equipment to us on long-term loan, indefinitely, and without payment. . .the divided operation ceased and we took over as we should have done right from the beginning.

192

On 5 February 1959 Magga Dan left Wilkes, with Law hopeful of voyaging east to the extreme edge of the AAT to attempt the first ever Australian landing on the coast of Oates Land. At the last moment he was able to arrange for Corporal John ‘Snow’ Williams, the RAAF air-frame fitter, to remain at Wilkes for the winter. Law was concerned that it would be impossible for the two Australian mechanics adequately to look after all the technical equipment at the station.8 This turned out to be an extremely fortunate decision in view of later happenings at Wilkes during the year. The day before Magga Dan left Wilkes, the damaged but still serviceable Thala Dan broke through the fast ice into Horseshoe Harbour at Mawson to resupply the station and change over the personnel. On 11 February unloading was halted to cope with a sudden personal emergency. One of the incoming meteorologists, Ian Widdows, developed acute appendicitis. The recreation room in Weddell Hut was scrubbed and draped with polythene sheeting. Two medical officers were available, due to the changeover. Incoming Grahame Budd was the surgeon and Grey Channon the anaesthetist, assisted by four other expeditioners.9 Widdows made a good recovery. It was now the turn of Macquarie Island to hit the headlines and for that ANARE station to play its part in the year’s bizarre events. On Friday 13 March, the lead item in the Hobart Mercury revealed that the gaff-rigged schooner Patanela would voyage to Macquarie Island in a bid to start a sealing industry there.10 Mr Alan Powell (described by the Mercury as the ‘key man’ of the syndicate), a former consultant to the Australian Whaling Commission in Western Australia, explained to readers that he hoped

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

to establish a modern plant in Hobart for the packaging and flash-freezing of fresh seal meat for export to America. Macquarie Island had been declared a sanctuary in 1933 because of the slaughter of the fur and elephant seal populations by sealers in the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless the new sealing venture was enthusiastically supported by Tasmania’s Minister for Agriculture, Mr Jack Dwyer, who said that ‘the establishment of a sealing industry on Tasmanian-controlled Macquarie Island’ would not be opposed by the Commonwealth or the State Government or the Fauna Board. As Patanela buffeted heavy seas and high winds on her way to Macquarie Island, public opinion in Hobart erupted. The reaction was led initially by Norman Laird, a former expeditioner on Macquarie during the first year of ANARE occupation in 1948. Laird worked in the Tasmanian Government’s film unit and wrote under the nom de plume ‘Antarcticus’. Laird reminded readers of the Hobart Mercury’s Letters To The Editor columns of Sir Douglas Mawson’s efforts to have the island declared a sanctuary in 1933: ‘Now we may wonder whether Mawson’s work is to be in vain, and whether we are to be the unhappy witnesses of a convenient adjustment to the law which made the island a sanctuary?’11 Laird alerted Frank Hurley, the photographer on Mawson’s 1929–31 BANZARE voyage and a ferocious anti-sealing activist, who wrote from Sydney pointing out that he had assisted Mawson in ensuring that the sealing licence of Joseph Hatch was cancelled by the Tasmanian Government in 1919. The Antarctic Division and ANARE were by no means passive participants in the sealing affair. On 24 December 1958 the Tasmanian Premier, Eric Reece, had asked Phil Law for his view, and Law (in an era when commercial opportunities in Antarctica were seen as positive revenue-raising) replied: My own view is that, properly supervised, exploitation of the elephant seals at Macquarie Island would have no harmful effect upon the seal population of the island. . .The presence at the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition station of an official curator would enable such supervision and control to be exercised.12

The officer-in-charge at Macquarie Island was Tom Harwood, who also wore another hat. He was the Tasmanian Fauna Board’s representative on Macquarie, obliged to show the sealing syndicate’s Alan Powell around the elephant seal populations on the Macquarie beaches. However, on 30 March Harwood had more urgent matters to attend to. While the syndicate’s chartered schooner Patanela was anchored in Buckles Bay, one of her crew yelled: ‘There’s smoke pouring from one of your huts!’

193

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

The ionospheric and cosmic ray laboratories were sited away from the main camp, on the shores of Hasselborough Bay, and it was the cosmic ray section that was well alight when the alarm was raised. All expeditioners available rushed to the fire with extinguishers and buckets and some fairly desperate measures were attempted, according to John Munro, one of the physicists on Macquarie: In an effort to isolate the fire efforts were made to break through the partition joining the huts and Brian [Bell] brought the tractor to try to pull the Ionospheric Hut away completely. But all to no avail. The wire rope burned through—white hot each time.13

Little could be salvaged and much valuable scientific equipment was lost, including a brand new ionospheric recorder, Whistler recorder, cosmic ray telescope and the highly prized Dobson ozone spectrophotometer. Much of this equipment had been an important element in the success of ANARE’s contribution to the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58. Essentially the upper atmosphere and cosmic ray programs for 1959 were wiped out by the fire. Powell and Patanela were able to help ANARE by giving Brian Bell, the physics radio-technician, a stormy ride back to Hobart, to save him a year’s professional inactivity. Patanela arrived in Hobart on 7 April with Powell claiming the Tasmanian Government had already issued him with a sealing licence. He was publicly gung-ho about his plans on Macquarie and contemptuous of the ‘storm of protest from animal protection societies’, saying: ‘The public is ill-informed and doesn’t understand conditions at a sealing station. If the public is still against it, we’ll go ahead just the same. They haven’t had the experience we’ve had.’14 Powell reassured his critics that killing methods would be humane: In the old days they got a 4 foot [1.21 metres] pole with an iron spike on the end, hit them on the snout, then cut their throats. These days we shoot them in the brain with a .303 rifle or a .45 revolver. They roar when you walk up to them, and you shoot them through the mouth and into the brain. They drop dead instantly.15

194

Powell’s grasp of the scientific biological program on Macquarie being carried out by Stefan Csordas, the medical officer, seemed rudimentary. The ANARE team there made a ‘hobby of studying seals and other animals’, he said. Mixing his metaphors rather unfortunately given the subject, the sealing entrepreneur said there were plenty of seals available and concluded: ‘We’re going to put in a big investment and we’re not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs’.16

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

Powell was wrong about public opinion. The issue had become so politically heated that six days later it was all over. The Premier, Eric Reece, admitted publicly that the popular opposition and concerns about sealing had won the day, and that no licence would be issued.17 The Hobart Mercury commented that the Government had ‘shown good sense in bowing to the weight of public opinion’. Its editorial was scathing in its criticism of the Tasmanian Fauna Board for its apparent ‘readiness to ignore the wishes of the public and views of zoologists alike’. In fact the board opposed the sealing plans, but seals were not under its jurisdiction. They came under the Sea Fisheries Act. Eric Guiler, a lecturer in zoology at the University of Tasmania, was a board member at that time: The board was under heavy Government pressure to revoke all or part of the sanctuary, but steadfastly refused to do so. It agreed to ‘consider’ a lease of one acre for a factory-cum-residence, fully aware that the area was too small for the sealers’ purpose. The board was determined to resign in a body if their views were overridden by Government.

Public opinion had had little influence on Antarctic policy before the Tasmanian sealing imbroglio. The making of Antarctic policy was traditionally the preserve of public servants and governments. The routing of the aspiring sealers was a sign that the traditional thinking on Antarctica as a resource to be plundered could no longer be taken for granted, and was a pointer to the conservation politics of the 1980s and 1990s.

A

ny outbreak of fire on Antarctic stations is greatly feared. At Macquarie Island the science buildings were separated from the main camp. On continental stations, isolated in winter unlike Macquarie which can be reached by ship at any time of the year—the outbreak of fire in moisture-free, tinder-dry flammable structures (heated by internal combustion stoves in the early years) could be catastrophic. The concern about fire was the main reason behind the ANARE night watches, instituted at all stations so that someone was on duty to take action and give the alarm in the event of fire. Lack of water is an added hazard and fire drills and awareness of extinguishers have been, and still are, drummed into all ANARE expeditioners. On 3 April, four days after the Macquarie Island physics laboratories succumbed to fire, work was proceeding as usual at Mawson Station on one of the year’s most essential projects. This was the construction of a new powerhouse which was being built over the old one, so that that powerhouse could keep operating until the bigger overall structure was

195

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

roofed and finished. With hindsight this was not such a good idea, because diesel fuel from the original hut had soaked into the ground beneath for the previous five years. Work on the new powerhouse was popular because it meant enjoying the warmth from the operating generator. The interior of the larger structure was being lined with Caneite insulating panels, and the whole job was nearly finished. RAAF pilot Jim Sandercock recalls that he was having lunch in the mess when the alarm was given that a fire had broken out: ‘People raced for fire extinguishers. We grabbed some from our hangar, some were taken from the other buildings—but of course they were entirely useless.’ Heat had built up in the smaller, older powerhouse, enclosed by the new, and had caused the fire. The problem was to get at the seat of the blaze through or around the new building. OIC John Béchervaise recalled that one of the greatest problems was that the doors of the two buildings did not coincide: We put smoke masks on, crawled in one door, and then had to turn left, and then turn another way to get to the seat of the fire. This was very dicey and very hard to see. . .you just felt your way. Finally you saw a flare and did what you could.

But it was far too dangerous and the outer building was sealed. When flames broke through the roof Béchervaise ordered a bucket brigade. Holes were punched in the sea ice and a human chain formed. Sandercock: A chap would dip his bucket in and run madly up the line, hand it up to that part of the building that was not on fire, and the chaps would throw the bucket of water through the now partly burnt roof. But we were wasting our time.

Desperate measures were employed. At one stage Béchervaise had men punching holes through the roof with crowbars, to pour in salt water. But we weren’t winning, and in the end I heard a sound which was very unpleasant. . .a bubbling of something down below. As I knew that was diesel fuel, I got everybody off the roof—fortunately before it blew up.

Anything useful close by was dragged away either by hand or by D4 tractor. Fortunately one of the new diesel generators had not been moved into the new shed and was saved. Finally, at 5 pm, Béchervaise ordered everyone away from the scene and they watched the powerhouse burn: 196

There were tremendous flames, huge columns of smoke, many explosions. One explosion shot a column of flame and burning oil nearly a

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

hundred feet [30.5 metres] in the air; it was from a drum containing only about fifteen gallons [68.1 litres] of lubricating oil finally bursting under pressure . . . I treasure old Bert Evans’ remarks from the roof just before we gave the job away. ‘Hey! Anyone got a smoke? Haven’t had one for hours. . .it’s good to have one’s feet warm for a change.’18

T O

R E M E M B E R

THE MAWSON STATION 1959. (M KIRTON)

POWERHOUSE ON FIRE,

The loss of the power station was catastrophic and threatened the entire year’s scientific program. That night Béchervaise called a meeting to take stock and worked out a new program. Within two weeks, scrap timber was used to build a small shelter for the one remaining big generator: ‘There is nothing like a crisis like that to get everybody very close together. It may have been part of the great success of the year that everybody was so very helpful.’ Those at Mawson were to experience more challenges in this extraordinary year of 1959. But April also had an unwelcome surprise for ANARE expeditioners on Macquarie Island. On 30 April a tremendous storm sent waves surging across the narrow isthmus separating Hasselborough Bay from Buckles Bay, near the station. Reporting gusts of up to 170 kilometres per hour, OIC Tom Harwood noted in his log that flying debris had punched holes in three of the water storage tanks. With their fuel dump on the isthmus at risk, the station bulldozer was used to shift drums of fuel to a safer location: [A] large wave washed right across and moved whole fuel dump eight feet. . .arrested only by the loaded sledge—even so 15 drums were carried towards Buckles Bay; 11 rescued, but 4 swept out to sea. Retainer wall construction commenced immediately and second sledge hauled to east side of dump and loaded. [It] was now dark and the tide still rising. Dozer with headlights worked overtime and 3 feet high [0.91 metres] retainer wall built by 1900 hours fortunately when largest wave. . .crashed across. . .By 2000 hours washes small and infrequent so organised night

197

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

watch whilst everybody bitterly cold and wet had welcome mugs of brandy and then dinner. The battle was won—thank God.19

Four days after the powerhouse fire at Mawson, the combined Australian and American wintering party at Wilkes was confronted with an emergency never before encountered on an ANARE station. On 7 April one of the two diesel mechanics, German national Henry Brandt, had a nervous breakdown, became violent, and had to be restrained. Brandt’s behaviour had been causing concern ever since the departure of Magga Dan in February. He was not self-motivated and, if not supervised, tended not to finish the jobs he was given. On 4 April, OIC Robert Dingle wrote in the station log that Brandt was ‘a most unsatisfactory type for expedition life’ and that he had been obtaining drugs from the medical officer for a ‘nervous disorder’. Dingle canvassed options to try to motivate him: It has been suggested to [senior diesel mechanic Hartley] Robinson that he spend a little more time with Brandt where they complete each major job as a team instead of applying themselves as individuals to different phases of the engineering program.20

There was an enormous amount of engineering work to do. The Americans at Wilkes had run their vehicles, tractors and diesel generators until they dropped, and if they could not get a replacement from reserve stores, they cannibalised parts from other working machines. For economy-conscious Australians like Hartley Robinson, it was an eyeopener: The engines in the powerhouse had run continuously for two years with absolutely no maintenance whatsoever. . .these engines had all done anything from 5000 to 8000 hours—which says something for the Caterpillar engine. I don’t know of any other engine that would work under these conditions and still give satisfactory service.21

Besides keeping the vital powerhouse going, all the other machines—tractors, Weasels, fork-lifts and trucks—were run down and needed extensive repair and reconditioning. Brandt’s expertise was urgently needed. But on 7 April Brandt entered the mess with a knife in his hand and had to be disarmed. He was young and fit and Snow Williams recalled:

198

His craziness made him even stronger. We wrestled with him, but whether he intended to use the knife or not, who can say. Five or six of us had to hold him down to get the knife out of his grip. . .his hand was cut in the struggle.

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

After this incident the medical officer, John Boda, sedated Brandt and decided that he would have to be confined while under treatment. Robinson: The boys were all perturbed about it and none of us slept for a couple of nights. We had to stand guard over him and manhandle him and it was really a very, very unhappy occurrence. It was obvious that the man had gone out of his head. We didn’t know what to do so we cleared out a little bit of a storeroom and I got to work and made some wire grilles for the windows. We took all the stuff out of it, and stripped it, and made a cell and locked him in.22

Boda diagnosed manic depression with suicidal tendencies, and Dingle sought advice from Melbourne. Don Styles, deputy director of the Antarctic Division, contacted the Victorian Mental Hygiene Department where the psychiatric consultant thought it likely Brandt was suffering from incipient schizophrenia and recommended medication—there was even talk of radioing instructions to make a simple machine at Wilkes to administer electroconvulsive therapy. Meanwhile the RAAF made it clear that an evacuation by air was impossible. An added problem for Dingle at Wilkes was the necessity for secrecy: You couldn’t send these messages back to Melbourne in plain language, you had to break them down into a code so that the rest of the world didn’t know what was happening down at Wilkes at that time. . .They were decoded in the Antarctic Division and taken out to the Kew mental asylum in Melbourne so they could do their diagnosis there. . .it would come back to us in code. . .oh, it was a trying business.

It was not practical to confine Brandt in his makeshift cell all the time, and Snow Williams recalls that everyone was on edge when he was free: A door opening, or the rattle of the buckles of the type of boots that Henry wore was enough to turn all heads in the room. Henry was quite strong, and until the medication took effect it would need five or six people to hold him down for an injection.23

After some official soul-searching in Canberra and Melbourne, it was decided to request medical assistance from the Soviet station at Mirny, 800 kilometres to the west. Don Styles was handling the situation from Melbourne: The Russians became aware of the situation and flew the 600 miles [960 kilometres] across from Mirny to Wilkes with some stimulants to keep the man in reasonable condition until the end of the season.

199

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

While this was an excellent example of the kind of international goodwill becoming the norm in Antarctica, local politics at Wilkes were more intense. The medical officer, John Boda, was a refugee from the Russian invasion of Hungary, and his attitude to a Russian visit was ‘a red rag to a bull’. The Russians had finished flying for the year, but cheerfully agreed to attempt a flight to Wilkes and land on the ice cap behind the station on a hastily graded airstrip prepared by the Australians. They landed on 4 May and anchored their Dakota-style aircraft to ‘dogs’—wire ropes attached to baulks of timber melted into the ice by Robinson. While the two doctors conferred on Brandt’s condition the Russians, Australians and Americans inspected the station and then cemented good international relations by throwing a party. On the second day, the leader of the Russian party became concerned about the weather and asked to be taken back up on the plateau to inspect the tethered aircraft. Robinson, accompanied by Dingle, drove them up in a Sno-cat: We went inside and they boiled a billy and made a cup of tea and put a drop of jungle juice in it, ‘aerovodka’ as they call it, which is actually de-icing fluid for the wings. It’s about 200 per cent alcohol so I declined.24

Robinson’s excuse was that he had to drive back, but Bob Dingle, ‘a non-drinking man’, accepted an ‘aerovodka’ out of politeness. During this short time in the aircraft a strong wind blew up, creating white-out conditions. The two Australians became lost within 200 metres of the aircraft when they tried to return to Wilkes and it took them twenty minutes to find the Russians again. There was nothing to be done but ride out what was rapidly becoming a blizzard with wind speeds of 65 to 70 knots. Dingle: It [the aerovodka] didn’t agree with me because I threw up all over the inside of this aircraft. And they put me to bed in one of their bunks in the aircraft and I slept right through the blizzard—I didn’t know a damn thing about it. It was quite embarrassing actually, just trying to be sociable with these people. . .and I went out like a light!

200

Robinson recalled that during the worst of the storm the aircraft was vibrating ‘just like a plane revving up on full power prior to a take-off’, and both he and the worried pilot hoped that the anchors in the ice would hold. Next morning the wind dropped and Bob Dingle woke ‘full of beans’ and curious about what had happened during the night. They returned to Wilkes for another party and film night before the Russians finally took off for the flight back to Mirny on 6 May. Their visit had

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

brought minor drama and jollity, but not much joy for the continuing problem of what to do about Brandt. The Russian doctor and Boda had consulted and, with extra drugs provided for treatment, Brandt did show some improvement. He began at least to correspond with his parents in Germany but he still had to be kept in isolation for most of the time. His condition affected everyone at the station, but Snow Williams (the RAAF engineer Phil Law had asked to stay at the last minute to help Robinson and Brandt) had particular praise for the medical officer: Reading my notes now that thirty years have passed, I realise again the tremendous job John Boda did medicating, feeding, exercising and looking after the welfare, generally, of his patient. John also had to learn English at Wilkes, as his skills in that direction were rudimentary.25

Back in Melbourne, Law radioed his thanks to the Russians at Mirny for their assistance in flying to Wilkes, but when the Minister for External Affairs, Richard Casey, wanted to add his message of appreciation to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was advised against it by the DEA secretary Arthur Tange: . . .we feel that such a message would need to be very carefully drafted if it is to avoid providing the Russians with a useful document which [they] might produce at a later stage to demonstrate Australian acceptance of their presence in the Australian Antarctic Territory.26

At that time, international negotiations leading towards the Antarctic Treaty were still complex and unresolved.

T

he stations were able to enjoy their midwinter dinners and associated celebrations, although an attempt to fly back two scientists studying the aurora at Taylor Glacier, 80 kilometres west of Mawson, for midwinter dinner could have ended badly. A Beaver aircraft, piloted by Geoff Banfield, flying in twilight conditions and extremely low temperatures, had to return to Mawson for an emergency landing after its port aileron failed in flight. After repairs the field party was retrieved safely. At Wilkes, a growing ANARE penchant for cross-dressing at midwinter saw the normally reticent OIC Bob Dingle shave off his moustache and arrive at dinner resplendent in a steel wool wig and velvet dress as Mrs ’Obbs of commercial radio serial fame. Others adopted the personae of Red Indians (with mohawk haircuts) and Australian Aborigines, while Hartley Robinson dressed as a penguin with flashing torch globes for eyes:

201

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Another chappie, one of our big fellows here, carrying a lot of weight, dressed up as a baby in a napkin. Another put a brassiere on and slipped his backside into a big red lampshade and came as a ballet girl.27

Wilkes was a treasure trove of stores and equipment—if they could be found under the ice. There were odd shortages, though. Snow Williams: We had ten years supply of beer and spare parts, but hardly any light globes. They were all Edison screw bulbs. But we had countless thousands of indicator bulbs out of washing machines. Harvey Nye, one of the US weather observers, would solder them into the brass base of the broken bulbs. It saved the day. Those indicator bulbs used to light the corridors with a dim glow.28

Light in the corridors was necessary because by the end of the year most of the Wilkes buildings had iced up to roof level and the 1959 party were living like troglodytes below the surface. One of Williams’ jobs was to cut trapdoors through the roofs of the huts for emergency exits in case of fire. On 9 July at Wilkes, a tragic accident took the life of Hartley Robinson who was working long hours keeping Wilkes Station functioning, with no help available from Brandt. ‘Robbie’, as he was known, was excavating some oxy-acetylene bottles using a tractor. Snow Williams went to give him a hand and jumped into the hole Robinson had dug with his excavator shovel, while the machine reversed up a short, steep ice slope. Williams dropped to his knees trying to free one of the gas cylinders and Robinson came to help him: Instead of getting to the top and parking, he parked on the slope. I didn’t know that. . .he’d hopped out and come around behind me to give me a hand. And I heard the tractor rattle and roll, and I looked up and saw it bearing down and shouted and jumped at the same time. He was coming behind me and was caught by the track.29

202

It is thought Robinson slipped on the ice as he tried to jump and was killed instantly. He was moderately deaf and may not have heard the runaway tractor.30 His death had a shattering effect on the Wilkes party. ‘Robbie’ Robinson was a popular expeditioner. He had been a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese in Malaya during World War II, and at 48 was one of the older expeditioners. He showed the films on Saturday nights and could turn his hand to any engineering job that needed attention. Now, with Robinson dead and Brandt incapacitated, the station was without its two diesel engineers. It was fortunate that Phil Law had asked

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

Snow Williams at the eleventh hour to winter at Wilkes, otherwise the station could have been left without any power. Williams: The biggest hassle was that I had a three-phase powerhouse to look after. . .I’d done a little bit of electricity in the Air Force, but never touched three-phase power. Luckily the Caterpillar generating set had books with them, and I had observed ‘Robbie’ do one or two changeovers when those engines were due for an oil change.31

T O

R E M E M B E R

HARTLEY ROBINSON’S WILKES. (T BOWDEN)

GRAVE (LEFT) AT

WILKES RADIO ROOM, 1964. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

It was a case of utilising all skills. Radio supervisor Alan Marriner had some electrical knowledge, and the cook, a young Englishman, ‘Alby’ Giddings (formerly second chef at Menzies Hotel in Melbourne), had trained as a motor mechanic. Bob Dingle had to rearrange the list of station duties: When we needed things done on the engineering side, we’d take him off the cooking roster. . .and he’d move into the workshop and somebody else would do the cooking. Young Williams and Giddings kept the station going mechanically.

B

y early August another occurrence was about to be added to the 1959 catalogue of unwanted emergencies. David Norris, the auroral physicist at Mawson, had returned to Taylor Glacier after the midwinter break accompanied by weather observer Les ‘Wacky’ Onley. OIC John Béchervaise became concerned when radio contact with the field party was lost, and an emergency flight was organised from Mawson. The

203

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

two aircraft reached Taylor Glacier on 4 August and Béchervaise experienced his worst moments ever in Antarctica when pilot Geoff Banfield said, ‘I can’t see the [field] station. The station’s not there. The station is gone!’ As Béchervaise described it: We banked steeply. Long snowdrifts ran down from a meteorological mast on a rocky outcrop. There was a black scar near the tide cracks. ‘There’s been a fire!’, Geoff said. ‘God, the place has been burnt down!’32

Both Beaver aircraft banked for a second circuit. Béchervaise feared the worst. Survival without shelter, food and bedding during the Antarctic winter was problematical at best. The second, smaller stores hut was still standing, but there was no sign of life. Jim Sandercock was the pilot of the second Beaver: We circled round, came in and landed. Very slowly, and virtually with tears in our eyes, we walked towards the hut expecting the worst. From behind us came a shout: ‘Hey, you blokes!’ We turned around. . .the chaps had been out walking. They’d seen the aeroplane coming back in. . .came racing back and came up behind us. We were very pleased to see them.

204

Norris and Onley were equally delighted. A sudden, violent fire had burnt down their hut four days earlier, leaving them time only to snatch a few blankets and rush out on to the ice. All their scientific records, auroral observing equipment, radios and personal gear were lost. They had sheltered in the second hut, unable to make contact with Mawson. It had been a near thing. On 8 August, there was another near miss. One of the RAAF team, fitter Sergeant Hedley McIntyre, was running a Beaver engine in the Mawson hangar. Snow drifts built up against the structure made it almost completely airtight, and McIntyre collapsed with carbon monoxide poisoning. Luckily, pilot Jim Sandercock noticed him lying prostrate under the aircraft and pulled him to safety. The day before this incident, Mawson’s sole diesel power generator (rescued from the earlier powerhouse fire) broke down, leaving the station on emergency power supplied by a tractor and one small portable generator. The situation was extremely serious as a spare part needed to be manufactured and the workshop with its essential lathes had perished in the fire. An ingenious solution was devised—Joe Lawrence, Mawson’s assistant diesel engineer, would fly to Davis Station in a Beaver aircraft, manufacture the vital part in the workshop there, and fly back.33 On 12 August weather conditions lifted, and the engineering mission began. Twelve days later Mawson went back on to its main generator and

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

no major power problems were experienced for the rest of the year. Mawson’s flying program continued with flights to Davis alternating with the support of field parties in the Prince Charles Mountains and Kemp and Enderby Lands. On 3 November, a cross-wind gust caused a Beaver aircraft to scrape a wingtip on the ice at Beaver Lake in the PCMs, but despite damage to the starboard aileron it was flown safely back to Mawson.34 In early December, the unhappy situation with Brandt at Wilkes was finally relieved when the United States agreed to send an aircraft from McMurdo Station in the Ross Sea to pick him up. On 3 December, Snow Williams wrote in his diary:

T O

R E M E M B E R

AIRCRAFT NEAR THE HANGAR AT MAWSON AFTER A BLIZZARD, 1959. (J BÉCHERVAISE) JATO (JET ASSISTED TAKEOFF) BOTTLES FITTED ON A UNITED STATES NEPTUNE AIRCRAFT TO PROVIDE EXTRA THRUST FOR EMERGENCY TAKE-OFFS FROM ICE RUNWAYS.

THIS AIRCRAFT EVACUATED HENRY BRANDT FROM WILKES IN DECEMBER 1960. (R DINGLE)

A Neptune landed, spent two hours on the ground refueling, while a Constellation circled overhead. We brought our firefighting Weasel. . .to pump the fuel into the Neptune. All went well and the Neptune, with a subdued Henry on board blasted off to the roar of about a dozen JATO [Jet Assisted Take Off] bottles, giving extra thrust.35

Despite an improvement in Brandt’s condition after nine months of treatment and confinement at Wilkes, the Americans insisted that the unfortunate man be restrained for the flight. From McMurdo, Brandt was flown to Christchurch in New Zealand. Don Styles arranged for the Antarctic Division’s medical officer in Melbourne, Frank Soucek, to take care of him: ‘He flew back with him to Melbourne and there we gave

205

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

he entire division was saddened by the death of the popular chief medical officer Frank Soucek, who collapsed with a heart attack during unloading operations at Macquarie Island on 24 December 1967. Soucek was one of the refugee doctors who came to Australia from Europe during World War II. He worked cheerfully in the only locations permitted by the medical authorities—Papua New Guinea and the Antarctic. He wintered on Macquarie Island in 1952 and emerged with a fluent but idiosyncratic command of the English language.

206

1954–1966

There are many affectionate stories told of the enthusiastic and gregarious Hungarian. Shortly after his Macquarie Island year, he worked in Papua New Guinea. On one occasion he was showing Lady Slim, the wife of the Governor-General of Australia, through one of the outlying hospitals. ‘This is the bloody dispensary’, explained the ebullient Soucek, ‘and this is the bloody operating theatre’. After taking in the ‘bloody’ casualty section and the ‘bloody’ wards, Lady Slim asked her guide where he had learned his English. ‘From those bloody bastards on Macquarie Island’, replied Soucek.

him the medical treatment that ensured his recovery. We spoke to the German Consul about this before we became too involved and he was quite aware of what we were doing, because the man concerned was a German migrant.’ Phil Law confirmed that after treatment Brandt returned to his home town in Germany and settled down to a normal life. One of the immediate results of the Brandt affair was a move to ensure psychological screening of ANARE expeditioners before sending them south to winter. December and the lengthening days of the Antarctic summer saw all stations hurrying to complete their annual programs and preparing for the changeover voyages. But with only a few weeks to go, the demons that controlled events in this extraordinary ANARE year of 1959 were still active. The RAAF flight stationed at Mawson in 1959 had flown almost continuously through the year, although one of the disadvantages of the hangar at Mawson was the dependence on sea ice in Horseshoe Harbour for ski-equipped operations. As the ice weakened before its annual breakout—usually in late January—aircraft were not able to exploit the best flying conditions of the year when there were almost 24 hours of daylight and periods of comparatively settled weather. With that in mind, permission had been obtained from the RAAF to move the two Beaver aircraft on to the plateau behind Mawson Station to operate on an ice strip with skis and so be available to support summer field work. Flying operations began from the plateau from 5 December. The aircraft were tethered to ‘dead-men’—wooden railway sleepers dug into the ice sheet—by half-tonne breaking strain steel cables.

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

On the morning of 28 December, Squadron Leader Jim Sandercock and engineer Sergeants Stewart Bell and Hedley McIntyre set out from Mawson Station in a Weasel over-snow vehicle to perform routine maintenance on the two Beavers anchored up on the plateau.36 The weather was fine, and the katabatic wind—a regular feature of the Mawson environment—was not unduly strong. But as they moved further up on to the plateau, it became stronger. When they neared the area where the two Beavers were tethered, Sandercock was astonished to see one of the aircraft well away from its anchored position: Seeing this [Beaver 203] put a lump in our throats. Obviously it had broken free and glissaded down the slope till it got itself into a little bit of a hollow, and there it sat. . .The second aircraft was still in its place.

T O

R E M E M B E R

RAAF PILOT JIM SANDERCOCK FLYING A BEAVER AIRCRAFT OUT OF MAWSON STATION IN 1959. THE AIRCRAFT WAS LATER DESTROYED ON THE GROUND DESPITE

SANDERCOCK’S

HEROIC EFFORTS TO ‘FLY’ THE UNTETHERED

BEAVER

AGAINST THE BLIZZARD.

Sandercock decided to climb aboard the straying (COURTESY J SANDERCOCK) Beaver, start its engine and taxi it back to where it could be secured. The rudder and aileron chocks were removed, and he began to taxi back up the ice slope while engineers Bell and McIntyre went ahead in the Weasel. As he did so, the wind increased to gale force and Sandercock found himself becoming airborne: There was nowhere I could go. I had no elevator controls to control the up and down movement of the aeroplane, and it was a matter of juggling power against the wind and using the rudder to keep it as much as possible into the wind. . .

By this stage the wind was gusting up to 120 knots, dropping back at times to 70 and 80 knots. Sandercock had committed himself to an untethered aircraft which was becoming airborne, but which he could not fly

207

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

he stress and strain of trying to save the Beaver aircraft may have contributed to the unusual situation confronting Jim Sandercock in January 1960. In the supposedly germ-free environment of Antarctica, he had apparently contracted poliomyelitis! He had, however, visited the Russian ship Ob which called at Mawson on 10 January and may have picked up an infection. By the time the ANARE relief ship Thala Dan arrived on 25 January the diagnosis of a poliomyelitis-like illness had been confirmed. The medical officer, Grahame Budd, faced a potentially disastrous situation. Poliomyelitis is highly infectious, and during the changeover period at Mawson there were 90 people potentially at risk. Any winterers incubating the disease would not develop symptoms until after Thala Dan left for Australia. Budd decided not to alarm Mawson’s population—fear of illness in isolated situations can lead to great

1954–1966

anxiety—but stressed that Sandercock’s illness was ‘a particularly debilitating virus infection’ and scrupulous attention to personal hygiene was essential to prevent further cases. Budd did tell three men about to set out on a long sledge journey about the possibility of polio, and they elected to continue.37 Budd’s next problem was whether to risk allowing Sandercock to embark on Thala Dan, but the alternative was to leave him at Mawson with limited access to physiotherapy. Sandercock tackled the journey strapped down and firmly wedged in his bunk with pillows: I was hospitalised at No. 6 RAAF Hospital, where they treated me for some nine or ten months before they would let me out, back up on my feet. I made a pretty good recovery after that, with physiotherapy. . .resumed light duties back in the RAAF and eventually got back to flying duties.

because his elevators were immobilised. He tried not to think about what would happen when his fuel ran out: The aeroplane was sliding backwards, power was being applied to get it back up the hill, and no decision was being made as to what was going to happen or when the wind was going to stop. I do remember looking at the fuel gauge and calculating that, at the rate I was using fuel, I could do this for 21¼2 hours as long as the fuel hung out, but I wasn’t so sure of myself.

208

As he juggled the nobbled Beaver, his plight was radioed back to the station and a D4 tractor and additional Weasel were driven (with difficulty) up to the area. Meanwhile the other tethered Beaver pulled its ‘dead-men’ out of the ice, and Bell and McIntyre, with great presence of mind, chased the aircraft in a D4 Caterpillar tractor (kept on the plateau for power generation) and dropped its blade on the cables and railway sleepers as the aircraft began to career down the slope. The arrival of the second D4 tractor would serve as anchor for the Beaver being manoeuvred by Sandercock. But OIC John Béchervaise, driving the comparatively light two-tonne Weasel, was worried that it might

1 9 5 9 —

A

Y E A R

T O

R E M E M B E R

not get there before the Beaver’s fuel ran out. The Weasel could not hold the Beaver by itself, but might do so—just—if anchored to iron stakes hammered into the ice. Getting a steel cable to the half-flying aircraft was a tricky and highly dangerous exercise and Sandercock watched their efforts with more than average interest: With great skill and resourcefulness, they placed the [Weasel] ahead of me. . .and I attempted to control the aeroplane while they tied steel cables and worked their way towards the wheels of my aircraft. You’ve got to remember the propeller was spinning at this stage of the game. . .how they did it I don’t know, but they managed to put cables around it and secure the aircraft. It was only after that that I was able to leave the aircraft.

THE REMAINS OF THE RAAF ANTARCTIC FLIGHT’S TWO BEAVER AIRCRAFT, TETHERED NEAR THE ICE AIRSTRIP BEHIND

MAWSON STATION

According to Mawson OIC John Béchervaise, the AFTER HURRICANE-FORCE elated and relieved pilot climbed down from the Beaver WINDS IN DECEMBER 1959. cockpit and greeted his rescuers with the immortal ( J BÉCHERVAISE) 38 words, ‘Ow yer goin’, mate? Orright?’ Sandercock was safe for the moment, but the wind was relentless. All the eight men on the plateau could do was crawl on their hands and knees to a caravan secured nearby and hope that it, too, did not blow away. Sandercock remembers looking out the window ‘and seeing the aeroplane absolutely thrash itself to pieces, like a balloon on a stick’: First it went over on one side and knocked a wing off, then back to the other, and the next thing you’d see a wing go past. Both aeroplanes eventually went that way. The second one tore out of its ice tie-down pit and it too was destroyed. It was only several days later that we were able to go out and recover what we could. They were complete wrecks. We brought the two fuselages back, merely because they contained radio wiring and instruments. . .it was a most unfortunate business.

It was not a good omen for the 1960 flying program when, for the first time, a twin-engined DC3 Dakota aircraft would be used by the RAAF in Antarctica. It would also be parked out on the plateau. The last three days of 1959 elapsed with no further dramatic events. 209

THIRTEEN

ANARE

LIFE

F

rom 1952 to 1963, the Antarctic Division had its headquarters in the Theosophical Building at 187 Collins Street, Melbourne, which also housed ASIO. Those who experienced life at 187 Collins Street regarded it as a vintage period of ANARE history when a zest for the pioneering phase of Australia’s Antarctic activities was reflected in the enthusiasm and dedication of its staff. Law tried to keep the division insulated from the ‘stereotyped attitudes’ of the public service generally: For example, it was a number of years before staff in the Division claimed overtime. Men would gladly work all Christmas Eve or New Year’s Day to get a ship away on time without any concern for payment.1

Des Lugg, who later became the Antarctic Division’s head of polar medicine, believed that the division was regarded as a front for ASIO: When I arrived, ASIO had moved out, but their paraphernalia was still there. . .massive armaments and window shutters and safes. In fact Phil Law kept the Law collection of Antarctic slides in probably the safest safe in Australia.

210

Lugg recalls that the eccentric mix of activities in the Theosophical Building was enhanced by the caretaker, who built himself a yacht on the roof and had it lowered into Collins Street one Sunday morning. Within the Theosophical Building, Phil Law involved himself in all aspects of ANARE operations. He was a ‘hands-on’ director in a way never again possible because of the sheer numbers of staff in later years. Law

A N A R E

T

L I F E

he Antarctic Division shared the Theosophical Building with the Australian intelligence service ASIO—a hive of activity during the Petrov affair in 1954. The first floor belonged to the Theosophical Society and housed their library and meeting room. The lift was driven by a formidable elderly theosophist, Miss Phillips, who was known to try to convert visitors to the doctrine of theosophy during their brief ascent to the upper floors. Susan Ingham was the Antarctic Division’s biology secretary:

We didn’t see much of the ASIO people. Sometimes they used the fire escape instead of the lift—possibly to avoid Miss Phillips! Miss Phillips’ enthusiasm for theosophy was matched by her fanatical campaign against those who dared to smoke in her lift. But the large sign PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SMOKING was often ignored by her passengers, who would conceal their cigarettes as they entered. Des Lugg:

On the ground floor there was a frock shop. The second floor was an up-market hairdresser’s which the Governor’s lady went to. The third floor was the Antarctic Division and the fourth floor was ASIO.

When confronted, they would say: ‘We are refraining from smoking’. So Miss Phillips would drive the lift very slowly to the top so that they were in danger of burning their fingers.

formulated major policy and often chaired the Executive Planning Committee: One of the problems of leading ANARE has always been that of creating a spirit of corporate endeavour and of breaking down the selfish departmental barriers. If departmental loyalties override the allegiance to the umbrella ANARE concept, fragmentation occurs and conflict disrupts the harmony of the enterprise both at the stations and in Australia. . . I found the Planning Committee exceptionally valuable. It helped me generate long-term policy and short-term programs, and when these were decided, it played a powerful role in gaining government acceptance for them. No major step was ever taken without the support of this body.2

The EPC was allowed to ‘wither on the vine’ at the end of 1962 and did not convene again until July 1965. It surfaced briefly in 1966 and then disappeared. Law believed it was never popular with ministers or senior bureaucrats because it had so many powerful and influential people suggesting how Australia’s Antarctic expeditions should be run. No similar advisory body existed until 1979 when ARPAC (Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee) was set up to advise the Minister

211

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

for Science and the Environment—then the parent department for ANARE. Law tended to have a combative approach towards the Canberra-based DEA bureaucrats charged with overseeing the Antarctic Division. He was dealing with diplomats often between postings. Most of them were unused to a logistics-based operation like ANARE and accustomed to more deference than they received from ANARE’s director. Law’s personal files reveal constant conflict over budgets and expenses, departmental and personal publicity (Law was well aware of the importance of publicity and public relations to ANARE), and attempts to have his own public service status upgraded. Despite the paper war and few face-to-face meetings—bureaucrats were not keen on return train trips from Canberra to Melbourne in the winter with a change of trains at Albury—Law respected most of the DEA people with whom he dealt, and this was largely reciprocated. Arthur Tange became secretary of the DEA in 1954: Everybody who needs government money. . .has to be a petitioner, it is just in the nature of things. . .[Law] was pretty blunt with me. . .blunt about what he wanted. An enthusiastic advocate for it. . .he naturally tended to see things from the point-of-view of the Antarctic Division and Antarctic expeditions. That’s the sort of enthusiasm that gets people places. It sometimes has to be curbed because of other prior claims for money and staff.3

Once in 1956 Law’s single-mindedness on advancing ANARE’s cause so exasperated James Plimsoll (then Deputy Secretary of the DEA) that he dashed off a handwritten note with an instruction to have it placed on Law’s personal file: I must tell Law one day that, in everything he writes and says to me, he leaves the distinct impression that he does not want to act as a servant of the Government; he wants only to explore the Antarctic.4

212

Until ANARE managed to get permission from the DEA to set up its own supply section, there were endless wrangles. Law recalls one particularly torrid session with a senior Treasury official over the division’s budget. The Treasury man queried the victualling of the stations, saying that a migrant hostel in Canberra could feed its residents for half the figure being claimed for Antarctic expeditioners. He was unimpressed by Law’s explanation that Mawson Station was a little more isolated than a Canberra migrant hostel, and threatened to send a Department of Immigration victualling officer to investigate the division’s food costs:

A N A R E

This was too much for me. I said: ‘If providing strawberry jam instead of plum jam at threepence a tin more will help to keep an Antarctic expeditioner happier, then that is what I will supply. . .The day that any victualling officer arrives to investigate the Antarctic Division’s system I shall send my resignation to the Department of External Affairs.’ I then walked out, followed by my very concerned departmental colleague saying, ‘Phil you shouldn’t speak to senior Treasury officials like that’. However, that was the end of the matter; it was not brought up again during my long period of office.5

Law was ably backed up in his dealings with Canberra by his administrative assistant Jeremiah Donovan and supply officer Dick Thompson, who were experienced public servants and knew how to put up credible, detailed budgets. Thompson understood the two major principles on which ‘hung all the Laws and the Prophets—the Public Service Act and the Treasury Regulations and Instructions’:6

L I F E

LEM MACEY (LEFT) AND DICK THOMPSON DURING CARGO OPERATIONS AT

HEARD ISLAND EN ROUTE TO ESTABLISH MAWSON STATION, 1954. (R THOMPSON)

Phil used to go there [Canberra] and argue and fight and scream and say they were destroying Australian science. They didn’t care about science, or hospitals, or academics—it was the Gladstonian thing of not spending money. So then we used to walk away with the money and Phil began to think I was the administrative marvel. What I did was to subvert the buggers—work out how the system worked, then make it work for you.7

Law not only involved himself with every aspect of ANARE operations, but played an activist role in defining its culture. This included creating rules of behaviour for expeditioners and officers-in-charge, personally selecting winterers, designing Antarctic clothing and buildings, overseeing cultural amenities, creating an ANARE uniform, and even choosing the vintages and varieties of the wine to be sent south. In Melbourne he constantly encouraged informal debates on how things could be improved—procedures streamlined or equipment made

213

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

A

lan Gilchrist, medical officer for the first wintering party on Heard Island in 1948, claims to have introduced the term ‘slushy’ to ANARE. He says the word is defined in some dictionaries as a slang term for ‘cook’s assistant’ on nineteenth century sailing ships, although it is not used by the RAN today. Gilchrist: In the typed instructions composed by Group Captain Campbell for the first expedition to Heard Island it was laid down that the messing officer (medical officer) should maintain a roster of ‘assistant cooks’ so that every

214

1954–1966

member of the expedition would take a turn to help the regular cook during the week and relieve him completely at the weekends.8 Gilchrist posted the roster as soon as the kitchen at Heard was reasonably operative. He titled it ‘Slushy Roster’ because of his professional concern that the correct disposal of all waste and observance of good kitchen hygiene would prevent any infectious diarrhoea. The ‘assistant cooks’ on ANARE stations have been ‘slushies’ ever since.

lighter, faster, safer or more cost effective. Collective food tastings were held to sample and judge rations to go south. To ensure staff were aware of Antarctic conditions, he began a policy of including HQ staff on resupply voyages—a tradition which has endured to the present. The station ‘bibles’—operations manuals—were constantly revised and updated. These documents not only set out the work program for the year, but covered all aspects of station organisation and administration, health, hygiene, field equipment and survival. Geologist Bruce Stinear recalls that in his three expeditions, no one ever queried any of the regulations. One of the rules specified there was to be a roster for ‘slushy’ duties—an expeditioner to help the cook. The only person on station who never acted as slushy was the cook.9 That is still the case. In the classless ANARE society even the officer-in-charge takes his turn at washing up, setting tables and sweeping out. Jack Field, a cook who wintered five times with ANARE, agreed that the slushy roster was a great leveller for the ‘boffins’—scientists: ‘They [the scientists] had to clean up the camp and do all the painting, not just the ordinary fellows. . .so it was an equaliser.’ Each expeditioner was issued with a personal manual covering all aspects of ANARE service from pre-departure procedures and use of Antarctic clothing to advice on interpersonal relations. The OIC had a confidential leader’s manual which included hints on leadership and how to cope with personality problems that might occur during the year. One of Law’s innovations that did not stand the test of time was the ANARE uniform, designed to be worn at formal mess dinners in the

A N A R E

L I F E

Antarctic and to give a smart corporate look to departing ANARE personnel on the wharf. The second version was a green gaberdine jacket with a belt, leather buttons, four pockets and matching trousers. Peter Lancaster Brown, about to sail to Heard Island in 1952, described it as a cross between a ski suit and a prisoner’s outfit. Others likened it to a coach driver’s uniform. Law was also determined that there would be an adequate library for expeditioners (including an Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘to settle any arguments’), a wide selection of gramophone records, and a stock of 16mm feature films. He thought it particularly important to have polar literature in the station libraries. Medical officer Grahame Budd recalls: Whenever he was overseas he would pick up second-hand copies of the polar classics, and both Heard Island and Mawson had marvellous collections—first editions of Shackleton and Mawson. We didn’t have much time to read, but when you do, it is a very good place to read about your predecessors.10

Law gave a lot of thought to ANARE policy on alcohol. There had been some difficulties with the ‘ration per man’ system in 1948 and 1949, and with hard liquor. In 1950 he forbade spirits and brought in a system where the OIC would issue a rationed amount of sherry, dry red and white flagon wines for evening meals: On Saturday nights (‘ding’ nights), good quality bottled dinner wines would replace flagon wines. After dinner on such nights there would be port, and for the rest of the evening during which cine films would be shown, beer would be available as well.11

The home brewing of beer was introduced to augment the limited stocks of bottled beer that could be taken south. The only exception to the rule on spirits concerned the officers-in-charge. Law contacted the chief distiller of CSR at Bundaberg in Queensland and arranged for a special brew of rum at 180 proof strength that would, when mixed with an equal quantity of water, be of standard strength. The OP rum was stored in specially constructed two-gallon oak casks: I then gave one cask to each OIC, and advised him to use it. . .for semi private occasions and not for general station use. The casks were beautiful and the rum of quality I have never tasted before or since. This experiment proved well worthwhile, the OICs appreciated this special privilege, and so far as I know, it was never abused.12

The tradition of a general ration of supplied liquor has continued although winterers are now permitted to take down personal stocks as

215

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

well. In the 1950s Australia was not a very multi-cultural country, and wine was regarded with suspicion by many Australians. Grahame Budd recalls that wine bars were places where ‘old plonks’ and ‘deros’ would go: On one occasion when we had some nice wine on the table [at Heard Island] one of the men looked at me very sternly and said: ‘Jeez Doc, I likes me drop of piss as well as the next man, but I draws the line at plonk!’13

Unwilling to impose his own sophisticated tastes in wine on the stations, Law instituted wine tastings at the division with those who had wintered and those who were about to, to get a consensus. He felt that his beer and wine policy paid dividends. Heavy consumption of spirits on Antarctic stations had led to quite awkward and dangerous situations. One man formed the habit of charging out and smashing the cinema screen down on Saturday nights: Another. . .would wander off outside on his own and pass out in a snow drift. When he was missed a search would be instituted and he would be rescued, half frozen, and put to bed. Still another man had the habit, when heavily intoxicated, of piling papers on his bunk and setting fire to them. In an environment where fire is the greatest single hazard, this was a frightening performance.14

216

As an administrator, Law was demanding and insistent on punctuality and on deadlines being met. If they were not, his response was always controlled—curt, abrupt or dismissive. Those who worked with him for ten years or more could never recall seeing him angry and he had a genuine ‘open door’ policy for any staff member who wanted to see him.15 Dick Thompson believed that Law added ‘an atmosphere, a dimension of excitement’ into what was happening by having everyone involved one way or the other. ‘You had no doubt you were working in a very, very interesting organisation compared to elsewhere in the Public Service.’16 Those who worked with Law at the Antarctic Division HQ in Melbourne believed he did not hold grudges against those who, for one reason or another, had failed his expectations. Having selected his team, he let them get on with their jobs, and backed them with the kind of loyalty he expected (and got) in return.17 This tolerance did not extend to expeditioners who had caused trouble or failed to do their jobs properly on ANARE stations. It was widely believed that those individuals were logged in Law’s mental black book, and were never selected to go to Antarctica again.18 Some were not even named in the official list of expeditioners. ANARE’s first leader, Stuart Campbell, had selected the 1948

A N A R E

L I F E

expeditioners through a combination of the ‘old boy network’ and a belief that anyone who applied to go to Antarctica ‘would be the right type anyway’. As soon as Law became director he established a formal application process which began with Australia-wide advertisements and ended with a personal interview before a panel. Law chaired these interview panels and effectively selected all ANARE expeditioners himself. He was impressed by applicants who were keen bushwalkers or skiers and who he thought would have some appreciation of what the elements in Antarctica could unleash. He often approved an applicant on a ‘gut feeling’, but admits some of his early judgments were flawed: I used to be impressed with enthusiasm. . .the sort of man who would say, ‘I will do any job. . .so long as you take me’. I thought that was a wonderful sign of enthusiasm. . . . Antarctica is so isolated, so many things in life are removed from your environment [that] really all you have down there is your job. If you don’t like that job, or you’re not good at it, your chance of success is heavily reduced. So the most important thing, I think, in picking an Antarctic person is that he should love his job, because he’s got to be at it fourteen or sixteen hours a day for a whole year. . .And if he’s good at it then he gets the respect of the other men, regardless of his personality, and that’s a plus.

On several occasions, in the 1950s and 1960s, ships were able to evacuate expeditioners with psychological and medical problems from sub-Antarctic islands which could be reached comparatively easily in ice-free seas. The Antarctic continent was not so accessible. The tragic situation faced by Henry Brandt at Wilkes in 1959, following his mental breakdown and isolation in a makeshift cell for six months, caused Minister for External Affairs Richard Casey to instruct Law to arrange psychological tests for ANARE expeditioners before they were selected: Casey had the simplistic view that you develop a questionnaire with thirty questions and you give that to every applicant, and the sheep go out one door and the goats go out the other. . .

Law consulted the Professor of Psychology at Melbourne University, Oscar Oeser, and asked him to design a suitable test for choosing Antarctic men: He said: ‘Well, Law, what are the qualities of the men that are successful?’ In other words, how do you define the qualities of a good expeditioner? I said: ‘That’s what I want you to tell me.’ ‘No’, he said. ‘You tell me what they are and I’ll design a test for them.’

217

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Even if ANARE did design a test, Law realised he did not have the budget to fly a psychologist around Australia every year to conduct interviews with prospective expeditioners. Oeser suggested he approach the Australian Army Psychological Service for assistance. He did and Lieutenant Colonel George Owens was selected to carry out the project. Owens was delighted to be involved: It was good for the army. . .because it would also help us to get some insight and get some scientific work done in relation to the performance of people in isolation. . .which was becoming more evident in these days with long range penetration. . .and small groups operating in isolated territories.

Owens steeped himself in Antarctic literature and accounts of the activities of Mawson, Shackleton and Scott, and began travelling to Antarctica on the annual resupply voyages, interviewing expeditioners on the spot, and debriefing them on the way home. (This procedure is still carried out by army psychologists.) The only published material available at that time on the psychology of Antarctic service was a paper by Law to the Medical Journal of Australia, 20 February 1960, ‘Personality Problems in Antarctica’. In it, Law identified some of the difficulties faced by a group of men surviving for a year in close proximity and total isolation, without the company of women, and in a community ranging from biologists and upper atmosphere physicists, through to diesel mechanics, carpenters and cooks. Although ‘trifling personal peculiarities’ could cause mounting exasperation and tension, there were many compensations in Antarctic life—apart from the adventure and magnificent scenery. He wrote: The existence of an expedition member is socially uncomplicated. . .there is no money, and therefore no financial anxiety. One has no concern about financial status—the Joneses have been left far behind. . .There is no time wasted in travel, social engagements or in holidays and weekends. A scientist can accomplish two years work in one at an Antarctic station.19

218

Although Law never wintered on an ANARE station he was aware of one of the greatest dangers facing an isolated group—the forming of cliques—and the need for the officer-in-charge to keep that situation in check, while not joining any faction himself. He also charted the entirely predictable graph of morale at a wintering station. Morale is down at the beginning, during the uncertainty of the changeover period, with the former party still there. It surges to its highest point as soon as the ship sails, for about two months, then dips as the long winter nights, lack of

A N A R E

L I F E

T

he advent of midwinter, the night of the solstice, has been a high point of celebration for all polar wintering expeditions since the era of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson. It is an occasion usually marked by a formal dinner, an elaborate menu, special wines and spirits hoarded for the occasion and speeches. As the evening progresses formality is abandoned. There may be recitations, songs, burlesque sketches and almost invariably a fancy dress party. At Scott’s last midwinter dinner in his hut at Cape Evans in 1911, Admiral Sir Edward Evans later wrote of the ‘only Antarctic dance we enjoyed. . .I remember dancing with the cook whilst Oates danced with Anton’. Fueled by brandy punch, the cook, Clissold, so far forgot himself as to call Scott ‘good old Truegg’. (Truegg was the name of a dried egg powder used in cakes and puddings.) Scott’s response to this indiscretion is not recorded. Men dressing as women on these all-male midwinter occasions has been an enduring Antarctic tradition enthusiastically perpetuated by many ANARE winterers over the years. Photographs taken at these occasions feature

AN INTREPID EXPEDITIONER ALAN MCNEILL DIVES INTO SUB-ZERO WATERS FOR A MIDSUMMER SWIM AT DAVIS, 1969. (R MCLEAN) A MIDWINTER PARTY AT MAWSON STATION, 1960. FROM LEFT: TERRY ‘CHEDDAR’ ELKINS, JIM KICHENSIDE AND GEORGE CRESSWELL. (G NEWTON) INTREPID ANARE EXPEDITIONER BILL BREEZE PADDLING HIS HOME-MADE RECREATIONAL CANOE AT CASEY, 1976. ( W BREEZE) ➤

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

bearded ‘ladies’ with improbably prominent chests and hairy legs appearing under extremely short skirts. While psychologists might be tempted to theorise about repressed homosexuality, ANARE winterers regard it simply as a joyous joke. Or as David Luders, an OIC at Casey and Mawson in the early 1970s put it: ‘I don’t think the thought of homosexuality crossed our minds.’ Luders was aware, however, of a general level of frustration at the lack of women on the stations. He can only recall one occasion when that manifested itself in any overt way during a midwinter celebration: At around midnight one of the fellows came into the recreation room dressed as a woman. His girlfriend had given him a wig. He had a pinkish complexion and he only had a very small black moustache. He had a miniskirt and stockings on, and the wig transformed him into a passable female. His/her unexpected arrival stopped the party in its tracks, and a great shout went up.

220

1954–1966

Luders was aware of a deal of horseplay and coarse male jokes, but not long afterwards he was alarmed to see the ‘girl’ lying on his back, with another expeditioner miming sexual intercourse with him. Although it was a burlesque, the OIC felt things were getting out of hand: I was fairly famous for unusual ways of dealing with situations and I turned around to a water fire extinguisher on the wall and sprayed them. They wouldn’t speak to me for three days afterwards. But I did that because it broke the tension. It certainly made them seem foolish. . .it gave people something to laugh about, because if I’d given them a dressing down everyone would have felt uncomfortable. A midwinter swim has become a more robust tradition for the extremely hardy—some of whom have to smash a hole in the coastal sea ice to indulge. The urges to celebrate the longest night, looking forward to the return of the sun, are powerful indeed.

sunshine and the need to stay indoors lower morale. The graph rises when the sun returns and the expeditioners prepare for summer field trips. Another high point is reached in the last two months when the prospect of relief and a return home acts as a spur to finish uncompleted programs. By the 1960s there was a realisation that the stations needed a core of solid professionals who just went about their work without flamboyance and great displays of ego. In 1960 Law bravely attempted to define the qualities of a good expeditioner as someone who was good at their job, unselfish (willing to pitch in and help in general station work), tolerant, capable of self control, optimistic, possessing ‘stickability’ (in carrying a work program through), and with a sense of adventure and curiosity. He believed that whether an expeditioner was married or unmarried was not particularly relevant and nor was age.20

A N A R E

L I F E

As the army-related psychological screening began in the early 1960s Law and Owens found they had less flexibility in vetting the personalities of the specialist scientists, although it was hoped a preoccupation with their work would overshadow any anti-social qualities. Owens believed that made it even more important to have maintenance and support staff who were confident, energetic, motivated and conscientious: Most of the mechanics had their funny little ways of making motors work under any circumstances and their acceptability to the other members was based on their ability to make those damn machines run, and to keep the electricity going.

It is universally accepted in ANARE culture that a happy and competent cook makes a good station. Law remembers receiving a requisitioning cable in Melbourne near the end of one year reading: SEND ONE GOOD COOK, PACK WELL IN COTTON WOOL.21 Stefan Csordas, medical officer on Macquarie Island, who spent three winters there in the late 1950s, faced a potentially serious situation when an expedition cook broke three front teeth from his upper denture: As he was a little bit on the alcoholic side, I thought that having a cook who can’t eat and doesn’t have enough to drink, will [give us] a horrible time. So I had to improvise something for him.

With typical ANARE ingenuity Csordas ground down an elephant seal’s tusk with a pedal dental drill, repaired the cook’s dentures and preserved group happiness. In the 1950s Csordas, like the other ANARE medical officers, had half a day’s training at the Royal Melbourne Dental Hospital to help cope with dental emergencies. In later years this was increased to two weeks after it became clear that doctors in Antarctica spent quite a lot of their professional time attending to cracked or broken fillings and other dental work. Most expeditioners knew their medical officers had only rudimentary knowledge of dentistry and visited them reluctantly. At Mawson in 1956 Don Dowie experimented with a pedal-operated drill which sometimes went unexpectedly into reverse, generating heat, and pain to his unfortunate patient. Once, while Dowie was taking his turn at cooking on Sunday, he attempted ice cream and caramel sauce. But the sauce turned into toffee. It was the chewiest stuff you’ve ever seen in your life, and fillings were coming out like machine-gun bullets—you could hear them popping! The next morning I had a line-up outside the surgery for dental work

221

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

while I put in temporary fillings. I’m quite sure they thought I’d done it on purpose to get a bit of practice.

Often expeditioners (and cooks) had their own ways of curing individuals of annoying mannerisms which disrupted the community. Bob Dingle was a weather observer at Macquarie in 1956 and remembers one winterer being obsessive about his food: He would examine all dishes put in front of him for little bits of hair. . .and if he found something he would hold it up and expose it to the whole group, saying: ‘Look, here’s another short and curly’.

NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION IN ANTARCTICA. MEDICAL OFFICER PETER GORMLY DRILLS HIS OWN TOOTH ABSCESS. (COURTESY P GORMLY)

This upset the cook, Jim Morgan, who waited till someone had their hair cut, then collected the results. The next day he baked individual fruit pies and completely filled one with hair:

So when this fellow faced up to the counter for his dessert he was given the hair pie, with a nice layer of crust over it, smothered in custard. Everybody else in the party had been warned this was going to happen, so when he got back to the table and put his spoon into the pie, all the hair fluffed out. . .He was certainly cured from ever mentioning again that he’d found a hair in his tucker.

Sometimes serious tensions would build up between individuals to a degree not always evident to the rest of the party or the OIC. RAAF pilot Doug Leckie wintered at Mawson in 1956 and late one night—as duty night watchman—walked into the mess to check that the fires in the kitchen stove were safe. He found two young men on the kitchen floor with their hands around each other’s throats. Leckie was sure they were out to do each other in:

222

I had to break them apart and order them off to bed because [I think] they’d have killed each other if I hadn’t turned up at that psychological moment. They were very serious and dead silent—dead silent. . .From then on they kept apart and had very little to do with each other.

A N A R E

L I F E

I

t has been estimated that the chance of a cerebral haemorrhage occurring in a small group of fit men is one in ten thousand. Yet that was the situation facing Russel Pardoe, the ANARE medical officer at Mawson in 1961. On 2 November 1961, the station’s senior diesel mechanic Alan Newman collapsed after lifting a bag of coal briquettes on to his back, suffering a haemorrhage from an artery at the base of the brain.22 Over the next 27 days his condition deteriorated, and Pardoe, who had been consulting with a Melbourne neurosurgeon by radio-telegram, was advised that if the pressure inside Newman’s skull was not relieved, he would almost certainly die. Pardoe had no previous experience in neurosurgery. Two Mawson expeditioners had attended the Royal Melbourne Hospital for two weeks before sailing for Antarctica. The cook, Ted Giddings, had been trained in the duties of a theatre sister, and the geophysicist Rod Hollingsworth as an assistant anaesthetist. Pardoe was given advice by cable from Melbourne on what he should do, but essential equipment had to be manufactured first. Pardoe: With the aid of some illustrations in an instrument catalogue, a brain cannula 6 centimetres in length and 2 millimetres in internal diameter was improvised from a dental dry-air bulb syringe. The tip of the syringe was closed with silver solder and a lateral opening was filed in the shaft. . .A second dental dry-air syringe was modified to make a sucker.23 In order to test these and other instruments needed for the operation, a Weddell seal was shot in the skull with a .38 revolver, and ‘the resultant cerebral haematoma was aspirated

RUSSIANS TO THE RESCUE. ALAN NEWMAN, SUFFERING FROM A CEREBRAL HAEMORRHAGE,

MAWSON STATION IN A RUSSIAN ILYUSHIN 18 AIRCRAFT ON 30 DECEMBER 1961. (R WYERS)

WAS EVACUATED FROM

by the technique to be used on the patient’. On 29 November, 28 days after Newman became ill, the Mawson surgical ‘team’ gathered in the main room of the surgery hut. Pardoe drilled through Newman’s skull and managed to aspirate some of the blood clot and relieve the intracranial pressure. However, Newman’s condition deteriorated further, and a second operation repeated this procedure on 3 December. This time Newman’s condition improved. But on 16 December he collapsed again, and by 23 December Pardoe was planning to operate once more. Newman rallied a little, and the operation was postponed. At this stage Pardoe was not optimistic about his patient’s chances. The relief ship ➤

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

was not due at Mawson until mid-January 1962 and would not be back in Australia until March after a long, rough sea voyage. However, in late December it was learned that two long-range Soviet aircraft were making an inaugural flight from Moscow to the Russian Antarctic station at Mirny, via Australia and New Zealand. The Antarctic Division asked for Soviet aid which was willingly given. Pardoe accompanied his critically ill patient on the flight, leaving Mawson on 30 December in a Russian Ilyushin 18 aircraft (not the long-range aircraft that had first been discussed), and

224

1954–1966

flying to Mirny—then on to the Americans at McMurdo, who flew Pardoe and Newman to Christchurch, New Zealand, in a Hercules. Ten days after leaving Mawson Station, Newman was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, where he was operated on again. Remarkably, he made a complete recovery, apparently suffering no intellectual impairment when he was tested several years later. He went back to work and resumed a normal life. On 1 January 1963 Russel Pardoe was awarded an MBE for his remarkable medical efforts in Antarctica.

No murders have occurred on any Australian stations in half a century of ANARE operations, although records do not reveal whether any were planned. The total isolation of wintering parties in the early years was emphasised by the problem of communication with the outside world. Radio transmissions between ANARE stations and Australia were difficult, due to ionospheric disturbances and auroral activity, and all official correspondence was hand keyed in Morse code. Radio blackouts could occur for some days at a time, and even the Morse transmissions were frequently interrupted. Great care was taken in the selection of the radio operators and communications personnel because the radio shack tended to be a social hub and even though much of the incoming administrative cables came in code, there was always the chance of finding out something from the outside world. George Owens said they tried to select radio operators who were sociable and amenable—but also able to keep their mouths shut and not pass on sensitive or personal material relating to other expeditioners.24 Personal messages to and from Antarctica were transmitted by Morse radiogram through the Overseas Telecommunication Commission’s beam radio stations at special rates. The cost to each expeditioner was subsidised, with a free of charge wordage allocated each month. Messages which exceeded this limit were charged to the expeditioner in Australia. Phil Law quickly realised that the free communications allowance was inadequate, and that winterers would face a heavy financial burden when they returned to Australia:

A N A R E

L I F E

Trevor Heath [ANARE’s first administrative officer] had the idea of using Bentley’s Complete Phrase Code, an international code for cable and radio communications.25

A supplementary code of five-letter words was drawn up specially designed for ANARE, with useful phrases like: YOGIP YASEL YAYIR YIHKE

Please send details of bank account. We’ve just had a blizzard. Fine snow has penetrated through small crevices in the buildings. I have grown a beard which is generally admired.26

Any personal communications were known as ‘Whizzers’, after the much used code grouping WYSSA—‘All my love darling’. While the five-letter code was useful for keeping down cable costs, it was not well suited to intimate communication. Geoff Butterworth wintered at Wilkes in 1963 and at Mawson in 1966. He and his wife Fay prearranged a more personal channel of communications as well as the conventional messages like ‘Kids are well’. The key to this intimacy was the code grouping YOHNA—‘My message is contained in the following quotation’. Fay and Geoff each had a copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of Verse: We went through that, and boy, there’s a lot of good stuff in that book of poetry. We really kept ourselves going for the whole year with that. And my husband wasn’t a big poetry reader, but he knew Palgrave by the time he came home.

In 1949, realising how important personal cables were in maintaining morale at ANARE stations, Phil Law appointed Mrs Mynwe McDonald as cables officer to oversee not only communications, but all kinds of personal problems concerning expeditioners and their partners or families in Australia: Mrs Mac, as she was always called, reminded men of their wives’ birthdays, ordered gifts and anniversary flowers (often at her own expense), smoothed out misunderstandings, visited wives in times of family misfortune, and operated on a wide involvement that went far beyond the call of duty. I cannot imagine how we could have managed without her.27

One morning Mrs Mac received a cable from Sydney to be sent on to Antarctica: BY THE TIME YOU RECEIVE THIS I SHALL HAVE

225

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

R

adio Australia’s Mary Adams recalls some difficult diplomatic moments. Once she inadvertently read out a letter from a lover and received an angry phone call from the expeditioner’s wife. Mary believes ‘Calling Antarctica’ broke new ground in radio: I think we broadcast the first ever birth on radio. The wife insisted that the birth be recorded and we took up a good quarter-hour of a program with somebody going ‘UURGH! ERGH!’ and the baby was actually born on Radio Australia. The guys asked for that to be replayed two or three times, so I can only assume it was important to them.

1954–1966

COMMITTED SUICIDE. Law told her to be on the night train to Sydney. Fay Butterworth later wrote: Arriving in Sydney next morning, she hurried out to the address and found the house empty. The occupant, a neighbour informed her, had gone off to work. She settled down to wait. Toward evening a smart young woman came through the front gate and Mrs Mac rose to her feet and introduced herself explaining why she had come. The woman was astounded. Coming all that way! But yes, thank you, she had quite recovered from her attack of midwinter blues.28

Mynwe McDonald ‘mothered’ ANARE expeditioners for nineteen years. In January 1967 Shelagh Robinson took over that role until her retirement in 1981. The Antarctic Division still continues this practice. Since 1987 Mary Mulligan has been the expeditioner training and family liaison officer at the division, which adheres to strict privacy legislation requirements. The only other contact with the outside world (apart from occasional amateur radio transmissions) was via short wave broadcasts from the ABC’s Radio Australia. ‘Calling Antarctica’, a special program for ANARE winterers, was first broadcast in 1948 and ended in the mid 1980s after satellite links revolutionised Antarctic communications and expeditioners could simply pick up the phone and ring home. Always compered by women, ‘Calling Antarctica’ relayed letters, personal messages and request records. The presenters most associated with the program were Jocelyn Terry and Mary Adams, and their voices and personalities were appreciated by communities of lonely men. Mawson OIC John Béchervaise wrote in his diary on 15 April 1955:

226

At a quarter to three, for the first time since our arrival, the Radio Australia program ‘Calling Antarctica’ came in ‘loud and clear’. Jocelyn Terry’s pleasant, youthful voice, gave us news of home, a brief, well made summary of my own press report and two or three ‘request’ records (asked for by men on Macquarie Island).

A N A R E

L I F E

It is good not to take radio for granted. Outside the surgery windows, grey drift ebbed and flowed and with it all vision of other buildings and the world. On the windows, miraculous silver palms were etched in frost. . .and Jocelyn went on talking, thousands of miles beyond the racing drift. . .where it was already night. Little items of news—the arrival in Melbourne of the Italian Opera Company, new parking laws and so on, were laced with personal messages. Men sat down to tea with new and pleasant conversational topics.29

Even in 1960 Phil Law argued that there was some merit in not having too much communication between those wintering in the Antarctic and the home front. At Wilkes Station the United States authorities had a system whereby an expeditioner could make voice contact home through amateur radio enthusiasts: Some men who have spoken directly by radio-telephone to their wives tend to be disturbed and depressed for several days after the initial exhilaration of the personal communication fades. Also there are wives whose regular telephone conversations to their isolated husbands would degenerate into catalogues of petty worries which the husband could just as well do without.30

Only men wintered at ANARE stations until 1976 on Macquarie Island and 1981 on the Antarctic continent. In 1960 Phil Law wrote in his paper ‘Personality Problems in Antarctica’ that ‘little was known of the sexual disturbances and abnormalities caused by the deprivation of women’s company’: In our experience, men seem to accept the absence of any sex life realistically; their attitude can be summed up by the sentence: ‘There is nothing you can do about it, so the less you think of it the better.’31

Law believed this philosophical acceptance of Antarctic celibacy was partly due to the ‘absence of constant sexual stimulants which abound in a civilised environment’—pretty girls, advertisements, sexy magazines and films—and speculated that much sexual energy was sublimated in hard work: Men do miss wives and sweethearts, and at times they miss them desperately—particularly in moments of emotional stress, and particularly when family events at home worry them; but for the greater part of the time the men appear untroubled . One wonders whether the cold climate provides some sedative influence.32

227

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

OUTDOOR CHRISTMAS MAWSON, 1957. SURVEYOR MORRIE

CELEBRATIONS AT

FISHER WAITED NINE MONTHS FOR THE CHANCE TO WEAR HIS DINNER SUIT, WHILE THE BEMUSED PENGUIN IS ALWAYS FORMALLY DRESSED.

THE SECOND PENGUIN (LEFT) SEEN LEAVING BAR ANTARCTICA IS A NON-DRINKER. (AAD ARCHIVES)

228

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

In 1960 Law wrote that he was not aware of any overt cases of homosexuality in the all-male Antarctic communities, but some incipient tendencies had been noted: For example, one older man could not resist running his fingers through the blond hair of a young, good-looking lad each time he passed him, which finally provoked the youth into threatening to cut his throat if he did it again. I heard that one man—an ex-seaman—did some soliciting on one occasion, but there were no takers.33

The showing of feature films provided some outlet for sexual frustrations. As the plots and stories became well known, winterers would shout bawdy interjections, or turn the sound down completely and provide their own dialogue. Often the most turgid and predictable feature films, newsreels or magazines were re-edited in an unexpected and bizarre manner. Trevior Boyd, who wintered at Macquarie Island in 1950, remembers there was a lot of general talk about women and sex, and at times ‘we used to stop the film and burn the lamps out in the projector to examine women closely’.

A N A R E

L I F E

Sometimes the films had a markedly civilising effect on the community. Pride and Prejudice was the most popular film shown on Macquarie Island in 1950, and the entire station took on the elaborate manners and courtly language of Jane Austen’s genteel nineteenth century England. Trevior Boyd recalls that asking someone to pass the butter at dinner would elicit the invariable response: ‘Such affability, such graciousness—you overwhelm me!’ When Law arrived to relieve the station he was at a loss to account for the quaint mid-Victorian quality of the men’s everyday dialogue until he was told of the profound influence of Pride and Prejudice. All wintering communities were exclusively male for the first 29 years of ANARE. Phil Law said he tried to have a woman sent to Macquarie Island in 1953, when a physicist engaged to carry out auroral observations at Hurd Point on the southern tip of the island asked to take his wife: ‘As he would be spending most of the year isolated in a small hut, I sought permission from my Department, but it was refused.’34 The first women to visit an Australian station officially did so in the summer of 1959–60, at Macquarie Island. Susan Ingham, biology secretary at the Antarctic Division, claims part credit for the breakthrough when she marched into Phil Law’s office and said: ‘I want to go to Macquarie Island on the changeover, please.’ Rather to my surprise, because I thought it might take a long campaign, he said: ‘Well, it might be possible. We’d have to get a cabin of four.’

Other women had applied—Mary Gillham (an English botanist) and Isobel Bennett and Hope Macpherson who were both biologists interested in the geographical distribution of species in coastal tidal zones. Bennett and Macpherson were experienced travellers, used to sailing on coastal vessels in rough seas, getting in and out of small boats and landing on small islands and remote coasts around southern Australia and Bass Strait. The announcement about the women on 24 November 1959 triggered a media flurry of reporters and photographers and a newsreel film crew. Susan Ingham: I did an interview which was rather fun. Later we successfully foiled an attempt by the [Melbourne] Herald to photograph our underwear—saying firmly that it was just ordinary winter stuff. Women’s Weekly came, and Woman’s Day wanted a story on our return. In fact it got to such a point that my bread shop (who didn’t know my name or where I worked) inquired if I was a good sailor and my dentist wrote ‘Bon Voyage’ on a receipted bill.

229

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

THE FIRST WOMEN MEMBERS OF ANARE TO VISIT MACQUARIE ISLAND PREPARE TO SAIL ON THALA DAN IN DECEMBER 1959. FROM LEFT: SUSAN INGHAM, MARY GILLHAM, HOPE MACPHERSON, ISOBEL BENNETT. (COURTESY I BENNETT) NEL LAW, SEEN WATCHING A CHESS GAME AT MAWSON IN FEBRUARY 1961, WAS THE FIRST WOMAN TO VISIT AN

ANARE

CONTINENTAL STATION.

(R MERRICK)

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Isobel Bennett, one of Australia’s foremost marine scientists, was unamused when she was told during an interview with Phil Law at the Antarctic Division that ‘on our behaviour rested the future of our sex with regard to ANARE voyages’.35 But all the women were aware that the spotlight was on them. The voyage in Thala Dan was unexceptional and the scientists suffered the usual frustrations at Macquarie of weather-interrupted sessions of field work snatched when possible during the unloading and resupply operations. The visit was productive. Between them the first women to accompany an ANARE expedition produced two books on general aspects of the island and a series of scientific papers on various aspects of island biology. Their presence was not immediately noted. Although all male members of the Macquarie Island changeover party were named in a report written for the Polar Record by Phil Law, the women’s contribution was summarised: Four women biologists carried out work in littoral ecology, the effects of nesting sea birds on plants, and the ANARE bird and seal programme.36

The women must have behaved impeccably. Isobel Bennett later wrote:

230

On that initial trip, it behoved the four women to tread warily. We were invaders in a man’s realm and were regarded with some suspicion. . .The venture inevitably made headlines. Today [1971] our presence on a polar ship south-bound for Macquarie does not even warrant a press mention, and we have become an accepted part in the scheme of things—though only for changeover voyages.37

A N A R E

L I F E

The distinction of being the first woman to visit an Australian continental Antarctic station went to Nel Law, Phil Law’s wife, who sailed on Magga Dan to Mawson and Oates Land in February and March 1961. She departed amid some controversy. Mrs Law was invited on Magga Dan as a guest of the Lauritzen Line and the captain, but when the story got into the press there was resentment by journalists who had been denied access to Antarctic resupply voyages due to lack of available berths. The DEA became involved and Ralph Harry, First Assistant Secretary, telephoned Law in Perth on 24 January—the day of sailing: I said I thought we had to consider. . .we had refused facilities to the press and that other personnel on the expedition would not be able to have their wives with them. He said that he supposed that in the circumstances he should not take his wife.38

Senator John Gorton, representing the Minister for External Affairs, came to the rescue at the last moment. He went to the Fremantle docks to farewell Magga Dan and saw Nel Law ‘walking disconsolately up and down the wharf’: Phil Law introduced me to his wife, and I said, ‘Well, you are going, no doubt’. She said she couldn’t go, and I said ‘Why can’t you go?’ She said, ‘[External] Affairs won’t let me’. And I said, ‘Well go. Get on the bloody boat and go now.’

Gorton’s support was needed in the coming weeks when questions were asked in Federal Parliament about ‘the presence of a woman’ aboard Magga Dan. The press had a field day after it was reported Magga Dan was caught in pack ice for eleven days near Chick Island off the coast of Wilkes Land after servicing an automatic weather station there. ICE GRIPS SHIP: WOMAN ABOARD—MP’S TO ASK QUESTIONS trumpeted the Sydney Telegraph.39 On 18 March the Canberra Times reported the ship ‘caught in the jaws of crushing ice’. Then: ‘Magga Dan, which has a woman on board, has freed itself from the perilous massed ice packs off Chick Island’.40 Phil Law’s official voyage report did not mention his wife’s presence on the voyage. An accomplished artist, Nel Law produced a magnificent series of oil and water colour paintings of her Antarctic voyage. Her visit to Antarctica had been a milestone of sorts, but had not ‘broken the ice’ for her sex in ANARE service. Twenty years were to elapse before an Australian woman expeditioner wintered on an Australian continental station. 231

FOURTEEN

FILLING

IN THE MAP

W

hen Australia established its first permanent settlement—Mawson Station—on the Antarctic continent, there was little accurate detail available of the coastline and interior features of Australia’s vast Antarctic claim. During his time as director of the Antarctic Division from 1949 to 1966 Phillip Law oversaw a program of basic exploration to fill in the dotted lines on more than 5000 kilometres of unexplored coastline and to locate and fix the mountain ranges and peaks breaking through the Antarctic ice cap in the interior of the AAT. Law and the surveyors, geologists, pilots and other ANARE expeditioners shared in the delight of raw adventure and discovery during these pioneering years. But exploration had to be fitted in between the essential resupply and changing over of personnel each summer.1 Law called it ‘Hit and Run Exploration’:

232

You’d sail along the coast generally in lousy weather, just praying that when you got to a certain place you’d get that odd spot of one or two days of good weather. You’d hang around until you got it. . .then you’d have everyone on board drilled on what they were to do, with people allocated to various duties. The surveyor would go here and he’d get an astrofix. The geomagnetician would go there and he would take his geomagnetic observations, and you’d have a number of men deputed to make a census of all the birds on the island, the flying birds and the penguins. So the fine day would dawn. We’d anchor the ship immediately. As soon as the anchor dropped the boats would go, and the pontoons full of men and they’d land. Within half an hour everyone would be working

F

I L L I N G

furiously, and they’d work around the clock without stopping for food or anything more than cups of tea and biscuits—no sleep and 24 hours’ daylight—just go for your life until the weather broke.

I N

T H E

M A P

AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC TERRITORY AND NEARBY NATIONAL CLAIMS.

Each summer Law designated new areas of the AAT coast to be explored. He regarded the investigation of the Oates Land coast—on the extreme eastern end of the AAT close to the TransAntarctic Mountains—as the most rewarding and exciting of his career. On 20 February 1959 Magga Dan reached a large pool of open water 90 kilometres from the Oates Land coast, and an Auster aircraft was lowered

233

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

I

n 1956 Dick Thompson, ANARE’s supply officer from 1950 to 1960, was directing the unloading of equipment from Kista Dan to make scientific observations on Lewis Island, a small lump of rock near Adélie Land. Incoming OIC at Mawson, Bill Bewsher, Law and a New Zealand observer, Harry Ayers, decided to practise some climbing on an ice cliff nearby, across a stretch of open water. They were roped together, but only had two ice axes. Law said he would manage without one. The three men were out of sight of the ship as they began to climb. Ayers (an accomplished alpinist) was leading, followed by Law and Bewsher. Law heard Bewsher call out: Mountaineers are taught that if you fall, you scream immediately to let everyone else know. Luckily Bill called, but I was too busy. I thought, ‘God, I haven’t got an ice axe to belay myself with. The best I can do is squat down in the step that Harry had dug, get the rope around my shoulder and try and belay him.’ Law was plucked from his position and he and Bewsher fell helplessly down the ice cliff which dropped sheer into the sea.

1954–1966

As he fell he analysed the situation: ‘Well, I guess that’s finished it. Harry won’t know we’ve gone, and when he comes out also that’ll be the three of us. We’ll finish in the water, there’s no place to scramble out, and no one knows we’re here and we’ve got five or ten minutes and then we’re gone.’ Bill screamed again [as I fell] and Harry, who was very well used to taking amateurs up Mount Cook, didn’t even look to see what was happening, he just banged his ice axe into the side of the cliff, wound the rope around and lay down on it, and he held the two of us. And then he brought us up one at a time. ‘Doing a Boys’ Own Annual’ was Thompson’s later comment about this escapade, which might well have ended Law’s career then and there and killed his companions. Yet a certain amount of more calculated risk-taking was endemic in Antarctic coastal exploration, which involved taking ships into uncharted waters, landing on areas of exposed rock to fix a position by astronomical determination, and using aircraft to run photographic flights east and west to the limit of the aircraft’s range.

over the side to attempt a coastal reconnaissance and photography flight. The Auster was underpowered at the best of times, particularly when operating on floats. On this occasion they were also 150 kilograms overweight, and the aircraft, piloted by Doug Leckie, broke free from the water only metres from brash ice. The plan was to fly in an equilateral triangle, with each leg 100 kilometres. As they had taken off from a large stretch of open water, neither Law nor Leckie took much notice of distinctive icebergs to act as markers for their return. Law:

234

I remember winding the window down and holding this great clumsy Air Force F24 camera, which is hand-held. You had to crank a handle to turn on each frame.

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

My hands are freezing off holding this out, but at least I’m getting a continuous run of photos of this sixty miles [100 kilometres] of coast, and then thankfully I can put the window up and thaw out my frozen hands and head back to the ship. But when we get back we start looking for the ship and we can’t find it. We’ve got radio contact with the ship but we haven’t got a radio-compass, because this aircraft is too small to fit these refined things into.

Captain H M Pedersen radioed the unwelcome news that the lake of open water they had taken off from was no longer there—the pack ice had moved back in. Law asked them to make smoke, but a diesel engine can produce very little. Leckie reported fuel was running low. They were looking for a small ship among innumerable ice floes. Even if they found it, Law said, there was nowhere to land on floats: Even if we did survive a crash the ship couldn’t possibly find us, they wouldn’t know whether to turn the ship to go north, south, east or west and if we couldn’t find the ship from the air, how could they find a little plane from the surface? So by this time things are getting desperate; then I had an idea which to this day I think was one of my brighter ideas. I said, ‘Get every pair of binoculars on the ship, issue one to each individual man, send the men up on to the monkey island (which is the flat space of top of the bridge), divide the sky into sectors and give each man a sector to scan with binoculars’. And some bloke scanned his sector of the sky and found us as a little spot and they talked us back to the ship.

Bruce Coombes, an engineer from the Department of Civil Aviation, was the man who spotted them as a speck against an iceberg about 50 kilometres to the east and gave them the correct bearing to return. With no open water available, the only hope of getting down was to have Magga Dan steam full speed ahead into the pack, and use the thrashing propeller to push back the ice floes to try to create enough open water for a very hazardous landing. All that could be managed was a pool about 40 metres long: Luckily in a float plane the drag of the floats acts like very severe braking and you stop very quickly. But it needed a very good pilot with a lot of courage to land in that 40 metres of water, because it really meant you had to aim the plane right up the tail of the ship and put it down exactly on the edge of that ice. We did that and finished with the propeller still rotating just practically touching the stern of the ship.

Law said later he thought that was a good example of modern hazards in a modern era, and ‘about as hairy as anything you can get in the old literature’.

235

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

P

hillip Law regards the ‘cracking’ of Oates Land—on the eastern extremity of the AAT—as the pinnacle of his summer ‘hit and run’ exploration programs. His first attempt in 1958 (with Thala Dan and Captain K Hindberg) had to be abandoned because of heavy ice conditions. But in 1959 with Captain H Moller Pedersen in Magga Dan, successful photographic flights and a landing were achieved and the Australian flag raised on 21 February 1959 near a mountain which Law named Magga Peak. A return visit and further pioneering exploration in 1960 had to be abandoned because of a shortage of food on board Thala Dan —a costly mistake by the ship’s steward.2 He was back in the summer of 1961 with Magga Dan (Captain Vilhelm Pedersen), a Beaver aircraft and two helicopters. Law named one impressive peak Mount Gorton, after Senator John Gorton, then Minister Assisting the Minister for External Affairs on Antarctic matters. Further work was done in February 1962 with Thala Dan (again with the Beaver aircraft and two helicopters), this time voyaging further east into the New Zealand sector of Oates Land, naming features and mapping the coast. (Law raised the New Zealand flag as a courtesy.) Surveyor Syd Kirkby remembers the 1961 and 1962 voyages to Oates Land as two of the finest and most economical exercises in basic exploration he experienced with ANARE: It’s always been the source of some satisfaction to me that I have the easternmost Australian astrofix near Cape North in the New Zealand sector, just outside the AAT, and I have the westernmost Australian astrofix

‘HIT AND RUN EXPLORATION.’ BELL 47-G HELICOPTER AT GREGORY BLUFFS, OATES LAND, 1962. (P LAW) GRAVITY READINGS BEING TAKEN ON THALA ISLAND, OATES LAND, 1962. (P LAW)

on the other end, near where the Japanese built Syowa station. Oates Land is marvellous country—the mountains go up out of the sea for ever and ever. . .as far as you can see inland, there are just snowcapped mountains.

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

There were hazards to the coastal exploration of Antarctica not associated with ice, blizzards or uncharted rocks. On 1 February 1958, Thala Dan put in to the Russian station at Mirny which Law had first visited in January 1956, when it was being constructed. The first meeting between the Australians and the Russians, led by Mikhail Somov, was friendly but restrained. Since then it had become apparent that the ‘cold war’ had no place in Antarctica. Law’s second visit was a hilarious and convivial affair that threatened to demolish the Australians because of Russian hospitality: The parties were always pretty desperate from a drinking point of view because the Russians drink with a different purpose from ourselves—they literally drink to get drunk. And for us it’s a bit of a disgrace to finish up under the table. To the Russian it’s an honour to finish up under the table with one of your friends, and of course they drink vodka and we’re not used generally to such heavy spirits.

There seemed to be an unending supply of vodka, poured from large white enamel teapots. (Fred Elliott, from the ANARE party, noticed they were replenished from jerrycans—possibly the first Australian realisation that the Russians often boosted their liquor stocks by drinking ‘aerovodka’—aviation de-icing fluid, which was close to pure alcohol. The ceremonial toasts were made with conventional vodka.)3 Law was conscious that he had to combine participation with his responsibilities as leader of the Australian visitors: I wasn’t exactly emptying my drinks into the aspidistras, but I was sipping them pretty cautiously rather than tossing them off in the Russian style. However, it became pretty heavy going. We had a lot of drinks over lunch, and I played the piano accordion and they sang Russian songs.

The Russian OIC, Dr Tolstikov, led their singing with a magnificent voice. They sounded like the Red Army Choir. The Australians responded with ‘Waltzing Matilda’, the only song they collectively knew ‘other than ‘God Save The Queen’—and the 23rd Psalm, as Fred Elliott reflected later: We were not in the same vocal league as our hosts, although the story of the proletarian swagman being hounded to death by the capitalist landowner and his police lackeys was a hit.4

The ceremonial toasts went on and on—to the Queen of England, the President of the USSR, the Prime Minister of Australia, the Premier of the USSR, the leaders of both Russian and Australian expeditions, the members of the expeditions and so on. One of the Australians—a keen

237

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

follower of the BBC’s radio comedy program ‘The Goon Show’—raised his glass in the spirit of all these toasts and said, ‘Rhubarb!’. Phil Law: The Australians managed to keep a straight face somehow. Another Australian stood up and proposed a toast to ‘more rhubarb’. Everyone stood up and toasted ‘more rhubarb’. Then a very drunk Australian who was fed up with the whole business stood up and said, ‘more piss’.

Law, terribly embarrassed, was aware that matters were getting out of hand: I was wondering how to get out of it, when the Russians sprang to their feet and said, ‘Da! Da! More peace! Peace and friendship!’

The Australians were keen to see what equipment the Russians had at Mirny and Law scribbled copious notes, having asked his men to do the same. Despite the Antarctic-engendered bonhomie there were national concerns about what the Russians were doing. It was alleged in Federal Parliament that the Russians were building submarine pens at Mirny, from where they could control vital shipping lanes to Australia.5 While this seemed improbable, Minister for External Affairs Richard Casey had asked Osmar White, an Australian journalist accompanying the 1958 ANARE voyage on Thala Dan, to have a good look around while he was there.* No one was told of White’s extra-curricular activity, which was ‘top secret’, but the Soviet Union’s penetration of the Australian intelligence scene must have been impressive despite the breaking off of diplomatic relations after the Petrov spy affair in 1954. While White was photographing a bust of Lenin outside the headquarters hut, retiring Russian OIC Treshnikov came up and patted him sympathetically on the shoulder: Flashing his gold fillings, he asked: ‘Have you found no guns and submarines? Too bad!’7

By late afternoon Law, whose slight build, balding head and goatee beard gave him a startling resemblance to Lenin (noted by his delighted Russian hosts), desperately needed a respite from Mirny hospitality. American observer Gordon Cartwright was sympathetic and lent Law his quarters for a brief nap: He took me into his hut and laid me down on his bed and put a bucket beside me in case I was sick and I passed out for a couple of hours. Then

238

* The possibility of the Russians establishing a submarine base on the Antarctic coastline was canvassed in a report to Cabinet by the Joint Intelligence Committee in March 1957.6

F

I L L I N G

I awoke and I realised that we’d invited the Russians back to our ship for dinner. So I walked half a mile back across the snow and ice to our ship where it was tethered against the ice edge and went on board and supervised the preparations for the big dinner for the Russians.

Law was not looking forward to dinner at all, but decided to handle the Russians in a different style. He noted that their leaders were late arriving, and conjectured they’d had a brief nap as well.

I N

T H E

M A P

THE RAAF DAKOTA ON THALA DAN, 1960. (G BANFIELD) THE DAKOTA COMES ASHORE AT MAWSON STATION. (C ARMSTRONG)

But instead of giving them the sort of liquor routine that they were used to—which was the spirits and beer—we turned on the English system. We gave them sherry and then white wine, red wine, and champagne. . .and boy, did we lay them out! So honours were even at the end of the day.

W

hile the annual voyages of the Dan ships (Kista, Magga, Thala and Nella) combined with flights on floats and skis by Auster and Beaver aircraft helped to fill in details of the coastline, aircraft were also used to support scientific parties in the field. Until 1960 they were able to fly between Mawson and Davis Stations, exchanging personnel and on occasions some urgently needed mechanical spare parts. Two Beavers were destroyed on the ground by hurricane force winds in December 1959, despite heroic efforts to try and save them. But the RAAF persevered with its Antarctic flying program and shipped another Beaver and a Dakota DC3 to Mawson for the 1960 season. Due to mechanical problems and several on-ground mishaps the Dakota did not fly until 2 July but when it did, its undercarriage would

239

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

not retract. On 9 July pilot Graham Dyke flew the Dakota, named ‘Ann Cherie’, successfully. Despite being plagued by a succession of mechanical problems, Ann Cherie played a useful part in air operations. On 16 July, in midwinter gloom, the Dakota was flown on a south-west reconnaissance mission 700 kilometres inland over the plateau. At that point the ice cap was 2900 metres above sea level. No rocky features were sighted in seven hours’ flying.8 Other successful flights were made to Beaver Lake and Mt Meredith in the Prince Charles Mountains, Davis Station, and Amundsen Bay in Enderby Land. By early December the sea ice at Mawson was too thin to support flying operations and the Dakota was landed at the ice airfield named Rumdoodle on the plateau 24 kilometres south from Mawson.* The smaller Beaver and the Dakota were tethered behind a wind fence, near a fuel dump and several caravans used as an engineering workshop and living quarters for the RAAF crew. On 8 December with a blizzard forecast, the stage was set for a rerun of the 1959 disaster. When Jim Kichenside, Graham Dyke, Kevin Felton and Mick Murphy fought their way to the aircraft the next morning, they found the fuselage of the Beaver—without its wings—a tangle of wreckage against the wind fence. There was no sign of the Dakota at all. It’s two tie-down cables with a 15-tonne breaking strain had been snapped like cotton. Radio communication with Mawson Station was lost, and the RAAF crew retreated into their buffeted caravan. Sergeant Kevin Felton wrote in his diary: The rocks on which we are camped are littered with packing cases smashed to pieces and 44-gallon [200 litres] drums, some empty, some full. At about 4 pm ‘Baz’ Rutter looked out the window of our van and called our notice to the extent of the wind. Drums of diesel fuel and petrol weighing 350 pounds [157.5 kilos] were moving at a fast walking pace along the ice standing on their ends. The caravan nearest us shifted four feet [1.21 metres] sideways in one gust, stretching steel guy wires like rope.9

The blizzard blew for 42 hours and it was not possible to return to Mawson Station until Sunday 11 December. The mystery of the missing Dakota was solved that day when radio operator Graeme Currie rode his motor cycle sixteen kilometres along the sea ice down the coast from Mawson:

240

* The airfield was named after a prominent peak in the north-western part of the North Masson Range, which overlooks the airstrip. Rumdoodle was the name of a fictional mountain in the novel The Ascent of Rumdoodle by W E Bowman and since 1960 the name has been used locally by Mawson personnel to refer to the airstrip. There is now a recreation hut nearby also named Rumdoodle.

F

I L L I N G

There was the whole aircraft sitting on the side of the hill. . .it was sitting with the nose up the slope, on its belly, as though it was just ready to take off. So I parked the bike and crawled up this ice slope, and it looked fairly stable so I crawled in. Everything inside was just as nice as it was the day it was parked. . .10

I N

T H E

M A P

THE RAAF DC3 ON THE SLOPE OF A COASTAL ICE CLIFF AFTER IT HAD BEEN BLOWN AWAY FROM ITS TETHERS ON THE ICE PLATEAU BEHIND

MAWSON STATION, DECEMBER 1960. (P LAW)

Ann Cherie had been whisked away by the wind down the ice sheet to the coast twenty kilometres from Rumdoodle. Currie might have thought it looked nice inside but structurally it was a write-off. What could be THE WRECKED DAKOTA salvaged was returned to Mawson, but RAAF all-yearAIRCRAFT. round operations in Antarctica were over. The members (P LAW) of the 1961 Flight were officially disbanded on 20 December 1960. In April 1961 concerns were raised in the Australian press that the safety and viability of ANARE operations would be compromised by not having air support in Antarctica.11 The Air Board was concerned about the RAAF’s Antarctic activities, weighing the public relations gains against operational hazards, but public relations lost out.12 In July 1961 the Board did give permission for a RAAF team to go south for the annual relief expedition and Thala Dan carried a single Beaver aircraft. A growing RAAF commitment to the Australian presence in Malaysia and Vietnam was a contributing factor to pulling back from Antarctic operations and the RAAF support to summer ANARE Antarctic programs ended in March 1963.13 It is worth noting that despite the destruction of an Auster, three Beavers and a Dakota in Antarctica, not a single life was lost in the nine years of RAAF association with ANARE. All the wrecked aircraft were destroyed by storms, either on the ground or on ships. 241

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

242

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Significantly, helicopters were carried on ANARE resupply voyages in 1960 and 1961 to supplement the solitary Beaver. They were chartered by ANARE and flown by civilian pilots—a pointer to the future of air operations in the AAT. The machines used were Hiller 12C models, leased from Trans-Australia Airlines.14 Compared with modern machines they were toys—but useful nevertheless. A single piston engine mounted behind the bubble cabin gave the Hillers a cruise speed of 55 knots, and they could lift 159 kilograms (including survival equipment). The advantages of helicopters were clear. Most Antarctic field work takes place near rocky features around which the moving ice sheet fractures into crevasses. Landing fields for conventional aircraft have to be located well away from this type of terrain—if they can be found at all. A helicopter, on the other hand, can land a geologist or surveyor on a mountain peak, or within a badly crevassed area if that is necessary. With their rotors removed, they can be streamlined and tethered to withstand high winds and can land relatively easily on ships and ANARE stations. The helicopter was developed in the closing years of World War II and used more extensively during the Korean War from 1950–1954. It was still new technology in the late 1950s and few helicopters were available in Australia. The Antarctic Division was cautious in the use of helicopters and experimented with a Hiller 12C from a small helideck on Thala Dan at Macquarie Island on 1 December 1958. Piloted by Keith Cotter (who had flown helicopters in the RAAF) it did not have floats, so there must have been some anxious moments during over-water flights.15 Two Hillers were loaded on to Magga Dan in 1960 for the voyage to resupply Wilkes and Davis Stations, visit Mawson and Macquarie Island Stations and carry out coastal exploration of the AAT. The pilots, both from TAA, were Ray Hudson (who had an RAAF background) and Peter Ivanoff. The two machines were successfully test flown on 15 January near the French station Dumont d’Urville and, as the voyage progressed, did useful work in concert with the Beaver flown by Wing Commander Cresswell. The vulnerability of the under-powered Hillers was demonstrated dramatically on Sunday 13 February when both machines were on their way to get astrofixes from a group of small rocky islands 100 kilometres west of Wilkes Station, near the Vanderford Glacier. A violent downdraft, so severe Ray Hudson thought it would tear the rotors right off his machine, gripped both aircraft. Hudson made a spur of the moment decision to turn away from the coast for the sea, much as he disliked the idea, and shot away from under Ivanoff’s machine ‘like a rocket’:

F

I L L I N G

As soon as we were under control again I had a quick look around for Peter and was horrified to see his helicopter slam into the ice about 50 yards [45.7 metres] up-slope from the ice cliff. Pieces flew out in all directions, only to slide away down the slope and over the cliff into the sea. I looked away, sick at heart, fearing that the whole machine. . .would follow.16

I N

T H E

M A P

ANARE’S MOST SERIOUS HELICOPTER CRASH.

SALVAGING EQUIPMENT FROM Despite climbing on full power, Ivanoff had found himself descending at a relentless twenty knots and THE HILLER 12C THAT WAS attempted a forced landing on the ice. At the last FORCED DOWN ON THE EDGE moment he threw the Hiller on its side, hoping that OF A COASTAL ICE CLIFF BY A the crosstubes of the landing gear and the remains of DOWNDRAFT NEAR THE the rotor would grip the ice and stop the aircraft sliding VANDERFORD GLACIER IN over the cliff into the sea.17 FEBRUARY 1960. Hudson ‘almost cried out with relief’ when he saw (P LAW) that the helicopter had not slipped over the cliff. His passenger was Ian McLeod, an ANARE geologist. The two men were even more relieved to see Peter Ivanoff’s passenger, surveyor David Cook, appear and Ivanoff also crawl out of the smashed cabin. Still fighting a 50-knot wind, Hudson managed to put down on an Adélie penguin rookery on a spur of land within sight of the crashed helicopter. He radioed Magga Dan, which set sail immediately from Wilkes. While McLeod set off with an ice-axe to climb up the ice cliff towards the crash site, Hudson set up the survival tent carried in the Hiller.18 When Magga Dan arrived Law took a rescue party in the motor boat, against a 50-knot katabatic wind, to land near Hudson. Law and two other men fitted crampons and climbed the ice slope to reach the helicopter. It was three hours before they and McLeod returned with the injured men. Both Ivanoff and Cook had head cuts and were spattered with blood. In fact, blood from Ivanoff’s head wound had temporarily blinded him and made his traverse across the ice even more difficult. It had been 243

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

T

he first ANARE automatic weather station was built on Lewis Island, a small rocky islet off the eastern coast of Wilkes Land (near Adélie Land) in January 1958. The Department of External Affairs, through its representative on the Executive Planning Committee, Keith Waller, had been urging Law repeatedly to occupy more sites in the Australian Antarctic Territory. Law: I don’t know whether it was this that influenced [Richard] Casey, but he eventually proposed that the Weather Bureau should examine the possibility of establishing small automatic weather stations at isolated spots along the coast of the AAT. Law had led the first party ever to visit Lewis Island in 1956 and he returned in 1958 with electronic equipment manufactured by a French company to build the automatic station on the highest point on Lewis Island, 60 metres above sea level. He left three men behind to assemble the station and test it, and sailed east exploring the coast towards Oates Land—returning on 23 January to pick them up. By then the first automatic weather station ever set up in Antarctica was transmitting data to Wilkes and on to Australia. In February 1961 Law led an expedition to another remote speck of rock, off the coast

244

MAC. ROBERTSON LAUNCH AT THE DIBBLE ICEBERG TONGUE, NEAR LEWIS ISLAND, 1958. (P LAW)

of Wilkes Land, to set up a second automatic weather station on Chick Island—some 1000 kilometres to the west of Lewis Island. Due to heavy ice conditions, Magga Dan could only approach to within ten kilometres of the island and helicopters played a vital role in transporting the equipment, flying 224 sorties in four days. This station transmitted weather data continually to Wilkes for seven months in 1961—a remarkable technical achievement for that time.

a near thing, and the worst operational crash in ANARE’s history. As Magga Dan came closer, Dick Thompson, elated with the news that both men had survived the crash, radioed to Ivanoff that they proposed to name the ‘island’ after him.19 As it happened, the rookery was on a promontory. Ivanoff Head was later ratified by the Antarctic Names Committee of Australia. In spite of this accident, the helicopters had proved their worth and the surviving machine was used to ferry men and spare parts to Lewis

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

Island, off the eastern edge of Wilkes Land, to repair the automatic weather station there.20 Law had hoped to continue on to explore the coast of Oates Land but he found himself frustrated not by weather, lack of aircraft, or even time—but by lack of food. To his intense annoyance he found the chief steward had miscalculated and they had barely enough provisions to get back to Melbourne via Macquarie Island: Here we were, just at the right time of the season, with ice and weather favourable and with the best opportunity which I had probably ever had to proceed past Cape Freshfield and into the Oates Land area, and now carelessness and negligence on the part of the chief steward were to prevent me from taking advantage of our situation.

It was always difficult to forecast the hazards waiting for those attempting to explore Antarctica. The use of helicopters became an established tool of ANARE operations from 1960. In 1961 a contract was signed with Helicopter Utilities Pty Ltd, Sydney, and their work continued for the next eight years. The company’s initials led to their nickname ‘Hupple’. Hupple flew Bell 47 piston-engined helicopters similar to those which had seen service in the Korean War and later in Vietnam. They were slightly larger than the Hillers and could lift a payload of around 200 kilograms, including survival equipment. Russian interest in exploring remote areas of the AAT using helicopters was used by Law as an argument to support the expanded use of helicopters by ANARE. The Russians were active in the summer of 1962–63 in Enderby Land, carrying their scientists into the field with STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft and helicopters. In a letter to Ralph Harry of the Department of External Affairs in March 1963, Law emphasised that ANARE could not match the Russians in Enderby Land field work and said: It needs little imagination to realise the repercussions in Australia if Russian geologists found important mineral deposits in the Prince Charles Mountains, which Australians discovered in 1955 and started to examine but stopped because of lack of suitable aircraft.21

In the course of his 1959–60 Magga Dan voyage, Law and his ANARE surveyors, pilots, and scientists had ranged along almost the entire coastline of the AAT. Their exploration ventures from the Dan ships were complemented by land-based expeditions as the main features of the AAT were slowly inked in on the map.

245

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

I

n 1964–65 a Beaver aircraft returned to Antarctica on Nella Dan, not with the RAAF, but a private charter. Its pilot, John Whiting, flew a useful 66 hours during the season, but on 7 February 1965 there was an unfortunate accident. Whiting was flying the Beaver from sea ice near Nella Dan, north-east of Cape Boothby, about 150 nautical miles west from Mawson Station. As he began to taxi to the beginning of his selected runway, the aircraft’s skis broke through a weak part of the floe. Law: The three men inside scrambled out and had only just emerged when the weight of the fore part of the aircraft broke the ice still

1954–1966

further and the nose plunged down until the whole engine and most of the cabin of the aircraft were submerged beneath the sea. The only thing that prevented the aeroplane from plunging to the bottom of the sea was the fact that it rested with its wings flush on the surface of the surrounding ice.22 It was a narrow escape—and a savage blow to the flying program. The Beaver was salvaged and sent down the following year, but its fuselage was damaged on the way down and it never flew in Antarctica again. There were no more fixed-wing flights during Phil Law’s time as director of ANARE, to 1966.

On 1 February 1960 Law flew from Davis Station to Mawson in a Beaver piloted by Wing Commander Cresswell. The second resupply ship Thala Dan was already there for the annual changeover, with Law’s deputy director Don Styles as voyage leader. On 3 February there was a vigorous discussion about a proposal put by Syd Kirkby for a late summer dog sledge journey from Enderby Land back to Mawson. Kirkby’s plan involved being dropped off near the Napier Mountains in Enderby Land by Thala Dan on her way back to Australia. He and two companions with two dog teams planned to sledge 560 kilometres east to Edward VIII Gulf, mapping and taking geological samples in this unexplored region on the way. They would then be picked up by Beaver aircraft and returned to Mawson. The outgoing Mawson OIC John Béchervaise and surveyor Chris Armstrong opposed the expedition, but Law approved Kirkby’s plan—providing food dumps could be landed at Edward VIII Gulf.23 There was concern about whether a search and rescue could be mounted if needed, and before leaving Melbourne Law himself had given the scheme the thumbs down. Kirkby believed what happened then was typical of the way Law worked:

246

There was always a sort of veiled antagonism between many expeditioners who’d wintered and Phil, who hadn’t. I suppose I was a bit young and feisty, so I thumped the table and said: ‘Well bloody well listen and then you might know!’ Anyway he said, ‘Well, go on’. I went right through

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

what I was proposing to do, where we’d go, and all our fallbacks. He suddenly stopped me in mid sentence and said, ‘Good, do it’. It wasn’t until some time later that I realised that Phil’s style was to force other people to push their views. . .to be sure he wasn’t going to go along with any half-baked scheme that the proponent hadn’t thought through.

Thala Dan was skippered by Captain Hans Christian Petersen, whose temper was not improved by nearly running his ship up on an uncharted pinnacle of rock while laying the emergency depot at Edward VIII Gulf. Finding a landing place with access to the plateau was difficult, and late in the afternoon of 22 February, near Cape Batterbee, a low rocky platform was sighted, although it was not clear how easy it would be to move inland from it. Petersen was champing at the bit to be heading home as it was late in the season. He told Kirkby: ‘This is it. I’ve just got to get out. You either go ashore here or you go ashore nowhere.’ Kirkby had sixteen dogs, two sledges and some two and a half tonnes of supplies to land in the ship’s boat Dingo Dan. It was nearly dark when the last load went in. Petersen was so anxious to leave that he headed the ship away from the coast before the ship’s boat had returned. Kirkby’s last sight of them was Thala Dan, hull down on the horizon with the Dingo Dan chasing it frantically into the gathering gloom.24 It was too steep to drive the dogs up on the plateau from the coast, so Kirkby and his companions Rick Ruker (geologist) and Ken Bennett (radio officer) had to lump all the supplies on their backs to establish a depot three kilometres from the shore. This took two weeks, in some of the most miserable circumstances Kirkby ever experienced in Antarctica. Freakish warm weather by polar standards kept the temperatures hovering just above and below freezing. It snowed continuously for a fortnight: Snow fell on the tent and melted, and it fell on our clothing and melted. We’d wake up in the morning literally in a bath of water, because our own body heat in the tent would melt a puddle. The dogs were not enjoying these conditions, they were getting knocked about by being wet. So we were getting up every hour or two during the night to move the dogs to keep them dry.

When they climbed to 1500 metres the temperature dropped to –20°C and they could dry their sopping gear. The unusually heavy powder snow was so deep that the loads on the sledges could hardly be seen above the surface. Kirkby recalled that the dogs had to push through blind, with the lead dogs having to jump up to see ahead. Sledging conditions gradually improved as they moved east around the Napier Mountains and headed towards the coast.

247

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

There were unexpected hazards. Travelling one day in a near whiteout, Kirkby heard the wooden sledge runners clattering on blue ice, and realised that his team had run on to the down slope of an ice dome, possibly leading to crevasses or even ice cliffs. He yelled at the dogs to stop. They could hear the sledge roaring and threatening to overrun them, so they ran faster and faster. Kirkby wanted to get to the front of the sledge to throw over the rope friction brake, but as he leant down to kick off his skis, the sledge bucked and gave him ‘an almighty thump in the head’: I reckon about that stage—like the Hoffnung insurance claim man and the bucket of bricks—I must have lost my presence of mind, because I let go of the handlebars of the sledge and the dogs were gone. In the team, running towards the rear, was a dog called Snipe. He was a snapping, snarling, horrible creature—he hated everyone and he bit everyone—just a nasty personality. Anyway poor old Snipe, thank God, fell and went under the runners of the sledge. Because he was in harness he couldn’t be spat out the back, and he actually acted as the friction brake.

Snipe was killed instantly, but his accident saved the day. The sledge was stopped, and Kirkby was able to warn the other team travelling a kilometre behind. They ran safely down to the coast towards Edward VIII Gulf and their rendezvous with the Beaver aircraft from Mawson. On the coast the dogs surprised a Weddell seal near its blowhole in the ice and attacked it. Kirkby and his companions beat them off and killed the seal—a welcome and necessary addition to their supplies. The dogs had been fed pemmican blocks during their overland run, but not the black Norwegian product usually supplied. The new Australian stuff was mainly cereal, not the sort of stuff dogs can work on, and they were hungry, tired and in bad shape. Of course we couldn’t let the dogs eat the seal meat because it was fairly early in the day and we’d have got no more work out of them.

They staked out the dogs well away from the seal and butchered it, then loaded the meat on to a sledge. The huskies were frantic, with the smell of warm meat and blood in their nostrils. Kirkby turned to speak to his companions Rick Ruker and Ken Bennett, but tripped and fell. As he hit the ice, the second team fell on him: 248

They were going to eat me! I had blood on my clothes and I smelt warm. Fortunately I fell face down and I had my hood on, but they hit me hard

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

and started biting around my neck. I was yelling at them and I was sure that when the dogs knew it was me they would stop. But then the others kept going.

Ruker and Bennett pulled the dogs away. It was the only time Kirkby ever felt he was in danger from huskies, who were ferocious with each other but famously friendly to humans. From time to time there is debate about how useful the huskies were in exploration and field work in the early years of ANARE, particularly after the techniques of using D4 Caterpillar tractors to pull heavy caravans and sledges long distances over the polar ice cap were introduced. The evidence is that they remained very useful indeed. Dogs remained the safest way to travel over sea ice and crevassed territory and, as veteran dog handler Nils Lied once pointed out, you cannot eat a tractor when it runs out of fuel, and dogs are much easier to start in the morning. When all-year flying operations ceased out of Mawson in 1960, following the destruction of the Dakota and Beaver aircraft on the ground, the dogs re-established themselves as a useful back-up for field parties plagued by over-snow vehicles with mechanical problems. In the Amery Ice Shelf glaciological investigation in the summer of 1963–64, the tractors travelled 1450 kilometres and the dog sledges 1700.25 In 1961 Dave Trail, Dave Keyser and Jim Seavers drove a dog team to the Prince Charles Mountains and climbed Mt Menzies, a 3313 metre peak then thought to be the highest mountain in the AAT—a round trip of some 1000 kilometres.* The first two D4 tractors went to Mawson Station in 1957 for the International Geophysical Year. They towed caravans and sledges south to measure the ice thickness with equipment supplied by the Bureau of Mineral Resources, using explosives and an echo-sounder. Neville ‘Gringo’ Collins was the diesel engineer at Mawson: We discovered that the tracks had to have ‘ice-grousers’ fitted. We’d never seen them. It was an American term, and no one was keen to put them on. So I decided to go up on to the ice with one of the tractors, and it acted like it was on so many pairs of ice skates. The first slope it came to, it went whizzing down sideways and broke through the meltwater lake in West Arm and lay over on its side. * Recent research has established that the highest point of the AAT is not a mountain at all but a high point on the ice cap on the eastern Antarctic plateau now known as Argus Dome, at 4270 metres. The highest mountain in the AAT is Mt McClintock (3492 metres) in the eastern sector. The highest point on the Antarctic continent is the Vinson Massif (4897 metres) in the Ellsworth Mountains.

249

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

The grousers were bits of metal at right angles to the tracks designed to stop sideways movement. When fitted, the D4s were ready for ice work. On the first traverse a Weasel went ahead to pick a path, but was light enough to bridge crevasses into which the D4s fell. No successful crevasse detector has yet been devised. Collins:

AN EFFECTIVE CREVASSEDETECTOR HAS NOT YET BEEN INVENTED.

THE ALL-TOO-

FAMILIAR SIGHT OF A

‘SLOTTED’ WEASEL IN THE PRINCE CHARLES MOUNTAINS IN THE LATE 1950S. (COURTESY P LAW)

I suppose the D4 would be about the best crevasse detector there is. The first fairly big one we struck, the tractor almost got across, and the back fell in with a big ‘whoomph’, but it had enough momentum to grip the other side and got out again and went on. Then the following sledges fell in, and it was enough to say, ‘Well, this is going to be a bit of a hazard’.

The practice evolved of marking known, safe routes with canes flying a small black flag. The wind soon whipped these to bits, so pieces of tin were substituted and in later years they could be picked up by radar. Every time a tractor train moved into new, unknown territory, crevasses (‘slots’ in ANARE parlance) were an ever present danger. After nearly losing the Weasel in a bad crevasse, Collins came up with what he thought was a good idea. A heavy snowfall had made crevassing even more difficult to detect, and he rigged up an ingenious system of ropes tied to the Weasel’s steering levers, so that he could sit on the sledge being towed, ready to jump off in case of another serious slotting:

250

If I wanted to go right I’d pull on the right rope. The dogs are following behind me. Suddenly the back of the Weasel falls in with a big ‘whoomph’, and the sledge dives down to follow it. So at this stage I bail off the back. But for some reason the Weasel got a grip on the far side of the crevasse and got out!

F

O

ne of the most spectacular ‘slottings’ in ANARE history took place during an exploratory expedition to the southern Prince Charles Mountains in late September 1960 near Mt Cresswell, about 600 kilometres from Mawson. Diesel engineer Neville ‘Gringo’ Collins knew he was in doubtful territory and was not really surprised when his D4 lurched and fell over to one side with one track down a small crevasse. Established procedure was to probe around with crowbars to find out which way the crevasses were running. Henrick ‘Hank’ Geysen, OIC at Mawson, who was in the second D4, decided to ‘whiz round the back and hook on to my last sledge and pull us all out backwards’. Collins:

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

The second D4 had broken through and smashed right down a ‘slot’ with only the top of the cabin pressed against a lip of ice, stopping it from dropping out of sight into the blackness of unknown depths below. Syd Kirkby, who was riding on a sledge behind an accompanying Weasel, had climbing ropes and an ice axe. He smashed the back window out of the D4 and hauled a dazed but not seriously hurt Geysen five metres to the surface. There seemed little prospect of salvage, but they all climbed into the living caravan, had a meal and considered their options. ANARE

Now this didn’t seem to be a real good idea at the time, but he was manoeuvring to get hooked on to the back of my sledge, and he suddenly disappeared—and I mean disappeared. Just a cloud of snow flurries coming up and dead silence.

A D4 TRACTOR WELL AND TRULY ‘SLOTTED’ IN PRINCE CHARLES MOUNTAINS, SEPTEMBER 1960. THE DRIVER, ‘HANK’ GEYSEN, ESCAPED WITH A BUMPED HEAD. (COURTESY N COLLINS) THE

USING THE SECOND D4 AND CHAIN BLOCK WINCHES, THE DEEPLY ‘SLOTTED’ TRACTOR IS PULLED OUT OF THE CREVASSE. DIESEL ENGINEER NEVILLE COLLINS SAID LATER THAT THE THOUGHT OF WHAT PHIL LAW WOULD SAY IF THEY LOST SUCH A VALUABLE PIECE OF EQUIPMENT ENABLED THEM TO ACHIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE.

(R RUKER) ➤

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

was run on such a tight budget that Phil Law believed Australians rescued vehicles from situations that any other nation working in Antarctica would have written off. They could not get through to Mawson by radio to request that some lifting gear be flown in. Collins decided to try to recover the D4 with what they had. First he dug some hydrogen gas cylinders into the ice as ‘dead-men’ so that neither D4 could slip down any further. Then they set about cutting a ramp in the side of the crevasse, hoping to pull the stranded D4 out with a chain block winch. The only tools available were one shovel and Syd Kirkby’s ice axe. There was no trouble getting rid of the spoil, they just let it tumble down the crevasse. Collins:

1954–1966

We were doing fine until the shovel disappeared out of somebody’s gloved hand and went down the crevasse. By this time we’d cleared a fair bit, so we got into it with bare hands and so on, cutting into the ice. Four days later they slowly winched the battered, draughty but still operational D4 to the surface and resumed their journey to set up a base camp in the southern Prince Charles Mountains. The Dakota flew in from Mawson with a dog team, and Kirkby flew out to work in another area. Collins and geologist Rick Ruker set off with a dog team and a Weasel to further survey the region.

Collins found himself on the wrong side of a crevasse with his Weasel and sledge disappearing into the dim distance at a steady four knots. He ran desperately along the lip of the crevasse hoping it would narrow enough for him to jump over. The snow bridge crumbled under him as he jumped, but he threw himself on his stomach and tobogganed forward like a penguin: I took off after the sledge and managed to jump on to it. When I got my breath back I ran around to the front and switched off the engine. That was a good try, but I knew I’d have to think of something better after that.

Improvisation was an important element of ANARE’s low budget existence. There had been almost no exploration inland from Wilkes Station in the first year. The 1960 OIC, Harry Black, convinced Phil Law that he should explore and mark a safe route up on to the plateau, using Weasels, in preparation for a major traverse planned for 1962 when D4 tractors would be available. Black was concerned about navigation, as the two sextants at the station were not only marine instruments (which needed a watery horizon conspicuously lacking on the Antarctic ice cap) but were also faulty: 252

So what to do? I’d read in the literature that people had made a dish of strong coffee and put it down and retreated backwards till the image of

F

I L L I N G

the sun was sighted in [it], and you shoot them both and halve the angle and away you go. I tried that, but of course the coffee froze in a few seconds, so [it] was useless. Then I tried dieseline, but it didn’t work.

I N

T H E

M A P

NEVILLE COLLINS TESTS HIS INGENIOUS BUT HAZARDOUS REMOTE-CONTROL STEERING, BEHIND HIS ADVANCING

Although Black could find out where he was on WEASEL AND SLEDGE IN THE the ice cap with a sextant, the problem of steering a PRINCE CHARLES straight course over the ice cap remained. He devised MOUNTAINS, 1960. a system of mirrors mounted on the Weasel so that the (R RUKER) driver could view the tracks left in the rear and line them up with the intended route ahead to keep a AN INGENIOUS SYSTEM OF straight line. It worked so well that Robert Thomson, MIRRORS ENABLED THE leader of the Vostok Traverse in 1962, used it with great DRIVER OF THIS WEASEL TO success. HEAD INLAND OVER THE Neville Collins returned to Wilkes in 1962 as senior FEATURELESS ICE CAP IN A diesel mechanic. He took part in the Vostok Traverse—the STRAIGHT LINE DURING THE most ambitious over-ice journey then attempted by VOSTOK TRAVERSE OF 1962. ANARE. He and fellow ‘dieso’ Desmond ‘Pancho’ (A BATTYE) Evans were responsible for keeping two D4 Caterpillar tractors (towing a train of sledges and caravans) and two vintage 1944 Weasel over-snow vehicles operational in temperatures that at one point fell to –63°C. Led by Thomson, a New Zealander and OIC of Wilkes Station, the party also included Don Walker (geophysicist), Alastair Battye (glaciologist), and American Danny Foster (weather observer). They left Wilkes on 17 September 1962 and returned on 14 253

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

January 1963. The main purpose of the traverse was to take ice core samples and to fire seismic charges to plot the thickness of the ice sheet, travelling as far into the interior of Antarctica as fuel stocks would allow. That would limit their farthest south at around 800 kilometres from the coast. In 1961, Wilkes OIC Neville Smethurst had pushed out some 400 kilometres and laid two fuel dumps. On 18 May 1962 Thomson received a cable from Law advising him that the Americans at McMurdo had agreed to air drop fuel to the Australians which would enable them to push on to Vostok, the Russian station at the South Geomagnetic Pole, known as the coldest place on earth. (On 21 July 1983 the lowest temperature ever recorded in the world was noted –89.6°C.) To get to Vostok, the Australians would have to climb up the polar ice cap to 3488 metres, adding oxygen deprivation (for man and machine) to the challenges of isolation and paralysing cold. The Weasels ran on petrol and the D4 Caterpillar tractors used diesel. One ingenious method of carrying fuel was to fill up the hollow sledge runners on the main living caravan with 1000 litres. It took from three to four hours each morning to heat up the engines of the vehicles so they could be started—seven hours on some extremely cold days. The cooling systems of D4s and Weasels were filled with ATK (aviation turbine kerosene) instead of water because of its low heat transfer and anti-freeze qualities. Gringo Collins and Pancho Evans worked miracles to keep machinery going in temperatures which made metal as brittle as glass. The most serious breakdown was a broken oil pump on one of the D4s just as the traverse neared the 800 kilometre mark, short of where they were scheduled to get their air drop of fuel from the Americans. The temperature had not risen above –45°C all day and sank to –58°C at night. Collins and Evans dug a pit under the D4 and went to work for as long as they could before returning to the caravan to warm frozen fingers. (Another diesel mechanic, Snow Williams, who was working on the Amery Ice Shelf that same year, claimed that a little frostbite under those circumstances could be an advantage, and that one of the joys of Antarctic ‘mechanicing’ was to have dead skin on your fingertips to lessen the pain!26) Evans and Collins pulled the oil pump out, and diagnosed a sheared steel pin. No spare existed. Thomson: I drew out my best screwdriver from my pocket. Its shaft proved to be the exact size required, so a few hacksaw strokes later I was less one screwdriver—but we had one good pin for the oil pump.27

254

The ‘diesos’ performed miracles of improvisation welding broken tracks and snapped couplings, but sometimes even they were defeated

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

by the conditions. The lowest temperature recorded on the Vostok traverse was –63°C on Saturday 27 October. It was not possible to travel. Collins: Our old tractor just couldn’t run at that temperature, it lost so much power. On the Weasel, the little bogie-wheels would not go round—they were just skidding along on the tracks. So we camped until some warmer air came along.

Odd things happened in those conditions. One evening Thomson was standing near one of the Weasels when he heard loud, crackling explosions:

AN AIRDROP OF FUEL AND SUPPLIES FROM A US GLOBEMASTER, 900 KILOMETRES INLAND, ENABLED THE ANARE TRAVERSE TO REACH VOSTOK AND RETURN TO WILKES IN 1962. (R THOMSON)

It took me some moments to identify the cause, a really uncanny occurrence; the thick paint on the shaded rear of the vehicle was rapidly forming large blisters which exploded, depositing hard skin many feet away. In the extreme cold the [paint] must have been contracting at a substantially different rate to the body metal underneath, which was receiving some warmth from the interior of the vehicle. After about a minute the explosions ceased, though by this time the Weasel showed a clean, clear unpainted rear.28

A successful air drop from an American Globemaster aircraft gave the party fuel reserves to press on with the final 500 kilometres to Vostok. The station was unoccupied, but the Russians had given the Australians permission to use it. The Russians were also pleased to have access to the scientific data recorded on the traverse, to link up with their own—particularly the gravity and magnetic readings. When the Australians reached Vostok on 18 November they found the buildings snowed in, but managed to climb in through a roof hatch to the living quarters. Pushing aside polar bear skins hung in the doorway, they found the main living quarters. When they managed to start generators

255

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

for power and heat, they discovered the last Russians there had left in a hurry. Collins: On the stove there was a big pan of steak and onions, and on the table places laid out for three people. They’d made a pot of tea in a beautiful china teapot, but the tea had frozen and busted the pot. Some of the plates had steak and onions on them.

256

The Australians switched on the stove, finished cooking the snap frozen steaks, and warmed up water for their first bath since leaving Wilkes. The outside temperature—even in full sun—never rose above –45°C during the six days spent at Vostok, called by the Russians the ‘Pole of Cold’. The return to Wilkes was not without its difficulties but, in contrast to the journey out, was downhill all the way. Glaciology investigations (drilling and seismic explosions) were made at regular intervals by Alastair Battye to calculate the thickness of the ice sheet above the bedrock and sample the annual rates of accumulation. Don Walker was able to take gravity readings at those same sites.29 This remarkable journey confirmed the feasibility of ANARE tractor train travel on the Antarctic ice sheet over long distances and provided the practical experience that led to the traverse establishing itself as the preferred method of transporting heavy cargo and equipment to support field work in areas like the Prince Charles Mountains and Law Dome. The pioneering work led to the great Lambert Glacier–Amery Ice Shelf glaciological traverses of 1994 and 1995, covering 2250 kilometres from Mawson Station to the Larsemann Hills near Davis Station and back. By 1965 the principal features of the AAT had been named and identified following exploratory journeys by land, sea and air. The first comprehensive attempt to rationalise the names of new and formerly named features was made in the Gazetteer of the Australian Antarctic Territory, compiled by Graeme McKinnon for the Antarctic Names Committee of Australia (ANCA), and published by ANARE in 1965. ANCA was established in 1952, on Phil Law’s suggestion, to advise the Minister for External Affairs on names in the AAT. Before that there was no formal procedure for approving Antarctic names. In his day, Douglas Mawson had simply decided what names to put on the map and when the map was published these names automatically became official.30 The original ANCA committee comprised Sir Douglas Mawson, B P Lambert (Director of National Mapping), Captain G D Tancred (Hydrographer, Royal Australian Navy), A A Wilcock (Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Melbourne), and chairman Phil Law (Director of the Antarctic Division). Later Graeme McKinnon, the Geographical

F

I L L I N G

I N

T H E

M A P

Officer of the Antarctic Division, became secretary. Apart from one eighteen-month break, Phil Law chaired ANCA until 1981. Historically it was accepted that the explorer who discovered a feature had the right to name it. But it was not always clear which explorer had seen it first. Australian, Norwegian, American, British and French explorers had been active on and around the AAT. Which nation’s names should be accepted? ANCA became involved in a great deal of historical research. Was it fair, for instance, for a nation conducting the first aerial survey of a significant area of coastline to ‘saturate’ that area with instant names from the photographs? Phil Law believed that some sense of proportion had to be maintained in applying personal names: Major features should be named after major personalities in Antarctic work, or those who have made major contributions in finance or administration or politics to the success of an expedition. Names should not be applied purely because of relationship or friendship with the explorers, nor should names of commercial enterprises designed to gain publicity or commercial gain be suggested.31

Mac. Robertson Land, named by Sir Douglas Mawson in recognition of one of his major sponsors (and supplier of chocolate and confectionery) Sir MacPherson Robertson, was so called before ANCA was set up. The first diesel mechanic on Heard Island in 1948, John Abbottsmith, has Abbottsmith Glacier named after him. Geologist Bruce Stinear has four features to his credit—Stinear Island near Mawson, Stinear Lake at Davis, Stinear Mount near the Lambert Glacier, and Stinear Nunataks south-east of Mawson. Auster Rookery near Mawson and Beaver Lake in the Prince Charles Mountains are named after aircraft, Foggydog Glacier because it looks like a dog’s head, and Numbat Island, near Enderby Land, named after the Australian marsupial. Despite Law’s hope that friends and relatives of explorers would not be immortalised in Antarctica, there are plenty of examples. John Béchervaise has his own Mount Béchervaise and Béchervaise Island at Mawson. His wife, Lorna Fearn Béchervaise scored a double behind Mawson—Fearn Hill in the North Masson Range near a glacial lake, Lake Lorna. Pilot Peter Clemence’s daughter (born while he was in Antarctica in 1957) has Amanda Bay near Prydz Bay, and Amanda Rookery on the western side of Amanda Bay. Sometimes the origin of a name remains the subject of debate. Platcha, originally a remote weather station in the Vestfold Hills is officially linked to an abbreviation of ‘Plateau Chateau’.32 But according to former radio operator Patrick Moonie, ‘Platcha’ was the nickname of Harry Redfearn, the 1961 diesel mechanic at Davis who was primarily responsible for

257

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

hauling materials to this site 31 kilometres east of Davis, and building the hut: The dieso was a man of immense energy, enthusiasm, flamboyance and direct language. His standard salutation to his fellows, for whatever cause, was ‘go plait your shit’—abbreviated to ‘go platcha’. . .33

This is not quite as elegant as ‘Plateau Chateau’, but an interesting example of usage triumphing over decorum. Although Phil Law voyaged to Antarctica 28 times and led ANARE for seventeen years, he had comparatively few features named after him in Antarctica. Since he chaired ANCA it was awkward to approve features named after himself. When someone nominated a place be named after him, he would leave the committee room while the matter was discussed. Law Promontory and Law Islands are near Stefansson Bay, Kemp Land, and there is a Law Plateau behind Mawson—all comparatively modest features. The ingeniously designed incinerating toilet at Mawson was always known as Law Hut, an honour deeply appreciated by the former ANARE director. In 1966 an ice feature behind Casey was officially named Law Dome. It is an almost circular ice cap, 200 kilometres across, but not a particularly spectacular-looking site. It has since—to Law’s delight—proved to be of enormous scientific significance. A deep-drilling program through 1200 metres of accumulated layers of snow has produced ice cores with precise evidence of climate changes dating back 20 000 years to the last ice age. Bedrock was reached in February 1993 through a layer of compressed ice, providing evidence back as far as 120 000 years ago. Doubtless because of Phil Law’s undeniably bald pate, glaciologists working in the area generally referred to the ice dome as ‘Law’s Head’.

258

FIFTEEN

WHY

ARE WE THERE?

T

he Australian Government developed its Antarctic stations from 1948 with one aim firmly in mind—to establish Australia’s claim on its Antarctic territories. Although the International Geophysical Year in 1957–58 encouraged nations operating in Antarctica to pool their knowledge and avoid obvious duplication of scientific programs, the emphasis was on exploitation. There was more interest in the possibility of finding valuable deposits of minerals or in whaling and fishing rights than in exploring the boundaries of pure science. In contrast to the internationally coordinated scientific programs of the 1980s and 1990s, scientific activity in Antarctica from 1948 through to the 1960s is described by the Antarctic Division’s chief scientist Patrick Quilty as ‘reconnaissance science’, essentially trying to cover the continent and find out what was there.1 The Antarctic Treaty that came into force on 23 June 1961 did not resolve the competing territorial claims in Antarctica, it just set them aside—in ‘cold storage’ as it were. As Phil Law told the Parliamentary Sub-committee on Europe, the Commonwealth and Antarctica on 1 May 1963: I think most nations are playing it safe at the present time and saying, ‘Well, whether we have got a Treaty or not, we will keep our finger in the pie down there’.2

Although Law told the committee that science in its own right was a very good and strong reason for Australia being in Antarctica—the

259

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

‘search for truth, pure science’ argument—in reality it was being carried out on an ad hoc basis when experts and opportunity coincided. Certain results were of immediate practical benefit. Law addressed a science symposium in Melbourne in August 1963 and said data received from meteorological and ionospheric observations on their own were ‘of sufficient value to justify quite a high level of Antarctic effort’. 3 Significant mineral resources might be found, and there was always the chance that ‘some discovery may lay bare a second Kalgoorlie, Ballarat or Broken Hill’. The opportunities to make use of Antarctica in any possible practical way were canvassed enthusiastically. Law told the same symposium that he had personal reservations about the Antarctic Treaty forbidding the dumping of atomic wastes in Antarctica which could be an ideal place for disposal of radioactive materials of long life: Impregnated in concrete blocks or even dissolved in water which would freeze into blocks, the wastes could then be deposited in remote regions in the interior of Antarctica or in deep inland crevasses in the ice where they would be safe for many thousands of years, well beyond their active life.4

260

Getting the finance to enable research in the many disciplines involved in Antarctic research was a constant struggle during Law’s seventeen years as director of the Antarctic Division. Some Government departments—like the Bureau of Mineral Resources—could immediately contribute to geology and minerals research as well as geomagnetism and gravity work. Meteorologists went south from the Bureau of Meteorology—but under the umbrella of ANARE. Law’s problem was to keep this Antarctic work sufficiently quarantined from the parent departments. Many of the new scientific disciplines needed in the Antarctic simply did not exist in the established bureaucracies and had to be developed by the Antarctic Division—disciplines like glaciology, upper atmosphere physics and biology. The Antarctic was virgin territory. Law: ‘I tried desperately to get someone in 1949–51 to take over the biology, and believe it or not I couldn’t interest any professor in any university to take it on.’ The first priority with sub-Antarctic biology was to find out what was there. This involved gathering fairly basic data on the populations of animals and birds and their breeding success rates. Law encouraged the medical officers, such as Alan Gilchrist on Heard Island in 1948, to begin keeping biological records in their spare time, to get valuable data on ‘dates of penguins [laying] eggs, dates of hatching’, seal and bird observations. The first trained biologists, Graham Chittleborough and Tim

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

Ealey, went to Heard Island in 1949 for ANARE, and Law (a physicist) acted as their supervisor. The opportunities were there for young scientists eager to make their names. Bill Taylor was the first trained botanist to winter at Macquarie Island, in 1950, and the first to study the vegetation and the soils—although botanical collections had been made by visitors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and sent to London. Unfortunately these collections were all destroyed by bombing raids on Kew in World War II. Taylor, later to write his PhD thesis based on his work at Macquarie, spent a fascinating year noting the island’s five principal vegetation formations—grassland, herbfield, fen, bog and feldmark: The interesting thing about it was that, being on an island like this, isolated [and] which had been glaciated, there were very few species—so that in some ways, things got simplified. I simply walked all over the island, dug all over the island, to try to understand everything that I could about what was growing [there].

Later studies accepted Taylor’s five classifications but expanded the range of vegetation noted. Not all young scientists were able to take full advantage of their Antarctic opportunities. Entomologist Tom Manefield, fresh out of university, went to Macquarie Island in 1949. He was ambivalent about going as his alternative was to begin a Master’s degree at Cambridge University: Professionally I could only regard it as a total waste of time. It was quite negative, actually. . .I was undertrained, I had no program of work and no supervision. . . As an entomologist, I think there are only six or eight species of insect on the island: a moth that came out for about a fortnight a year on the kelp; another little moth that came out on the tussock grass for about a week; a few little carrion beetles on the carcasses; some fleas on penguins and the kelp flies. Mostly, I suppose, we were builders. The [expedition] was grossly underplanned at that stage of the game, and buildings just had to be built. Mostly I just built or loafed. . .from a [professional] point of view it was awful.

As a result of that year on Macquarie Island, Manefield says, he moved away from science as a career. Other biologists, though, found a great richness of fauna available to them. Max Downes followed Ealey and Chittleborough on Heard Island in 1950. They were pioneers in techniques and ingenious innovation as well as taking their discipline to a new location. There were no

261

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

rings available for bird banding, so Max Downes had to get the bands made himself: ‘I got sheep marking tags and had them stamped ANARE Australia and a number. The only banding had been done on mutton birds in Tasmania by Dr Serventy with the CSIRO.’5 Law’s problems getting even quite modest scientific equipment for his field staff were illustrated by a letter received in June 1951 from Francis Ratcliffe, officer-in-charge of the Wildlife Survey Section of the CSIRO in Canberra: I cannot guarantee the swift acceptance and implementation of a bird banding scheme, and the approval of funds that will enable us to place orders for stocks of bands, and hope to see them come to hand before the end of 1951.6

Dr Grahame Budd, who was OIC and medical officer at Heard Island in 1954 and on later expeditions, believes Phil Law was a very fortunate choice for those formative years of the Antarctic Division’s science program: Phil had that combination of drive and personal vision as to what it should be like. He was ready to do battle with his masters in Canberra for what he thought was right, which probably did him no good in the long run. They were very necessary battles. . .he also had this conviction that the scientific program must go on. This became a bit of a joke. . .a catch phrase, ‘the scientific program must go on’ (when you are climbing out of the water). . .[but it’s] very important. When conditions are trying it is very easy to think, ‘Oh well, gosh, it is hard enough just surviving at the moment, forget about the science’. In fact many people did go to great lengths to see they made their observations on time. That is why we were there.7

Arthur Gwynn, medical officer on Macquarie Island in 1949 and in 1953, was also a talented ornithologist and carried on the tradition established by Alan Gilchrist on Heard Island by running biological programs. Stefan Csordas, MO on Macquarie in 1955, 1957 and 1959, was a keen naturalist. He was introduced to Macquarie by Gwynn and Robert Carrick, a senior biologist at the CSIRO. According to Law, Carrick was an Antarctic enthusiast.

262

But he used to go down there as an adventure to do his bird work, and I could never get him to write his stuff up. And till the day he died, he’d never written it up properly. He just loved the field work and hated the hard yakka of sitting at a table and writing papers. So he went back to

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

Scotland and left us a bit of a vacuum there. . .Continuity in biology was always difficult.

In 1955, Csordas was able to combine his work as a naturalist with some practical psychology. One of the radio operators became frustrated with life on the island and began harassing the Macquarie wild life, chasing every living creature—penguin or elephant seal—down the beach into the water. As this neurotic behaviour coincided with the time Csordas was about to begin noting nests and banding birds, he asked the radio operator to help him with his light-mantled sooty albatross program. The two men climbed the cliffs, and Csordas gave him the numbered tags to put on the nests: There was an enormous change in my friend’s attitude. He fell in love with the birds, and spent every spare moment climbing up to them—even during the night. He got to know every bird, so I got exact dates when the eggs were laid and when the chicks started to hatch. They were his own property.

Csordas said the radio operator began taking fellow expeditioners to task if they came too near ‘his’ birds. He helped with banding the chicks, and his whole behaviour pattern became much more socially acceptable. By 1965, graduate students like Michael Bryden were wintering at Macquarie working on PhD projects. Bryden, a veterinary surgeon, worked intensively for sixteen months on the growth and development of elephant seals. The growth rates of baby elephant seals are phenomenal. During their first three weeks of life they put on ten or twelve kilograms a day. Elephant seals are born on land, then quickly adapt to a life in the water. How their muscle structure and blood adapt to the change provided a fascinating study for Bryden, who was attracted to the project through an interest in the development of meat production in cattle. Bryden was encouraged by Robert Carrick and by Fred Jacka, the assistant director (scientific) at the Antarctic Division. Apart from adding to the knowledge of elephant seal physiology and development, Bryden’s project produced some interesting results for the meat industry: It’s fairly clear that fat distribution in the body is controlled almost entirely by genetic factors, whereas the distribution of muscle and meat across the body is controlled by functional factors. Attempts had been made for some years to increase the amount of meat on, say, the rump of an animal because that’s where all the expensive cuts were. It’s not possible to do that. All you can do by changing the shape of animals is

263

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

to change the distribution of fat in their bodies—and you can do that just by careful genetic selection. . .I think that was a fairly important contribution to the meat industry at the time.

Such practical results were a useful boost to ANARE’s lobby for more resources for Antarctic science. As biologists such as Downes were the first to admit, upper atmosphere physics was the glamour science of the early 1950s. Antarctica was an ideal location for experiments in solar terrestrial physics due to the orientation of the earth’s magnetic field there. Scientists on Heard and Macquarie were interested in recording the intensity of cosmic rays (high energy particles) bombarding the earth from outer space, and lower energy particles, the effects of which can actually be seen as auroras—the aurora borealis in northern latitudes, and the aurora australis in the southern hemisphere. Australia was fortunate that the location of ANARE stations permitted the investigation of a range of phenomena outside, under and inside the auroral regions. Pioneering work in this field was done in 1948 on Heard by Fred Jacka and Jo Jelbart, and on Macquarie by Ken Hines and Leigh Speedy. Later physicists Peter Fenton and ‘Nod’ Parsons continued to observe both aurora and cosmic rays from Macquarie Island.8 Field trips to band birds or count seals also involved other members of the stations, particularly on Heard Island. Going anywhere was difficult and involved climbing and crossing glaciers. Biologists and volunteers were subjected to the vagaries of Heard Island’s sudden and violent weather changes and personal survival was the first priority of field work. Downes recalls that the adventures of field trips on Heard in 1950 were often the principal topic of conversation in the evenings. Biologists Graham Chittleborough and Tim Ealey, who went to Heard before Downes in 1949, found the fleecy lined cold weather clothing issued to them was fine for keeping warm while sitting around, but totally unsuitable for energetic field work. They experimented and soon realised that warm inner clothing and a windproof outer layer was better. The close-weave jungle greens they had were light and fairly windproof, but needed waterproofing: Tim and I experimented with latex and solvent, dipping the jungle greens with fair success. As we were dissecting seals in the course of our research, I suppose we could have waterproofed with seal oil, but the rest of the party said we already carried a distinctive air with us.9

264

As it happens, biology has become one of the strongest branches of Antarctic science but in the early years biologists like Max Downes were well aware that physics had priority in ANARE:

W

H Y

Biology wasn’t looked on as a science vital to man’s future—it was good for publicity. It used to amuse me that all the press releases were about the terrific things that were happening in biology and no one used to talk about the physics. . .I think biology was the icing on the cake. Because it involved field work and because the visual effect of the wild life was so great, it was the thing that impressed people. . .10

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

‘THIS MAY HURT A LITTLE.’ BIOLOGIST MICHAEL BRYDEN

The two major areas of innovation in early ANARE IMMOBILISING A SURPRISED science were glaciology and cosmic rays. After Law ELEPHANT SEAL ON returned from his Wyatt Earp voyage in 1948, Professor MACQUARIE ISLAND, 1965. Leslie Martin—who had headed the Physics Department (COURTESY M BRYDEN) of the University of Melbourne—decided to relinquish the Antarctic part of their cosmic ray work. Cosmic ray measuring equipment, which had gone with Law on Wyatt Earp and to Macquarie and Heard Islands, at the end of 1948 was brought back to be overhauled and restructured. Law: I was able to interest Professor ‘Lester’ McAulay [Professor of Physics] at the University of Tasmania to take this over, and he had two very keen young physicists, Geoffrey Fenton and his younger brother Peter. After the cosmic ray equipment had been rebuilt and redesigned, Peter Fenton took one set down to Macquarie Island. We started sending equipment to Mawson after 1954. A Hobart man, Bob Jacklyn, was one of the earliest and he carried on for the next 30 years.

Australia has no permanent ice so there were no glaciologists in Australia, and although Law contacted several glaciologists in the United States and Britain he was not successful in persuading them to take charge of the ANARE glaciology programs: Then I realised that glaciology is really physics and mathematics, and thought, ‘Why can’t I just get a good physicist or a good mathematician and turn him into a glaciologist?’

265

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

Law enlisted the aid of Dr Fritz Loewe, a German aviator and polar explorer who was chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne. Also a glaciologist, Loewe had Antarctic experience with the French in 1951 and he could be used as an expert: Law: One of the first men I chose in this way was a British physicist called Malcolm Mellor. We sent him up to work with Loewe [and his assistant Uwe Radok] to give him the basics of glaciology—and being a good physicist and a reasonable mathematician he was able to turn himself into a glaciologist. Later he went to the United States and had a very successful glaciological career over there. But our best accomplishment was to pick William Budd, and he was chosen because he was a good mathematician. And we turned him into a glaciologist and he became one of the world’s leaders.*

Glaciologists went south with ANARE every year from 1960. Bill Budd wintered at Casey in 1961 and in 1964 at Mawson, where he completed a study of the dynamics of the Amery Ice Shelf begun in 1961. These and other early glaciological studies were coordinated by Uwe Radok, who took over from Loewe as chairman of the Department of Meteorology in 1961. The first sea ice research program was undertaken by glaciologist Gunter Weller from Mawson in 1965. On the continent, one of the biggest continuing projects of ANARE glaciologists is their work on and around the Lambert Glacier—the world’s largest—which drains over one million square kilometres of Antarctica through the Prince Charles Mountains into the Amery Ice Shelf, which is 200 kilometres wide where it meets the ocean. In the early years of ANARE, geologists and surveyors often worked together. The surveyor established the true position of areas of exposed rock, and the geologist collected samples for later analysis. Law’s ‘second Broken Hill’ was never found, but significant geological discoveries were made. Peter Crohn accompanied Syd Kirkby into the Prince Charles Mountains, having requested a second year at Mawson from 1955 through 1956. On the edge of the Amery Ice Shelf he found some fascinating sediments in rocks now called the Amery Formation. There were also seams of coal, but that was of lesser significance to the geologist. Crohn: The sedimentary rocks are very similar in their appearance and composition, and in the presence of fossils in the coal seams, to a much bigger [formation] in the Victoria Land area which is called the Beacon

266

* Professor W F Budd is the program leader of Polar Atmospheres at the Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania.

W

H Y

Formation. That has been known for a long time. The earliest Scott and Shackleton expeditions brought back specimens from that.

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

TWO ANARE SEISMIC TRAVERSE TRAINS ABOUT TO SET OFF FROM

Crohn’s discovery showed that when these rocks were deposited, some 200 to 300 million years ago, there were roughly similar conditions prevailing over a very large proportion of the Antarctic continent: That has implications for theories of continental drift and ancient climates and so on. So that was a bit of a surprise. Nobody, I think, before we went down there, expected to find that.

MAWSON STATION, 1957. (G WHEELER) THESE COAL SEAMS WERE FIRST DISCOVERED NEAR

BEAVER LAKE IN THE PRINCE CHARLES MOUNTAINS IN 1956 BY GEOLOGIST PETER CROHN. ( J MANNING)

Another particularly valuable combination of geologist and surveyor was that of Ian McLeod and Syd Kirkby which extended over several years. One of Law’s earliest campaigns was to unify all science under the ANARE banner. Early difficulties arose because of the inclination of departmental scientists to owe allegiance to their departments (the Bureau of Meteorology, Bureau of Mineral Resources or National Mapping) when down south instead of ANARE. With the sympathetic attitudes of the heads of these departments, Law’s aims were realised. Some areas of Antarctic work had no obvious connection with existing institutions—particularly research into cosmic rays, glaciology, upper atmosphere physics, sub-Antarctic and Antarctic biology and oceanography. In November 1960, with the support of the EPC, a submission was put to Cabinet requesting that the Antarctic Division be authorised to conduct scientific research in these specialist areas ‘provided

267

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

there is no duplication with the functions of other Government organisations’.11 Law wanted the Antarctic Division scientists to have COMPLETELY UNDER parity with salary scales in the CSIRO, but Cabinet was ICE, 1966. IT WAS unsympathetic—perhaps suspicious of the growth of ABANDONED IN 1969. yet another scientific bureaucracy. The Division was (P LAW) told to keep on going as they were—working in conjunction with other agencies—but was specifically forbidden to ‘develop its own capacity in scientific research’.12 This decision was a blow and was criticised by EPC members at their meeting on 19 May 1961. Law felt that it was tantamount to a lack of confidence being expressed in the division, with no investigation into its capabilities and record, and was ‘quite unjust’. The External Affairs representative, Colin Moodie, agreed, noting that Cabinet was probably bewildered as to why scientific programs should come under External Affairs—the last time Cabinet had considered this matter was in 1948. The meeting decided to resubmit the matter to Cabinet.13 This was done on 7 June 1961, but without success. By 1962, a major concern was not so much the employment conditions of ANARE scientists, but where they might be housed. Wilkes Station was not only disappearing under an accumulation of ice, but was an extreme fire hazard. Law told an EPC meeting in December 1962 that 268 Wilkes would only be habitable for a few more years and that the government WILKES STATION ALMOST

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

would have to decide whether to abandon it or rebuild it.14 The station had been thrown together by the Americans in seventeen days and was not built to last. It seemed a good idea in 1957 to build Wilkes in a sheltered hollow, but that decision doomed the settlement to a remorseless buildup of drift snow and ice. Most of the buildings were buried to roof level and internal heating caused a dangerous mix of melt water and diesel fuel which impregnated the timbers and made the risk of fire even more dire.15 Any practice fire alarm at Wilkes had expeditioners leaping from their bunks with genuine apprehension. The haphazard design of the station and its disappearance under the snow led to local treasure hunts. Many of the original American huts were Jamesways—a temporary version of a Nissan hut, except that instead of corrugated iron, fabric was stretched over wooden hoops. In 1963 weather observer Kevin ‘Torch’ Gleeson found one when he drove a D4 tractor over it and fell in, according to seismologist Malcolm Kirton: A rumour was put about by the 1962 party that there was a lost Jamesway full of American beer. We spent many hours probing the snow around the station with crowbars without success.16

In 1963 Wilkes ceased to be a shared station between the United States and Australia. The station had been essentially an Australian-run operation since its establishment in 1959 although two flags had been flown. In the house magazine Wilkes Hard Times, January 1964, the outgoing senior US Representative Rod Mallory paid tribute to the easy relationship enjoyed by the Americans and Australians during the years of joint operations, including the benefits of so many national holidays: I have enjoyed eating foods I never would have discovered anywhere else, and I believe that we Americans have converted a few of you to our dishes (like fartable beans). My vocabulary has accrued many new words that no one at home will understand, I hope!. . .We Americans think fondly of Wilkes, Australia and Australians—and that’s fair dinkum! Goodbye you mob of happy bastards. . .!17

Cabinet approval to build a new station was given on 4 July 1964.18 The project was given the code name REPSTAT—a contraction of ‘Replacement Station’. A site was selected on a rocky peninsula 21¼2 kilometres south of Wilkes, and the Antarctic Division threw itself into a frenzy of planning. Avoidance of the kind of problems that plagued Wilkes was high on the agenda. A general committee and five subcommittees were set up, under the umbrella of the Repstat Design Group, to design a radically different Antarctic station. The group included

269

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

specialists from the Antarctic Division, Department of Works, Aeronautical Research Laboratories, University of Melbourne and Monash University. Its chairman was Don Styles, then assistant director of the Antarctic Division. As logistics officer Geoff Smith recalled, Repstat’s design required: • • • • • •

270

siting and design to inhibit accumulation of drift snow resistance to high winds weatherproof construction fire resistance durable exterior cladding adequate services.19

Maps and a contour model of the site were prepared in 1964 by surveyor Keith ‘Soupy’ Budnick, and data telexed back to Melbourne. A contour model of Repstat was made and subjected to tests in the wind tunnel at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories. The design which emerged was of a long single line of buildings, located across the direction of the prevailing winds, and elevated above the ground on a network of scaffold pipes. The most dramatic and distinctive feature of the design was a long curved tunnel on the upwind side to deflect drift snow well away from the construction and provide covered access to the line of buildings. (The designers would have preferred solid angle-iron supports, not scaffold piping, but could not afford it.) Work on the site began during the 1964–65 changeover when a small team of division engineers and expeditioners (including several engineers from the Department of Works) began blasting offshore approaches and built an access road to the site. They erected one building and began work on the shells of two more. A member of the 1964 Wilkes party commented that so much building equipment was stockpiled on the shore ‘it resembled the Normandy beachhead just after D-Day’.20 While this looked impressive to an onlooker, the reality was that Repstat was being built on a modest budget—estimated at £165 000 [$330 000] by the EPC in 1963.21 The decision to build Repstat had meant a compromise on ANARE’s programs—a decision to close down Davis Station for an indefinite period to save an estimated £50 000 [$100 000] a year.22 Shipping space was also needed for the Repstat construction. One of the arguments used by Law to get Davis established in the first place for the International Geophysical Year in 1957–58 was that if we did not move in, the Russians almost certainly would. But by 1964, international cooperation in Antarctica was so entrenched that Law—about to go overseas in July to Paris and Moscow—asked External Affairs whether he should approach the French, Japanese or even the Russians on whether they might like to occupy Davis Station and continue the scientific work

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

there.23 No one wanted to lose the continuity of meteorological and other scientific observations from Davis. External Affairs bridled at the thought of the Russians moving in and told Law not to mention the availability of Davis to them. Law was asked to explore whether France, Belgium or Japan might be interested—or even a country which was not a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty, like Canada.24 In September, the possibility of the United States moving into Davis was canvassed by External Affairs: Occupation of the station by the Americans would mean that we would avoid the possible embarrassment of having to refuse the Russians if (as seems unlikely) they would ask for permission to use the empty station. . .25

The Japanese were sounded out by the Australian Embassy in Tokyo early in 1965 but declined the offer. That ended diplomatic feelers to find a friendly occupying nation for Davis Station and on 25 January 1965 Phil Law—who had led the party which established Davis in 1957—had the melancholy duty of shutting it down: The last hut doors were sealed at 1430 hours. I gathered all the men who were ashore and officially pulled down the Australian flag and the ANARE pennant at 1500 hours to declare the station closed.26

The closure had been preceded by press publicity about the twenty husky dogs that were due to be put down before Davis closed. Quarantine regulations precluded them from being brought back to Australia and Mawson Station, with its own teams, could only accommodate a few of the Davis dogs. Headlines like DOGS TO BE SHOT prompted inquiries from the Prime Minister’s Department to External Affairs.27 In its response, EA defended the decision, noting that the dogs would not be shot ‘but will be given an intramuscular injection such as morphine’.28 Melbourne journalist Peter Michelmore commented: ‘That is the wretched state of a husky as far as officialdom here is concerned—a dog without a country’. Scientists working on Antarctic-related projects might well have described themselves as researchers without an organisation since Cabinet had refused to sanction the Antarctic Division’s running its own research programs outside the umbrellas of the universities or specialised agencies like the CSIRO. In June 1964 Dr Fred Jacka, Assistant Director (Scientific) at the division, resigned to take up an appointment as Director of the Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research in Adelaide—a position that carried with it the salary and status of a university professor. Jacka had been with the division since its first year of operation, 1947, and Law,

271

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

sympathetic to Jacka, was hopeful that the Mawson Institute would augment the Antarctic Division’s scientific programs. The Mawson Institute (attached to the University of Adelaide) was inaugurated on 15 April 1961 by Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies and its constitution drew on the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge as a model. Jacka had high hopes for it and, in a discussion paper before he left the division, proposed that: The Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research be given the necessary government responsibility for the scientific research program which is presently the responsibility of the Antarctic Division of the Department of External Affairs. This would include, as current projects are rounded off, responsibility for research in fields which are now the joint province of the Antarctic Division and other university departments and CSIRO.29

But Jacka’s plans were too ambitious for Law, the University of Adelaide, and the Commonwealth. On Monday 9 November 1964 Law met with the Vice-Chancellor of Adelaide University, Mr Henry Basten, to discuss working arrangements between the institute and the division. Law reported to External Affairs that Basten ‘had not himself envisaged anything so radical and extensive’. Law made it clear to the vice-chancellor that the division saw merit in keeping science and logistics under its ANARE umbrella: The Division would not be prepared to relinquish its control of programs in cosmic rays, aurora, glaciology, terrestrial biology, human physiology and medical sciences.30

Law told Basten, however, that the Mawson Institute could contribute to ANARE science in the same way that other universities and agencies did. The two men then lunched with Jacka and agreed that the institute could play a significant role in oceanography, marine biology and ‘certain aspects of upper atmosphere physics’. At the time Law backed Jacka’s move to Adelaide in 1964, he had no plans to leave the Antarctic Division, but by 1965 he was becoming increasingly frustrated by the Government’s refusal to allow the division to be responsible for its own research. On 5 November he went to Canberra to make his views known to Sir Laurence McIntyre. He told the deputy secretary that as well as an assistant director (scientific) to replace Jacka he needed:

272

. . .a chief physicist, or chief glaciologist, and a chief biologist. No permanent positions existed for these men and the chances of obtaining classifications adequate to attract men of sufficient quality were at present

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

J

acka took up his new job as head of the Mawson Institute in Adelaide on 28 June 1965, but his hopes for the scale of its contribution to Antarctic science were never realised. Law was supportive and tried to involve the institute in an oceanography program for the 1965–66 season, but the Government refused to grant the modest £12 900 [$25 800] requested—taking the view that the University of Adelaide should support the institute and fund its programs from its share of Commonwealth grants. Law spelled out the realities to Jacka in a letter on 11 October 1965 after discussions with the Prime Minister’s Department and Treasury specifically on the oceanography issue: It was pointed out that when a new chair of some branch of science is established, the university accepts the fact that a substantial amount of money for research must be made available to enable the new professor to pursue his research interests. In the case of physics a new professor might bargain for several hundreds of thousands of pounds before he accepts the chair. In the case of oceanography the amounts concerned are quite modest and it was felt that if the university were really interested in such a program the money involved might well be provided by the university.31 Jacka was able to pursue his own research interests in upper atmosphere physics from Adelaide with ANARE assistance, but the Prime Minister’s Department remained adamant on the issue of funding oceanography. The failure of the Mawson Institute to flower was noted by Sir Douglas Mawson’s widow, Paquita, who wrote to the Governor-General, Lord Casey, in April 1966:

PIONEERING ANARE UPPER ATMOSPHERE PHYSICIST AND LATER DIRECTOR OF THE MAWSON INSTITUTE, FRED JACKA, PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1956. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY) The Mawson Institute for Antarctic research is only a Director and a name. (I’m rather disappointed but can do nothing. I have no money. £20 000 [$40 000] was given by the Commonwealth for a building and now a few rooms are being added to an extension of the Physics Dept.)32 Casey passed Lady Mawson’s letter on to Sir Laurence McIntyre, Deputy Secretary of External Affairs, who replied: Unfortunately we have the same impression of the Institute as has Lady Mawson—that it is not much more than a director and a name. (Privately we have been a bit worried about it, and particularly about the Adelaide University’s apparent reluctance to provide it with any worthwhile funds.)33

?

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

remote. Without clearing up this situation we could not plan three years ahead, as was essential in terms of logistic and scientific support for the programs we had in mind.34

Law was due to sail on Nella Dan in December for the annual resupply voyage to relieve Wilkes and Mawson Stations, inspect the abandoned Davis Station and carry out coastal surveys and exploration. He was keen to resolve the uncertainty over the future of the division’s scientific activities, which had dragged on for five years, before he left: I was concerned at the general indications of lack of Government interest in Antarctic achievement and our scientific programs [and] apprehensive lest mounting defence expenditure resulted in cuts to our budget. Even if our budget remained at £1 million [$2 million], the annual rise in costs of about four to five per cent would result in our activities gradually being reduced.35

There were personal irritations too. Law’s discontent was aggravated by his annual salary of £4600 [$9200] and senior officer classification compared with directors of other Commonwealth agencies like the Bureau of Meteorology, £5020 [$10 040] and CSIRO, £5980 [$11 960]. Though his senior staff had been reclassified the previous year, his own position had not, and he felt he had ‘been treated with scant consideration’: All in all I was despondent about the future. I was 53 years old and had twelve useful years of public service ahead of me. If no real opportunity for achieving worthwhile results were given to me in the Antarctic field I would seek some other avenue for my energies. In short I was seriously considering resigning [the] next April if nothing were accomplished before then in regard to the Division’s problems.36

274

Law had seriously considered leaving the Antarctic Division in 1959 when he applied for several vice-chancellorships at Australian universities. He maintained his interest in tertiary education and by the time he boarded Nella Dan on 29 December 1965 he knew it would be his last voyage as director of ANARE—Sir Laurence McIntyre was not able to give him any assurances about the future of the scientific program, or the status of the division. Law’s last ANARE voyage was marked (as was his first sailing in Kista Dan) by a hurricane—this time at Mawson Station. On the evening of Saturday 12 February 1966 Nella Dan was moored in Horseshoe Harbour. Fourteen of the ship’s officers and crew were ashore with all the incoming and outgoing expeditioners for the traditional

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

PHILLIP GARTH LAW, AC, CBE, MSC, DAPPSC (HON. MELB), DED (HON. VIC), DSC (HON. LA TROBE), HON. FRMIT, FANZAAS, FAIP, FRSV, FTSE, FAA. They called Phil Law ‘Mr Antarctica’ and the conjunction of his career and that of the fledgling Antarctic Division was fateful. Appointed as senior scientific officer in July 1947, he was with ANARE right from the beginning, sailing on the wooden Wyatt Earp in 1948 on its attempt to find a site for the first ANARE continental station. By 1949 he became the Antarctic Division’s first director (taking over from Stuart Campbell, the original leader of ANARE), and continued in that role for the next 17 years. While Mawson’s work led directly to the establishment of the Australian Antarctic Territory, it was left to Law to consolidate Australia’s reputation in Antarctica. As a tireless promoter of Australia’s Antarctic interests, he secured substantial and continuing national commitment to Antarctica.37 Law led the expeditions that established the Mawson and Davis Stations and negotiated the transfer of Wilkes Station from the USA to Australia. Later he initiated the construction of the first Casey Station. Over his nineteen years as an Antarctic explorer, Law made 28 voyages to Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions. His coastal exploration achieved 28 landings at previously unvisited sites, and under his direction over 5000 kilometres of AAT coastline was accurately charted for the first time. Winter parties working inland from the stations extended the total area mapped to more than one million square kilometres.38 By the time he retired from the Antarctic Division in 1966, the main geographical features of the AAT were known,

PHIL LAW, ANTARCTIC EXPLORER, 1956. (G LOWE)

PHOTOGRAPHED IN

and important scientific programs had been set in place, many of which continue to this day. He was 55 when he left the Antarctic Division to return to academe and a new career, taking up the newly created position of Vice-President of the Victoria Institute of Colleges (VIC). Essentially this meant building up another organisation from scratch, designing and fostering an educational group that at its maximum totalled sixteen Colleges of Advanced Education. He retired in 1977. ➤

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

Law was awarded a CBE in 1961 for his ‘substantial contribution to Australian achievement in the Antarctic’. In 1975 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (A0), and in 1995 received the highest award in the Australian honours system—a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC)—a more adequate recognition than the knighthood many ANARE colleagues thought he should have received immediately after his Antarctic service in the 1960s. In May 1996 he travelled to London to an investiture at Buckingham Palace to receive the Polar Medal originally offered to him in 1965, but not accepted then because two other nominated ANARE expeditioners at that time had not been awarded Polar Medals.

1954–1966

On Law’s eightieth birthday in 1992, the Royal Society of Victoria held a symposium in Melbourne to honour him and his work in Antarctica, education and marine science. Law’s interest in ANARE affairs has never flagged and he continues to comment forcefully on Antarctic Division and Government policies in Antarctica, through the ANARE Club and its journal Aurora as well as in newspapers and scholarly journals and at public forums. It is an ANARE Club joke that ‘Phil never really retired as director of the Antarctic Division’. Now well into his eighties, he travels widely and plays tennis several times a week when his schedule allows.

changeover party. At the last moment the master, Captain Wenzel Gommesen, and the chief engineer, Hugo Larsen, decided to stay on board as the wind began to gust at 50 knots. It was a wise decision. Had they gone ashore for the festivities they would have been unable to return to Nella Dan. As the hurricane intensified, the crew, marooned at the station, bunked down in the mess with emergency mattresses and blankets. At 2.30 am on Sunday Law was contacted by the radio room to hear that the ship’s port mooring lines had parted. Law: The Captain had put the engines full speed ahead and had wedged the nose of the ship into a rim of shore ice. The forepart of the ship was resting on the rocks, but the stern was afloat and was being prevented from swinging ashore on West Arm by the stern nylon rope, which still held.39

Law decided to make his way from the OIC’s hut to the mess to see how the rest of the party was faring. It was not a wise move. After being blown over twice in the blizzard he was forced to crawl on his hands and knees towards the door of the mess hut:

276

The wind strength was now 85 knots with gusts to 100 knots the strongest that I have ever had to proceed against. My face and hands were bitterly cold, and the confusion of mind, produced by the stinging, blinding

W

H Y

A R E

W E

T H E R E

?

NEW AND COASTAL LANDINGS IN AAT 1954–1966 Expeditions led by Phillip Law 1954 Mawson Station Vestfold Hills, Magnetic Island Vestfold Hills, flag-raising 1955 Vestfold Hills, first reconnaissance Prydz Bay Lower, on Polar Record Glacier Tongue Prydz Bay Lower, on Lichen Island 1956 Lewis Island, Wilkes Land Davis Islands, Wilkes Land (east of Vincennes Bay) Nelly Island, Vincennes Bay Donovan Island, Vincennes Bay Unnamed Island, Vincennes Bay 1957 Rauer Islands, Prydz Bay 1958 Larsemann Hills, Prydz Bay Enderby Land, island at NW corner of Amundsen Bay Mt Riiser-Larsen, Enderby Land 1960 Browning Island, Petersen Island, Vincennes Bay Magga Peak, Oates Land Chick Island, Wilkes Land Henry Islands, Wilkes Land 1961 Davies Bay, Oates Land Aviation Islands, Oates Land At base of peak, east of Davies Bay, Oates Land 1962 Cape Carr, Wilkes Land Cape Mikhaylov, Wilkes Land

1963 1965

1966

Penguin Point, King George V Land Thala Island, Nella Island, Oates Land Cape North, Oates Land Arthurson Ridge, Oates Land 1210 metre ridge, NE of Mt Gorton, Oates Land Cooper Bluffs, Oates Land Mt Kostka, Oates Land Sputnik Island, Oates Land Amery Ice Shelf, Mac. Robertson Land Jagar Island, Kemp Land Mt Kernot, Kemp Land Fram Peak, Kemp Land Rayner Peak, Kemp Land Abrupt Point, Edward VIII Gulf Mt Mueller, Enderby Land Schwartz Range, Kemp Land Mt Storegutt, Kemp Land Island N of Mt Clarius Mikkelsen, Prydz Bay

Expeditions led by Donald Styles 1960 Kloa Point, Kemp Land Mainland, near Enderby Land Proclamation Island, Enderby Land 1961 Thala Hills, Enderby Land McMahon Islands, Enderby Land Tange Promontory, Enderby Land Survey of White Island, Enderby Land

snow, the buffeting of the hood of my parka against my ears and forehead, the roar of the wind and the difficulty of peering out around the funnelled parka hood is impossible to describe.40

Law could not help thinking what it must be like to have no shelter or to be lost under such conditions. An effort of will was required in

277

E

S T A B L I S H M E N T

A N D

E X P L O R A T I O N

1954–1966

order to think at all and to resist panicking. He reached the door of the mess, but could not be heard by those inside: With all my strength I could open it no more than about ten centimetres against the wind. After several attempts I got my hand inside, then my arm, then my shoulder and, risking what seemed probable decapitation, my head and the rest of my body.41

The crew managed to get back on board by 5.30 pm that Sunday. The captain reported that during the storm the moorings of the helicopter rotor blades had parted and the blades had been spun by the wind at about 100 revolutions per minute. As the engine was not running, no oil was pumped to the rotor system and after several hours they seized up. The helicopter was unserviceable for the rest of the voyage.42 Nella Dan endured another hurricane at sea in early March as Law left Antarctica for the last time—testing his propensity for seasickness to the end. Nella Dan returned to Hobart on Friday 11 March. Seven days later, Law chaired a meeting of the EPC (which never met again) and explained he had resigned as director to take up a position as vice-president of the Victoria Institute of Colleges. He told the EPC that it was essential for the director to be involved in expedition activities, to visit the stations and mix with the men he was leading. After nineteen years he felt he could not keep up this activity until he reached retiring age. He had no desire to run the division from a desk and thought that if he were going to make a change he had to do it now; his greatest regret was leaving the men whose loyalty and friendship he had enjoyed for so many years. His decision was also influenced to some extent by the health of his wife.43 Law left the Antarctic Division in April 1966. During his time with ANARE he led the expeditions which established all the continental stations, oversaw a program of exploration which filled in virtually all the dotted lines along the coastline of the AAT, and located its principal interior features. And he had set up a broadly based scientific program of Antarctic-related research. But now the ‘Law Era’ of ANARE was over.

278

TESTING TIMES 1967–1981

SIXTEEN

FROM

PILLAR

TO POST

D

on Styles became acting director of the Antarctic Division when Phil Law left. He had been Law’s deputy director and he was still running the division as acting director four years later. No one in Canberra seemed in a hurry to replace Law, whose aggression on behalf of ANARE’s interests and exasperation with the bureaucratic process had long irritated the mandarins of Treasury and External Affairs. The rhythm of ANARE field operations ran smoothly under Styles, although he had the embarrassment of a double besetment in January 1967 when both Thala Dan and Nella Dan were stuck in pack ice only 120 kilometres apart near Wilkes Station. Nella Dan (with Styles as voyage leader) was delayed for 26 days, and completely beset for sixteen days. The two ships were carrying building materials and a special construction team for the Replacement Station (Repstat) near Wilkes Station in Vincennes Bay. Both ships required assistance from the American icebreaker Eastwind which began breaking them out on 4 February. It took two days to free them. Much of the cargo destined for Repstat could not be unloaded and had to be returned to Melbourne because of the lost time.1 The besetments of Thala Dan and Nella Dan showed how fragile were Australia’s links with its Antarctic stations through the use of chartered ships with limited ice-breaking capacity and flying foreign flags. Even with Davis temporarily closed, Styles was having problems juggling shipping schedules to support field programs and resupply the stations in conjunction with the building of the replacement station at Vincennes Bay near Wilkes Station. These concerns were being addressed at External

281

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Affairs in Canberra on two fronts. If aircraft could be used to reach Antarctica, scientists could be flown in and out for their summer programs quickly and efficiently, and the pressure for berths on the Dan ships reduced. Secondly, serious thought was being given to building an Australian ship with a full ice-breaking capacity and able to carry 56 passengers. From 1965–68 John Lavett headed the Southern Section at the Department of External Affairs, which was responsible for formulating Antarctic policy. Although Lauritzens (who chartered the Dan ships to Australia) were an efficient and cooperative firm, Lavett believed that a system which depended on another nation’s ships was ‘fundamentally unsound’: The Lauritzen arrangement can have done nothing to advance our alleged uniquely Australian interest in Antarctica and in particular our Australian claim there. . .In the second place, the Lauritzen ships necessarily possessed only limited capacity for oceanographic research work, and yet this area of study was clearly becoming of increasing importance.

Lavett again canvassed the idea of building the new ship in Australia—an idea eagerly embraced by the Australian Shipbuilding Board. Its chairman, Dudley C L Williams, was well aware that it would be ‘the most complex and sophisticated shipbuilding project ever undertaken in Australia’. Preliminary plans were prepared, and even a model constructed. The ship would be around 12 000 tonnes and cost $15 million. Lavett: I must confess that, even allowing for the lower figures of those days, I was always a bit sceptical about that $15 million estimate, but they insisted they could support it for the purposes of my Cabinet submission—and discussions with Treasury—so who was I to wonder?

Construction was to be carried out at the Newcastle State Dockyard, which had the only equipment in Australia capable of handling the very heavy, thick steel plates involved. If necessary it was intended to seek design advice from the respected polar ship-building firm Wartsila, in Finland. Next Lavett was concerned with the manning of the ship and was determined to rule out regular Australian merchant seamen because of the industrial conditions at that time. The Royal Australian Navy might man the ship, Lavett thought, but he was quickly disabused of that idea:

282

I received a straight rejection—in writing. The navy, they said, did not go in for things like that, so push off! This quite brief and abrupt broadside surprised me from one point of view—namely the no doubt naive belief that the navy was supposed to defend Australian territory. . .

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

DONALD FRANKLIN STYLES, MBE, BSC, MIE (AUST), FRGS Styles was a respected Antarctic professional who joined the division in 1957 from the Postmaster General’s Department. An engineer, he first assisted Law with engineering operational matters, having a special interest in communications. Quietly spoken, reliable and competent, Styles was the ideal deputy and was soon leading most of the annual voyages of survey and resupply not personally handled by Law. He shared the excitement of the early exploratory years and in 1960–61 led a number of important voyages—including an expedition in Thala Dan west of Mawson to Kemp and Enderby Lands, where the first sea landings were made at a number of points, and where the western border region of the AAT was surveyed. Although never confirmed as director, Styles acted in that job for almost six years during difficult times for the division, including the sudden administrative switch from the Department of External Affairs to the Department of Supply in 1968. Like Phil Law, Styles revelled in the field work and until he retired, in 1977, specialised in coordinating the changeover operations and the summer field work. Eric Macklin, who worked closely with Styles on many resupply voyages, remembers his skills as a diplomat, consulting with Danish captains and with experts within the division and from the other agencies that make up ANARE: Don took a leading active part in all operations. He was first over the side to assist with mooring the ship at the ice edge, on occasions dangling precariously from a rope ladder over the bow of Nella Dan. Several times he got freezing wet when he

DON STYLES, WHO ACTED AS THE DIRECTOR OF THE ANTARCTIC DIVISION FOR NEARLY SIX YEARS, SUPERVISING UNLOADING OPERATIONS AT MAWSON STATION, 1964. (A CAMPBELL-DRURY)

broke through rotten ice while inspecting prospective areas for an ice airfield. . .He engendered a spirit of team work that saw men prepared to work long hours in trying conditions. He was a man who saw the good in people—if there were faults he kept them to himself.2 He was passed over for the director’s position twice, in 1970 and again in 1972. He retired in June 1977 after nineteen years with the division. If he was bitter about not being confirmed in the top job despite doing it for so many years, he did not show it. He was awarded an MBE in 1968 and a Polar Medal in 1974. He represented Australia at international Antarctic Treaty-related conferences from 1961 through to 1976. Don Styles died on 21 May 1995 in Melbourne after a long illness.

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Although Lavett knew that the navy would have to get on with the job if Cabinet so decreed, he explored further possibilities with the Department of Shipping and Transport and was told a crew could be provided from the Lighthouse Service. Meanwhile the Antarctic Division was pushing for the acquisition of two ski-equipped LC130 Hercules aircraft which could theoretically operate from Australia direct to a runway to be built at Davis Station—and then around the continent as required. Lavett: They much preferred this to the priority which we in Canberra wished to give to the ship, and it became apparent pretty quickly. . .they [the division] didn’t want a ship at all—at least not one of their own. . . As I put it to Don Styles one day in Melbourne, ‘Without a ship, how were the heavy supplies going to be handled? How was the fuel to get the aircraft round the continent and back to Australia to be transported?’ Don’s reply was, ‘If we have the aircraft, they’ll have to give us a ship.’

This attitude was not well received in Canberra and, according to Lavett, ‘really damaged our confidence in the quality of advice we were likely to get from the division’. While these options on shipping and air transport were being explored by External Affairs in 1967, Sir Laurence McIntyre, the Deputy Secretary of External Affairs, was keen to have an ‘audit’ of the Antarctic Division’s scientific program. He approached the president of the Academy of Science, Sir Frederick White, who agreed to chair a committee to evaluate what the division had been doing, and whether it was worthwhile. The Academy committee reported in August 1967 and recommended—perhaps not surprisingly—that Australian scientific research be continued. The report praised what had been done in Antarctica, finding that the scientific programs ‘have been well conceived and excellently carried out’. Planning and logistic support had been effective: Australia has as a result gained a prominent place in Antarctic science; the performance of the expeditions both scientifically and generally stands out conspicuously when compared with that of other nations.3

284

The committee did not, however, support Law’s ambitions to have the Antarctic Division employ its own scientists: ‘[The committee] believes that the scientific work could be directed adequately by scientists in Commonwealth Government instrumentalities and in the universities.’4 The report strongly recommended that the next director of the Antarctic Division should be a scientist, ‘having adequate abilities to manage the logistics operations’. In September 1967 Sir Laurence McIntyre—aware that Don Styles had been acting as director of the Antarctic Division for more than a

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

year—asked John Lavett whether he thought Styles should be confirmed in the position. By that time it had been established that a full review would be carried out into the future of the division, and Lavett argued against appointing Styles until the review had been completed: I said that, even leaving aside comparisons with Phil Law, which were inevitable, it did not seem that he had the necessary charisma or drive, despite his undoubted personal likeableness—or that he would be well enough regarded by the scientific or international communities to ensure that our Antarctic effort retained its status and reputation. . .we should also be cautious about committing ourselves to someone whose essential qualifications were those of a good, straightforward public servant.

McIntyre accepted this advice and Styles continued to mind the shop. The position of assistant director (scientific) was also left open, with the incumbent, Phil Sulzberger, continuing to act in it. Lavett continued with planning the review of the division and exploring options for air links with Antarctica. He was encouraged by conversations with the US scientific attache in Canberra, Paul Siple, a veteran American Antarctic scientist who had one of the US stations named after him. Siple told Lavett the US (under the umbrella of Antarctic Treaty cooperation) would probably be able to carry small numbers of Australian expeditioners between Christchurch and McMurdo Station, on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, from where American LC130 flights could carry them on to Australian stations when space was available during the summer flying program. In late October 1967—on Siple’s recommendation—Lavett consulted Qantas in Sydney to see if they could help get ANARE people to McMurdo. Qantas were interested and Lavett felt he was close to nailing down a summer program which could get Australian scientists to Antarctica and back by air. He was aghast when the Australian newspaper published a series of three articles canvassing the need for proper air support in the Antarctic, and tracking the course of his review ‘with absolute accuracy’. Paul Hasluck, who was Minister for External Affairs at the time, was furious. He accused Lavett of leaking the information: Hasluck was generally a model of charm in person, but in writing, which is how he preferred to deal, he could really be abominably rude. [He]. . .said he would simply not accept a situation where a public servant—by implication me—was trying to bring pressure on the Government by leaking material to the press. . .giving the direction that we were not to take any further action about aviation in Antarctica.

Stung by this attack on his probity, Lavett needed to track down the leak. He had consulted Phil Law thoroughly during his aviation research, and flew to Melbourne to see him:

285

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Phil readily agreed that it was indeed he who had made the leak and that he had done it to bring pressure on the Government. The possibility that it could have disastrously opposite results never occurred to him, and disastrous they were.

Lavett, concerned about his career, reported the source of the leak to Hasluck, who simply returned Lavett’s letter with one word gracelessly scribbled on it—‘noted’. The whole affair was symptomatic of Hasluck’s impatience with his Antarctic responsibilities. It may well have been the last straw as far as the acerbic Minister for External Affairs was concerned. Unlike Richard Casey who had a strong and enduring interest in Antarctic matters and who had played a pivotal role in establishing the Antarctic Treaty, Hasluck’s interests were firmly to the north. He was passionately interested in the politically emerging Papua New Guinea and preoccupied with the deteriorating situation in Vietnam. Lavett: He disliked in particular having to deal with the nitty-gritty of Antarctic Division work, such as approving detailed ship charters. He would have seen in this context the potential for severe political embarrassment.

Hasluck’s irritation with the Australian articles on the Government’s plans for Antarctic aviation and shipping came at an awkward time. His cooperation was needed to take the results of the review of the Antarctic Division (still being prepared) to Cabinet as a formal submission. The secretary of External Affairs, Sir James Plimsoll, made an informal approach to Prime Minister Harold Holt to sound him out on the basics of the review. Lavett: Apparently Holt responded in a very positive way and I dare say that one cause of this would have been the opportunity obviously provided to allege active, even adventurous, forward-looking courses of action by his government at a time when that government was running into serious difficulties for exactly the opposite reasons.

286

Unexpected, tragic circumstances intervened. On 17 December 1967 Harold Holt disappeared while swimming in heavy seas off Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. By 10 January 1968, Senator John Gorton had become prime minister of Australia. These were turbulent times for the Liberal–Country Party Government and Antarctic Division policy matters were overtaken by events. But not for long. On a Sunday afternoon in March 1968 John Lavett recalls he was working back at External Affairs on the Antarctic Division review he planned to present to Hasluck in six weeks:

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

My telephone unexpectedly rang. It was McIntyre. His advice rocked me totally. He had received a telephone call. . .from Hasluck to tell him that, following a discussion between himself and the new prime minister, John Gorton, it had been decided to transfer the Antarctic Division from External Affairs to the Department of Supply.

To his astonishment Lavett was told the transfer was to take place the following day—Monday: McIntyre told me that he expostulated with Hasluck, but that it was apparent that the decision was irrevocable. However McIntyre did get Hasluck to see that such a small time frame for the transfer was quite impractical. Hasluck therefore agreed on a deferment of just one week, which was, of course, still bad enough.

The reasons for this extraordinary haste remain unclear but the simplest explanation may be the obvious one—Hasluck decided to offload an area of responsibility which, Lavett said, ‘had turned out to be almost nothing but a nuisance and a headache’ to him. When McIntyre and Lavett went across to the Department of Supply the next day to see Secretary Alan Cooley, Deputy Secretary Tom Lawrence and Assistant Secretary Ian Homewood to discuss details of the transfer, they discovered Supply knew nothing about the move, or any reasons for it. But having been approached, those running Supply were enthusiastic and ‘raring to go’. The Department of Supply was a vastly different organisation from External Affairs. Whereas the transportation and stores side of ANARE operations always sat somewhat uneasily with the diplomatic functions of the DEA, logistics was what Supply was all about. Its main job was to support the defence forces. The deputy secretary, Tom Lawrence, was put in charge of Antarctic affairs: The department was quite used to—for instance through its contracts branch—hiring anybody, anywhere, to do anything, or buy anything, anywhere in the world for anybody. So organising logistics exercises down to the south didn’t really frighten us as being something new or strange. . .

The handover went smoothly, although a week was scarcely more practical than the original day allocated.*

* The official transfer of the Antarctic Division to the Department of Supply did not take place until 1 May 1968 when there was a Public Service Transfer, which was not formally effected until 7 June5 and gazetted on 20 June 1968.6

287

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Lavett thought that Supply was a factotum department, not a policy originator, and much more bureaucratic in its outlook and methods than External Affairs: ‘I think with justice that if Phil Law had found it possible to complain about the bureaucratic hand of External Affairs—as he did—he would have had a stroke in dealing with Supply.’ External Affairs retained an interest and role in relation to Antarctic Treaty matters, as the renamed Department of Foreign Affairs does to this day. Lavett also briefed Tom Lawrence, who was an Antarctic enthusiast, on the progress of the DEA review here was no cook on the Repstat buildof the division: ing site. Mackenzie alternated his

T

plumbing with bread-making:

I used to bake about, over thirty two pounds [13.9 kg] of bread a week for six and they used to eat it so fast I threw a screwed up Band-aid in a batch one time and that slowed the production down a little.7

It was said Mackenzie volunteered for the baking job because it gave him a chance to get his hands clean. He attributed his baking success—and the unique piquancy of his product—to his custom of wearing his ‘lucky’ sewerage overalls while he baked.8 The cooking was shared. No one ever complained about the food, because their turn was next.

288

Sadly, though, I could not get him to see the need for a ship of our own, and it soon became apparent that this proposal was going to be dropped. He felt that the aircraft part of it was ‘not on’ at that particular time. . .and, in the end, the division—as I had feared—got nothing at all [from the review].

Don Styles continued to act as director while those who ran Supply came to grips with the sudden Antarctic addition to their responsibilities. One of the most urgent practical problems was to complete the building of Repstat at Casey. The temporary closure of Davis Station was of some assistance, but the target of 1969 for occupation seemed unlikely after the besetment of Thala Dan and Nella Dan in 1967 and the effective loss of that season for building. The need for Repstat was urgent, with the ice-bound Wilkes Station a nightmare of decaying buildings, all at grave risk of fire. It was decided to recruit a special Repstat construction party of four men to winter over on the site. They would be helped by tradesmen from the Wilkes wintering party when they could be spared. There had been another unforeseen technical problem. The first section of the distinctive connecting tunnel (which was to connect all the buildings and act as an aerofoil to prevent drift building up around Repstat) did not perform as its designers had hoped. It was redesigned and during 1968 the entire length was erected—a herculean task. Most of this work was

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

done by plumber Rod Mackenzie, assisted by Don Loades from Wilkes. The leader of this pioneering REPSTAT WAS BUILT ON AN Repstat wintering construction party was carpenter ICE-FREE PROMONTORY 2.5 Bob Nicholson. The other two on-site winterers apart KILOMETRES SOUTH-WEST from Mackenzie were Terry Kelly (electrician) and OF WILKES STATION. Brian Rieussant (supervising radio technician). They were given a good start by a break of fine weather during the first seven weeks of the summer program, when extra help was available. Work went on without pause, and a saying on the site was: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. The stock reply: ‘That’s because ANARE wasn’t running the job’.9 Repstat was finished on time for its official naming ceremony on 19 February 1969. It was to be called ‘Wilkes ANARE Station’ after the original Wilkes Station built by the United States in 1957 and named after the American naval lieutenant Charles Wilkes who explored the coastline in 1840. The Department of Supply was unhappy about calling Repstat Wilkes, because of the confusion between ‘old’ Wilkes and the different geographical location of the new station. It would have to be Wilkes II. The department put a submission to Cabinet, suggesting it be named ‘Casey’ after the then Governor-General, Sir Richard Casey, to 289

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

mark his long association with Australia’s Antarctic program. But Cabinet had decreed it be named Wilkes THE DISTINCTIVE to mark the original association with the US. An extra REPSTAT/CASEY TUNNEL complication was the protocol for flying flags during UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN the naming ceremony and afterwards.10 1968. ( J SILLICK) Tom Lawrence was grappling with the name problem and wondering how he could convince Cabinet to change its decision. He heard that the Minister for External Affairs, Paul Hasluck, was going to address a meeting of the Royal Institute of Public Administration in Canberra. Lawrence went to the meeting and met Sir James Plimsoll, the Secretary of External Affairs: ‘I knew Jim, so I explained to him the background and asked, ‘‘Is the Minister approachable? Can he be talked to?’’.’ Plimsoll agreed to help and introduced Lawrence to Hasluck after the meeting. He explained the dilemma and Hasluck was sympathetic: ‘I said, ‘‘How do we go about it? Do we put in another Cabinet submission?’’ And he said, ‘‘No, no—don’t embarrass Cabinet. Write me a letter, I will argue”.’ Only ten days before ‘Wilkes’ was due to be opened, Roy Spratt, the acting director of works, sent a cable confirming that ‘Repstat will be opening under the name of Casey’.11 The Governor-General’s wife was also honoured, but not on the same scale. Spratt cabled to Wilkes that ‘it seems appropriate to name the new barge Lady May after Lady Casey’. On 15 February 1969, four days before Repstat became Casey Station, Davis Station (closed down since January 1965) was reopened and reoccupied. The incoming OIC and medical officer Des Parker reported that 290 the mothballed station was in surprisingly good condition:

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

The huts were unsealed and found to be in fairly good shape: some drift had occurred in surgery cold porch and in cold porch at the back of main building. Some water was found in surgery and main corridor of the sleeping quarters and the lino had lifted, buckled and cracked.12

Within half an hour of landing from Nella Dan the emergency diesel chugged into life for the first time OPENING STATIONS IS FAR in five years and provided light and power to the station. PREFERABLE TO CLOSING Australia’s three ANARE continental stations were THEM. A CHEERFUL INCOMING operational once again. GROUP CELEBRATES THE One of the first policy decisions the Department RECOMMISSIONING OF DAVIS of Supply had to make on taking over the Antarctic STATION IN 1969. CENTRE: Division was the enduring question of who was to control VOYAGE LEADER ERIC the scientific program. Tom Lawrence was concerned MACKLIN (LEFT) HANDS THE that the division had been taking scientists down south KEYS OF DAVIS TO INCOMING for years to do biological work, but there were few actual OIC AND MEDICAL OFFICER reports. In Lawrence’s view, the division should be more DES PARKER. forthright about its contractual arrangements with indi( J R HAYNE) vidual scientists and the CSIRO, Bureau of Mineral Resources, or university departments responsible for supervising their research: ‘It seemed to me that the division had got itself into the position of being a servant to these organisations.’ The Department of Supply was used to running organisations with scientific staff—like the Weapons Research Establishment in South Australia—and were aware of the need for a structure of properly graded public service positions. Lawrence: First of all we had to establish a cast-iron case. Supply had been through this years earlier to get scientific categories for its research and development staff, and it was very important to us that standards—CSIRO-like standards—be maintained.

291

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

D

r Des Parker, OIC and medical officer of the Davis 1969 wintering party, reported that the expeditioners did themselves proud with a hydroponic indoor garden and greenhouse, growing cress, radish, lettuce, spring onions, cabbage and tomatoes—and even a few flowers.13 The cress, radish and lettuce were the most successful, Parker said, as an ample supply could be kept up for the small wintering party of ten people. But on Saturday 30 August the green-fingered OIC wrote sadly in the station Log: Tragic news in the garden. Inadvertently,

while Paul Watts (diesel mechanic) was draining the hot water service tank into various receptacles—urging us to put it to good use—among the filled vessels was the slop bucket from the dark room. I carried this lethal load to the garden and gave the plants a good dose of developer and fixer. Initially I thought the dilution and subsequent watering would reduce the acidity and had hoped that the fixer and developer would neutralise each other, but it was otherwise, and slowly the plants have wilted including a couple of lettuce ready for the table. It will be necessary to discard the tank contents and start again from scratch.

Lawrence was concerned that not all the scientists at the division would ‘unarguably meet the standard’: Having said that, one thing that would cause as much destruction—dislocation, disturbance, loss of morale—as anything else is to split the so-called existing scientific staff down the middle [where] some go over and some don’t.

Lawrence nominated glaciologist Bill Budd as someone—through his publications and demonstrated performance—who could be moved over into an established position without argument. He was less sure about some scientists occupying senior positions but felt it was essential that a new director of the Antarctic Division should be a scientist who would understand the significance of the whole Antarctic program: We didn’t think Don Styles was the person to take that attitude and that position. . .We then advertised, and it was a little while before we got some response because we were advertising overseas as well as in Australia.

292

An overseas candidate, a distinguished New Zealand-born glaciologist Colin Bull, was brought to Australia from the Polar Research Institute of Ohio State University. After having investigated the division, he refused the position and returned to the United States. Lawrence then turned to an Australian, Bryan Rofe, who was then principal research scientist at the Weapons Research Establishment in South Australia. Rofe was surprised when Lawrence rang him one day and asked him if he would like a change of career. Rofe later told the division’s head of

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

polar medicine, Des Lugg: ‘Lawrence asked me what I knew about Antarctica and would I like to be the director of the Antarctic Division’. Bryan Rofe, a stockily built man with a forceful personality, took up duty at the Antarctic Division in Melbourne on 2 October 1970. At first he was viewed with some suspicion from within as ‘the man from Supply’ but quickly disarmed internal critics with his friendly personality and positive plans for the division and its science programs. It was felt he would push the division’s position with DES PARKER, MEDICAL vigour—even if that meant challenging Tom Lawrence OFFICER, OIC AND if the occasion demanded. Martin Betts said Rofe’s HYDROPONIC GARDENER, personal style made division staff feel that their conTAKES HIS TURN AS ‘SLUSHY’ tributions were valuable: ‘I would have climbed AT DAVIS, 1969. mountains for Rofe. He was a good organiser. . .he (R MCLEAN) knew what he was there for and where he was going. He was a very good communicator.’ As an outsider, Rofe looked at the division with fresh eyes. In 1970 it occupied a number of buildings in different parts of Melbourne, with Cosmic Ray Studies at the University of Tasmania. He planned to use the Commonwealth Government Clothing Factory site in South Melbourne to house the Antarctic Division in one place. On the science front, he planned to rearrange the programs, dividing them into broad categories—Life, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences. But first he needed to familiarise himself with the Antarctic stations, so went south on Nella Dan during the 1970–71 summer season. During this voyage Rofe became ill and returned jaundiced. Liver cancer was diagnosed, and he died in Melbourne on 27 August 1971. He had been director of the Antarctic Division for less than a year. Don Styles, who had felt rather bruised about being passed over for promotion and the suddenness of Rofe’s original appointment, took over the division yet again as acting director for the next nine months until Tom Lawrence tapped the next chief executive on the shoulder. Ray Garrod—like Bryan Rofe before him—was not expecting Lawrence’s call in early 1972. Garrod headed the Science Division of the Department of Education and Science in Canberra at the time, although his earlier career had been with Supply. In 1966 he went to Washington for the Department of Supply as the defence research and development attaché at the Australian Embassy in 293

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

BRYAN ROFE, MBE, BSC Bryan Rofe was a physics graduate from Adelaide University. In World War II he joined the RAAF as a meteorologist and played an important role in the Australian action in Timor. Rofe was awarded the MBE for his leadership of a group during the retreat from that island. After a difficult time—during which four men died—he got his party away in an American submarine, which caught fire before it reached Fremantle.14 After the war, Rofe joined the newly formed Weapons Research Establishment and in 1958 was appointed to begin and develop a program to investigate the upper atmosphere by using rockets fired from Woomera. A member of the Australian National Committee for Space Research (ANCOSPAR), Rofe represented Australia on the United Nations Scientific Committee on Space Research and on a working group to detect pollution of the earth and its environment from space.15 His meteorological and space interests were useful background for his appreciation of Antarctic science and Tom Lawrence knew him well through his work with the WRE—which was run by the Department of Supply. As director, Rofe brought biology into the Antarctic Division, believing it should rank alongside upper atmosphere physics and

294

DES LUGG, ANTARCTIC DIVISION DIRECTOR BRYAN ROFE AND LEM MACEY AT GWAMM ICE AIRSTRIP BEHIND MAWSON, 1971. (AAD ARCHIVES)

glaciology. In the opinion of senior biologist Knowles Kerry, this was an important and farsighted decision for a physicist to make. Bryan Rofe’s sudden illness and death in 1971 meant that few of his planned reforms were implemented. There are long-serving people in the division today who feel that Rofe’s death robbed the organisation of one of its most talented and inspirational directors. Bryan Rofe was survived by his wife and five children.

Washington. In 1968 he was ‘poached’ from Supply by the secretary of the Department of Education and Science, Sir Hugh Ennor, to head the Science Branch (later Division). Ennor was one of Canberra’s most formidable public service mandarins. He had impeccable connections and a reputation for achieving his bureaucratic aims. In 1971 Garrod was somewhat restless in his job with Education and Science, ‘not happy with being caught up in the policies and politics of

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

Australian science’. He wanted to move from developing a broad range of national policy to managing a specific area of operational science and gladly accepted Tom Lawrence’s offer to return to the Department of Supply to head the Antarctic Division. It was a straight public service transfer as a Level 2, Second Division officer. Garrod does not recall ever applying for the director’s position. He took up his new post at the Antarctic Division in Melbourne on 8 May 1972. The new director agreed with Lawrence on immediate priorities: ‘First to expand and develop a new structure for the Division with more emphasis on scientific effort. Second to consider a larger home headquarters for the Division. . .’ Yet again, however, external events were to have a profound effect on plans for the Antarctic Division. On 19 December 1972, only seven months after Garrod became director, the Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam won the Federal election after 23 years of unbroken Liberal and Country Party coalition government. In the shake-up of ministerial responsibilities, the Department of Education and Science was split into two new departments—a Department of Education and a Department of Science. Sir Hugh Ennor chose to become Secretary of Science, which included the Antarctic Division along with the Bureau of Meteorology, the Ionospheric Prediction Service, the Government Analytical Laboratory, the Patents Office and responsibility for the NASA tracking stations in Australia. Now Garrod found himself reporting again to Ennor. While personal relations between the two were cordial, Garrod had to start from scratch to try to get policies accepted. Unfortunately for Garrod and the Antarctic Division, Ennor’s first reaction put a damper on these plans. Garrod: He was lukewarm on both the research scientist structure I had been aiming for, and the move to new premises at the Clothing Factory. He seemed to regard Antarctic science as not high in the scale of national scientific effort and he was unimpressed with the calibre of some of the division’s scientific staff.

Things became less inhibited for Garrod about a year later, when a policy division was created in the Department of Science headed by Jack Lonergan. Ennor passed over responsibility to Lonergan for liaison with Garrod—a development Garrod found extremely helpful in putting forward the division’s initiatives. (A research scientists’ structure for the Antarctic Division was not finalised until 1983.) With his efforts to reorganise the division largely stalled by the transfer to the Department of Science and an unsympathetic Public Service Board, Garrod became aware of another planned major disruption for

295

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

RAYMOND IVAN GARROD, ARCS, BSC (LOND.), PHD (LOND.), DSC (MELB), FIP, FAIP Dr Raymond Ivan Garrod was 54 when he became the director of the Antarctic Division. He was a distinguished research physicist with a background in electrical engineering and metallurgy. Garrod was born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England, of Australian parents. He spent his early boyhood in Sydney but returned with his parents to England in 1924 and completed a Bachelor of Science degree (with first-class honours) in physics at the University of London in 1939. He obtained a PhD in physics from the University of London in 1947 and his research interests in crystallography resulted in a Doctorate of Science from the University of Melbourne in 1966. For two years from 1966 he was defence research and development attaché at the Australian Embassy in Washington, returning in 1968 to head the newly created Science Branch at the Department of Education and Science in Canberra, before returning to the Department of Supply (and the Antarctic Division) in 1972. His time at the helm of the division was marked by great change—much of it outside his control. Three changes of government, two departmental shifts and working to four different federal ministers between 1972 and 1979 meant working within a climate of constant administrative disruption. The Federal Government’s determination to move the division to Hobart was an additional difficulty. During the Garrod years the division also began its massive rebuilding program to replace the prefabricated huts built in the 1950s and

RAY GARROD, DIRECTOR OF THE ANTARCTIC DIVISION FROM 1972–79. ( J HÖSEL)

1960s. While debate still goes on over whether those plans should have been so ambitious, Garrod is unapologetic: Although [the building program] did have detrimental effects on the expansion of the science activities, nevertheless it was a ‘must’ that had to be undertaken. The establishment of the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Programs (APAC) in 1974, and a subsequent report by its chairman, Sir Frederick White, paved the way for a Green Paper, ‘Towards New Perspectives for Australian Scientific Research in Antarctica’, released by ➤

F

Bill Morrison in March 1975. Garrod was pleased that this report agreed with the Australian Research Policy Advisory Committee (ARPAC) that there was a need for greater involvement by the universities in ANARE’s summer programs. In 1977, the Department of Science gave formal agreement that the Antarctic science program be extended to include marine science. Garrod: In 1977, and at long last, the Government authorised a design study for an Australianowned and -constructed Antarctic ship.

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

Garrod is remembered at the division for his friendly and consultative management style. He took a great deal of interest in planning direct flights to Antarctica using ski-equipped Hercules transport aircraft—after intense negotiations with the US National Science Foundation, the RAAF and the departments of Treasury and Science—to get scientists into the field quickly for summer programs. Several proving flights were made in to Casey in early 1979, shortly before Ray Garrod retired from the Division in April due to ill health.

the division. Within weeks of the election of the Whitlam Government, he was told that the Tasmanian Labor MHR for Denison, John Coates, had put a proposal to Bill Morrison, the new Minister for Science, that the division’s headquarters be relocated to Hobart. Morrison, a former diplomat, called Garrod to Canberra not long afterwards and ‘made a peremptory demand that we go to Hobart’. Coates was a senior tutor in Biochemistry at the University of Tasmania before entering politics. He was in close touch with the Antarctic Division’s cosmic ray scientists, working in Hobart at the university, who were appalled at the prospect of having to move to Melbourne if Garrod’s plan to combine all division staff at the South Melbourne Clothing Factory site were carried through. After some discussions with Neil Batt, then Chief Secretary and Minister for Transport in the Tasmanian House of Assembly, Coates decided to push for the whole of the Antarctic Division to move to Tasmania. Coates: Tasmania deserves its share of Commonwealth activities and expenditure. If centralisation of the division was important, there was no particular reason why it had to be in Melbourne. . .it could just as easily develop as a centre of scientific excellence. . .in Tasmania.

Immediately after the election, Coates lobbied Bill Morrison, with the assistance of Patti Warn, a Tasmanian then working on the minister’s staff. Coates: Bill Morrison was very receptive, keen to take up a good idea and make it happen. In 1973 it was easier to achieve such a thing, given the climate

297

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

of decentralisation. There was furious reaction in Melbourne from within the division. . .there were arguments put on scientific grounds, [and] ‘taking us out of a major city to an outpost of civilisation’.

Garrod, when he was called to Canberra to see Morrison, recalls that Coates was in the Minister’s office at the time—which he thought was odd—but Coates did not take any part in the discussion. Garrod says that both then and subsequently he argued consistently and strongly against the proposed move, ‘almost to the point of losing my job’, until it became clear in 1975 that further opposition was useless and indeed counter-productive. Earlier, Ennor asked Garrod to make a case about the pros and cons of a move to Hobart: We prepared a position paper analysing the advantages and disadvantages, including I might say some financial estimates and costs associated with the move. In this paper, which was set out on a purely objective basis, it was quite clear that there were a number of penalties associated with the move which far outweighed any advantages from the operational viewpoint.

Political considerations could not be taken into account by Garrod. The new Whitlam Government was keen to shore up its electoral stocks in Tasmania. News of the move had Phillip Law weighing in to the Antarctic agenda again, urging all members of the ANARE Club (composed of past expeditioners) to write to their Members of Parliament to protest. The form of words Law suggested for these letters included: Hobart has not the technological resources needed to support a complex expeditionary headquarters; it has not the sources of supply; it has not the variety of scientific support facilities (universities, CSIRO laboratories, instrument makers, government departments, etc.). . . In addition the transfer to Hobart would result in the resignation of a number of key personnel upon whose long period of polar experience the logistic effectiveness of the ANARE depends . . . The move would, moreover, be expensive and so would the operations in Hobart as compared with those in Melbourne.16

298

The Government was adamant. By early May 1974 a fifteen-acre site had been chosen at Kingston to the south of Hobart.17 The Liberal–Country Party opposition was initially sympathetic to the stay-in-Melbourne lobby, but by May 1974 the shadow spokesman on Education and Science, Senator Peter Rae (a Tasmanian), ‘guaranteed’ that a Liberal Government would not reverse the Labor commitment to move the division to Hobart.18

F

R O M

P I L L A R

T O

P O S T

Meanwhile the Antarctic Division was again subjected to a shift of parent he inaugural meeting of the ‘ANARE department—although not a major Ex-Members Association’ took place one—when the Whitlam Government at J Block, Albert Park Barracks, on was returned to power after a double Monday 22 October 1951. The meeting dissolution in May 1974, and the was convened by Alan Campbell-Drury, folDepartment of Science became the lowing discussions with Phillip Law, director Department of Science and Consumer of the Antarctic Division. Law was elected Affairs. president, Campbell-Drury secretary, and With all the administrative changes Lem Macey assistant secretary. A further to cope with, it was January 1975—almost meeting on 29 October decided the organthree years after he took on the isation would be called the ‘ANARE Club’. job—before Ray Garrod could make In 1953 its news bulletin to members was his obligatory new director’s tour of all called Aurora and it has been produced regthe Antarctic stations and actually see ularly since then—usually four times a year.19 what he was administering. He barely had time to catch his official breath before the constitutional crisis reached its cataclysmic conclusion on 11 asmania was not the first State to bid November 1975. The Governor-General, for the Antarctic Division. In 1968—at Sir John Kerr, sacked the Whitlam Labor the time the division was being moved Government and installed Malcolm from the Department of External Affairs to Fraser as caretaker prime minister. the Department of Supply—the premier of Once again the Antarctic Division not South Australia, Steele Hall, said he would only had a new Government, but a offer ‘every assistance towards the estabchange in the name of the parent departlishment of the Australian Antarctic Division ment from Consumer and Science back headquarters in South Australia’. to Science again, and a new minister, He was responding to a speech in the James Webster. Senate by SA Senator Keith Laught in early Ray Garrod could be excused for May, when he said South Australia was being somewhat administratively already the centre of oceanographic studies shell-shocked. In his first three years at Flinders University. The Department of as director of the Antarctic Division he Supply also had its own laboratories at had experienced three Governments, Salisbury, as well as the Australian Mineral worked to three ministers and tackled Research Laboratories. the prospect of a difficult and unpopThe South Australian bid for the division ular move from Melbourne to Hobart. was never seriously developed. Within weeks of the Fraser-led Federal Government taking office he became aware that the new conservative Government was not going to reverse the Labor commitment to send the Antarctic Division to Hobart, although the new minister, James Webster, gave him a good hearing. Unlike 299

T

T

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Morrison who had summoned Garrod to Canberra, Webster called in to see the Antarctic Division’s director at 568 St Kilda Road in late 1975 and introduced himself: ‘I raised the question of the division’s move to Hobart. Webster was sympathetic to our opposition. I felt my arguments were not falling on deaf ears.’ The new minister suggested Garrod come to his office in Canberra for a full briefing. ‘I recall Webster saying: ‘‘I’ll talk to the PM about it and see what I can do’’.’ In February 1976, as part of a program of cuts to Government spending, Webster announced that the $7 million complex planned for Kingston had been ‘shelved indefinitely’ thereby claiming a saving of $700 000 in the new financial year. John Coates (who had lost his Federal seat of Denison to Michael Hodgman in 1975) described it as the ‘kiss of death’ for the Antarctic Division move to Hobart. ‘Obviously Mr Fraser and his Melbourne Establishment friends had no intention of proceeding with it.’20 Hodgman was quick to respond, lambasting the Whitlam Government for ‘dragging its feet’ on the Hobart move and saying that the move had only been deferred, not abandoned.21 By June that year the Minister for Science—doubtless reacting to heavy lobbying from Melbourne—was again prevaricating on the Hobart move, saying it ‘might be reviewed’.22 Hodgman, again on the defensive, assured readers of the Hobart Mercury that Prime Minister Fraser had given ‘unequivocal support’ to the Hobart move, during the election campaign. The political agenda was by then well and truly set. The Antarctic Division would move to Tasmania. It did not do so, however, until 1981.

300

SEVENTEEN

BUILDING

AND

MOVING

T

he Antarctic Division’s assistant director, Don Styles, retired on 23 June 1976 after nineteen years of service, seven of them as acting director. Styles took a particular interest in organising the logistics for major projects in the field and represented Australia at Antarctic Treaty and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) meetings around the world. He led many exploration and resupply voyages south and helped to refine the techniques that are now standard practice for ANARE—the use of helicopters in ship-to-shore work and to support summer field parties, and the use of tractor-powered traverses to shift large quantities of fuel and supplies to remote locations. By 1975 the basic features of the western sector of the Australian Antarctic Territory had been mapped and surveyed. The area extended from the Vestfold Hills, Larsemann Hills, Amery Ice Shelf and Mawson, down through the northern and southern Prince Charles Mountains and west from Mawson through Kemp and Enderby Lands to the western extremity of the AAT. Particularly interested in transport, Styles tried to interest the Australian Government in experimenting with hovercraft. Quite often ships were held up at the ice edge some 60 or 80 kilometres from the stations. Styles: I often thought how very much simpler it would have been—in the case of Mawson, Casey and Davis—to simply moor the ship to the ice edge, unload on to the hovercraft and have them shoot off at 50 or 60 miles per hour [80 or 96 kilometres per hour] to the continent. But we were always frustrated in trying to let a contract by intervention from Canberra.

One of Don Styles’ long term aims was for ANARE to establish an air strip on the ice-free rock of the Vestfold Hills, near Davis Station, to

301

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

support direct flights from Antarctica to Australia. He pushed this concept from 1958 until his retirement. In 1973–74 he headed an Advisory Committee on Air and Sea Transport for Antarctica: We found it would be quite feasible to build an airport there of international standard, 10 000 feet [3048 metres] long—or more if necessary—in the direction of the prevailing wind, which is always in the same direction. . .

Leading off the proposed site for the main runway were gullies in the rock, where Styles believed hangars and workshops could be constructed. Smaller aircraft—like Twin Otters—could then fly to adjoining stations. They could leapfrog around the coast of Antarctica—east from Davis to the Russians at Mirny, to Casey and on to the Americans at McMurdo near the Ross Sea, or west from Davis to Mawson and on to Molodezhnaya (USSR) and to the Japanese at Syowa near the western extremity of the AAT: Thus an airfield at Davis would be a point of entry to Antarctica for several kinds of aircraft from many other places, and it could distribute the traffic to other stations on the coast around Antarctica. Remember that we have medical emergencies occasionally and when we want to get somebody out in a hurry, we can’t. . .Scores of scientists want to get down there and can’t. If they do get a place on the ship they have to spend weeks at sea, wasting their professional time coming and going and waiting to get back.

302

It was, said Styles, the greatest disappointment of his Antarctic career that the Davis airfield was not built. Australia could have virtually controlled direct access to the continent by aircraft, but increased environmental concerns now make it unlikely the all-weather airport will ever be built. Don Styles’ retirement coincided with the beginning of a significant change in ANARE culture. Until 1976, the only Australians to winter on Heard, Macquarie, Casey, Davis and Mawson had been men. No women had visited the continent as official ANARE expeditioners, although a number of women scientists had been going regularly to Macquarie Island during changeover voyages since the summer season of 1959–60. In 1974, the traditional ‘no facilities’ argument was still being used to keep the Antarctic continent an Australian ‘Boys’ Own’ affair. On 30 January, the Antarctic Division’s director, Ray Garrod, said he believed women would go to the Antarctic with ANARE ‘within ten years. . .but Australia’s Antarctic stations did not have the facilities to cope with mixed communities’. He thought it best, if women did go, to start by sending

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

married couples, and he looked forward to the day when ANARE would be able to do it.1 As it happened, he did not have to wait ten years. Six months after Garrod’s comments, Minister for Science Bill Morrison said women could go south to do research work —but would be restricted to summer visits. COLD GIRLS headlined the Melbourne Observer of 6 October, while the Sydney Sunday Telegraph had THAW ON GIRLS IN FROZEN SOUTH:

‘Several women scientists are being tested by doctors and physiologists to see if they can stand the rigours of the frozen south.’ On October 15—with International Women’s Year well under way—an editorial in the Australian newspaper slammed the Antarctic Division’s policy towards women, saying it was dictated by a mixture of male superiority and a touching concern for the ‘weaker sex’: Such anachronistic sentiments could not hold out against the onslaughts of the women’s movement, so the official excuse for the ban on women working at the bases became the lack of suitable accommodation, lavatories and showers. . .

THE FIRST ANARE WOMEN OFFICIALLY TO VISIT THE

ANTARCTIC CONTINENT. FROM LEFT: JUTTA HÖSEL, SHELAGH ROBINSON, ELIZABETH CHIPMAN AT CASEY IN JANUARY 1976. BUDNICK HILL CAN BE SEEN IN THE BACKGROUND. (G FOOTE)

The three women making history as the first official ANARE visitors to the AAT (Nel Law’s 1960–61 visit to Antarctica was ‘unofficial’ as a guest of the Lauritzen shipping company) were Jutta Hösel (photographer), Shelagh Robinson (expedition liaison) and Elizabeth Chipman (information and scientific administration). They had ‘proved’ themselves by long involvement with the Antarctic Division and on previous voyages to Macquarie Island.2

303

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

With the ‘no dunnies’ argument dismissed there remained the attitudes of the male community about to be visited. The following message was received at the Antarctic Division from the officer-in-charge at Casey, Bert Jagger, on behalf of his men: MEN OF CASEY 1975 DELIGHTED TO HEAR YOU VISITING US NEXT CHANGEOVER STOP FEW ONLY MUMBLES ABOUT INVASION OF MANS LAST DOMAIN BUT GRINS GIVE THEM AWAY AND KNOW DEEP IN THEIR STONY HEARTS THEY HAPPY TO EMBRACE YOU ALL ON ARRIVAL STOP3

More history was in the making. By the early 1970s the Antarctic Division was finding it increasingly difficult to recruit expedition doctors. Appeals to Australian doctors to undertake ‘the adventure of a lifetime’ were falling on deaf ears.4 It is not possible to have an isolated community in Antarctica’s winter without a doctor and there were fears that one or even two stations would have to be closed for at least a year. In 1975 serious consideration was being given to abandoning the 1976 Macquarie Island program. Dr Des Lugg, the division’s head of polar medicine, believed the only way to get enough doctors was actually to recruit women. It was, after all, International Women’s Year. Lugg remembers attending a meeting in the office of the Minister for Science and Consumer Affairs, Clyde Cameron, shortly before the fall of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975, to discuss the shortage of doctors and what might be done: Finally, reluctantly, I said, ‘Well, Minister, I do have an application from a woman’. And all the eyes of the bureaucrats fell on me, [indicating] ‘You have committed the unpardonable’. But I felt duty bound to tell the minister that a woman had applied. Cameron more or less said, ‘What’s your problem?’

The doctor Lugg referred to was Dr Zoë Gardner, an Englishwoman then on a working holiday in Australia. Two male doctors were recruited from Switzerland and South Africa. Lugg told Cameron Dr Gardner was a most interesting woman who had done a lot as a surgeon ‘and would be quite suitable as the first woman to winter on Macquarie Island’. Cameron said ‘Done!’, and agreed. Then the newspapers, the press and radio had a field day saying it was tokenism because of International Women’s Year. But really, it was going to happen at some stage and it happened then. . .and it has changed the expeditions. 304

Zoë Gardner was not interested in publicity then or later on. Press reports of 12 January 1976 have her taking part reluctantly in the official

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

T

oilet arrangements on Antarctic stations—before the rebuilding program introduced flush lavatories, heated water pipes and a sewerage system—were perhaps more environmentally sound, but practically more hazardous. ‘Law Hut’ at Mawson had an ingenious arrangement of a number of metal drums, each with a fire set inside and ready for ignition, underneath each individual toilet seat and cubicle. During the all-male era, expeditioners were expected to separate their toilet arrangements by using a ‘pissaphone’, a strategically-placed funnel just inside the entrance door. (Peeing into the drum was a major breach of ‘Law Hut’ etiquette.) It was the lot of the station nightwatchman to pour a litre or two of distillate down the dunny, add a few more bits of kindling, burn out the day’s doings and then shovel out the incinerated residue. Law Hut was a warm and cosy environment inside—but best approached upwind. Mawson expeditioner John Gillies reports that in 1967 one nightwatchman, who had been doing some painting, decided—unwisely as it turned out—that paint thinners would be a good substitute for distillate. It was lucky he did not look down the long-drop as he chucked the lighted match in, as the resulting explosion would have taken his head off. Gillies:

THE AFTERMATH OF THE 1967 GREAT MAWSON DUNNY EXPLOSION—A HOLE BLASTED THROUGH THE ROOF OF LAW HUT. THE UNNAMED CULPRIT IS ON THE RIGHT. (COURTESY J GILLIES)

[The lid of the dunny]—Mawson’s attempt to place an object into orbit—exited through the roof and landed some time later about twenty metres downwind.5 The explosion attracted a number of photographers to record the hole blown through the roof. That, as well as several inadvertent fires, eroded the structural integrity of Law Hut, which surprisingly survived into the 1990s—but due to its dilapidated state failed to make the list of buildings on the Register of the National Estate.

line-up on the dock at Melbourne before ducking down below into the sanctuary of Thala Dan to avoid reporters and photographers and declining to shake hands with the Minister for Science, James Webster, who had come to farewell the expedition. While she was publicity-shy, she was no shrinking violet. Legend has it that during pre-expedition training, her motor cycle was locked inside the car park at the Antarctic Division’s headquarters in St Kilda Road.

305

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Gardner dismantled it, threw its component parts over the fence, reassembled it and rode away. An individualist who did not take kindly to restrictions on her personal freedom, Zoë Gardner found many aspects of the ‘team’ approach to group living on Macquarie Island irksome. On 30 April 1976 OIC Peter McKenzie wrote in his log: Zoë off skiing on plateau on her own contrary to instructions. Terry [Hegerty] and I went to look for her at 3.30 pm (dark by 4.30 now). . .arrived at station in darkness. She was cautioned about foolhardy exploits, but it’s like water off a duck’s back. She is the most uncooperative person that I have ever encountered. . .I have great tolerance but I never cease to wonder what she will do next.6

She did, however, throw herself enthusiastically into projects which interested her and building the women’s quarters was an obvious priority. She did not shirk dirty jobs and later described her role (in addition to her medical duties) as ‘Catering Officer, Librarian, Dustman, Biologist’.7 She helped Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife representative Nigel Brothers shoot rabbits around the island. Dr Gardner certainly put paid to any worries about women being able to tackle the rigours of field work and Antarctic life. She was as tough as elephant seal hide, and gave as good as she got. During a fire drill on 10 June, the station log recorded: Zoë hit Chas [Cosgrove] with fire hose and he promptly threw her into Buckles Bay—all in good spirits. Chas was dyed with Gentian Violet later by Zoë—a bit over the fence I think—but a truce has been declared.8

Zoë Gardner slept in the surgery but shared the toilet block with the men. She put her boots under the shower curtain as a sign that she was having a bath, but often someone would sneak up and take them away so that people would continually barge in. There seems to have been more horseplay than sexual harassment—like throwing a cup of cold water into the shower recess; ‘taken in good spirit’ according to the station log.9 Certainly her professional patience was tested when Nigel Brothers broke his arm and refused to rest it:

306

She threatened to send me back [to Australia] because I kept on damaging it. It kept getting knocked about when I caught it on tussocks and things and it didn’t mend properly. It still gives me trouble, and that was twenty years ago. . .

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

Because of the necessity of having a medical officer on station, Zoë Gardner collapsed official resistance to women wintering over on Macquarie Island. The following year, in 1977, the first married couple, medical officer Dr Jean Ledingham and OIC Rod Ledingham, wintered, as did another woman, Sarah Stephens, a communications officer. But the wintering parties on the Antarctic continent remained all male until 1981.

A NTARCTIC D IVISION CROSSROADS

AT

A RARE PHOTOGRAPH OF ZOË GARDNER, ANARE’S FIRST WOMAN MEDICAL OFFICER, HELPING

PUBLICITY-SHY

The mid 1970s were a difficult and uneasy time for those responsible for running the Antarctic Division back in Australia. There was continuing uncertainty OUT WITH HUT about the move of the division to Hobart, although CONSTRUCTION AT Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal–Country Party coalition MACQUARIE ISLAND, 1976. remained committed to the original Labor initiative. (P GIDLEY) Following a ‘Dorothy Dix’ question by Tasmanian MP Michael Hodgman in the House of Representatives on 18 May 1976, the prime minister cleared the matter up once and for all: The Antarctic Division will be transferred to Hobart. . .There are some financial stringencies upon us at the moment. Therefore the transfer will not be taking place forthwith or in the forthcoming financial year. . .But it is going to take place.10

The financial stringencies were also cramping the division’s operations. The preliminary allocation for the 1976–77 financial year was $5.4 million—up $822 300 from the initial appropriation of the previous year. Allowing for inflation, that represented a mere 4 per cent increase in spending power.11 In February 1974, the (Labor) Minister for Science Bill Morrison announced yet another review of Antarctic science by a committee to be headed by Sir Frederick White, the former chairman of the CSIRO. Morrison went on to say that ‘it was important that research in Antarctica should be directed towards goals that would benefit the Australian people’.12 This infuriated former Antarctic Division director Phil Law,

307

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

who wrote to the Melbourne Herald saying that this approach was based on a false premise: It is a matter of answering the fundamental, simple question: ‘Should Australia maintain a physical presence in Antarctica for political purposes at a cost of about $3 million a year?’ If the answer to this is ‘no’, then we should think seriously of pulling out and saving our money. If the answer is ‘yes’ then we should get as much value out of our ‘presence’ as we can. Such value is measured mainly in national prestige, and the prestige is determined by the international standard of the research carried out.13

Law had identified a key difficulty about Australia’s ongoing Antarctic policy. There was little purpose in claiming 42 per cent of the continent if Australia did not make its presence felt not only by occupying territory, but by pursuing an active scientific program, thereby showing ‘a sufficient display of authority’ which is the only realistic basis for a territorial claim. On 5 March 1975 the Minister for Science published a Green Paper ‘On Antarctic Activities—Towards New Perspectives for Australian Research in Antarctica’ which was circulated to relevant government departments for comment. It incorporated Sir Frederick White’s ACAP (Advisory Committee On Antarctic Programs) report, recommending a change of emphasis in some of the Antarctic science programs—skewing them more towards earth sciences and ocean studies: These subjects acquire some urgency due to the increased international interest in exploitation of resources, which gave rise to considerable discussion at the recent consultative meeting of the Antarctic Treaty partners. A further reason for greater emphasis in these areas is the inadequate attention they have received to date.14

A

308

ntarctic waters abound in krill—a small crustacean and the most abundant single species on earth—which is the basic food for whales, seals, penguins, sea birds, fish and squid. With fish stocks in the northern hemisphere declining, a number of nations are now harvesting krill. The Russians began in 1961 and have marketed krill in a number of forms. By 1977, Japan, Poland, Taiwan, East and West Germany, Chile and Argentina were also carrying out krill studies in Antarctic waters. Australia was unable to participate because it lacked a suitable ship. Clearly the harvesting of krill was of international concern to the Antarctic Treaty nations, and it was taken up by SCAR—the Scientific

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

Committee for Antarctic Research. (There was a useful model. In 1972 SCAR had negotiated an agreement with Treaty nations resulting in the drawing up of the ‘Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals’.) Principal research scientist Knowles Kerry recalls how little was known about krill in 1976: The realisation came that krill was a very, very important organism in the marine food web, that it was being harvested in fairly large amounts and there seemed to be no great knowledge on how much krill was there, how much could be harvested. But since it was the central organism in the marine food chain, harvests could possibly affect the whole of the higher trophic levels—whales, seals, seabirds and so on.15

Following a meeting at Woods Hole, USA, in August 1976, a group of scientists (including David Tranter, a senior principal research scientist with the CSIRO) proposed an ambitious program of oceanography in Antarctic waters to be known as BIOMASS—Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks. Knowles Kerry was keen for the Antarctic Division to be involved, but Australia did not have a history of deep sea research—nor any real capability for it: I managed to convince our director, Ray Garrod, of the need to do marine research—which was good. But we. . .had to convince governments and put up Cabinet submissions for approval to undertake marine research, and for extra funds to get Nella Dan modified to do research-scale trawling and so be involved in the BIOMASS program. This was a major change in scientific direction.

While the biologists could consider an expanding role in Antarctic science, other scientists were far from content. In a response to the Green Paper of 1975, division physicist John Reid (speaking from twelve years of ANARE experience) wrote to the Minister for Science calling for a realistic statement of our national ambitions in Antarctica and a clarification of the relationship between the division and other agencies: Otherwise the situation which now prevails where the division does one thing and purports to be doing another will continue. In my opinion it is this ‘institutional schizophrenia’ which has been most responsible for the low morale within the division over the last few years.16

Reid criticised the ‘heavily logistic orientation’ of the division as a ‘habit of mind’ which was embedded in every aspect of its activity. While this might have been appropriate for the mid-1950s when Australia was struggling to establish a foothold in Antarctica, it was inappropriate twenty years on.

309

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

There is little elasticity in employment. We employ scientists as expeditioners to man stations, rather than as experts to carry through programs. The whole orientation is wrong. . .within the public service everything militates in favour of time-serving and against task orientation. . .true research happens despite the system rather than because of it.17

In the 1977–78 Federal Budget the Minister for Science, James Webster, announced some significant Antarctic initiatives. These included spending $1 million on ‘many of the 200 buildings’ at Australia’s three continental stations; the building of the first Australian-owned Antarctic research ship, to cost up to $20 million, in time for the 1981–82 relief operations; and the proposed declaration of a 200-nautical-mile ‘zone of economic interest’ for Australia and all its Territories—including the Antarctic. Despite these promises, discontent in the Antarctic Division’s ranks surfaced in a rash of newspaper articles the following year with headlines like CINDERELLA ON ICE and INDECISION ON THE ANTARCTIC. An increase of the division’s science budget from $6.5 million to $8.7 million was dismissed by the National Times as ‘0.6 of a per cent of the cost of replacing Australia’s Mirage fighters. There have been no improvements in logistics and transport to and from the ice for the last 20 years.’18 Division scientists, through the press, claimed that Australia’s efforts in the Antarctic were more ‘disorganised and uninspired’ than at any time since 1954. In 1978 the National Times of May 20 reported that a White Paper detailing Australia’s future Antarctic policy had still not been released—and there was doubt it ever would be. By December that year there was still no sign of it and the National Times claimed it had been cancelled, alleging that in place of the White Paper a ‘Government statement’ would be issued instead early in 1979: The Cabinet rifts which led to the demise of the White Paper have been mainly between ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’ on how strongly Australia should implement its territorial claims to the territory and the closely related issue of how much money and other resources should be committed to it.19

On 20 March 1979 Senator Ken Wriedt, Labor leader in the Senate, claimed that the Government had no intention of fulfilling a commitment to issue the White Paper on Antarctic policy:

310

There is divided opinion in the Government on the formation of Antarctic policy between the Department of Science and the Department of Foreign Affairs.20

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

While the White Paper remained elusive, expenditure on the Antarctic program was significantly boosted in the 1979 Federal budget—almost doubling from $12.2 million in the previous year to $21.5 million. Of this $6 million was to be spent on the construction of the new Antarctic Division headquarters at Kingston, Tasmania, and $100 000 for a design study for a new Antarctic ship. It was tangible evidence that Australia intended to be serious about the future of its Antarctic activities. It was high time. The Antarctic stations themselves were an urgent problem. By the mid 1970s they were a hodge-podge of prefabricated huts in poor repair and dating back to the 1950s. Plant, vehicles and equipment were also badly run down. Mechanical supervisor at the Antarctic Division Robert Sheers thinks of that period as ‘the Dark Ages’. Sheers wintered at Casey in 1977: I was quite aghast at the condition of some of the equipment and the maintenance programs, or lack of. The whole thing was pretty ad hoc—very Heath Robinson. We did our best during that year but some of the equipment was really run down, and some of it really quite inappropriate. . .I began to wonder whether there was any proper planning done at head office.

T HE

REBUILDING PROGRAM

No single issue in the history of ANARE has polarised opinion more than the rebuilding of the continental stations. The contrast between the old and the new is best seen at Mawson where the two-storey metal-clad ‘red’ and ‘green’ sheds tower over the original huts, many of which still survive, anchored to the rock by steel cables and scattered across the landscape. They range from the aluminium clad ‘Explastics’ huts dating back to the 1950s and composed of prefabricated insulated panels, to traditional wooden structures of varying shapes and sizes—all erected by the expeditioners themselves. Many of the early expeditioners believe that this policy of self-erected buildings should never have been altered—that the cause of economy and science would be better served by pulling down and replacing old huts with new prefabricated structures. This activity would have a minimum impact on the environment and maximum flexibility. Expeditioners then know they are in Antarctica—hauling themselves along blizzard lines in full Antarctic cold-weather gear to visit long-drop non-flushing toilets in a blizzard, and being suitably intrepid. This view is articulated by critics like Ian Bird, who wintered at Mawson in 1960, and worked with the division from 1963 to 1975:

311

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Expeditioners expect some hardships and privations, not a holiday style sojourn in air-conditioned comfort. The development of comradeship, initiative and high morale within an Antarctic expedition appears to depend upon the group facing and overcoming the many daily challenges of life within the most inhospitable environment on earth.21

SUZANNE STALLMAN AND IAN HOLMES AT CASEY, INSPECTING THE NEW BUILDING SITE,

1978–79. ( J HÖSEL)

312

But by 1976 something had to be done. The panels of the old huts had become permeated with frozen water vapour. Ian Holmes, then technical officer (buildings) with the Antarctic Division, recalls the problem: The panels became water-logged, frozen and corroded on the inside. The adhesives which were holding them together started to become undone. The panels were just disintegrating. . .

The only way to replace a damaged panel was to take the whole building apart. Holmes consulted with Phil Incoll, a senior architect at Australian Construction Services (then the Commonwealth Department of Housing and Construction in Melbourne), to discuss new options: ‘We came to the conclusion that, within about ten years, virtually every building down there would have to be replaced completely!’ The biggest building project since the ‘Law Era’ had been Repstat (later Casey Station), built when Wilkes Station became hopelessly iced up, and occupied in 1969. The problem of drift had been tackled by building Casey on a birdcage of steel scaffolding and creating an aerofoil with a connecting corrugated-iron tunnel linking all the buildings in the complex. By the mid-1970s it was not wearing well. Salt spray driven from the ocean had corroded not only the supports but the superstructure. In addition, the water vapour migrating through the panel insulation—unforeseen by the designers—was corroding through from the inside. Casey had been built by teams of ANARE tradesmen over a number of years as a single project. In Phil Incoll’s view it signalled the end of the ‘heroic do-it-yourself era’.22 Information on Antarctic buildings was not easy to come by in Melbourne in 1976. Holmes gleaned what he could from Arctic sources and SCAR reports, and the Antarctic Division and Australian Construction

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

Services (ACS) began experimenting to build more appropriate buildings in the Antarctic. The first try was the yellow, fibreglass-panelled, igloo-shaped Davis biology building. However, the curved shape was hard to fabricate, inefficient in terms of internal space and did not seem to be any more effective than the existing ‘boxes’, as it also attracted accumulations of drift snow. They returned to timber panels coated with resin for the Davis powerhouse, the Casey trades workshop, the Mawson science building (Wombat) and the Mawson transmitter building.23 Meanwhile Phil Incoll was appointed by ACS as an Antarctic design officer to continue working on the rebuilding program. Ian Holmes was surprised by his next plan: The first thing he did was come out with a two-storey building. Most people down at the Antarctic Division just fell over, they couldn’t believe it. We can’t have two-storey buildings. How do we build them? What happens if we have a fire? We’d never had integrated fire services in buildings before.

Incoll felt there was no need to stick with ‘little boxes’ and there was no reason why Antarctic expeditioners should not live and work comfortably in Antarctica: We could see that if you could get Caterpillar tractors off the ship onto the shore, you could get a reasonable crane. We looked at all different sorts of foundation systems and most people had gone in for all kinds of odd Meccano-like things which bolted together and so on, to avoid using concrete.

Summer temperatures on the Antarctic coast were not all that extreme and although concrete foundations had never been used by Australians on the continent, Incoll calculated that concrete could be poured. But what about drift? Winds in the Antarctic blow predictably with a variation of only 30 degrees: Study of photographs of buildings at Davis showed that building sides parallel with the wind appeared to be swept clear of snow by the wind itself. . .It was accordingly proposed that buildings should be oriented with their long sides running parallel to the prevailing wind rather than across it.24

This hypothesis proved to be accurate. The modern two-storey metalskinned structures in Antarctica build up a large plume of drift at the downwind end during the winter, while the long sides with entrances and windows stay clear.

313

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

The need for expeditioners to go outside was considered by the planners and work areas—like the science buildings—were situated away from the main living and accommodation block. Holmes said there was evidence that building complexes which removed the necessity of going out added to the ‘cabin fever’ syndrome experienced during the long winter night. Low morale was not the only concern. Holmes: There’s a famous paper from the US Army which shows that the level of internal maintenance on their stations was much worse when they didn’t have to go outside. If they had to go outside there was a high level of maintenance—not just internal but external as well.

Thought was also given to the balance of privacy and shared recreational space. US research indicated that if a recreation room was isolated from the main traffic areas, it got little use. Phil Incoll: There was one station in particular where the lounge and recreation areas were all gathered right in the middle of the traffic—they were on the main circulation routes of the station—and you more or less had to go past them. This room got very much more use and they also stated that the morale of the station benefited as a result of this.

Incoll believed it was important to create natural meeting places in the accommodation buildings—to make sure that the sleeping quarters were at one end and the kitchen and mess at the other, with the recreation and lounge area in between. Although expeditioners can have privacy in their own rooms, it is important to make sure depressed individuals cannot isolate themselves from the group: If you’re already around the twist, you can sneak out the back door, go around and come in the kitchen door, and there’s nothing [anyone] can do about that. But in the normal course of events you would walk through the lounge areas to get to the mess, and this means that if there are people sitting around they can say ‘G’day’ as you go past. And when you leave the mess, you are passing through this area and it’s kind of natural to sit down for a minute or two and talk to somebody.

314

(Other old hands like Syd Kirkby, who returned to the Antarctic in 1980 as OIC Mawson, believe that the sheer scale of the modern two-storey structures made it easy for depressed people to isolate themselves.) Before the new building plans could be put into effect the ANARE’s administrative culture had to be changed. When Holmes joined the division in the early 1970s, he recalls the buildings maintenance budget was around $30 000 a year:

B

U I L D I N G

We were strangled. We weren’t allowed to buy more than five tubes of silicone adhesive because it was too expensive. It was ludicrous. [Management] had never actually addressed the problem of what was required to run an Antarctic station properly.

A N D

M O V I N G

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW TWO-STOREY RED SHED ACCOMMODATION BLOCK IN

1991 DWARFS THE ORIGINAL MAWSON STATION. (N LOVIBOND)

HUTS AT

The acronym AANBUS was coined—Australian Antarctic Building System—to carry through the rebuilding program. The most immediate problem was how PLUMBING ANTARCTIC-STYLE. to get building materials down to the Antarctic. The INSULATED AND HEATED Lauritzen Dan ships had done yeoman service for ABOVE-GROUND PIPELINES ANARE since the 1950s, but their limited cargo and UNDER CONSTRUCTION passenger-carrying capacities were stretched even to DURING THE MAWSON resupply the stations each year and transport vehicles, REBUILDING PROGRAM, 1991. aircraft and scientific equipment for the field programs. (N LOVIBOND) By 1977, the projected expenditure on the rebuilding program went over $2 million, which meant it had to be referred to the Federal Parliamentary Works Committee (PWC) for approval. Additional money was made available separately from core funding to the division but only on an annual basis. However, in 1981 the PWC approved the complete rebuilding of all three of Australia’s continental stations. It agreed with a proposal for Australian Construction Services (then the Department of Housing and Construction) to be responsible jointly with the division for recruiting, training and supervising the building workers needed for Antarctica.25 In the summer of 1979–80, Nella Dan and Thala Dan were joined by a third ship, Nanok S, chartered from A E Soerensen of Svenborg in Denmark, to assist in the rebuilding program. Nanok S was a modest 315

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

NANOK S, CHARTERED TO HELP WITH THE STATION

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

addition to the fleet—an ice-strengthened vessel of a mere 3000 tonnes accommodating only twenty passengers.

REBUILDING PROGRAM, IN THE ICE,

R

ay Garrod retired as director of the Antarctic Division on medical grounds on 2 April 1979 after seven years in the job. It had been a difficult stewardship. The division had been shifted from the Department of Supply to the Department of Science, there had been a change of government in 1975 and he had worked to four different ministers. Although he had opposed plans to move the division from Melbourne to Hobart, work had started on the Kingston site by 26 February 1979. His term as director had seen the first women winter on an ANARE sub-Antarctic station, the rebuilding program get under way, and an ambitious program of marine science and oceanography begun. Marine biologist Dick Williams recalls Minister for Science Senator Webster coming to the St Kilda Road HQ in Melbourne for Garrod’s farewell:

1980–81. (M PRICE)

He gave a little speech of appreciation, and I couldn’t believe it. He said: ‘I’ve got a very high opinion of Ray Garrod. He’s never given me any trouble in all the time we’ve worked together!’

316

Williams felt this was insulting to the retiring director—treating him as though he were a little schoolboy. Garrod’s successor, Clarrie McCue, came to the Antarctic Division from his former position as director of the Ionospheric Prediction Service in the Department of Science. The deputy secretary of the department, Jack Lonergan, invited him to take up the position of acting director:

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

Clarrie had done very well in the IPS. He was very highly thought of in academe and around the traps. . .So I rang him and put the hard word on him, and he wasn’t too keen at all. So I kept at him and after quite a bit of persuasion he agreed to do it for the time being.

McCue’s style was informal. Dick Williams recalls he would walk round the corridors and ‘stick his head in the door and talk to you’—the only director, in his experience, who did that. Although reluctant to take the job in the first place, McCue enjoyed his work at the division, and decided to apply for a permanent appointment. Patrick Quilty, also an applicant for the director’s job (and a close friend of McCue’s after he was appointed) recalls that McCue had the disconcerting habit of falling asleep if he was sitting for any length of time. This may have been due to a medical condition: Clarrie was a short, portly man who bustled around—as well as having this incredible ability to fall asleep! During the 1980s the RAAF conducted a review of aviation options to resupply Antarctic stations. John Whitelaw, then in charge of operations, took the results of the review to show Clarrie in his office. While he was doing so, Clarrie fell asleep. Whitelaw later said he felt like putting the clock forward and walking out. When I wanted to see him in his office, I’d always knock and wait a minute before going in, to give him time to wake up properly and not embarrass him.

The major challenge for the new director’s diplomatic skills following his appointment in 1979 was overseeing the division’s move to Hobart. A fierce and uncompromising Melbourne-based ANARE lobby opposed the shift to the bitter end. One of the most passionate and vocal critics was former director Phil Law who, in 1973, forecast the loss of key experienced personnel who had stated they would resign rather than move from Melbourne.26 The Liberal Member for Denison, Michael Hodgman, embraced the division’s move to his electorate with enormous enthusiasm, taking over the running from his Labor predecessor John Coates. In 1977 Hodgman had asked the Government to change the name of the Department of Science to add the phrase ‘and the Antarctic’, a suggestion that was not adopted.27 Even before the Whitlam Government fell, sensitive documents relating to the move to Hobart had begun falling off trucks. A ‘Note to the Minister’ of 19 April 1974 referred to a proposed Antarctic Division exhibit on the history of ANARE to be mounted in Tasmania and opened by John Coates. The Minister for Science Bill Morrison had written in

317

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

CLARENCE GORDON MCCUE, MSC, FIP, FAIP McCue had a distinguished scientific career, specialising in ionospheric and radio physics. He was born in Sydney in 1927, and did a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree at Sydney University before joining the Australian public service in 1949. Shortly afterwards he gained a Master of Science from research he conducted on geomagnetism. His research skills in physics were applied to many fields, including radio wave propagation for the Department of Supply’s research station at Slough in England from 1951–53. He worked in ‘classified’ areas such as long-range, over-the-horizon radar (the Jindalee project) for the Weapons Research Establishment from 1953–58, and lectured in physics at the Royal Military College at Duntroon from 1958 to 1960. He came to the Antarctic Division from the Ionospheric Prediction Service (where he was director from 1967–79) at a time when the division faced many challenges—the move to Hobart, the rebuilding of the Antarctic stations and the need to respond to the recently established Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee (ARPAC) and its directions for the division’s science policy. Immediately after leaving the Antarctic Division he was given the position of Principal Adviser on Antarctic matters. In 1984 he retired

318

CLARRIE MCCUE, AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC DIVISION DIRECTOR, 1979–84.

from the Australian public service to return to two of his greatest interests—consultancy work on aerodynamics and involvement with religious activities for community groups and schools. He died on 15 June 1992.28

response: ‘I would want a panel with photo of me and decision to have Headquarters in Hobart. The display should be reoriented in terms of the decision.’29 Supporters of decentralisation were also evident. In a letter to the ANARE Club’s magazine Aurora in May 1974, physicist Dr John Reid wrote:

B

U I L D I N G

A N D

M O V I N G

If some of the senior people leave a little earlier is that such a disaster? Who knows, with a younger team the division may come to regain much of the sense of excitement and adventure it had in the heyday of the ‘Law Era’. At the moment Head Office is starting to take on tones of ‘Dad’s Army’.

By mid-1977 a ten-hectare site at Kingston had been selected, ten kilometres south of Hobart. The WORK BEGINS ON THE RURAL Kingston property was one of eleven possibilities invesBLOCK ACQUIRED FOR THE tigated around Hobart, including the old Henry Jones ANTARCTIC DIVISION’S & Co. warehouses on the Hobart waterfront. While HEADQUARTERS, KINGSTON, this would have been convenient for shipping purTASMANIA, 11 JANUARY 1979. poses, space was limited, and as most of the buildings (G MCKINNON) dated back to 1820 they were classified by the National Trust. A site on Mount Nelson, about four kilometres from the city, was ruled out because of the high cost of building on sloping land, and the adverse effect of tall buildings on the skyline.30 After tenders for construction were called, a $6.9 million contract was awarded to a Tasmanian firm, Watts Construction Division Ltd, on 6 October 1978. Work on the site began on 16 October.31 Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser unveiled a plaque on the Kingston site on 26 February 1979 to mark the official commencement of work on the new headquarters. It was hoped the division would move from Melbourne in 1981. To ease the pain of Melbourne staff considering a shift to Tasmania, Clarrie McCue appointed Graeme Manning as a liaison officer in Hobart early in 1980. All staff members considering a transfer from Melbourne were given a trip with their families at public expense to have a look at the Hobart environment. Manning escorted them around to help them with all the information they needed. Phil Law’s prediction that many staff would not be prepared to make the move to Hobart was fulfilled. By August 1980 Clarrie McCue revealed to the press that half the division’s staff had decided to resign. He said 319

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

44 staff would be transferring, 31 would not be moving, and four were still undecided. Another 18 people had left the division recently, and about 15 of those positions would be filled before the transfer. McCue said the mass defection would create ‘large difficulties’ but he was sure the division could overcome them and survive.32 Those who moved faced a Spartan office regime in their new steel and glass headquarters. There was a public service scale of furniture for each office. One desk, two visitors’ chairs, one office desk and a glass bookcase were the bare essentials provided. Graeme Manning, who had the unenviable job of overseeing these arrangements, was aware that most of the new arrivals needed more furniture than was allowed: One day you’d look into a vacant office and it was fully fitted with all its furniture. The next day you’d look in and the bookcase had gone, and a couple of chairs. There were hassles trying to get them back from the people who’d taken them. One of our scientists, Harvey Marchant, had to make bookcases out of wooden packing cases because his issue had been ‘lifted’ before his arrival.

Manning was also on the task force created for the official opening of the new Antarctic Division Headquarters on 22 April 1981 by Prince Charles: It was quite a job because people from the prime minister to Departmental secretaries, Departmental ministers, ex-ministers, directors and assistant directors, state protocol and police all got involved at various stages. My most vivid memory of the preparation was that the itinerary for the visit of the Prince went through 24 drafts before there was any finality.

320

Prince Charles (then being spoken of as a future Governor-General of Australia) spent about 21¼2 hours at the Kingston complex, including the opening ceremony, tour of the $8.9 million site and afternoon tea. With sunshine streaming in through the uncurtained glass walls, the Prince told his sweating audience of Federal and State politicians and other dignitaries that the new Antarctic HQ ‘is more like a tropical research centre’ before continuing with his speech.33 Speaking at the opening, Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser reflected on the concentration of Federal Government-funded maritime activities in Tasmania—the Antarctic Division in Hobart, the Australian Maritime College in Launceston opened the previous year, and the proposed multi-million dollar CSIRO Division of Fisheries and Oceanography and a marine science complex at the Hobart wharves. The prime minister said many of the priority recommendations of the Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee set up in 1979 had

B

U I L D I N G

been implemented, including the recommendation to develop the Antarctic Headquarters as a centre of excellence in southern ocean marine biology. In 1980–81, $1.2 million would be spent on the first stage of this program. Mr Fraser also used the occasion to announce a ten-year, $58-million program to rebuild all the Australian continental stations.34 While the move to Hobart had been an obvious disruption, it was difficult to recall a time in the previous 30 years of ANARE when an Australian Government had been so supportive of and generous to the Antarctic program. With a state-of-the-art new HQ, the rebuilding of the stations assured, and a commitment to build Australia’s first ice-breaking research and resupply ship, the Antarctic Division seemed (in the words of a former Conservative British prime minister Harold Macmillan) to have ‘never had it so good’.

A N D

M O V I N G

OPENING DAY FOR THE ANTARCTIC DIVISION’S PURPOSE-BUILT HEADQUARTERS AT

KINGSTON, TASMANIA, ON 22 APRIL 1981. (S BROWN)

321

EIGHTEEN

FIELD

WORK

I

t says much for the professionalism of the operational staff of ANARE that an ambitious scientific field program on the Antarctic continent was carried through despite the leadership baton-changes and morale-sapping uncertainty the division faced in the period from Law’s resignation to the early 1980s.

G LACIOLOGY

322

Even though Davis Station had to be closed in 1965 so that Casey Station could be built, pioneering field work continued to be done. In 1968 four men wintered on the Amery Ice Shelf—the smallest overwintering party in the history of ANARE. They were there in the winter to drill through the ice shelf, which is fed by the Lambert Glacier, and measure its speed and flow. Much of the glaciological work undertaken by ANARE centres on this region, which drains a million square kilometres of Greater Antarctica. Only 2 per cent of the Antarctic continent is exposed rock. The rest is a great dome of ice, constantly on the move. The ice dome of Antarctica has been built up slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years, from the quite modest snowfalls that are generated over the world’s biggest, windiest, coldest and driest desert. The ice sheet is 2.5 kilometres thick in the higher areas and gravity causes it to slip slowly down towards the coasts—eventually breaking off and floating away as icebergs. Glaciologists are trying to establish whether Antarctica is in balance or whether more or less ice is coming off the continent than is being deposited as snow. Areas like the Lambert basin are important and

F

I E L D

W O R K

dramatic places for research, because although the high polar ice moves at only about ten metres a year, the Amery Ice Shelf is moving much faster than that. ANARE glaciologist Jo Jacka: The front of the Amery Ice Shelf is moving at 1.2 kilometres per year. Now that’s hiking along. There are a few spots, but not very many, around the Antarctic coastline that are moving that fast. The southern [inland] end of the Amery is moving at about 380 metres a year, and the Lambert Glacier would be travelling at about 150 to 250 metres a year.

THE EDGE OF THE GREAT AMERY ICE SHELF. (P LAW)

In modern times, satellite technology and the Global Positioning System have made it much more convenient to plot the movement of Antarctic glaciers from markers embedded in the ice. But in the 1960s the position of markers could only be established by astrofix calculations—sighting a grid of stars by theodolite as reference points. The first ‘movement line’ markers were established on the southern end of the Amery Ice Shelf by a team from Mawson in 1962, using tractors and dogs. From 1963 to 1965 expeditions were mounted from Mawson Station to create ‘strain grids’ and lines of marker poles, crisscrossing and ‘boxing’ the entire Amery Ice Shelf. (In 1963 the front of the Amery broke away, creating a gigantic iceberg 150 kilometres long and 60 kilometres wide. This giant berg was measured from Nella Dan off the coast of Kemp Land in early 1965).1 An ambitious plan was devised in 1966 to study the Amery Ice Shelf intensively during 1968. A wintering party would not only drill right through the ice thickness of the shelf, but visit and measure all the strain grids placed on the surface to plot the movement of the ice shelf from the time, 1962, when ANARE teams first placed markers. The leader of

323

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

the group was Max Corry (surveyor/glaciologist), with Neville ‘Gringo’ Collins (diesel mechanic), Alan Nickols (electronics engineer) and Dr Julian ‘Sam’ Sansom, BEFORE THEIR CARAVANS who answered a world-wide plea for a medical officer.2 WERE BURIED IN DRIFT SNOW. FROM LEFT: N COLLINS, It was by no means certain that the party, with its sledges, vehicles and caravans, could be landed on the precipitous A NICKOLS, M CORRY, 40-metre high front of the Amery Ice Shelf. It was vital J SANSOM, FEBRUARY 1968. to establish a base far enough up the shelf to avoid the (COURTESY N COLLINS) possibility of floating out to sea if a section of the shelf broke out during the year. BY SPRING 1968, THE ‘AMERY Early in February 1968 Nella Dan nosed cautiously TROGLODYTES’ WERE into the uncharted waters of Sandefjord Bay at the COMPLETELY BURIED. NEVILLE south-eastern end of the shelf. Here, near some small COLLINS EMERGES FROM A rocky outcrops now known as Landing Bluff, the ice SNOWED-IN CARAVAN. edge was only a few metres high. In a nine-hour oper(COURTESY N COLLINS) ation, seventy tonnes of equipment was unloaded and quickly hauled three kilometres up the shelf. This was a fortunate precaution as the ice edge at the landing broke up some hours later. The ‘shelf-dwellers’ had two fibreglass caravans for accommodation. Transport and haulage were by two Nodwell RN 25 tracked vehicles (with cabins) and three OMC motor toboggans. After a reconnaissance by helicopter, Max Corry chose a site near where markers from the 1964 expedition were thought to be, 100 kilometres from the front edge of the shelf. He named it G1. Helicopters began shuttling equipment from Sandefjord Bay while the Nodwells and their sledges began moving the heavy items. It took Gringo Collins 41¼2 days to get there. He quickly dis324 covered that the Nodwells were not equal to the task. On the second run THE ‘AMERY TROGLODYTES’

F

I E L D

W O R K

in, one broke down 30 kilometres from the base camp. The Nodwells had been fitted with the biggest engines possible, but their weak point was the differential which had remained unchanged. This was a serious setback. Fortunately Nella Dan was able to return to Sandefjord Bay after visiting Mawson and drop off a smaller Snowtrac which was not designed for heavy hauling, but was at least operational. On their own by the first day of autumn, the four men realised that the 25-knot katabatic wind sweeping down the shelf was an almost permanent feature, and overcast conditions and heavy snow caused them to rename G1 ‘Lower Slobbovia’. For three weeks in March they had low cloud and winds up to 130 kilometres per hour. The Lower Slobbovians had to change their names again, to the ‘Amery Troglodytes’, as they became totally buried in snow. They had expected about 50 centimetres of snow during the year. Instead there was some five metres of drift accumulation. Their ventilation chimneys just kept getting higher and higher. Even so, there was an ever-present danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the first few weeks under the snow the exhaust from an auxiliary generator got into the ventilation system and Max Corry became quite ill. Collins: We had all sorts of tubes—ones like the police use now to breathalyse you—to test for carbon monoxide. The doctor said, ‘We’ve got to check this’. He broke one open, took one look at the colour and said: ‘Right, all out!’

A vent had blocked up with ice. Another hour could have been lethal. Autumn storms prevented any field work to search for and survey previous marker poles on the shelf. The ‘Amery Troglodytes’ began their drilling program using a thermal drill, obtained from the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. This literally melted its way down around a core of ice 100 millimetres in diameter and allowed ice cores of up to 1.2 metres long to be brought to the surface. The power plant was installed in the surviving Nodwell. Drilling went on in two 12-hour shifts with two men on each shift. One unexpected problem was that the surface temperature, between minus 20°C and minus 30°C, was much colder than the ice being drilled and sometimes caused the ice cores to shatter as they were brought up. Most, however, were recovered successfully. After several months of drilling, the troglodytes reached a depth of 310 metres, calculating they were about 50 metres away from the bottom of the shelf when their drill head finally jammed. They had some 200 litres of ethyl alcohol to stop the thermal drill from sticking. The melted water from the drilling process—containing the ethyl

325

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

STRAIN GRIDS AND 1968 TRAVERSE ROUTES ON THE

AMERY ICE SHELF.

326

alcohol in only small quantities—was drinkable, so it was used for domestic purposes.3 They did have regular radio contact with Mawson Station and ham radio contact with the outside world. A favourite pastime was listening to the regular Thursday skeds between the Antarctic Division in Melbourne and the other stations, which they dubbed ‘the circus of the air’, presided over by ‘ringmaster’ Doug Twigg. Radio Australia’s ‘Calling Antarctica’ was hard to get at times, but reception was achieved after lassoing the main wind generator to stop the major source of interference. In such cramped and confined circumstances, personal relations have to be worked at. Corry says that the four rubbed along pretty well, ‘with the usual amount of disagreement and unrest’. They were certainly all delighted to be liberated from their troglodyte lair when spring arrived. The first challenge was to dig out their vehicles from the deep drift before setting out to find and survey the lines of poles monitoring the movement of the Amery Ice Shelf. The one surviving Nodwell only ran for 40 kilometres pulling sledges before its transmission disintegrated. Collins, one of ANARE’s legendary

F

I E L D

W O R K

‘diesos’ (and veteran of the 1962 Vostok Traverse) worked miracles with the Snowtrac, which is basically a people-carrier not designed for heavy towing. Collins nursed it for over 1000 kilometres, while the three motor toboggans were used to range out over the length and breadth of the Amery Ice Shelf to search for and remeasure all the markers. This was done during spring and summer before Nella Dan plucked them from the Shelf in late February 1969. One surprise from the drilling was that the underside of the shelf was not melting as had been previously thought, but was growing due to water freezing underneath it. This growth has since been found beneath many of the major ice shelves, causing a significant revision of the estimated overall balance of the Antarctic ice sheet.4 Although the 1968 survey work on the Amery was done with simple techniques compared with the satellite technology available in later years, ANARE glaciologist Ian Allison makes the point that the measurements were very accurate: That 1968 work forms an excellent baseline [against which] we can directly look at any changes that have occurred in this part of Antarctica. It is one of the few accurate surveys we have anywhere on the continent, where you can go back and remeasure and have some confidence we’ll be measuring realistic changes. (During the 1995–96 season, a survey party found eight of the original 80 steel marker poles left by the Amery Ice Shelf wintering party in 1968. The poles were first remeasured in 1969–70, and then not for 26 years.)

Just how testing the experience of the four ‘Amery Troglodytes’ was is hinted at by Neville Collins reminiscing after more than twenty years: It was maybe three years before I got around to developing my films. . .I just wanted to forget about the Amery—that’s how it was. It was more than two years before I could even look at those films. It was such a difficult year. . .a small party, poor food and hard yakka.

T HE P RINCE C HARLES M OUNTAINS As Corry’s party prepared to leave the Amery Ice Shelf in early 1969 they helped unload stores and equipment at Landing Bluff for the first major summer survey of the Prince Charles Mountains using fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, led by Graeme McKinnon. The Lambert Glacier is the largest in the world. It streams down towards the Amery Ice Shelf, held back by the Prince Charles Mountains, which extend in an arc of some 1200 kilometres from their northern extremity 300 kilometres south-east of Mawson Station. These rocky peaks

327

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

jut up from the huge rivers of ice flowing past them, creating one of the most spectacular features in the Australian Antarctic Territory. It is an area of continuing interest to ANARE glaciologists, geologists and, more recently, biologists. The 1969 expedition set the pattern that continues to this day for later summer PCM expeditions with air support. Using a fixed-wing Beaver aircraft and three Hiller turbine helicopters, geologists and glaciologists worked on the coast, as well as flying deep into the PCMs. The first party out into the field flew by Beaver, appropriately, to Beaver Lake, a club-shaped area of smooth ice at the eastern extremity of the Aramis Range, connected to Radok Lake by a narrow steep-sided valley. The metamorphic rocks there had been discovered first in 1956 by Peter Crohn, but had not been studied in detail. The rocks contain coal seams nearly two metres thick and about 250 million years old (the same age as coal found in Newcastle, New South Wales), with well-preserved fossil leaves and fossil wood. The Beaver Lake bivouac had an unusual feature for Antarctic field work, a coal-fuelled camp fire.5 Major summer expeditions to the PCMs continued for the next five years until 1973–74. Fuel, supplies and portable huts were dragged in by tractor trains operating from Mawson Station to support each summer program—at Moore Pyramid in the Northern PCMs and Mt Cresswell in the Southern PCMs. In 1969 the ANARE helicopter contract was awarded to Jayrow Helicopters and three Hughes 500 machines went south on Nella Dan for the second year in the PCMs. One of the pilots was Peter Clemence, a former RAAF officer who had wintered at Mawson in 1957, then flying fixed wing Beavers and an Auster. It was also the first time a fixed wing Pilatus Porter short take off and landing aircraft had been used by ANARE. In the 1970–71 season former RAAF pilot Doug Leckie (who wintered at Mawson in 1956) returned to fly the Pilatus Porter in the PCMs. Scientist and film maker David Parer recalls how Leckie could land the Porter virtually on a postage stamp behind Mawson Station where there was no airfield at all: West Bay has quite steep slopes but it’s got a short area just near the doglines where Doug would come in. He’d swoop down right next to the ice cliffs and do these amazing 30 metre landings.

328

The use of helicopters made it possible to move geologists quickly to a number of different locations through the PCMs in the limited summer season, although in 1973 geologist Bob Tingey admitted that it gave rise to the expression ‘cut lunch explorers’ from those who wintered on the ANARE stations:

F

I E L D

W O R K

This refers to the rations and the bars of chocolate we used to take with us for refreshments during the working day. We got the impression that we were not [considered] ‘the real thing’, we were not ‘bona fide heroes’. But it was a very efficient way of working and instead of having a lot of geologists isolated on peaks never speaking to each other, you used to come home in the evening and have a meal cooked at the Mt Cresswell base camp. . .

Phase Six of the PCMs survey ended in the summer of 1974. Fortunately there had been no loss of life in the field, although there had been some close calls. On 17 January one of the Hughes 500 helicopters crashed on a rocky pinnacle at Burke Ridge. The machine was a complete write-off, but the pilot and surveyor passenger escaped with a few scratches.6 In that situation other helicopters were available for a quick retrieval, but accidents during field work in remote locations remain a test of human endurance and logistical ingenuity. In February 1971, two Hughes 500 helicopters supporting the PCMs program were called away suddenly to Nella Dan for an emergency dash to the remote sub-Antarctic Heard Island, where an expeditioner, Ian Holmes, lay alone on a glacier after having broken his leg during a field expedition.

R ESCUE

OF I AN H OLMES FROM H EARD I SLAND

Summer parties had visited Heard in 1963, 1965, 1969 and 1971 for scientific work and attempts to climb Big Ben (2745 metres), then thought to be the highest mountain on the Australian Antarctic Territory. Former Heard OIC and medical officer Grahame Budd was a member of all three parties which went to Heard in the 1960s. News that the French planned to visit Heard Island in 1971 to conduct experiments into atmospheric physics alerted him to the possibility of getting to his beloved Heard Island again. The French expedition was led by a geophysicist, Roger Gendrin, who asked the Antarctic Division if they could use the ANARE huts at Atlas Cove. They invited some ANARE observers and director Bryan Rofe approved five—glaciologist Ian Allison, physicist Hugh Thelander, medical officer Grahame Budd, and two field assistants, Iain Dillon and Ian Holmes. Sailing south on the French ship Galliéni, the party of sixteen landed at Atlas Cove on 25 January 1971 for a stay of six weeks. Using a French helicopter, Budd and Thelander made the first ever visit to the nearby Macdonald Islands on 27 January. Budd had been trying to get there for years, but Thelander pipped him to the first-footing post: ‘Hugh stepped

329

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

out first. I couldn’t work out why he was in such a hurry to get out. Putting his foot down first was the thing.’ The two scientists found that the Macdonald Islands were rich in breeding colonies of sea birds and fur seals, and that there were only three islands, not five. Back on Heard, Budd and the other Australians assisted Ian Allison with measurements of ice movement on the Baudissen and Vahsel Glaciers. Budd: You’re jumping crevasses all the time and I’d landed badly after one jump and damaged my knee. I’d in fact partly dislocated the upper tibiofibular joint. That meant the knee was a bit painful, but it was a bit weak too. And this had repercussions.

Budd and his two field assistants, Iain Dillon and Ian Holmes, planned to walk around the island to obtain further evidence of glacier fluctuations, of the increase in fur seals and king penguins, and of their own responses to cold. They also planned to survey unvisited areas on the west coast such as Cape Arkona. This entailed crossing two of Heard’s biggest and most difficult glaciers, the Abbottsmith and the Gotley. For reasons of weight and convenience they did not carry radios which, in Budd’s experience, were useless on Heard because of its mountainous terrain. Before they left he briefed Gendrin and the rest of the party at Atlas Cove: ‘We made a very detailed map of our route and we had fixed locations where we were going to leave messages.’ To their surprise they crossed the heavily crevassed Abbottsmith Glacier relatively easily and pressed on to the Gotley, which Budd found in terrible shape: It was far worse than it had ever been before. This was a consequence of glacier retreat. So one mile took us three days to cross and involved all sorts of fancy Alpine techniques.

On 10 February they hoped to spend only one more night on the Gotley. Unfortunately Holmes was without his ice-axe, which had fallen down a crevasse. They were carrying bamboo poles to keep fur seals at bay and Holmes was using one as a substitute ice-axe. The surface of the glacier was a frightful mess of fractured, unstable ice and while crossing an ice ridge Holmes slipped and fell into a crevasse—dangling several metres down on the end of his climbing rope. His crampon hit the wall on the way down and broke his leg. Budd: 330

When his fall stopped we called out ‘Are you OK?’ He said, ‘Yeah—but I think I’ve broken my leg’. I was appalled. My first question was, ‘Above

F

I E L D

W O R K

or below the knee?’ He probably thought it was very heartless, but if it was a tibia and fibula at least that was a local problem, but if it was the femur, then he was likely to have shock and all sorts of problems. So I was very relieved to hear that at least it was below the knee.

The accident could not have happened in a worse spot. The whole area was ‘practically vertical’—narrow ice ridges with deep crevasses in between them, like a maze. The glacier was also moving all the time, with sounds of nearby ice avalanches and the cracking and groaning of moving ice under pressure. When Budd and Dillon hauled Holmes to the surface there was barely room to lie him down on a ridge of ice between two crevasses. After giving Holmes an injection of morphine to THERE WAS BARELY ROOM dull the pain, Budd cut up the bamboo pole to make TO PITCH A TENT FOR IAN some splints. At that stage of their journey the three HOLMES ON THE JAGGED men were running short on food, intending to replenRIDGES OF THE GOTLEY ish their supplies from a cache at Long Beach left there GLACIER. in 1963. (G BUDD) There was just room on the ice ridge to put up their small three-man tent; then Budd and Dillon left Holmes while they climbed off the glacier and down to Long Beach to bring back extra food—and also some tins of plaster of Paris. Budd hoped to set Holmes’ broken leg in a cast and then move him off the Gotley Glacier to a more stable area where they could, if necessary, await the return of Galliéni. Unfortunately Heard Island damp had ruined the plaster even though it was in a soldered tin. Without a cast, it was impossible to move Holmes off the glacier, but leaving him on the ice was an unattractive alternative as the glacier was not only thawing but moving quite fast. The only option was to leave the 24-year-old Holmes in the tent on the glacier so Budd and Dillon could return to Atlas Cove to raise the alarm—and hope that the ice he was on stayed intact. Budd knew a helicopter would be needed to lift Holmes out: 331

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

We reckoned it would be the best part of a week before we could get back. We discussed this with Holmes, and he said he’d be right. The tent was now stocked with enough food to keep him going, and he had enough fuel. We left him with everything and just went off with what we were wearing and a block of chocolate. . .

The two men decided to continue around the island in an anti-clockwise direction. It avoided having to renegotiate the Gotley and Abbottsmith Glaciers, but was a distance of 64 kilometres, over extremely rough terrain. They planned to pick up some supplies at a depot at Spit Bay. Ian Holmes lay in his tent—which subsequently collapsed and lay over him like a tarpaulin—with food, a primus and painkillers within reach. When he had to get water or go to the toilet he put steel crampons on his hands and levered himself out onto the sloping ice. He had a down sleeping bag, but it was impossible to keep it dry. Holmes: I was lying on the ice, and during the day my body heat melted a hole in the ice and I was just lying in a big puddle. The sleeping bag got wet, and then at night it all froze solid. . .one night the whole thing froze and I woke up and couldn’t breathe.

He realised the zip on his sleeping bag had frozen, banged it until the ice fractured, and got his head out to gasp in urgently needed air. The days passed slowly as the Gotley Glacier crashed and creaked around him. Once a day he would brew some soup on a fuel stove, and he tried to pass the time by reading a detective novel. The effort became too much through his fog of pain and boredom, and he used the book as a marker of time by turning a page for each passing day. It was just as well Holmes did not know that Budd was quite seriously injured himself. Budd’s injured knee was still weak as he began the Heard Island circumnavigation. Jumping one crevasse, it gave way under him as he landed. So he evolved the technique of landing stiff-legged. Eventually this cracked his pelvis in three places. Budd: I was a bit unstable walking, because part of the trouble with a cracked pelvis is that your normal stabilising reactions get slowed down because you know it’s going to hurt—although the pain mostly refers to the lower back. And in the process of one of these falls I’d also cracked some ribs. . .the only way I could walk was to arch my back firmly and then waddle along like Donald Duck.

332

By the time they made it back to Atlas Cove three days later, Budd could scarcely walk at all. The French station leader Roger Gendrin met them and asked about Holmes: ‘We said, ‘‘Jambe cassée, mais il est OK’’

F

I E L D

W O R K

[He’s broken his leg but he’s all right]. The French took us into the mess and fed us mug after mug of scalding hot coffee, and got the story out of us.’ The first priority was to get on the radio to find out what ships were about. With the damage to Budd’s pelvis sending his back muscles into spasm, it took him five minutes to move twenty metres to the radio hut. Contact with Melbourne was achieved via Mawson Station on the IAN HOLMES BEING WINCHED amateur radio band. OFF THE CREVASSED AND There were no ships with helicopters other than BROKEN TERRAIN OF THE Nella Dan, which had just reached Davis en route for GOTLEY GLACIER, 12 Mawson. Voyage leader Eric Macklin was instructed DECEMBER 1971, AFTER HIS by the Antarctic Division’s acting director Don Styles ELEVEN-DAY ORDEAL. in Melbourne to go immediately to Mawson and pick (A GRATT) up two Hughes 500 helicopters then supporting the 1971 Prince Charles Mountains survey and geological party, and head for Heard Island to attempt Holmes’ rescue. The helicopters were taken on board Nella Dan on 16 February—six days after Holmes’ accident. The news that an injured young ANARE scientist was lying alone on a glacier at Heard Island captured the nation’s attention. INJURED MAN FIVE DAYS ALONE ON GLACIER, headlined the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Nella Dan was steaming at full speed from Mawson, but a day out on 18 February the ship’s engine broke down. A cracked connecting rod on one cylinder could not be repaired so the ship continued at reduced speed on six of its seven cylinders ‘and jumped all the way to Heard Island’. A makeshift winch was installed in one of the helicopters and Nella Dan made it to Atlas Cove by 21 February to pick up three ANARE men—Ian Allison, Iain Dillon and Grahame Budd—then steamed on down the coast to the Gotley Glacier. The operational plan called for a landing at Long Beach by amphibious LARC if the winds were too strong for flying. As Nella Dan steamed closer to the coast, the high winds moderated and a helicopter was able to take off from the ship. Holmes was 333

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

located after a five-minute search, and was seen to be not only alive, but waving furiously. It was not possible to land and Grahame Budd (then unaware of the extent of his own injuries) was winched down to Holmes from a hovering Hughes 500 with crampons, a stretcher and a VHF radio strapped to his back. Holmes remembers Budd saying, ‘Hello boy. You’ve had a pretty lousy week, haven’t you?’ The injured man was winched up dangling on a stretcher and flown off the glacier to a better landing site. Within minutes he was safe on Nella Dan, amazingly fit after his eleven days on the Gotley. Ian Holmes estimated there was about one day a month in that area when it was possible to fly a helicopter and ‘see where you are going, and it just happened to be one of those days’.

M ACQUARIE I SLAND While low-lying Macquarie Island lacks the initial drama of Heard Island’s soaring volcanic peak, its wet-cold, windy weather and unstable cliffs demand it be treated with respect. More ANARE expeditioners have died on Macquarie Island than any other Antarctic station.* The field manual reminds expeditioners that snow may fall at any time of the year and hypothermia is a real risk. Other hazards are unstable rock outcrops and cliffs, freak waves on the coastline and the possibility of being swallowed up by ‘quaking bogs’ on the coastal terraces and inland areas.7 To those dangers can be added rampaging elephant seal bulls (during the mating season) which are capable of crushing someone to death with their four-tonne bulk, or raking them with their fighting canine teeth. Skuas, the vultures of the Antarctic, will attack any injured animal and the field manual recommends that no injured or unconscious person ever be left alone on the island unless absolutely essential—and then well covered by clothing and rucksacks. Yet this misty, windy, wet, green island is a wonderful zoo, a haven in the tempests of the ‘Furious Fifties’. Macquarie literally teems with wildlife, with many species of sea birds, penguins and seals. Those who spend time there are passionate in their love of the place. Unlike their colleagues on the Antarctic continent, Macquarie winterers can get out at any time of the year, walk the 34-kilometre length of the narrow island to spend time alone, or with a few selected companions in the field huts 334

* (Refer to table of ANARE deaths in Appendix IV)

F

I E L D

W O R K

at Bauer Bay, Caroline Cove, Sandy Bay, Green Gorge, Lusitania Bay, or Hurd Point in the extreme south. The low-lying island is also of enormous interest to geologists, as it is the only known place in the world where sea-floor rocks of a major ocean basin are exposed above sea level in a marine environment. The area is unstable and strong earthquakes occur regularly—sometimes causing rock and mud slides along the cliffs that circle the coast. On 7 February 1980, OIC Rod Ledingham reported a strong earthquake well over six on the Richter scale: The shuddering of the buildings was considerable, lasting for about 15 seconds. . .Everybody exited from the buildings at speed. About 100 books fell from the shelves in the mess and the 30 ANARE photographs by the bar were all hanging at odd angles. The area by the kitchen was a sea of broken glass, ketchup and assorted sauces.8

There was similar chaos in the scientific laboratories, but no one was injured either at the main station on the isthmus at Buckles Bay or in any of the field huts. The wildlife was not so lucky. Mud slides and rock falls killed penguins and seals under the coastal cliffs between Hurd Point and Lusitania Bay. Ledingham: Several colonies of penguins had been wiped out, and seals crushed by falling rocks. Between the station and Nuggets were numerous rock falls which had buried penguins on the beach. About eight seals had been killed by falling boulders, inland above Red River near Bauer Bay.9

Big cracks in the ground were reported at different places on the island. The fact that remains of ships wrecked in relatively recent times were now 50 to 100 metres inland from the high tide level caused Ledingham to speculate that the island might be rising at a rate faster than first thought: The recent discovery of marine beaches 760 feet [231.6 metres] above sea level on North Mountain, Perseverance Bluff and elsewhere add weight to this hypothesis.10

Although geology, upper atmospheric physics and ozone studies continue to be explored on Macquarie Island, it is really a biologist’s paradise. Much of the early work of observation, bird banding and marking of seals was done by the expedition doctors. Arthur Gwynn, the doctor on Macquarie in 1949, had a biology degree as well as a medical degree and continued his association with ANARE (briefing those who followed him) until 1955. Stefan Csordas (MO on Macquarie in 1955, 1957, and 1959) continued this tradition.

335

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Csordas was the outstanding example of the medico-naturalist. He not only organised the mass banding of giant petrels (which produced some spectacular recoveries), but was out counting elephant seals and looking for branded ones in all weathers except actual blizzards. It has been recognised that there are three species of fur seal at the island—the New Zealand fur seal which is a visitor only, the Antarctic fur seal and the sub-Antarctic fur seal.11 The return of the fur seals to breed was confirmed by Csordas in 1955 when he saw a pup which, instead of lolloping into the water as fur seals usually do, retreated up the beach into a cave. Csordas realised that the pup could not swim—fur seals (unlike elephant seals) have to be taught to swim by their mothers. At that stage breeding fur seals had not been reported on Macquarie Island for more than 100 years: ‘So you can imagine that, when the end of the year came, I practically spent every day around that cave area to see whether the mother returned to have another pup.’ Csordas was worried that the ship would arrive to take him back to Australia before he could confirm that the fur seals were breeding. One day I went there and a little furry ball was in the entrance of the cave. . .big black eyes and the poor little fellow didn’t know what to do—to be friendly with me or escape into the cave. So I made a few steps closer and then Mama appeared on the scene. So I just sat down and I nearly cried, because it was such a beautiful picture—that after a hundred years, they finally came back.

336

When Robert Carrick took over the Antarctic Division’s biological work in 1955, he arranged for technical officers from the CSIRO Wildlife Survey Section to go to Macquarie while remaining on the CSIRO payroll. Graduate biologists went to Macquarie on a regular basis after 1960. The importation of exotic species by the sealing gangs from the nineteenth century placed stress on the vegetation and the wildlife. Rabbits, cats and wekas were the most damaging. Before myxomatosis was introduced to the island in 1978, rabbit numbers were estimated to be around 150 000. (The European rabbit flea was introduced to Macquarie in 1968 to prepare for the virus.) The rabbits are still not fully eradicated. Feral cats eat rabbits and also continue to prey on birds. The wekas (flightless birds from New Zealand’s Stewart Island, about the size of a bantam hen) wreaked havoc on the burrowing petrels, eating the young birds as well as the eggs. All wekas were eliminated from Macquarie Island by the end of 1988. Their numbers had been thinned by feral cats attacking them after the rabbit population dwindled because of myxomatosis. The cats remain the hardest pest to eliminate. Even with their reduced numbers in the

F

W

ekas were audacious scavengers with little fear of human activity. Their many escapades have been recorded in ANARE song, poetry, and station log books. Ken ‘Cagey’ Simpson, a CSIRO technical officer who wintered in 1965, later wrote that all wekas trained their young as delinquents: They eat everything whether it be food or not. They fight, swear and steal. All wekas are compulsive kleptomaniacs and collect things they do not need. . .Respectability is feather-deep and their hides are thick. No weka walks. It sneaks, skulks or snoops. The legs are good eating—the rest is a waste of time.12

Simpson records that two weka families actually ate an entire concrete doorstep at Bauer Bay—but admits that through lack of cement the sand had been bonded with egg powder and self-raising flour. Another CSIRO

I E L D

W O R K

expeditioner, Trevor Gadd, records a harrowing close encounter of a weka kind in 1964. He had taught a weka to take food from his hand. Early one brisk Macquarie morning, while he was relieving himself outside a field hut, Gadd sleepily became aware of his pet weka approaching. At that instant he recalled the weka’s most accurate seizure of titbits held between his fingers ‘by that sharp and pointed beak’. Gadd shut off quickly and painfully in midstream and beat a strategic retreat.13 The most poignant weka story is undoubtedly the one detailed in the essay ‘There’s A Weka In The Bottom Of Our Thunderbox’ —again by Ken ‘Cagey’ Simpson. He seemed to have a thing about wekas. The full account can be read by the scatalogically curious in the ANARE Club journal Aurora, of November 1966, describing how Ken descended into the malodorous depths of the one-holer to extricate the screaming and ungrateful bird.

early 1990s, they are estimated to kill at least 65 000 prions, petrels and shearwaters each year. A concerted attempt to rid the island of exotic unwanted species began in 1972 when the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Department took over the running of Macquarie Island from the State Animals and Birds Protection Board. Before then the island had seen a veritable farmyard of domestic animals introduced, including sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, fowls, cows and horses. In 1956, ANARE expeditioners even planted fruit trees. Most of the edible livestock was shipped down in the days when refrigeration was not available. A steak or leg of lamb was deemed preferable to eating the wildlife—particularly when expeditioners tried their hand on the cook’s day off. One of the most elaborate exercises to bring introduced species to Macquarie Island took place in the summer of 1969–70 when three horses, Brandy, Lime and Soda, were unloaded for use as draught animals. It was hoped the horses could help resupply the field hut at Caroline Cove on the extreme south-west corner of the island, which had proved

337

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

extremely dangerous to reach by amphibious DUKWs from the sea. The Antarctic Division’s engineer in charge of transport, Alan Brown, took this challenge ELEPHANT SEALS ON in his stride when it came to loading the horses on to MACQUARIE ISLAND, 1957. Nella Dan. Purpose-built horse-boxes were hired easily, (S CSORDAS) because as late as 1970 Australia was shipping horses to India for Indian Army remounts. The boxed horses UNLOADING HORSES BRANDY, were lifted on to the aft hatch of Nella Dan and winched LIME AND SODA AT off onto army LARCs (the first time they had been MACQUARIE ISLAND, 1969. used at Macquarie instead of the older DUKWs) for (R LANGTIP) the run ashore. Brandy was a bay, Lime a grey and Soda was a black. They never made it to Caroline Cove because it proved impossible to get them up onto the plateau anywhere near the main station on the isthmus. They could not manage the usual route up the cliffs to the plateau through Gadget Gully and attempts to walk them down the east coast to Sandy Bay were unsuccessful. According to Knowles Kerry, the horses could not get past rocky outcrops along the way: SHEEP AND TWO YOUNG

It took three months to bridge the more unsurmountable sections with a single horse track. Once at Sandy Bay, they were able to get the horses up onto the plateau. However, there they promptly sank in the bogs up to their bellies!

338

Brandy, Lime and Soda ended up having a most relaxed year on the isthmus, with a few expeditioners having an occasional gallop along the beach, before being returned to Australia. Although the population of seals and penguins has built up since they were ravaged by the sealers in the nineteenth and early twentieth

F

I E L D

W O R K

centuries, more recent studies have shown that the elephant seals on Macquarie have declined by 50 per cent in the last 30-odd years.14 Current research is investigating the causes of that decline. Macquarie Island is now a State nature reserve, administered by the Tasmanian Department of Environment and Land Management. From the late 1980s the department instituted strict quarantine regulations for all visitors to Macquarie to try to prevent unwanted seeds getting to the island. Boot washing and sterilisation is comKNOWLES KERRY INTRODUCES pulsory for all ANARE personnel and tourists arriving A HORSE TO AN ELEPHANT there. Even so, vigilance is essential. In 1984 wildlife SEAL PUP AT MACQUARIE management officer Geoff Copson found a thistle on ISLAND, 1969. the isthmus and an apple seedling sprouting near the (R LANGTIP) hut at Sandy Bay. The following year two European wasps arrived in bundles of timber and several exotic moths were discovered. An adventurous Queensland green tree frog also made it to Macquarie via a bunch of ANARE bananas in August 1995.

C OSMIC RAY LABORATORY AT M AWSON S TATION Measurements of cosmic rays were undertaken from the very beginnings of ANARE. Phil Law himself began as a cosmic ray physicist, and cosmic ray scientists were active on Macquarie and Heard Islands from 1948 onwards. When Mawson Station was established in 1954, cosmic rays were measured continually from 1955. As the distinguished ANARE physicist Bob Jacklyn is the first to admit, ‘cosmic ray’ is a misnomer for the charged particles of matter bombarding the earth from deep space. One-third of the radiation received by human beings on this planet comes from cosmic rays. These intriguing particles pass through our bodies continually—and then plunge deeper into the earth. Cosmic ray activity is intensified in the Arctic and Antarctic as the earth’s magnetic field deflects them towards the poles. The problem in the Arctic is that there are no significant land masses near the North Pole for observatories. In the Antarctic Mawson Station is extremely well placed to observe cosmic rays because not only is it far south, but the uniform structure of the granitic rock on which the station

339

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

is built is ideal for studying the composition of higher energy particles as they penetrate deeper into the earth. In the mid-1960s the Antarctic Division’s senior cosmic ray physicist, Bob Jacklyn, pushed for the only under-rock laboratory ever to be built in polar latitudes. The plan called for an eleven-metre he blasting became a regular and alarmshaft to be sunk into the rock at the ing feature of the Mawson routine. Only foot of which two vaults would be excaone large rock reached the station, vated, leading off in opposite directions. crashing through the roof of Biscoe Hut, to One would contain the high energy the surprise of carpenter Bill ‘Slipta’ Cartledge ‘telescopes’ that would receive the who was working there. Lem Macey recalled: cosmic rays after they had been meaAs the wind generally carried the small sured first above ground in a laboratory. stones down over the dog lines, the huskies Work began in 1971 and a miner, John became very cunning and would all jump ‘Clem’ Cruise, wintered at Mawson to up and look skywards when the shooting carry out the blasting and excavation started—no doubt to take a bit of evasive work. OIC Lem Macey later wrote that action should it be necessary.15 there were some unforeseen problems to be overcome:

T

Owing to a slight oversight, a parcel of special detonators for firing the centre shots in a predetermined sequence, were not available for the project.16

In other words, they had not been sent down on the ship. ANARE improvisation was called for: One notable experiment, recommended not to be repeated, was for one chap to hold twelve fuses in the hand while Clem Cruise lit them. A wonderful idea, but the time involved in lighting the fuses had not been taken into account. . .after five of the twelve had been lit, molten tar was commencing to affect the hands of both the holder and the lighter. Then visibility became a problem when the lighted fuses emitted great volumes of smoke obscuring both lighter and holder from each other.17

340

At that point, Macey said, the fuse-holder moved a motion that ‘the operation be abandoned and evacuation by climbing out of the shaft up the ladder be immediately adopted’. A more effective method of lighting the fuses in sequence was devised, and the shaft deepened daily, with no problems that could not be solved by the help of ANARE expeditioners and ‘that ever present Mexican veteran Manual Labour’. By 31 May, 68 days after work began, the eleven-metre shaft was sunk and work could begin excavating the underground rock chambers.

F

I E L D

W O R K

Both the vaults and the building above were supposed to be completed by the early summer of 1971–72, but when Attila Vrana came in to Horseshoe Harbour on the relief ship to install the detecting and recording systems with ANARE physicist David Parer, they anxiously scanned the hillside with binoculars. All they saw was a crane lowering materials and people into a shaft, surrounded only by bare hillside. When they left Melbourne, the division management had assured them the building would be finished by the time they arrived. The plan was for Vrana to install the cosmic ray measuring equipment and return with the last ship in late summer 1972. But by then, with DIAGRAM OF THE the laboratory unfinished and much of what had to UNDERGROUND COSRAY be done in his head, Vrana decided to overwinter to LABORATORY, MAWSON, 1968. finish the job, assisted by David Parer. By the time Vrana ( J HÖSEL) returned to Australia at the end of summer in 1973, he had spent sixteen months at Mawson. He left behind a working cosmic ray observatory—at 67° south, the highest latitude station in the world. It has operated continuously ever since.

T HE

RISE OF BIOLOGY — THE

D AVIS L AKES

Through the 1950s and 1960s biology had remained the poor cousin of Antarctic science. Although a great deal of work had been done on the sub-Antarctic islands, there was no coordinated program for the continent. At the recommendation of Robert Carrick, who oversaw ANARE’s biological activities from the CSIRO, the newly appointed director Bryan Rofe contacted Knowles Kerry after he had wintered on Macquarie in 1970 and asked him to establish a mainland biology program. Only two ANARE biologists had ever worked on the continent, John Bunt who studied microbes in sea water near Mawson in 1963, and Rowan Webb (also at Mawson) in 1969, who investigated lichens and mosses. Kerry: I’d read a lot but I didn’t know much about it, so I said, ‘Well, the first thing we ought to do is go and have a look at our stations’. So I went to Mawson, Gavin Johnstone was sent to Davis, and Durno Murray went to

341

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

DAVID PARER FILMING EMPEROR PENGUINS AT

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Casey. . .The idea was that we would have a look and see what was there, and then we’d come back and discuss it.

AUSTER ROOKERY, 1973. (AAD ARCHIVES)

The most interesting area seemed to be in the Vestfold Hills, near Davis, which had an unusual array of lakes ranging from the hypersaline—which did not freeze in winter—through to all the freshwater lakes which were virtually frozen to the bottom. Kerry established a program to see if there were living organisms in most of the lakes. Investigating biologists were nothing if not versatile. When Dick Williams arrived at Davis in 1973 to study zooplankton, he could not find any. So he changed tack to studying the phytoplankton of Deep Lake. Since then the Davis lakes have continued to provide an enormously complex and exciting area for research. Kerry: Everybody’s still excited about the lakes. . .People like Peter Franzmann [formerly] at the University of Tasmania are finding organisms with interesting and unusual properties. Any organism which can survive in a lake which gets down to a temperature of minus 19°C but doesn’t freeze, has got to have something going for it.

342

Knowles Kerry was keen to use films to popularise the cause of Antarctic biology and encouraged David Parer—then at Mawson as a cosmic ray physicist in 1972—to take wildlife footage during the winter. Parer continued filming the following summer and two films, Antarctic Winter and Antarctic Summer, were produced in conjunction with the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

F

I E L D

W O R K

‘A CLOSE-RUN THING’ As the study of the lakes gained momentum there was an urgent need for field huts away from Davis Station, deeper into the Vestfold Hills. During 1972 and 1974, Ray Brookes—the first carpenter to winter at Davis—built what is now known as Brookes Hut at Long Fjord, 15 kilometres to the west of Davis. He had to improvise with panels fabricated from scrap timber scrounged from around the station. To get this material to the hut site, Brookes used a Willys Jeep towing a sled around the coast on the sea ice, and to guard against breaking through, he rigged eight-metre-long Oregon beams underneath the vehicle and cut an escape hatch in the roof. The Willys and sled were used without incident. But in the early summer of 1972–73 both Ray Brookes and Davis medical officer John Jackson were extremely lucky to make it back to the station. Jackson was helping Brookes build the hut. They had a radio message from the station to say that warm weather was starting to melt the sea ice and they had better get back quickly.

The two men had skidoos—motorised toboggans—and set off quickly for the fifteen-kilometre run around the coast. All went well as they rode down the ice-covered fjord, until they turned the corner for the final run to Davis Station. Brookes: We were sort of in the open sea, about three-quarters of a kilometre from the base. The ice was cracking. . .and in places only an inch thick. . .because of the reflections, you couldn’t see whether you were over a hole in the ice or you weren’t. The two men stopped their machines on a patch of firm sea ice and considered their options. There was really only one: ‘I said to the doctor, ‘‘Well, we’ve got to get back and

BROOKES HUT, DAVIS, 1986. (COURTESY R EASTHER) SNO-TRAVELLER ON SEA ICE WITH NELLA DAN 1965. (AAD ARCHIVES)

IN THE BACKGROUND,

➤

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

if we leave it any later we’re not going to get back—we’re going to be floating out to sea’’.’ Brookes and Jackson checked they had enough fuel, revved their engines and shook hands. Brookes: I said, ‘Well, we have to have rules about this. If one goes in, the other keeps going, because you won’t get out. . .he who hesitates

is lost.’ So we got in line abreast, and flattened them. With their fellow expeditioners waving and shouting encouragement from the shore, Brookes and Jackson surged forward at 25 kilometres an hour. As they hurtled over the ice, open water broke out behind their skidoos. The party in the mess that night was a good one.

Parer built his film around a winter dog sledge journey, including filming emperor penguins out on the sea ice among grounded icebergs at Auster Rookery, near Mawson. Parer: The males were incubating the eggs. It was one of the most extraordinary things I have ever seen—in that just pink twilight of midwinter when the sun is not even coming above the horizon—to see 25 000 of these animals, all with eggs, surrounded by these grounded bergs in this exquisite pink pastel light. . .

The films were well received, and set David Parer on his way to a distinguished career as a wildlife film maker. Just how much influence Parer’s films had on the rising fortunes of biology is difficult to gauge, but by 1980 a growing awareness of the importance of the biological diversity of Antarctica and its surrounding seas saw a big jump in the commitment to marine sciences, with a $3.5 million allocation in the Federal budget. The comparative decline in the resources allocated to physics during the late 1970s reflected Sir Frederick White’s APAC report of 1975 which suggested that ‘upper atmosphere physics and cosmic ray physics take up too large a proportion of the written program’.18 Biology was booming.

I CE

344

DRILLING AT

L AW D OME

In February 1960 a survey party of Americans and Australians led by OIC Harry Black set out to find a route from Wilkes up on to the ice cap. Unknowingly they tracked across the western slope of an isolated feature now known as Law Dome. Thinking they were safely on the main, slowly rising ice sheet, they were surprised to find themselves heading downhill again. In 1961 another major traverse led by OIC Neville Smethurst

F

I E L D

W O R K

(and including glaciologist Bill Budd) noted that the 1200-metre-high ice dome was an isolated feature, a fact confirmed by seismologist Don Walker in 1962. Due to the underlying bedrock, the ice of the dome is moving radially out from its centre, and its separation from the main ice cap and its almost circular shape make it a model in miniature of the larger Antarctic ice cap. There is a static area where very little movement occurs at the very top of the dome. Glaciologist, Jo Jacka: Law Dome is particularly interesting because it’s divided to the north, of course, by the ocean. To the south there just happen to be two large glaciers which feed the Antarctic ice sheet to the north-east and north-west around Law Dome. . .It’s almost like an island. . .and we can learn an awful lot about glaciology—about how ice flows, about climate change—just by studying Law Dome.

As soon as the significance of the ‘Wilkes ice cap’ was realised, Budd was determined to make the most of it and designed a scientific program. The first drilling attempt was by Jo Jacka in the summer of 1963, but he had no equipment to recover an ice core—essential for a proper study of the annual accumulated layers of ice. A thermal drill, bought from the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (used by the Amery Ice Shelf ‘troglodytes’ in 1968) did produce a core, and a variation of the drill was designed and produced by the Antarctic Division’s first electronic engineer, Ian Bird, in Melbourne. This was used for the first time in 1969 on the dome’s summit and at Cape Folger. Drilling continued out of Casey Station through the 1970s. Ice cores were recovered and returned to Australia for detailed analysis. Ian Allison: If you take a sample of ice from several hundred metres you’ll find very small bubbles of air in there that are basically sealed capsules of the air that was in the earth’s atmosphere when that snow fell. . .so you can start looking at these atmospheric samples and determine what the carbon dioxide content was before the Industrial Revolution.

By going deep enough, it is possible to sample what the carbon dioxide content of the air was before the last Ice Age and build up a record of how natural changes have occurred before humanity came on the scene. The dust from known volcanic eruptions is used to check the dates of the annual layers of ice. Law Dome provides an accurate record of the world’s climate for 30 000 years—and less precise measurement back as far as 120 000 years.

345

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

It is not possible to drill more than 500 metres with a thermal drill before the ice deforms and closes the drilling hole.*

T HE C ASEY ‘ TUNNELLERS ’ The investigation and drilling of Law Dome, begun from Wilkes Station, continued from Casey Station when Repstat was completed in 1969. Those who wintered at Casey encountered an entirely new Antarctic experience. In all the other stations, ANARE expeditioners lived in separate buildings. That meant donning cold weather gear to move from sleeping hut to the mess, or to workshops and laboratories. The unique design of Casey—elevated on stilts to minimise drifts—and its long line of thirteen buildings connected with its IT WAS AS COLD INSIDE THE distinctive corrugated-iron tunnel running down the CASEY TUNNEL AS OUTSIDE. entire length of the station, meant that it was theo(R WILLIAMS) retically possible to spend the entire year there without going outside. The tunnel was 260 metres long and unheated. Diesel engineer Dave McCormack recalls that it was not properly sealed in the early years, and sections of the corridor filled up with snow. It was common practice to shovel it up, carry it into a nearby room and throw it out a window. The tunnel could be extremely cold: I remember jumping out of the shower one night there. You’d quickly towel yourself down and you’d race up the corridor to get to your donga. I had long hair in those days. I remember it was a bit of a surprise getting back to your donga with your hair frozen solid.19

The sleeping ‘dongas’ were small—barely two by two-and-a-half metres. There were eight dongas to a sleeping block, and rudimentary privacy was provided by a curtain. ACS electrician Shane Hill:

346

* In February 1993, using an Australian-made, computer-controlled mechanical drill, ANARE scientists finally reached bedrock 1200 metres below the summit of Law Dome.

F

It was a sort of unspoken law that if anyone had their curtain closed in their room you certainly didn’t just barge in. You’d use the normal habit of knocking on the wall. But basically whatever went on in the donga area everyone knew about it anyway.20

I E L D

W O R K

THE DISTINCTIVE SHAPE OF THE OLD CASEY STATION AND ITS FAMOUS TUNNEL, 1969. (R INNES)

The tunnel looked forbidding from a distance, a great grey tube following the contour of the hill like the leading edge of a broken aircraft wing. Plumber Rod MacKenzie, who worked on its construction, thought it looked depressing. ‘People coming ashore, seeing it for the first time, used to say it looked like Alcatraz sitting up among the rocks.’21 Graeme Manning, OIC in 1979, thought the tunnel design, connecting work, living and community areas, was good for morale: I don’t think a day ever passed, in the fourteen months that I was there, that I didn’t see every one of my expeditioners. If not at the breakfast table or the dinner table, at least in the tunnel, walking along, and with doors open, looking into their work places. In the old tunnel, you couldn’t help but pass them. There was more sense of being with other people.22

Manning was contemptuous of the view—generally expressed by those who had never lived at Casey—that you could spend the entire year there and never go outside:

347

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Those people didn’t know what they were talking about. As station leader [I found] one of the problems was keeping people indoors to do their work—because one of the attractions of going to Antarctica is the elements, the beauty, and actually getting out in the cold and the wind and the snow and everything else.

Although Casey Station did avoid the build-up of drift, it was an alarming place during a blizzard. Because it was constructed on scaffold tubing and tied down with guy wires, it used to vibrate and rattle and was extremely noisy. On 1 October 1969—only nine months after it was opened— a blizzard blew away six corrugated-iron sections of the tunnel. Assessing the condition of Casey Station ten years later, Antarctic Division engineer Ian Holmes wrote: ‘As an engineering exercise, Casey has proven to be a lot less than successful’.23 The most serious structural problem was the gradual disintegration of the wall panels by high winds and blizzards, augmented by water vapour getting into the insulation in the winter, and then melting during summer. Another disadvantage was the enormous heat loss caused by the raised structure. Yet most ‘tunnel rats’ who wintered there over its nineteen-year existence maintained a cheerful affection for the ‘old’ Casey Station. Construction of ‘new Casey’ began in 1979 with the erection of the operations building.

A IR

348

TRANSPORT TO

A NTARCTICA

One of the continuing frustrations of scientific work in the Australian Antarctic Territory is the inability of researchers to fly in and out of the continent during the relatively short summer season. The only alternative is to go down by ship during the annual resupply and personnel changeover voyages. This involves long periods at sea (sometimes being beset for quite long periods) and often means that three or four months are needed to complete a task that might only require a week, or even days. While fixed wing aircraft and helicopters were regularly used from ANARE stations to support field work, an air link with Australia remained elusive. A rock airstrip at Davis Station was mooted in the 1950s and 1960s. Other plans involved a compressed snow airstrip on the ice cap behind Casey Station, and a ‘blue ice’ strip near the Framnes Mountains behind Mawson Station. All these sites could accept flights direct from Australia—or via the United States ice airfield at McMurdo, near the north-western edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. At the 14th meeting of SCAR in Argentina in 1976, a logistics group discussed an ambitious air transport plan for

F

I E L D

Antarctica with yet another of the acronyms so beloved of polar bureaucracy, CATSA (Cooperative Air Transport System for Antarctica). The plan called for three ‘trunk’ terminals on the coast of Antarctica—preferably with rock runways—to accept long-range aircraft with payloads of some twenty tonnes. Then smaller STOL aircraft (e.g. Twin Otters) or helicopters would ferry personnel and equipment to the various stations, which would be provided with the necessary fuel.24 In January 1977, a preliminary cost study on constructing a rock airstrip at Davis was made by John Manning (Division of National Mapping), Dick Gurevich (Department of Housing and Construction) and Gavin Bailey (Department of Transport). The most promising site seemed to be in a broad glacial valley running from Lake Dingle westwards to a large bay to the north of Davis Station. A runway of 2000 metres was feasible—increased to 2500 metres if the strip was extended into the shallow waters off the coast. There was plenty of loose rock available for fill and it was estimated that the airfield could be built for $8 million over three years.25 A more immediate and cheaper option was explored in conjunction with the United States when, from 30 November 1978, the RAAF flew four Hercules flights from Christchurch, New Zealand, to McMurdo and back. In return, the National Science Foundation provided two flights from McMurdo to Casey, where an ice runway had been prepared at Lanyon Junction. The first proving flight took place on 24 January 1979. Passengers included the Antarctic Division’s Director Ray Garrod, two visiting Chinese scientists, and a female husky, Rita, from New Zealand’s Scott Base, to replace a dog at Casey which had died the previous year. The US Hercules LC130 spent only one hour on the ice strip at Lanyon Junction and did not shut down its engines, to guard against any difficulties restarting in such a remote location.26 A second Hercules flight from McMurdo landed at Lanyon on 31 January with the first Federal Minister ever to visit an ANARE continental station, James Webster, accompanied by Tasmanian ALP Senator Don Jessup. They were accompanied by the Secretary of the Department of Science, John Farrands, and the Director of the New Zealand Antarctic Division (and former Wilkes OIC), Robert Thomson, who had led the remarkable Vostok Traverse from Wilkes and back in 1962. The VIPs were whisked from Lanyon for a necessarily brief inspection of Casey Station by two Bell helicopters that had just arrived on Thala Dan. The US Hercules that had brought them waited at Lanyon, engines idling for two-and-a-half hours, before taking off to complete the 4300-kilometre round trip back to McMurdo.27

W O R K

349

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Back in Australia, both the Minister and Senator Jessup were enthusiastic about the prospects of this US-aided air service, with Senator Webster saying air transport might be ‘about to usher in a new era in Australia’s Antarctic operations’, and that the proving flight to Casey showed the feasibility of air access to Australia’s three mainland stations. Demonstrating the remarkable bi-partisanship on Antarctic activities that has continued ever since Australian politicians first set foot on the continent, Senator Jessup (chairman of the parliamentary committee on Science and the Environment) called for greater scientific efforts to be made by Australia—particularly in marine biology.28 After the formalisation of the ‘Cooperative Air Transport Agreement between Australia, New Zealand and the United States’, the RAAF flew six flights from Christchurch to McMurdo in the summer of 1979–80, carrying 94 passengers and over 100 tonnes of cargo. In return, a US ski-equipped Hercules made two flights to Casey in November and January. The November flight took nine scientific and construction personnel to enable summer science and construction programs to begin two months earlier than would have been possible by ship.29 In January 1981 the new director of the Antarctic Division, Clarrie McCue, flew in to Casey with Minister for Science David Thomson and eleven members of the Parliamentary Works Committee to inspect the rebuilding program. The seventh and final US Hercules flight to Casey was made in November 1981. There is no official explanation for the demise of the air transport agreement, but the original intention had been to fly in scientists, and the Americans were unimpressed by the number of Australian construction workers and politicians flown in to Casey on their aircraft. This view is shared by ANARE chief scientist Patrick Quilty: Where we ran foul of the Americans—and many of us were given messages on this which we passed on to the director at the time—was that Australians were not using these flights specifically for the support for science. They were using them basically to get support people into the stations—builders, plumbers and so on.

350

The straw that broke the Hercules’ back was almost certainly the flying in of the eleven members of the Parliamentary Works Committee. They had four hours to inspect the Casey building site, before reboarding the aircraft that was waiting at Lanyon—again with its engines idling. Quilty was acting director of the Antarctic Division while Clarrie McCue was away with the eleven parliamentarians. After the Hercules took off for the return to McMurdo, Quilty received a radio message from Casey that the aircraft had slewed off the marked runway and hit

F

I E L D

W O R K

some of the steel marker poles. People could see hydraulic fluid on the snow and Quilty had to get a message through to the plane so they were aware of any problems when they landed at McMurdo. My immediate response—and I’ve always felt guilty about it afterwards—was that we might lose eleven politicians. . .and have to have eleven by-elections and perhaps change the government, just on the basis of an accident in the Antarctic.

There were no more US Hercules flights to Casey after November 1981. The long-running debate on whether or where to have an airstrip in the Australian Antarctic Territory suitable for direct flights from Australia continued. A potent argument for a direct air service to an all-weather airstrip in Antarctica is to repatriate seriously ill or injured expeditioners. When the darkness of the Antarctic winter comes down, the Australian stations remain as isolated as were the classic expeditions of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson, and the Antarctic remains an extremely dangerous place to live and work.

R ESCUE OF R OGER B ARKER FROM M ACQUARIE I SLAND Although Macquarie Island can be reached by sea all year, the inability of aircraft to land there means the rescue of injured expeditioners cannot be achieved quickly.* The evacuation of biologist Roger Barker from Macquarie Island in January 1979, following serious injuries he sustained in a fall from a cliff, was one of the most complex and involved ever attempted by ANARE. When Barker, who was researching nest sites of the light-mantled sooty albatross, failed to return to camp on 3 January, a search and rescue operation was begun immediately. He was found lying at the base of a cliff at Smugglers Cove with serious injuries to his head, spine, left leg and right arm. Barker later said: I was unconscious for a while. When I woke I found that skuas [large predatory gulls] were pecking at my legs. All I could think was that I had to keep awake and keep the skuas away from me.30

* On Wednesday 7 September 1977 an RAAF Orion from Edinburgh, South Australia, made the first official air drop on to the isthmus (although a RNZAF Orion made a surprise drop of a cannister of newspapers three years earlier on 24 September 1974).

351

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Medical officer Bob Millard did what he could on the spot. Barker was strapped into a stretcher and carried to the top of the cliff—a two-hour exercise. Back at the station it was clear he was critically ill, in urgent need of hospital care and that his leg might have to be amputated. The Antarctic Division’s acting senior medical officer, Peter Gormly, arranged a radio-telephone link with a team of specialists from Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital and Monash University Medical School to advise Millard on Macquarie Island.31 The Department of Defence was asked if a navy vessel could carry out the evacuation. HMAS Hobart was undergoing a refit at Garden Island dockyard but quickly made ready for the voyage to Macquarie Island. Unfortunately Hobart had no capacity for carrying a helicopter to get Barker from shore to ship. Luckily the supply ship Thala Dan was only twelve hours’ steaming from Hobart returning from the French Antarctic station at Dumont d’Urville. It was agreed she would put into Hobart, disembark her passengers and take on a helicopter chartered by the Antarctic Division. Thala Dan and Hobart arrived in Buckles Bay within fifteen minutes of each other on 8 January. While the division’s medical officer Des Parker helped Bob Millard prepare Roger Barker for the evacuation, naval ratings built a small temporary helipad on Hobart. The narrow-gutted destroyer was rolling up to 12 degrees from vertical in the heavy seas and the maximum roll a helicopter could safely handle was 8 degrees. Barker: The chopper pilot [Nigel Osborn] had only one practice run using the prefabricated helipad. He wanted to get on and off as quickly as possible.32

Fortunately Osborn was an ex-Royal Navy pilot with plenty of experience flying onto oil rigs in the North Sea. Barker was landed safely and Hobart took off at 27 knots towards her namesake port, completing the journey in a record 39 hours. On 10 January Barker’s left leg was amputated below the knee, and he was transferred to the Austin Hospital in Melbourne five days later. Although the rescue had been successful and Barker seemed cheerful and on the road to recovery, he unexpectedly suffered a massive stroke on 6 February and died two days later.

E NDERBY L AND

352

Following six summers of activity in the Prince Charles Mountains from 1969 to 1974, the Antarctic Division prepared to look to the extreme west of the Australian Antarctic Territory—Enderby Land. With its extensive

F

I E L D

W O R K

mountain ranges (and proximity to the Russian’s Molodezhnaya Station) Enderby Land represented the last major investigation by ANARE of a region where most of the mountains and coastal features had been named and noted, but much detailed survey work, glaciology and geology remained to be done. From the 1974–75 summer season until 1979–80, ANARE transferred its major field effort from the PCMs MT KING BASE CAMP, to the Enderby Land region. ENDERBY LAND, 1976 . In the spring of 1974 a tractor train from Mawson (AAD ARCHIVES) dragged supplies, fuel and living huts to Knuckey Peaks, 350 kilometres to the west of Mawson, to support the summer program. It was an unfortunate choice. By some meteorological mischance and local effect, the weather at Knuckey Peaks was almost always foul. Pilots leaving the base camp in marginal conditions would often find clear weather 50 kilometres to the north. The Enderby Land program began with three Hughes 500 helicopters and the trusty Pilatus Porter fixed-wing monoplane, but it was not to be a good year in the annals of ANARE aviation. On 29 December 1974, one Hughes 500 was wrecked when the pilot attempted to take off with one skid still tied down. On 22 January the Pilatus Porter was flown to Mawson and was secured on the exposed Gwamm ice runway eight kilometres south of the station. A blizzard developed and destroyed the aircraft.33 The remaining two Hughes helicopters did what they could to battle Knuckey Peaks’ appalling weather and the competing demands of the geologists, glaciologists and surveyors. By 21 February, the remaining choppers made it back to the helideck of Nella Dan, where their respective rotors collided, rendering all the summer season’s aircraft unserviceable. No one was hurt. Despite the chapter of accidents, the helicopter pilots managed to fly a creditable 536 sorties from the inclement camp. But it had been an expensive start to the Enderby Land program and in the summer of 1975–76, Mawson tractors hauled supplies further west to a site near 353

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Mt King, 400 kilometres from Mawson, which remained the base for the Enderby Land programs until 1980.

M AWSON ’ S H UT

AT

C OMMONWEALTH B AY

Concern about the deteriorating condition of Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition hut at Commonwealth Bay (towards the eastern extremity of the AAT) and a growing debate about whether the whole hut should be removed to Australia or restored in situ prompted the Antarctic Division to arrange a field party to investigate what might be done. An ANARE party of four on Thala Dan landed at Commonwealth Bay in January 1978. The leader was Rod Ledingham, accompanied by his wife Jean Ledingham (medical officer), Guy Macklan (engineer) and Ray Brookes (carpenter). They took with them a small 4 3 metre prefabricated hut to live in and to house any subsequent restoration parties. The AAE hut had been built in three weeks and finished by late February 1912. Days after it was completed it was partially buried by drift snow and has been lashed almost every day since by the fierce katabatic winds that characterise the climate at Commonwealth Bay, ‘The Home of the Blizzard’. As it was constructed from tongue and groove boards, Rod Ledingham thought it was remarkable the hut was still there at all: The wind had just scoured the surface off the timber and left all the nails exposed. Grains of snow had shot up the cracks, just like grains of sand would, and they’d etched away all the grooves in the roof and left small gaps between each of the boards. But the inside boards were virtually untouched and pretty well intact.

354

The roof hatch had been gone for many years and drift snow and ice had filled up most of the structure. Ledingham and his party began excavating their way into the building from the western winter entrance of the workshop using a powered ice chisel, chain saws and ice-axes. It was a wet, uncomfortable job as the ice chips melted on their clothing. There was no trace of the lathe, sewing machine, generator engine and wireless equipment that once were there. Not much of significance was dug out of the workshop, just objects like bottles, rusty tins, old batteries, a dog collar, newspapers and lengths of timber. And they did find the badly rusted and battered tail plane from the body of the Vickers aeroplane that Mawson tried to use as a motor sledge. Once the workshop was cleared of ice, the artefacts were replaced in their original positions and photographed.34 On the rare calmer days, carpenter Ray Brookes tried to seal the cracks in the main roof.

F

I E L D

W O R K

With the workshop clear, the party began tunnelling into the main living area of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition hut on 20 February. After pushing in for about three metres, they broke through to find, to their surprise, that two-thirds of the main room was clear of ice. Ledingham: The whole of the upwind end, funnily enough, was a big air pocket. . .it looked as though the pressure of the wind blowing in there had somehow managed to keep the snow out. So Mawson’s room and the shelves around his bunk were completely clear of snow, apart from icicle-like chunks hanging down from the roof.

MAWSON’S HUT AT COMMONWEALTH BAY, BUILT IN 1912. (AAD ARCHIVES)

Eric Webb’s bunk and bedside shelves were also ice-free. Webb was the magnetician with Mawson’s party and, as luck would have it, visited the Antarctic Division in December 1977 just before Ledingham’s party left to go south. Ledingham knew the old man would be fascinated by the photographs taken of the interior which was a remarkable time capsule. Ray Brookes: Items found included bottles, jars, earthenware containers, old boots, a pair of wind proof trousers—belonging to Mawson?—bins of white flour, unopened tins with labels intact, crates of food still wired and with AAE written on them, bottles of pure Nitric Acid (for geological and other scientific work) books and magazines.35

Ledingham’s team was not equipped, nor did they have the time, to begin any major restorative work. The roof presented the most immediate problem, with the softwood boards worn thin by the abrasive particles of ice continually whipped up by the almost continuous blizzards. As the Oregon frame and rafters of the hut were still in good condition, Brookes thought the best technique would be to use them to support a false timber roof above the old cladding. Then the hut could at least be sealed to prevent further drift getting in.

355

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

Brookes was keen to get back the following year to begin work, but the shipping schedules were disrupted by Roger Barker’s evacuation from Macquarie Island. Mawson’s hut was visited again in 1981, then left untouched until a private expedition, ‘Project Blizzard’, sailed down to Commonwealth Bay in the summers of 1984–85 and 1985–86 to investigate further the problem of conservation. Ledingham: These expeditions went down partly supported by ANARE—and rightly so, I think, because we’re responsible for the hut, being a government organisation. It’s now been classified as an historic building. . .The private expeditions were unable to do anything, because they were told to report back to the [Australian] Heritage Commission at great length, and nobody would make a decision. So, in fact, it’s just slowly blowing away and falling down, year by year.

Nella Dan had sailed to the hut in 1986–87 and put in a base to support future work, but the sinking of Nella Dan put an end to the planned 1987–88 visit. Heavy sea ice stopped Lady Franklin in 1988–89 and in 1990–91 the notorious weather at Sir Douglas Mawson’s ‘Home of the Blizzard’ prevented a landing from Icebird. The perennial logistic difficulties and the cost of getting to the site led to the Government’s conclusion in 1992 that it should put no more funds towards conserving the hut. Antarctic Division policy manager Andrew Jackson: It’s the cornerstone of our Antarctic heritage. . .but the best bet now is privately-funded conservation work. The division will happily work with anyone else who can find the money to make it happen.

I CEBERG

356

BLOCKS

M AWSON H ARBOUR

The story of the rogue iceberg at Mawson Station in 1980 is a splendid illustration of the ‘A-Factor’ (ANARE’s own Murphy’s Law) and its effect on ANARE field activities. The saga appropriately involves one Sydney L Kirkby, who returned to Mawson as OIC in 1980—twenty years after he had last wintered there in 1960—although he had made summer visits in later years helping to survey and chart vast areas of the Australian Antarctic Territory. Horseshoe Harbour, at Mawson, is the only protected anchorage on the entire coast of Greater Antarctica. Since the station was established in 1954 its annual resupply has taken place in late January when the fast-ice obligingly breaks out, enabling barges to carry heavy cargo to shore over open water. (There have been good and bad ‘ice years’, but the resupply has always been achieved.)

F

In mid-January 1980 unusual currents caused a small iceberg to drift into the narrow entrance to Horseshoe Harbour and ground itself between West Arm and Entrance Island. With a gap of only 30 to 40 metres between berg and rocks, the master of Nella Dan , John Jensen, decided against trying to navigate in to the harbour. The consequences of this decision were drastic. Nella Dan carried the bulk fuel for heating and powering the station, and while it was possible, using helicopters and ships’ boats, to move in enough food, Kirkby realised the station could not support more than about ten people for the coming year—and only if a number of buildings were ‘winterised’ and left unheated. Thirty people were due to winter. With the probability of no fuel coming in, Kirkby made an executive decision and ordered twenty people to be transferred to the ship:

I E L D

W O R K

AERIAL VIEW OF THE ROGUE ICEBERG BLOCKING THE

HORSESHOE HARBOUR AT MAWSON, 1980. (COURTESY S KIRKBY) ENTRANCE TO

The voyage leader wasn’t very happy about this. I think he could probably understand the logic of what I was saying. I wouldn’t let the people back into the station for a feed or anything because I figured that as soon as I did that it would be a case of who blinks first. If I blinked, we’d lose.

This ‘Mexican stand-off’ was solved by the weather. A 50-knot gale blew up, and Nella Dan’s master decided to run the gauntlet between the iceberg and the rocks to get shelter in Horseshoe Harbour. That meant the fuel could be pumped ashore, and all thirty people were able to winter. Nella Dan managed to squeeze her way out, but the iceberg remained. Although it was a small iceberg by Antarctic standards, it was a substantial mass of ice—Kirkby estimated it at around 300 000 tonnes. During the rest of the year the Mawsonites tried to work out ways of getting rid of it. Explosives were spectacularly unsuccessful. Kirkby: You’d get this noise and a marvellous displays of chips of ice—and a little blackened hole about the size of a bathtub, from a case of explosives. We tried depth-bombing it, filling twelve-gallon drums with explosives

357

T

E S T I N G

T I M E S

1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 1

and lowering them down on ropes on the rock floor against the iceberg’s side—completely without effect.

The iceberg stayed where it was. In the early summer of 1980–81, Nella Dan called by but did not enter the harbour. Helicopters flew in four conventional agricultural stump-pullers and a length of heavy-duty polypropylene rope. There was no hope of moving the iceberg until the sea ice around it could be broken up. The ice was marked out with grids of dark material to attract extra warmth from the sun—engine oil, rock flour and tea leaves, among other substances. A sturdy bollard was sunk deep into the rock 50 metres from the aircraft hangar on East Arm. As soon as there was clear water between the berg and the bollard, the 12-centimetre diameter rope was wrapped around the recalcitrant iceberg and the stump-pullers began to take the strain. Kirkby: We just cranked tension into the polypropylene rope until it was down to about half its original diameter, singing like a G string. Of course everyone was terrified of it, because if it broke and hit anyone it would have cut them straight through. Interestingly, the rope would slip a bit on the berg from time to time and. . .there’d be twenty fellows pancake-flat on the rock.

Using the tide and a little bit of swell, the iceberg was gradually pulled across the harbour and ‘tied’ to the bollard on East Arm. Kirkby was uncertain what would happen next. At least it was out of the way for the resupply ship to enter the harbour: The ship came in. Everything was sweetness and light. Then we had a blizzard one night and the bloody rope snapped and the berg went ‘pop’ straight back out and put the plug in the hole at the entrance—with the ship inside the harbour this time. But at least we now knew we could move it.

This time bulldozers on land and the army amphibious LARCs pushing from the harbour were used to spin the berg back to be tied up again near the bollard on East Arm. Kirkby:

358

We went to bed one night with it there, and woke up the next morning to find there had been another freak current change and the berg had taken itself for a little excursion around East Arm and into East Bay—in the process wiping out all the aerials, before going back to where it had been.

F

By late February 1981 nature took over and the errant berg, well festooned with ropes and cables, disappeared overnight the way it had come —out through the entrance to the harbour. It was not quite the end of the story. Later in 1981 Syd Kirkby had a cable from Paul Butler, the OIC who took over from him, that he had been along the coast 120 kilometres east of Mawson, near Fold Island, at Stefansson Bay, and found ‘a gift-wrapped iceberg, still with its rope around it’.

I E L D

W O R K

LASSOED ICEBERG, MAWSON HARBOUR, 1980. (COURTESY S KIRKBY)

359

LIVING DANGEROUSLY

1982–1988

NINETEEN

LIVING DANGEROUSLY

A

s the head office staff of the Antarctic Division began settling in to their brand new $8.9 million headquarters at Kingston, Tasmania, in the early 1980s, parts of the building also began settling down into marshy reclaimed ground on the eastern side of the complex.1 In July 1983, staff in the supply section temporarily refused to work in offices where floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows had developed large cracks, and where pressure caused some panes to bulge in ominously. Training officer Graeme Manning: They put wooden studs inside the glass and put chicken wire on them so that the staff working there were safer. The danger to them was reduced. . .if the glass did break at any time it’d fall in against the wire. . .rather than falling on the staff at their desks.

Pressures were also building up on the division itself—senior bureaucrats in the Department of Science and Technology were concerned about the general condition of the Antarctic Division. Former departmental deputy secretary Roy Green: My impressions were that they were back in the Phil Law days—almost the explorer days. They were really quite amateurish in many ways—not in the science—but more in the management, in the strategic planning, financial planning and reporting. . .a very significant chunk of money was going into the [division] and I have often told the story that I think they did the budgeting on the back of an envelope!

This view was and is contested by division scientists and managers who were responsible for international liaison on Antarctic Treaty matters

363

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

and associated scientific committees. Green was aware of a drop in morale largely caused by the division’s move to Hobart and the loss of skilled staff who stayed in Melbourne. But he was also aware of alleged ‘doubtful practices’ concerning the purchase of supplies. And while he was not critical of the quality of scientific work being done by ANARE, he believed the programs could be better focused: There was a need to make sure [the science program] was really serving the purposes of Australia’s efforts in the Antarctic rather than meeting the whims of particular scientists. . .it needed to be more planned.

Green also thought the Antarctic Division should have a higher profile in the international arena—at Antarctic Treaty and SCAR meetings: A lot of Australia’s research programs were designed on an international basis, but we wanted to have more say on what that international plan was—to actually influence what other countries were doing, in line with our priorities.

The Department of Science and Technology initiated the Joint Management Review (JMR), which began the most comprehensive investigation of the Antarctic Division’s activities ever attempted. The JMR began in August 1983 and was conducted by officers from the management consultants John P Young and Associates, and representatives of the department, the division and the Public Service Board. The JMR report was released in February 1984 by the secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, Greg Tegart. Its 86 recommendations outlined a raft of fundamental organisational changes and was highly critical of the way the Antarctic Division was run. The review found that management had become task-oriented, that there was little if any long or even short term planning and that management had failed to adequately ‘consult, plan and direct as well as ensure effective communication at all levels. . .with a resultant degree of confusion, dissipation of effort and frustration’. The consultants went on to say: At present there is, in our view, a lack of clarity as to the role of each Branch and Section, and little attempt or opportunity to establish priorities, to identify real costs and implications, or to ensure effective communications. These deficiencies have led to the present poor use of the available resources. Policy and strategic planning have been neglected, and there has been a failure to create and communicate a clear objective throughout the Division.2 364

In its reshaping of the division’s functions, the JMR recommended the formation of five branches: executive, resource management, oper-

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

ations (including logistics and engineering), science, and polar medicine. There would also be a new advisory body, ASAC (Antarctic Science Advisory Committee) to replace the existing ARPAC (Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee) and to oversee and approve all scientific projects carried out under the ANARE umbrella. Reaction to the review from within the division was predictably mixed. As it progressed there was a perception by senior staff like John Boyd that the management consultants were marching to preconceived orders, and that the demonstrated professionalism of those in the division who organised the complex web of logistics, shipping and air support to sustain ANARE scientific programs and stations in Antarctica was disregarded. Boyd: It makes it look as though we’re just a bunch of idiots who couldn’t plan a Sunday school picnic—and I think it was just an appalling bit of work. . .to say that we had no operational plans verges on the idiotic.

The Department of Science and Technology wanted more than evidence that the division could carry out its functions. The JMR was designed to drag ANARE, kicking and screaming if necessary, out of an era of perceived ad hoc decision-making and disparate scientific projects, to a ‘system of accountability for program performance in terms of scientific merit, relevance and results achieved’.3 (To show it meant business the department instigated an Implementation Review of the JMR in December 1986, by which time 51 out of the 86 of the JMR’s practicable recommendations had been implemented, with 24 more either proceeding or implemented in part.)4 An immediate casualty of the JMR was the division’s director, Clarrie McCue. Former deputy secretary Roy Green: Certainly the view we had at a senior level in the department was that he was not the right manager for the time. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t done a respectable job in getting the division finally moved [to Hobart], but we weren’t convinced that Clarrie had the management capabilities to carry on the sort of business that the Antarctic Division represented at that point in time.

McCue had not been enthusiastic about the JMR process. He was sidelined as an adviser on Antarctic affairs with the Department of Science and Technology. On 18 February 1984, Jim Bleasel, an electrical engineer and formerly director of the National Materials Handling Bureau, was given two days’ notice by department secretary Greg Tegart to take over as acting director. Bleasel had been aware of pressure on him to take the job, and wasn’t keen. He had read the JMR report and

365

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

knew whoever headed the Antarctic Division was in for ‘a nightmare ride’: So I didn’t wish to go down there. In fact one of the first assistant secretaries of the department at that time said that ‘the only thing that will fix that place is World War III’! I knew what happened to people sent in to clean up difficult situations—they always demand the sacrifice of the person that causes the changes. And while that wasn’t exactly what happened in my case, it was somewhat close.

Bleasel was attracted to what he believed could be a wonderful and interesting job, but he didn’t want to be the initial head-kicker. ‘I’d been around a long time. I didn’t need lessons in this.’ He hoped the department would choose someone else to do that, and he could ‘go and be the good guy later’. He was asked to reconsider, and refused the position. So when he was rung by Tegart’s personal assistant to say he was to move to Hobart and take over the Antarctic Division immediately he was ‘really shocked’ because he thought there was no possibility of going. The new acting director hit the deck running—determined to be the agent of change in his first year: ‘I wanted to increase Australia’s international Antarctic standing and the amount of ANARE science being done. . .even if I had to create lots and lots of woes and cause lots of trouble to people in entrenched positions. It had to be done, there was no choice. So naturally I wasn’t number one on the popularity poll down there, and there were constant letters going off to head office about me and phone calls and all sorts of rumours. . .my position became controversial.

Bleasel’s new-broom approach was welcomed by some staff. Martin Betts, then information officer, thought he was a breath of fresh air. ‘He wanted to shake up the Antarctic Division by its roots and make it do something.’ Policy manager Andrew Jackson thought he was a person with lots of energy and a man of vision. ‘He really tried to be a charismatic leader, rather than just a bureaucrat. But he had great difficulty in changing the attitudes of his key staff.’ Even those who later agitated to get rid of Bleasel, like acting shipping manager and union activist Geoff Dannock, cautiously welcomed him as an agent of change at first. Dannock:

366

It was obvious when I came here from the Public Service Board that the place had been overlooked by just about anybody that had any responsibility for running it. There were illegal employees. . .some people—a minority—had been getting away with too much for too long.

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

While he continued to have his supporters in the division, Bleasel’s honeymoon was short lived. Andrew Jackson had his reservations about Bleasel’s management style, but was sympathetic to his plan literally ‘to put Australia on the map in the Antarctic’, by creating new bases away from the four existing stations, and giving Australia a more prominent profile at international meetings. Jackson: ‘Although Bleasel was a visionary leader, and appointed because he was a mover and shaker. . .some of the existing staff didn’t want to make his ideas work.’ Two of Bleasel’s former colleagues in the National Materials Handling Bureau—Jack Sayers and David Lyons—were appointed to senior positions in the division over the first two years, leading to perceptions that he was creating his own management team of ‘outsiders’. Bleasel denies this. ‘It was inevitable people would say that somehow or other I’d smuggled [them] in’—in fact they were outstanding candidates chosen by independent panels. Bleasel to this day is unapologetic about criticisms that he did not consult his senior officers sufficiently on major decisions and policy changes: These were the people that had been running the place and got it into this mess. I needed their experience, I needed their input. I didn’t need them to make the decisions for me. At one management meeting, a senior executive said, ‘I thought we were all going to get a vote on this’. So I had to point out that I was responsible for the place now, and they all got a vote—it was just that I had one more vote than all of them combined . . .

One of Bleasel’s management concerns was that heads of specialist departments often took part in decisions in areas outside their responsibilities—particularly in operational matters. He was also appalled at the way the government’s money was being used: The division didn’t always get its goods at the appropriate price, they paid more than they should have, or they bought more things than they should have—and this was later taken care of within the division, the surplus stock. These were serious matters. It was frightening for auditors when they saw what was going on down there.

Bleasel acknowledged that there was a solid core of dedicated people who were working huge hours and giving their all to keep the division operating, but people were ‘working all around it from the side’. Bleasel believed rorts were taking place where people were appointed to positions without the appropriate advertising and interviews. ‘Other people would get their friends off to Antarctica on trips—‘‘jollies’’ as they were

367

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

called—with no proper authorisation. The division was run as a series of personal fiefdoms, actually.’ Another of Bleasel’s concerns was the number of division staff who travelled overseas to arrange or finalise contracts for equipment and stores. When he inquired, he was told those trips were paid for by the supplier: I thought this was a bit unusual in that it wasn’t costing us anything. When it kept happening over a couple of months, I asked for a look at the contracts and then found that this was written into the contract. . .so of course the Australian Government paid for it because this was added onto everybody’s price. . .There were more rorts than I could imagine—and it took me a long time to discover them all.

The new director resolved to move quickly to stamp out irregularities in his first year, aware that his actions would inevitably bring much unhappiness. The staff union was aware that some changes were inevitable, but were concerned about Bleasel’s activist style. Bleasel was keen to see the ANARE stations first hand. He decided to join the new, purpose-built, ice-strengthened cargo- and passengercarrying Icebird on her maiden voyage to Antarctica from Cape Town in November 1984. Icebird, a German built and designed ship, was fast-tracked and completed in nine months. Because of the massive rebuilding program, the Antarctic Division had augmented the long-serving Nella Dan with another ice-strengthened ship, Nanok S. More cargo space was needed for building materials, and negotiations were begun with the German company Antarktis und Spezialfahrt Schiffartsgesellschaft GmbH (ASS), headed by Guenther Schulz, while Clarrie McCue was still director. John Whitelaw (Acting Assistant Director of Operations) had been looking for a suitable Antarctic ship through the international chartering company Wesfarmers, but was interested to see a sister ship of the yet-to-be-built Icebird in Brisbane during a visit there with colleague Ian Marchant. Whitelaw: It was the standard box construction, superstructure aft with side cranes. But it gave you tremendous capability—you just opened the top of the ship and. . .just dropped everything in and closed it up and off you went. Then, in negotiations with the shipbuilders, we got several design features put in that we wanted for our operation.

368

Whitelaw signed the contract for Icebird on behalf of the Antarctic Division in June 1984 and it was due to be delivered in time for the 1984–85 summer season. One of the modifications was the addition of an accommodation module—positioned just in front of the bridge—which

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

would enable the ship to carry about 100 passengers. It was agreed Icebird should arrive in Cape Town, South Africa, by 30 October to qualify for a bonus payment of approximately $A100 000 to Guenther Schulz’s company. Although Icebird arrived several days late, the bonus was paid because it was judged that extra work asked for by the division had caused the delays. When Icebird sailed from Cape Town on 4 November it carried an abundance of ‘chiefs’ as well as the usual complement of ‘Indians’—expeditioners and crew. The ebullient owner, cigar-puffing Guenther Schulz, was joined by acting director of the Antarctic Division Jim Bleasel, and the division’s acting assistant director of operations John Whitelaw. Icebird was officially Voyage Two of the ANARE season (Voyage One was undertaken by Nella Dan). The master of the ship was Captain Ewald Brune, a blond-bearded, piratical-looking seafarer in his early thirties. Brune was no stranger to polar waters; indeed he had the misfortune of losing a ship, Gotland II, crushed by pack ice in 1982 near Cape Adare in the Ross Sea while taking a German expedition to Antarctica. There was time to take all passengers and crew to shore by helicopter and no lives were lost. Brune was officially exonerated of any blame and Schulz, also owner of Gotland II, put it down to valuable experience gained in a hazardous environment. While Brune was the master of Icebird, voyage leader Ian Marchant (the division’s logistics manager) was in charge of all the ANARE aspects of Voyage Two. His deputy voyage leader was Andrew Jackson. Icebird made good time, arriving at the ice edge off Mawson on 14 November, changing over some personnel and delivering mail, fresh fruit and vegetables by helicopter before heading east along the coast to Davis Station. No serious problems had been encountered with pack ice and the new ship was performing well. Marchant was pleased when Icebird left Davis on 19 November, four days ahead of schedule, bound for ANARE’s easternmost station, Casey. Bleasel, full of energy as always, was on a steep Antarctic learning curve. He took an intense interest in Marchant’s job as voyage leader. Marchant: It seemed like every hour, he’d say, ‘What are you doing now?’ and I’d basically say, ‘Thinking’. And he’d want to know, ‘What are you thinking about?’ I’d say, ‘What the ice conditions are like and what we’re going to do tomorrow’. And he said, ‘But surely there’s a book that you’ve got’. I said, ‘Yes, there’s an operations manual’.

Bleasel had not seen the operations manual and retired to his cabin with it, later telling Marchant he intended to rewrite it.

369

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

In Icebird’s hold was a box marked ‘Russian Base’ put on board by the ship’s owner Guenther Schulz, containing fresh fruit and vegetables. If the occasion presented itself, Schulz wanted to show off the ice-breaking capabilities of Icebird to the Russians by visiting one of their stations on the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory rather earlier in the summer season than normal. However Icebird was under charter to the Antarctic Division and both Bleasel and voyage leader Marchant were mindful that any delays on Voyage Two would have a flow-on effect on the whole 1984–85 ANARE shipping program. But with Icebird now ahead of schedule, and due to pass by Mirny station on the coast approximately halfway between Davis and Casey, Schulz stepped up pressure on Bleasel and Whitelaw to divert to Mirny to visit the Russians, deliver his box of produce (which Bleasel says he did not know about until a year later), and show off his new ship. To this day, John Whitelaw and Jim Bleasel disagree over recollections of who supported the diversion to Mirny. Voyage leader Ian Marchant says he was overruled by the ‘chiefs’ he had on board. However, someone from the Antarctic Division had to authorise the captain of Icebird, Ewald Brune, to turn to starboard from his track to Casey and set a course for Mirny.

ICEBIRD AT THE ICE EDGE NEAR MAWSON, 1985. (A URIE)

370

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

Traditionally that person should have been Marchant as voyage leader. In fact it was Whitelaw who told Brune to head for Mirny on 22 November. Brune said later that he did not know then that the voyage leader ‘was the boss’: I was just following the word of the person who had signed the Charter Party [Whitelaw]. He said to turn, and I did it. Ian Marchant actually hadn’t said anything to me—whether to go there, or not to go there.

Whitelaw says he had considerable sympathy for the pressures being exerted on Marchant by having so many VIPs on board and confirms he gave the instruction to Brune to head for Mirny. Marchant noted in his official diary on 23 November that he would ‘not contemplate such a diversion, without formal approval from the [head] office’. Bleasel did not know that Icebird had turned towards Mirny, as he ‘had not developed the habit of going up on the bridge and checking our position on the chart’. Whitelaw, according to Bleasel, put the argument that it was in Australia’s interests to demonstrate that ANARE’s new vessel could get in to Mirny earlier in the season than the Russians ever had. Bleasel eventually supported the Mirny visit ‘convinced by the foreign affairstype argument’. Captain Brune estimated the diversion to Mirny would only take two days, and the weather forecast was good. When Icebird arrived some 30 kilometres offshore from Mirny the next day, they could not raise the Russians on the radio. The decision was made to send in three helicopters with some fresh fruit, vegetables and other gifts from the ship, and arrive unannounced. Whitelaw: It was like something out of Apocalypse Now—these helicopters flying in line in to Mirny. . .and of course there’s nothing, because Mirny isn’t expecting anyone till March, and this was November. We did a couple of circles, and eventually this guy popped outside—probably for a leak—and looks up and the sky is full of helicopters, and it must have given him a bit of a start.

The surprised Russians made the Australians very welcome, and the only English-speaking Russian invited Bleasel and Whitelaw upstairs to the Mirny commander’s office. Emerging an hour later, the VIP party was given a guided tour of the station. Bleasel was about to experience Russian hospitality, Antarctic style: The Russian base commander was sitting near a table with us and he brought out three vodka glasses, filled them all up—he spoke no English—and he looked at us for a while and then he said; ‘Australia’,

371

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

tossed it straight down and he turned his glass upside down and hit it on the table. So we did the same. He then said; ‘Russia’! We waited about three minutes and then we all looked at each other. . .so, ‘Russia’! Down the hatch, upside down glass, whack it on the table.

After toasts to Australia and Russia again, plus peace, friendship, and back to Australia again, Bleasel thought, ‘Oh God, I’m out of here’. He left a senior ANARE colleague to match the Russian drink for drink with a ‘walkie talkie’ to call for help. (He had to be carried, moaning and desperately drunk, to a helicopter later that day.) On the morning of Sunday 25 November all Icebird passengers who wanted to go ashore were flown by helicopter to Mirny and back. To return Russian hospitality, Schulz and Bleasel asked the Russian commander and his KGB deputy to bring some of their men to Icebird for lunch. About eighteen Russians arrived. Marchant was worried about the deteriorating weather, but the Russians were soon incapable of worrying about anything. Marchant wrote in his diary: Unfortunately the lunch on the ship became a very drunken party. . .All in all a very unfortunate day, although it was lucky no one was killed, simply because of the abundance of alcohol. The helicopter pilots and engineers played a vital part in maintaining sanity and preventing accidents (although there were some close shaves).5

Some of the Russians were so drunk one had to be carried to a helicopter. Another attempted to open the door of an aircraft and get out before it had landed, and was restrained by the pilot with one hand, while he was landing the helicopter with the other. Andrew Jackson wrote in his personal diary: Ian [Marchant] at Mirny and me on ship very worried about how to sort it all out. Pilots refusing to fly dangerously drunk passengers. Russians immovable and most of ship’s crew in poor state. . .Some Australians hopelessly drunk—heaving clothes etc overboard—one had to be subdued. Much anger expressed by self and other sober ones over. . .the confusion.6

372

Icebird set sail from Mirny at 1900 hours on 25 November for Casey. The later discovery of what seemed to be an unconscious Russian in one of the toilets raised the spectre of having to return yet again to Mirny—but it turned out to be a practical joke by an Australian dressed in traded Russian Antarctic clothing. Captain Brune’s estimate of two days for the Mirny diversion proved optimistic. Bad weather and heavy ice conditions prevented Icebird from

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

getting away from the Mirny area for a further five days. Marchant estimated that the ‘slight diversion to THE ORIGINAL ANARE Mirny occupied an estimated seven days!’ This would LOGOS WERE DESIGNED BY have put Icebird three days behind schedule at this stage. PHIL AND NEL LAW (LEFT Although it was unfair to sheet home to Bleasel all AND CENTRE). THE CURRENT responsibility for a very complex web of circumstances, LOGO (SINCE 1985) IS ON the Mirny excursion was seized on by his opponents THE RIGHT. within the division as an example of his perceived ad hoc decision making. Bleasel quickly gained Antarctic experience while leading later voyages himself, but the Mirny diversion was periodically raised in the years ahead. Back in Hobart, Bleasel pressed ahead with his reforms and changes. One, which caused enormous offence to the older ANARE hands, was to change the division’s logos, both originally designed by Phil and Nel Law soon after Phil Law became director in 1949. One was a globe with Antarctica in its centre, with lines of latitude and longitude radiating out to the southern sections of Australia, South America and South Africa. Around the edge were sketches of sub-Antarctic flora and Antarctic fauna. A second logo, which had been considered more suitable as an identifying logo on ANARE equipment, vehicles and even clothing, was a boomerang-shaped badge around the line drawing of a leopard seal and the letters ANARE. Bleasel called for a design which kept the concept of a globe, but simplified it to a juxtaposition of the Antarctic continent to the Australian continent: I wanted a logo that would instantly say ‘Australia–Antarctica’ without explanation. I didn’t want all this deep and meaningful stuff with funny-looking seals, birds, and things that looked like lizards all congested so you couldn’t see what the hell was on it. We got regular complaints for years. . .that the lines of longitude were not exactly in the right place. I didn’t distress myself too much about that—and we kept the logo.

373

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

During his first look at the three continental stations, Bleasel was unimpressed by certain aspects of the rebuilding program, which had then been running for four years. He was critical, for example, of complex toilet systems flushed with fresh water (which had to be obtained by heating ice), of storage sheds with huge mechanised compactus shelves and of plans for computer-controlled power stations: Each building was being fitted out with parts from different suppliers. . .we hadn’t used the basics of remote area technology. So that on a simple station a building could have several different types and sizes of similar equipment—it was a spare parts nightmare.

Because of difficulties with shipping, the Department of Housing and Construction told Bleasel that they calculated the building program was spreading out from 10 to 25 or more years: It was dominating the division. Instead of doing science, and getting some credit for that. . .we were doing building. We were going to be building forever. So I realised something had to be done. First we had to fix the shipping so we could get the construction over more quickly. Secondly we had to have a more realistic building program.

374

On his return to Australia, Bleasel announced on 23 January 1985 a review of the $58 million rebuilding program to see where economies could be made. In June, Minister for Science Barry Jones revealed that the Government had chartered Icebird for five further years for $20 million. The ship’s ability to carry containers would enable the rebuilding program to switch over to modular construction, and this, according to the chairman of a Department of Housing and Construction Review Committee, Gary Harrop, ‘could save up to $6 million in six years’.7 The advent of Icebird, with its ability to carry not only containers and modules but about 100 passengers, pointed up the limitations of the much-loved veteran Nella Dan which had been on the Australian Antarctic run since 1961—continuing a long association with the Danish Lauritzen shipping line that began with Kista Dan and the founding of Mawson Station in 1954. Old ANARE hands speak fondly of damask tablecloths and meals served by stewards on the Dan ships, and a fraternal relationship with the Danish masters, officers and crew that was reinforced every season for thirty years. Nella Dan could only accommodate 54 passengers, so there were no berths for other than essential ANARE personnel—winterers and summer scientists. Cargo was handled by derricks in and out of holds, placing severe restrictions on the size of building components that could be carried. Icebird was a German ship with a German crew, anxious to demonstrate that they represented the ‘new

L

T

he passenger accommodation module on Icebird was purpose-built, and clamped to the ship just in front of the bridge. On the ship’s maiden voyage, passengers lying in their bunks noticed a slight movement of the module against its restraints, particularly in heavy seas. Captain Ewald Brune, who had previously queried the engineering principles according to which the module was secured to his ship and had been assured everything had been calculated, asked for the securing bolts to be further tightened. ANARE personnel continued to be uneasy about the possibility of the accommodation module parting company with the ship and in 1985 the senior director of the shipyard in Hamburg where Icebird was built, Heinrich Brand, came out to Australia to reassure Captain Brune and ANARE staff that all was well. Voyage Six left Hobart on 18 January. At about 1 am on the first night out from Hobart, the ship rolled heavily and the accommodation module moved some five centimetres against its restraints, with a loud ‘clunk’. Brune: Within about sixty seconds I had ninety expeditioners on the bridge, saying that the module had moved—you could really feel it shaking. I saw on the bridge a very pale Mr Brand. I said: ‘Mr Brand, no matter what

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

you or the construction company are telling me, the module is no longer a part of this ship, it is deck cargo. And deck cargo must be lashed! Brune—with Brand’s enthusiastic approval —instructed his first mate to organise 200 chains to lash it in place. Before the next voyage the module was welded to the ship. Whether the module was in real danger of leaving Icebird is debatable. But it became an incident that has gone down in ANARE legend—and song:

‘CLICK GO THE BOLTS’ (Tune: ‘Click Go the Shears’) Out on the bridge the bold captain stands, Officers around him, sweat upon their hands; Fixed is their gaze on a distant giant wave, Glory if she hits us will the Icebird behave? Chorus: Snap go the bolts boys, snap, snap, snap, Wide was the roll that made the metal slap, The module’s come adrift and gone over with a crash, ‘Curses’ cried the passengers amidst the mighty splash . . . Lyrics: Rod Simpson and Tony Jennings.

order’ in Antarctic transport. The styles of the two ships contrasted markedly. Passengers on Icebird lined up for their meals at a cafeteria-style serving point and carried their food to a mess with long tables and bench seats. (Late arrivals had to climb up on the seat, and walk behind those dining, balancing their soup precariously—a tricky operation in a heavy sea.) To those who had sailed on both ships, disposable plastic cups and Laminex table tops seemed light years away from the old-world elegance of the Dan-style table settings and personal service.

375

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

The extra berths on Icebird meant greater opportunities to visit Australian stations in Antarctica. Bleasel was keen to have more Antarctic Division head office staff visit Antarctica so that they could have a better understanding of the consequences of their work. Selected VIPs and politicians had been invited south for round-trip voyages with ANARE even in the Dan days when berths were tight. However, the increased passenger capacity of Icebird allowed Bleasel to increase these invitations—a shrewd public relations move which resulted in considerable bipartisan support for Australia’s Antarctic program. As a result of these (and earlier visits by veteran politicians like Bill Wentworth and John Gorton who had been flown down to the continent in United States aircraft in the 1960s) a Parliamentary Alliance was formed in 1987, comprising members of federal parliament who either have visited Antarctica or have extensive interests in the region. The policy of VIP visits continued into the 1990s. In January 1996 the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Guy Green, visited Macquarie Island and on 9 January officially opened the refurbished and repositioned hut known as Chippy’s Church, believed to be the oldest building on the island. Because travel to Antarctica had been the preserve of the ANARE professionals, few established artists and writers had ever been able to have direct experience of the remote and stunningly beautiful region. (The landscape paintings of Nel Law, wife of Phil Law, from her 1961 voyage on Kista Dan were an important early contribution.)* Bleasel introduced the ‘Artists in Antarctica’ program, with the aim of familiarising Australians with what ANARE was doing in the Antarctic. He also initiated the Antarctic School Science Prize, which involved sending two secondary school children and their teachers to Antarctica on Icebird. It was run each year from 1986 to 1989. Publicity of an unwelcome kind was splashed over the national newspapers in October 1985 when Nella Dan became beset in heavy pack ice off the coast of Enderby Land, near the western extremity of the Australian Antarctic Territory. The ship had left a party of scientists on Heard Island, intending to pick them up after some marine biology in the pack ice—investigating the krill and the distribution and abundance of crabeater seals. Although known to be present in large numbers around Antarctica, these seals were difficult to study because they live and breed only in the pack ice.

376

* Sidney Nolan did paint a series of landscapes based on a flying visit to McMurdo in 1964 with the Americans but did not visit the Australian Antarctic Territory.

L

I

n 1986 the Antarctic Division asked the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to assist in selecting artists for a voyage to Antarctica, and in early 1987 three painters, Bea Maddocks (Tasmania), Jan Senbergs (Victoria) and John Caldwell (New South Wales) joined Voyage Six on Icebird for a voyage that included a rare visit to Heard Island, the Scullin Monolith (near Mawson Station), Mawson and Davis Stations and the Vestfold Hills. Unfortunately Bea Maddocks badly injured her leg in a fall at Atlas Cove, Heard Island, but although immobilised in her cabin managed to continue sketching, using a series of mirrors to observe scenes outside her porthole, despite considerable pain and discomfort. All three artists painted prolifically and fulfilled the aims of those who had advocated their visit, including the director, Jim Bleasel. Senbergs’ images were particularly powerful, stressing the impact of human activity on Antarctica’s pristine environment. The Humanities Berths Program was aimed at laying the basis for a deeper and longer-

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

lasting appreciation of Antarctica among Australians. Peter Boyer, as information services manager, took up the cause of sending painters, poets, film makers and other creative artists to the Antarctic along with mainstream journalists: The aim of the program is to ensure that Antarctica becomes part of Australian culture at a deeper level than is possible simply through media exposure. . .We wanted Antarctica, through the work of these people, to strike a more resonant chord in the Australian psyche. Under the regime instigated in the mid-1980s many other creative people have gone south. These include the writer Stephen Murray-Smith (who wrote a book Sitting On Penguins), poet Catherine Caddy, the Tasmanian sculptor Stephen Walker (twice), and artists Claire Robertson and Caroline Durré. Two Aboriginal artists have been on the program—Lin Onus and Miriam Rose Baumann—during the 1993 Year of Indigenous People.

As sometimes happens in Antarctica, unconnected tragic events happened in quick succession. On 20 October—only a week before Nella Dan became stuck in the ice—a ship’s cook, Kim Nielsen, died from head injuries after a fall. Then on 28 October Steve Bunning, the Department of Housing and Construction foreman working on the rebuilding project at Davis, was badly burned when an explosion occurred while he was spraying sealant inside a storage tank. Bunning’s injuries were so severe that the Americans (at considerable risk to the crew and aircraft) sent an LC130 Hercules from McMurdo to land on a hastily prepared emergency strip on the sea ice near Davis on 29 October. The aircraft landed safely, but sadly Bunning died during the evacuation. As besetments go, Nella Dan’s was a good one. In the early stages, rafted ice built up around the ship, putting the hull under enormous pressure. Then there was a sudden drop in temperature, freezing the pack—the worst possible situation for a break-out. Making the best of

377

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

NELLA DAN IN PACK ICE, 1979. (M BETTS)

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

the situation, Knowles Kerry resumed the biological science program while they waited:

As luck would have it we were over the [continental] shelf break, and that is where the krill was, it’s where the [crabeater] seals were, so we could actually do work. The ice floe which held Nella Dan was moving at about two knots, pushed by a mixture of wind and current, and that’s about towing speed. So we were able to do bottom-dredging. . .we had laboratories on board so we did a lot of phytoplankton work and krill in culture. We had divers with us and they were studying the krill under the ice. It was an absolute godsend—a stable platform for them.

Nella Dan was a stable, if somewhat expensively chartered platform for a crew of 31, plus 36 scientists. The national press took a great interest in the ship’s predicament as Bleasel considered what, if anything, could be done:

378

I looked at satellite pictures over a ten-year period of the area in which she was locked—this was some colour stuff done by the Americans. The ice had never melted out in the ten years. So I knew I was in deep poo. I had to hire a Royal Australian Navy ship at huge expense [$250 000]

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

to rescue and resupply the people at Macquarie Island. It cost us a fortune—it really zotted our budget for the year.

By late November Bleasel announced to the press that he had ordered Icebird to the area to free Nella Dan. According to Kerry, Ewald Brune arrived on the scene, ignored advice given to him by Arne Sorensen of Nella Dan about the best route and made his own way in. Icebird got caught in a fast-moving stream and was in danger of being crushed by an iceberg coming down on them. Rafted ice actually forced its way up onto the foredeck and a contingency plan to abandon ship was worked out before the ice pressure abated and the ship escaped after being beset for two days. Icebird was in no position to rescue Nella Dan. Eventually the powerful Japanese icebreaker Shirase arrived on the scene on 13 December to break out Nella Dan. Even then there were difficulties. During a tow, the grip of the ice was such that the tow line (with a breaking strain of 170 tonnes) ripped one mooring bollard clean out of the deck of Nella Dan and bent over a second. By 15 December they were clear of the pack. Kerry: Shirase then stopped and we were able to pull alongside. I presented a number of personal gifts (Danish chocolate and whisky) to the captain. Shirase was presented with one of the mooring bollards [that had been torn from the deck during towing] which had been inscribed ‘Nella Dan 15/12/85’.8

Nella Dan was beset for 49 days. Despite Kerry’s exoneration by a Review Committee in February 1986, Bleasel was not pleased with his trapped voyage leader for going to that area. The following year Bleasel had personal experience of how easy besetment is when he was voyage leader on Nella Dan near the Bunger Hills in January 1986. On this occasion Nella Dan was freed by the Russian icebreaker Mikhail Somov. Any trouble with shipping inevitably raised the continuing saga of investigating direct air links with the Australian stations. In November 1981, the Americans ended the Cooperative Air Transport System (CATSA) agreement between Australia, New Zealand and the United States that had seen some ski-equipped Hercules LC130 flights onto a snow runway at Lanyon Junction on the ice plateau behind Casey Station. In 1982 an Antarctic Policy and Transport Studies group was formed in Canberra at the Department of Science under the direction of John Whitelaw and headed by John Boyd. The APTS looked at future shipping as well as aviation options. Whitelaw makes the point that there is not a lot of expertise in polar aviation in Australia, particularly within the government system. One

379

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

possibility being explored was an all-weather rock airstrip near Davis Station in the Vestfold Hills. Whitelaw: We started talking to the aviation authorities and the first question that came out of this meeting, I remember, was: ‘You’ve got a general plan here, but where’s the control tower?’ And we said: ‘The control tower? Why would you have a control tower?’ ‘Oh, you’ve got to have a control tower to control the traffic.’ We’re talking about three flights a week here, why do you need a control tower?’

Environmental concerns were always going to make an airstrip at Davis a sensitive and difficult choice. But even the concept of a compressed ice strip at Casey was difficult to pursue in a country with no experience in that style of operation. Whitelaw: So how do you build a runway in Antarctica. . .well obviously if you are a government agency you’ve got to get the government runway builders. That would be the Department of Housing and Construction. You’d mention a runway to DHC and their eyes would light up. They’d have had an entire department working on it for years. There was this tendency to think, ‘How would we do this in Australia’—and then try and move that into the Antarctic. But it would cost us an awful lot of effort and money.

A study of the feasibility of compacted snow runways at both Casey and Mawson was made by a group from Melbourne University led by glaciologist Professor Bill Budd. The construction cost of an ice runway near Casey [in 1982 dollars] was estimated at $600 000, with annual maintenance $40 000.9 On his first visit to Casey on Icebird in December 1984, Bleasel flew up to Lanyon Junction to inspect the experiments being made to create a compressed ice airstrip. He was not impressed. He had been told the containers used as living quarters for the machinery operators were mounted on stilts, three metres up in the air. When he arrived at the site there was only about 30 centimetres of the tops of the containers showing above the snow:

380

I thought it was pretty obvious that it was a ridiculous place to build an ice runway—it was going to take us years to build it. If it got blizzed in, I would have had to have accommodation for all of the people who were ready to fly out, plus all of the people who’d just flown in. I thought it was a pretty dumb idea. I would have a building program at Lanyon Junction that would have rivalled what we were doing at any of the other bases, and a hell of a lot more difficult to maintain because of the very

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

heavy snowfall. So I killed that as soon as decently possible. A lot of money had been expended on it.

Bleasel believed a rock airstrip at Davis, where the weather was better and snowfall minimal, was the best option. This view was supported by studies going back to the 1960s. But the way the environment is, it was just not worth considering—even though the perfect place to have an airstrip in all Antarctica is near Davis. But I don’t think I’ll see that in my lifetime.

381

TWENTY

TURBULENT

O

382

TIMES

n the evening of 3 December 1987 dinner was being served in the well-appointed passengers’ mess of Nella Dan anchored in Buckles Bay, at Macquarie Island. Buckles Bay, on the eastern side of the isthmus where the ANARE station is located, is sheltered from the prevailing westerlies. Early that day strong south-easterly winds and rough seas had stopped the amphibious LARCs from transferring cargo during the annual resupply and changeover. Fuel, however, continued to be pumped from ship to shore through a flexible hose to the ANARE station’s fuel farm, and that operation was nearly complete. Shortly after 6.30 pm Captain Arne Sorensen left the mess, and almost immediately afterwards those remaining felt the ship rolling to starboard and bottoming heavily. The engine was started and the alarm sounded. It was too late. The anchor had dragged, and the ship was driven on to the rocky shore by the wind and waves. On board were seventeen ANARE expeditioners and the crew of Nella Dan, including the widow of the founder of Lauritzens, Mrs Hannelore Lauritzen. Alerted to the disaster, all three LARCs on shore were mobilised, and the army ‘Larcies’ performed superb feats of seamanship to get through the pounding surf to reach the starboard side of Nella Dan. The passengers, wearing warm clothes and life-jackets, had to climb down a rope ladder into a wildly gyrating LARC. Apart from the screaming wind and spume, everyone was sprayed with wind-blown diesel fuel leaking from the stricken ship. The captain, chief engineer, chief officer, first officer and bosun remained on board.1

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

On shore, the small station was crammed to capacity, as is usually the case during the summer season and particularly during a changeover. Incoming station leader Glen Kowalik and his out-going counterpart, Ian Jacobsen, were both ashore at the time and began coordinating emergency accommodation. They faced an influx of 72 extra guests, many of them in shock and with an immediate need to find somewhere to sleep. Kowalik: Even the curtains from our dongas (sleeping areas) and packing foam from pallets of cargo in the store were pressed into service. . .By 1.30 am there were people housed in every conceivable corner of the station, in workshops, in stores, the emergency power house, ‘Sealers’ Inn’, the science and meteorological buildings and other nooks and crannies. Within six hours a 30-person station had been converted to a 103-person station!2

Dawn on the morning of Friday 4 December revealed a depressing sight. Nella Dan was stranded, lodged firmly against a rock, parallel to the beach, listing 11 degrees to port. By that afternoon conditions were calm enough for work parties to return to the ship and recover some personal gear and equipment. Over the next three days some five to six tonnes of marine science equipment and other valuable scientific instrumentation was recovered with great difficulty, because no power was available to operate the ship’s main lifting gear. The last 50 tonnes of station fuel was transferred ashore using station pumping equipment. Fortunately for the station, some 60 per cent of the resupply cargo had been unloaded, including essential food supplies. Cargo remaining on board was mainly building materials and concrete.3 Icebird, en route from Davis Station to Hobart (with Rex Moncur as voyage leader), was diverted to Macquarie Island to pick up stranded passengers and crew, arriving on 8 December. The intense (but friendly) rivalry between the German crew of the new Icebird and the Danes manning the veteran Nella Dan was no longer an issue. The Danes had designed a T-shirt depicting their ship as a shark, with the slogan: WE ATE ICEBIRDS FOR BREAKFAST. In one of the few lighter moments in a gloomy situation, Captain Brune of Icebird authorised the Danes to send a message over his communications system to the suppliers of the T-shirts to alter the inscription to: WE ARE EATING BREAKFAST ON ICEBIRD. They were available on the dock in Hobart when Icebird berthed. A Bass Strait oil rig tug and supply vessel, Lady Lorraine , chartered by the salvage company Austpac, arrived at Macquarie Island on 13 December. At first light the next day, divers inspected the hull of Nella

383

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

Dan and reported damage did not seem as bad as had been feared. The first priority was to pump out all remaining marine fuel into tanks on Lady Lorraine. Fortunately most of the estimated 264 cubic metres of light marine diesel oil that escaped from the ship was blown out to sea when the prevailing westerlies resumed, and biologists found there had been minimal impact on the wildlife on shore. HEAVY SEAS BREAK OVER THE The wrecking of Nella Dan touched a deep chord STRICKEN NELLA DAN, in the hearts of ANARE expeditioners who had sailed DECEMBER 1987. on her for the past 27 years. Phil Law called for the (G CURRIE) Federal Government to pay to salvage the ship and convert her into a museum. ‘The Victorian Government had backed the idea and the Port of Melbourne had already allocated a berth on the Yarra River at the bottom end of North Wharf.’ The Melbourne Age reported other suggestions:

NELLA DAN STRANDED ON THE ROCKS AT BUCKLES BAY, MACQUARIE ISLAND, DECEMBER 1987. (AAD ARCHIVES)

Tasmania’s Environment Minister, Mr Peter Hodgman, has written to Canberra suggesting that Nella Dan be hauled ashore at Macquarie Island for use as a reserve base. The ALP’s Senator John Devereux and a Liberal MHR Mr Warwick Smith, have called for it to be returned to Hobart for use in an Antarctic Centre on the city wharves.4

384

The problem was getting Nella Dan back to Australia and all speculation about her future use became academic when she was pulled off the rocks on the evening high tide of 21 December and divers discovered

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

that, in fact, damage to the bottom of the hull was extensive. Despite efforts to seal up holed compartments and the pumping in of compressed air, water was coming in faster than it could be pumped out by Lady Lorraine. Captain Roger Rusling: There was a multitude of cracks and holes in the bottom of the ship, plus a lot of inter-tank damage. The walls between the tanks themselves were cracked, and water was seeping from one tank to another.

On 23 December the owners of Nella Dan announced they were left with no other option, for practical and safety reasons, than to scuttle the ship in deep water. Rusling put Lady Lorraine alongside to help take off the pumps and compressors and any other equipment that could be salvaged. Voyage leader David Lyons remembers the salvage master, David Hancock, saying, ‘I can’t keep this thing afloat. It’s like a honeycomb.’ When Nella Dan suddenly listed from 6° to 15° in about thirty seconds, Hancock ordered everyone off the ship. Rusling thought the ship was going to sink there and then: People jumped on to Lady Lorraine and on to the LARCs on the other side. . .If it had sunk in Buckles Bay it would have been a disaster, because there is only room for one ship at a time, and it would have made it very hard indeed to resupply the ANARE station on Macquarie Island.

Rusling was ordered to tow Nella Dan immediately out to deep water. At that stage he thought he only had fifteen or twenty minutes to do the job, but the old ship was not going to give up without a struggle. Five nautical miles off Macquarie Island, in deep water, Nella Dan settled lower in the water but obstinately refused to sink. The next morning, 24 December, she was still afloat and it was decided to tow her back towards the island so that the LARCs could help retrieve some of the equipment still on board. But less than one nautical mile from Macquarie, smoke was seen rising from the ship. Rusling: Within about ten minutes the whole accommodation block was just a roaring inferno, so we turned around and went back out to the deep water again and steamed up and down for another few hours. We thought it must sink shortly.

Nella Dan was hanging on to the bitter end. When the fire burnt itself out, the salvage crew managed to get back on board so that a hose could be rigged directly between the two ships. Rusling used the powerful ballast pumps of his oil rig tender to force sea water into the foundering vessel. That, combined with the opening of all air valves, was enough to deliver the coup de grace.5

385

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

THE FINAL MOMENTS OF NELLA DAN, SCUTTLED IN DEEP WATER OFF THE EAST COAST OF MACQUARIE ISLAND, PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE STERN OF LADY LORRAINE. (COURTESY AURORA)

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

Sorensen stood in silence beside Rusling as the two captains watched Nella Dan sink stern first, her bows rising up dramatically as if in a final salute. Later Sorensen likened the final moments of his ship to ‘a Viking funeral’, adding, ‘she was from a time when ships were built to last, and she had a mind of her own.’6 The captain and his senior officers were held responsible for the grounding in a Maritime Safety preliminary investigation report into the accident published in April 1988. Sorensen’s decision to continue to transfer oil after dry cargo operations had been suspended because of gale force south-easterly winds was singled out particularly as ‘an error of judgement’.7 The Antarctic Division’s logistics manager, Ian Marchant, makes the point that refuelling from the sea is always a tricky business:

You have to tow the line out from the base and connect it up on the ship. Once the pipe is connected it is quite a hassle to disconnect [and reconnect] it, so if the job can be done in one go, it is much easier. If there is any doubt as to the safety of an operation like this, it is the captain who makes the final decision rather than the voyage leader. . .

386

The loss of Nella Dan threw the 1987–88 shipping program into disarray. Fortunately the Antarctic Division managed to charter Lady Franklin from Canada at short notice. Lady Franklin had been used to help with the rebuilding program during the early 1980s and had been modified to carry extra passengers in a number of temporary accommodation ‘huts’ constructed below the foredeck.

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

The sinking of Nella Dan was an emotional business for the hundreds of ANARE expeditioners who had sailed on her. In 1985, however, the Government had already decided the veteran polar vessel would be replaced. On 15 December 1986 it was agreed that a replacement ship for ANARE service would be built in Australia. The decision to build an Australian ice-breaking ship was actually made by Cabinet on 15 December 1987—twelve days after Nella Dan was stranded and nine days before she was finally scuttled.

W

hen Jim Bleasel came to the division as director, he worked to the Minister for Science, Barry Jones. The two men got on well. Jones was interested in the Antarctic, particularly in the scientific research, and shared Bleasel’s concern about a rebuilding program that seemed to have got out of hand: I was anxious to boost the amount spent on scientific research. And I didn’t want that scientific research to be prejudiced by the amount that was being spent on physical construction. . .There was no point in saying: ‘We’ve got the biggest assemblage of concrete in the Antarctic, something that can be seen from other planets’. I couldn’t see much sense in that.

Both Bleasel and Jones wanted to move away from the established stations, which Bleasel described as ‘little townships’. He developed a policy of expanding summer bases. Martin Betts, then head of planning and coordination, recalls Bleasel was ‘into sovereignty—I remember him grabbing me. ‘‘The Government says we have to go to the eastern sector to put the flag there.’’ He wanted to establish ten stations in the Australian Antarctic Territory.’ Bleasel argued that cheap summer stations and better logistics were a more efficient way to spend research funds. In January 1986 Rod Ledingham led a field party of 22 including biologists, geologists, geomorphologists and support staff (with three helicopters), to the Bunger Hills, 450 kilometres to the west of Casey Station, to set up Edgeworth David Base—named after the distinguished Australian scientist whom Douglas Mawson had accompanied on his expedition to the South Magnetic Pole in 1908. Bleasel: Unfortunately a great iceberg came and shut that off soon afterwards. We established Law Base in the Larsemann Hills. We built up our summer operations on Heard Island. We established a new base in Commonwealth

387

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

Bay, out of sight of Mawson’s hut, so as not to disturb the integrity of that area. . .And we did further field work at places such as Scullin Monolith. . .

The Larsemann Hills, 100 kilometres to the south-west of the Vestfold Hills (and Davis Station) is a significant ice-free area. In the mid 1980s the Antarctic Division became aware that the Russians and the Chinese were thinking of EDGEWORTH DAVID BASE setting up permanent stations there. ANARE had mainAT BUNGER HILLS, tained close contact with the Chinese for some years MARCH 1986. and many of their scientists had gained wintering expe(COURTESY R LEDINGHAM) rience on Australian stations. In 1985–86 the station leader at Davis, Rob Easther, was asked to set up a summer base in the Larsemann Hills. A prefabricated hut was flown over by helicopter to a site selected by Easther, on high ground with access to a tarn for fresh water. During the winter Easther was asked to reconnoitre an overland route from Davis to the new base, over or around the Sørsdal Glacier, and transport extra huts to the site. Although this base—named Law Base after Phil Law—enabled some useful science to be done in the area, its creation was blatantly territorial and political. As Bleasel put it: ‘The thinking was that if anybody’s bum was going to be on that seat, it ought to be ours.’ The following summer the Russians appeared with big helicopters which disgorged geologists and surveyors who chose a site for their station. Progress One was established near an ice airstrip they marked out on the plateau. While the Australians had carefully erased the marks of their tracked vehicles from the rocky terrain near Law Base, the Russians were less concerned about the pristine Antarctic environment—simply bulldozing a rough road from the coast to their base and on up to the plateau. The Australians were unimpressed to find that the Russians had even driven a tractor through the tarn they used for their drinking water. While national attitudes to the environment differed markedly, however, personal relations—as elsewhere in Antarctica—were warm and friendly. 388

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

The Chinese began to build their station, Zhongshan, in the Larsemann Hills in the summer of 1988–89. Their ship, Ji Di, moored offshore while barges and helicopters were used to transfer building materials to their selected site. It was an eventful summer, as Rob Easther recalls: Overnight a huge lump of ice broke off the nearby Dålk Glacier and flooded all the foundations—it basically wiped out the site! It was a timely lesson, so they moved 200 metres further uphill to the present site. Later that same summer something similar happened with the Dålk, and Ji Di was trapped between the shore and a large berg. Davis Station was alerted to evacuate the Chinese as it was feared their ship would be squashed.

Within two years, the Larsemann Hills region was transformed from an uninhabited Antarctic wilderness to an international hub with three nations working there, four bases and an ice airfield. Bleasel was a man in a hurry and, perhaps not surprisingly, his relations with Antarctic Division staff were patchy. On 9 April 1986 the main staff union, the Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association (on behalf of six other affiliated unions) wrote to him with a number of grievances. They included allegations of lack of consultation with staff, shoddy staff selection procedures, misallocation of division resources, lack of planning, ‘the apparent lack of control’ over major resourcing decisions like contracts, and ‘centralised and ad hoc decision-making which does not utilise the expertise of subordinate staff’.8 One of the issues singled out in a thirteen-page attachment fleshing out the union’s concerns was the old issue of the diversion of Icebird to Mirny during the 1984–85 season ‘at an estimated minimum cost of $250 000’. The ACOA was critical of the minister’s [Barry Jones] decision to establish a Review Committee to conduct a formal inquiry into the besetment of Nella Dan in October 1985, which appeared . . .to have been selective in the absence of any acceptable public explanation for the Icebird’s earlier diversion [to reach Nella Dan], entrapment and on-board conduct near Mirny last summer, in the limited scope of the Review Committee’s terms of reference, and in the haste in which it conducted it’s [sic] interviews of some involved staff.9

Bleasel responded on 14 April and was dismissive of the union’s submission, saying in conclusion that he did not believe that the term ‘general abysmal morale level’ was an accurate description of conditions in the division which he thought were ‘already better than that which could be expected from any similarly constituted government organisation in which the staff are working just as hard’:

389

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

I cannot help but reach the conclusion that the information presented in this paper has been prepared by a small group and is unrepresentative of the general feeling of staff. This is not in the interests of the Division as a whole. . .10

The division’s acting shipping manager and union activist Geoff Dannock was angry about what he saw as the situation of his boss (and voyage leader on the maiden voyage of Icebird), logistics manager Ian Marchant, who had taken an extended period of leave after returning to Hobart. Dannock: The deviation into Mirny took about ten days, and in those days the charter rate was probably about $25 000 a day. So in terms of public service piss-ups, it was probably the biggest and the best. . .I tried to take the subject up after the ship returned, and the blame for the whole situation was actually put on the voyage leader [Ian Marchant], who was my supervisor.

(Bleasel contests this allegation of extra costs on the grounds that the fixed price charter time for Icebird was not exceeded over the whole season, the ship carried out its full program and the division paid no extra charges. He also rejects the suggestion that he or anybody else suggested Marchant was in any way responsible for the Mirny diversion.) Dannock decided to contact Minister for Science Barry Jones, under the pseudonym ‘I C White’, to draw his attention to the Mirny affair. Jones agreed to meet ‘I C White’ in his Melbourne office, providing he identified himself. Dannock agreed, and saw Jones on 23 July 1985. He told the minister of his allegations, not only about the delay caused by the diversion to Mirny, but also about the way he thought Jim Bleasel was running the Antarctic Division. Dannock returned to the division and told the deputy director, Rex Moncur, that he had been to see Barry Jones: ‘But I was left in my own position. I was counselled by the deputy secretary [Roy Green] and told not to do anything like that again, and all was fairly quiet for a while.’ Rex Moncur, Bleasel’s choice as deputy director, was in charge of resource management in the Department of Science in Canberra. Moncur:

390

The rebuilding program had almost stalled because we didn’t have adequate shipping capacity. And one of the things I worked on with Jim before I even came down [to Hobart] was getting an agreement to charter Icebird to provide that sort of capacity. . .I was using my contacts and relationship with the Department of Finance.

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

The advent of Icebird with extra berths available meant more scientists could go to Antarctica. Moncur recalls that the Minister, Barry Jones, convinced Cabinet to provide some extra funding for field science projects and the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee began its grant scheme to encourage university researchers to work for ANARE: THE INTERIOR OF REID HUT So for all those reasons, the Jim Bleasel era resulted AT LAW BASE, LARSEMANN in a substantial enhancement of our scientific activHILLS. ity. He certainly tried a number of things on the (R EASTHER) operational front. He visited a number of other countries such as the UK and looked at how they managed their stations, and set up the idea of operations managers and so forth. Now, some of these things didn’t work, but he had a go at nearly everything that was available.

Press clippings from the era show the Antarctic Division was rarely out of the headlines. The sinking of Nella Dan was a dramatic story by any standards, but Bleasel was not unaware of the importance of publicity in keeping the Australian public aware of Antarctic affairs: ‘When I came I realised it was important to raise the profile of the Antarctic Division—to let people know where their money was being spent.’ Looking back, Bleasel resents any suggestion that he was hungry for publicity. He says he took control of the division’s news releases and made himself the first point of contact for journalists because he wanted to control the damage caused by bad and inaccurate publicity. By making himself the focus for information, he could present the division’s position quickly, accurately and positively: I didn’t see it as an ego thing, I saw that as my job—distasteful. But in the end I didn’t mind it, I got used to it. I did it properly. I wasn’t in the public eye before I went to the Antarctic Division, and I haven’t been in the public eye since I left.

391

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

Bleasel’s personal agenda for the Antarctic Division went far beyond structural and administrative reshaping at head office. He wanted to change the actual culture of ANARE through its recruiting procedures, leadership structures and the way stations functioned. Clearly the scientific programs to be undertaken and issues like the maintenance and use of heavy equipment and safety procedures were non-negotiable and AUSTRALIA’S SUMMER dictated by head office. But how the community actuSTATION, LAW BASE, ally functioned was left to the discretion of the NEAR THE RUSSIAN AND officer-in-charge and the dynamics of each particular CHINESE STATIONS IN THE wintering group. After all, there were no trainees on LARSEMANN HILLS, 1986. an Antarctic station. Each expeditioner was an expert (R EASTHER) in his or her field, be it plumbing, cooking or upper atmosphere physics. Traditionally this had been an exclusively male culture, only marginally influenced by the small number of women going south to the continent from the 1980s. The independence of the stations was reinforced, in the early years, by poor communications. This culture could not be easily changed by directions from the top. Bleasel created the positions at head office of station managers who would deal directly with the station leaders in Antarctica to ensure more practical and effective liaison between head office and those down south. He made sure the new station managers were former station leaders with a strong grasp of the practicalities of ANARE life and field work. Although this system did not become operational until after Bleasel left the division in 1988, and although it has since been modified, managers like Rob Easther believe it has made a significant and positive difference to relations between Kingston and those on ANARE stations. But by the mid-1980s, communications in the Antarctic were changing rapidly. The development of INMARSAT—a satellite system used by shipping world wide—meant that the ANARE stations could be linked up with the same system. The first INMARSAT link went into Mawson 392

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

Station in 1984 and was quickly extended to Davis, Casey and Macquarie Island by 1985. Communications consultant Doug Twigg: This system could do two things—it could transmit data using their keyboards, and they could also make telephone calls. That was the start of the satellite system. . .but it was around $10 a minute, a very expensive system.

For those used to conversations on the old radio telephone system being wiped out by auroral interference or sunspot activity, the new system was astounding. Jim Bleasel, who had a background in remote area technology, was keen to get ANARE on its own system through OTC (later incorporated into Telstra) and the world-wide INTELSAT system. He discovered that two different communications systems were to be sent south: I didn’t want separate suppliers. I thought this was fairly basic, but it was a bitter thing for the people responsible. . .They knew that technically it was best to have different types of receiver stations at different places—two of one type and two of another. I insisted they all be the same type.

By February 1987, the first dedicated ANARESAT—as the system was named—communications were established with Davis Station, and were extended to all the other stations by 1989. The system makes use of two INTELSAT satellites over the Pacific and Indian Oceans to service all permanent ANARE stations. (INMARSAT remains as a backup.) By the 1990s, all stations and the Kingston headquarters were linked by telephone with three-digit in-house dialling, and to the Australian mainland at normal domestic STD rates. Faxes, electronic mail and data transmission are now commonplace. Instead of weather observers having to telex their data back to Australia over uncertain radio links, it is automatically accessed from Australia. Twigg: It’s almost like Big Brother. A lot of the science data collection is going straight back to Australia without any interference by the person on site. The supervisors have more direct control of what’s going on in the station. The building maintenance people can plug in there and know what the temperature is in the recreation room and whether the water is too hot or cold, or the air temperature is the right mixture.

During the early years of ANARE Phil Law believed that poor communications were often a blessing in disguise in keeping expeditioners insulated from the often trivial day-to-day worries of their partners or families in Australia—which they could do nothing about. Often a

393

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

particular problem was resolved by the time the details finally got through. When news of a serious, or even tragic nature had to be broken, the Antarctic Division’s liaison officer (then in Melbourne) usually informed the OIC first, who then either called in the individual concerned to tell the expeditioner personally, or alerted the rest of the station to be aware and caring of that person’s situation. In the 1990s, with telephones in individual ‘dongas’, there are regular instances of horrendous telephone bills. Personal accounts in excess of A couple of blokes raced down, got $2000 per year are now common, and skidoos and headed out over the sea ice one expeditioner has notched up a and finally caught up with our friend. record in excess of $6500. After he got back we said, ‘What were In the early years of ANARE all mesyou going to do?’. And he said, ‘Oh, I sages to the stations were traditionally was just going to head out to sea on the handled by a team of communications sea ice’. So the OIC broke out some beer officers who, like the meteorology and we had—not really a party—more observers, worked in shifts. The hanof a wake [for the relationship]. But it dling of confidential official and personal sorted him out. information often put strains on ‘comms’ officers living in a small, isolated community. Bob Orchard, whose experience dates back to the days of the Morse key, represents a generation of ‘comms’ officers who pride themselves on complete professional discretion when dealing with personal or confidential messages:

P

hysicist and film maker David Parer wintered at Mawson in 1972, and remembers one of the party receiving a ‘Dear John’ telegram with the news that his fiancée had not only broken off their relationship, but had transferred her affections to his best friend. Two days later Parer was having his hair cut by an obliging diesel mechanic when they looked out the window and saw the jilted expeditioner running out on to the sea ice and heading out into nowhere. Parer:

We don’t even tell our offsiders. It’s best not to know some things. In the past when you were taking it by Morse code you just had to be able to walk out of the radio room and switch off—forget about it. In ten minutes’ time you’d be eating with a bloke who’d had bad news. . .

394

The ‘comms’ officers prided themselves on their professional ability to maintain confidentiality. By the nature of their job, they had to know everything that was going on. Rob Easther believed Jim Bleasel wanted to break the perceived power of the ‘comms’ officers, and that was one of his motivations for introducing satellite communications and the VAX computer system which enabled confidential electronic mail to be sent directly to station leaders—or any individual on station. Easther:

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

Some ‘comms’ officers had breached the confidentiality of telexes, revealing personal information around the bar, and undermining the power of the station leaders by leaking confidential messages from head office. The advent of ANARESAT also made direct communication easier and thus facilitated an easier resolution of conflict situations, such as those involving harassment.

With all stations fully connected to a modern communications system, the tyranny of distance was defeated—at least administratively. The line of chattering teleprinters in the Mawson radio room, relaying weather data from Casey, Davis and Russia’s Molodezhnaya, Japan’s Syowa and South Africa’s SANAE stations were stilled—the long racks of radio receivers and patch cords replaced by a computer the size of a small attaché case. From 1995 weather data and, for example, scientific readings from Mawson’s cosmic ray laboratory could now be monitored directly from Australia. From the early 1990s communications officers began to be phased out—except in the busy summer season to coordinate helicopter, ship and field work communications—and to be replaced during the winter by technicians, who combined some communications duties with keeping the computers and electronics systems operating. Station leaders were immediately engulfed in an avalanche of administration, some complaining they had become slaves to their computer screens. The new technology was quickly integrated into the culture. (At Casey in 1995, station leader Peter Melick often found himself corresponding on e-mail, via the Internet, to a member of his own wintering group in another building.) One inevitable consequence of improved communications was an exponential explosion of rumour and gossip between the stations. The Antarctic Division’s rumour mills had always ground steadily away, but ANARESAT opened up new horizons of scuttlebutt and institutional innuendo. While confidentiality between head office and an expeditioner could now be achieved without the cooperation of the ubiquitous ‘comms’ officers, there was absolutely no way of controlling the flow of information out of an Antarctic station.

T

he most pressing logistics problem facing the division in the mid 1980s was to organise a new Antarctic ship. Although the Government had made a decision in 1983 that a purpose-built ship would be constructed, no detailed plans for a ship were in place, although expressions of interest had been invited overseas through Wesfarmers (now renamed South West Chartering Pty Ltd). In 1986 Ivan Bear (formerly Naval Officer Commanding Tasmanian Area) had joined the division to

395

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

lead a project group to develop specifications and identify scientific facilities for a ship to replace Nella Dan. The project group was formed within the Projects and Policy Branch under David Lyons, Assistant Director Projects and Policy. Bear: There was a need to combine the requirements of the ship to act as a tanker, as a resupply vessel carrying dry cargo, transporting scientists, carrying out trawls, operating helicopters—and with a galaxy of scientific research equipment. This needed to include antennae and [hull-mounted echo-sounding systems] for examining the fish population, activity concentrations and bottom depths. There was an amazing list of equipment to go into the ship.

After juggling the requirements of cargo, passenger carrying and research and calling for expressions of interest, it was found that the cheapest option would be to have the new ship built in Europe and operated with an overseas crew. This finding became academic after the Australian Labor Party retained office in the July 1987 Australian Federal elections and the Antarctic Division was moved from Barry Jones and the Department of Science to the new mega-department of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (DASETT) under Senator Graham Richardson. Richardson—a powerful and activist minister—was briefed by departmental secretary Tony Blunn on the Antarctic Division’s situation (including the implementation of the recommendations of the Joint Management Review) and decided to ‘get them a better deal’: They were getting bled, and gradually losing it. They were losing the battle at [the Department of] Science, and I thought that was going to continue. So I was quite anxious to fight for them. . .I could imagine them getting to a point where they couldn’t adequately carry out the scientific programs they were telling me they wanted.

The new minister took a close interest in the process of acquiring a new ice-breaking ship for ANARE work. In September 1986 Wesfarmers had invited offers from prospective tenderers, to be submitted by 31 October. At the time, division thinking favoured chartering a ship from Rieber Shipping, Norway, an experienced polar ship operator, as the most economical option. Richardson favoured an Australian built and crewed ship and in September 1987 asked for a submission to take to Cabinet by December. At the Division, Ivan Bear was working on the project: 396

There were a number of new concepts we had to consider and these were made available to the bidders so they knew what they were in for,

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

or had some idea. And they could refine their pricing at that initial stage. When the front runner was selected, more detailed effort was required.

The news that Nella Dan was on the rocks added an extra dimension of urgency for the Government to make a decision on a replacement. When the Antarctic Division’s deputy director, Rex Moncur, returned to Hobart from his stint as voyage leader on Icebird on 11 December (a longer than usual voyage because of difficult ice conditions in Prydz Bay and the need to pick up the stranded passengers of Nella Dan from Macquarie Island), Jim Bleasel asked him to oversee the division’s negotiations for a new ship. David Lyons, who had been responsible for the project, was asked to remain on Macquarie Island to represent the division on any decisions made on the future of the stricken vessel. Richardson wanted action. On 16 December 1987 the minister announced that the new all-Australian supply and research ice-breaker had been given Cabinet approval, and that the Government would ‘enter into detailed contract negotiations with P&O Polar’.11 Richardson: We finally came to a point where the P&O offer was the better offer, and everyone told me so. We had to move quickly—and we did. We built a bloody good ship which has stood the test of time. . .so if I need to be vindicated, I think that vindicates me.

Events were moving at a cracking pace. Moncur was plunged into an intensive round of meetings concerning the new ship. Following the success of the division’s submission to Cabinet, Bleasel asked Moncur to go to Melbourne in mid-December to negotiate with P&O. The Government had agreed the division could conduct negotiations with P&O Polar, leading towards a detailed charter. During the discussions in Melbourne P&O told Moncur that in order to qualify for a ship’s bounty concession (under the Ship Building Bounty Act of 1982) they needed a legal relationship with the charterer, as the bounty concession would substantially affect the final charter price. P&O said this legal agreement had to be in place within a matter of days to ensure the vessel would qualify for the bounty—before 31 December 1987. P&O gave Moncur the text of a letter of intent which would enable them to place an order with an Australian shipyard for the construction of a vessel ‘appropriate for the charter’.12 On 18 December P&O told Moncur they needed the letter of intent from the division urgently. Well aware of the importance of the document, Moncur says he rang Bleasel in Hobart to discuss the matter, and suggested that the wording be cleared not only with Senator Richardson’s office, but with the Attorney-General’s Department.

397

L

I V I N G

T

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

The two men’s recollections differ sharply. Bleasel maintains he did not know of the letter of intent until after it was signed, and that he would never have agreed on behalf of the division that such a document should be signed, ‘because it was unnecessary and it gave an unreasonable advantage to P&O in the charter negotiations’. Moncur did refer the text of the letter to the Attorney-General’s Department, which suggested a modification to the wording relating to the ten-year charter of the proposed vessel, ‘. . .subject to the negotiation of a charter acceptable to the Commonwealth. . .’ The letter was cleared by Senator Richardson’s office and Moncur signed it. P&O had not submitted a tender in the original bidding process because they did not have Antarctic experience. This problem was overcome by joining in a consortium—P&O Polar—with Polar Schiffahrts-Consulting GmbH, controlled by Guenther Schulz (the former owner of Icebird). On 15 March 1988 the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story headlined UPROAR OVER GOVT POLAR SHIP TENDERS, saying ‘three companies have challenged the way the Federal Government handled the tendering process for Australia’s new $124 million Antarctic ship project’. TNT Shipping was identified as one of the unsuccessful bidders. The article went on to detail alleged changes in the specifications of the new ship, which had originally been required to be able to break 80 centimetres of ice:

he letter of intent was later the subject of an inquiry by the Commonwealth Auditor-General, published in 1990. The report noted that before issuing the letter of intent, the Antarctic Division had sought and received oral advice from the Australian Government Solicitor on the nature and content of the letter and the risks involved. In a later written response, the Australian Government Solicitor concluded that the letter might put the Commonwealth ‘at a negotiating disadvantage’. . .and ‘as a result of the above the Commonwealth may be obliged to accept a charter containing provisions less favourable than it would otherwise require’. Although this was not a procedure favoured by the Australian Government Solicitor, there were ‘particular features of the case’ where ‘the issuing of a letter of intent was considered acceptable’. One was to enable P&O Polar to enter into a contract for construction of the vessel before 31 December 1987, so that the ship builders could qualify for a bounty under the Ship Building Bounty Act 1982, ‘which was only available at a particular rate until the end of December 1987’. ‘Secondly, the Department was hopeful that the use of a letter of intent would ensure the availability of the vessel for the 1989–90 Antarctic season.’13

398

According to shipping industry sources the Antarctic Division plans to upgrade that ice-breaking capacity to 1.3 or 1.5 metres. ‘It seems that the vessel we tendered for is not the vessel they’re going to construct’ a TNT source said.

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

P&O’s managing director, Mr Brian Baillie, yesterday dismissed complaints about the tendering process as ‘a lot of balderdash’ and said he had never been through a more exhaustive one.14

Following this and other articles in the national press, the Federal police were called in to investigate the alleged altering of confidential tender documents, but found no evidence of improper procedures. While negotiations continued between the Antarctic Division and P&O Polar, the division announced a nation-wide competition to involve all young people under eighteen to find a name for the new ship. Some 2500 entries were received, some of which were ambitious to say the least. Noituloser (‘Resolution’ spelt backwards), Jim’s Folly, Mother-In-Law’s Breath, Grunting Walrus, Breaker Morantarctic, Aussie Cracker, Icy Pole and Big Chill did not make the short list. One young hopeful submitted Bottle-Of-Ink (rhyming slang for ‘Borchgrevink’—a Norwegian-born Australian who was the first to winter on the Antarctic continent). The most popular suggestion was Aurora Australis (108 entries), followed by Douglas Mawson (41 entries). Aurora Australis was chosen, and twelve-year-old Brett Webb, of Jindabyne, New South Wales, won the competition on the strength of his explanation: I chose this name because it illuminates the sky, and hopefully the scientific knowledge gained from this ship will illuminate mankind’s knowledge. The name also reminds us of an earlier Aurora sailed by Captain John King Davis, which played a vital role in Antarctic exploration from 1912 to 1917. . .

Unfortunately young Brett could not take up his prize of a trip to Antarctica on the vessel he helped to name because he suffered from asthma. As it happened, there was a small sailing boat named Aurora Australis already registered, but the owners agreed to change it. (Aurora Australis is often affectionately referred to by ANARE people as the ‘Orange Roughie’—the name of a deep sea fish also referred to as the sea perch or blue grenadier.) Early in 1988, Jim Bleasel went on sick leave to have some small growths removed from his vocal chords, following which he was not to use his voice for three weeks. DASETT secretary Tony Blunn asked him to return to duty as soon as he could after his operation to prepare for a parliamentary inquiry into the management of the Antarctic Division which was due to start in July, working to deputy secretary Peter Kennedy. Although Bleasel was able to speak again when he arrived back at the division, hardly anyone else was speaking to him. He was nominally still the director of the Antarctic Division, but his deputy, Rex Moncur, was acting director at the same time. As Bleasel was to reveal later in

399

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

evidence to the parliamentary inquiry—the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts—Kennedy told him he was not to involve himself in any way in the running of the division. Bleasel: ‘I was told that—it was just as blunt—I must not talk to staff or I would find myself transferred to Canberra.’15 Rex Moncur confirms that he was asked by Tony Blunn to act as director at this time: I said to Tony, ‘I feel pretty uncomfortable about that, I think my working relationship with Jim is such that it will be quite difficult for me, particularly if he’s still in the building’. And Tony said, ‘Well, if you’re not prepared to do it, I’ll send someone down from Canberra who will. . .If at the end of things you feel uncomfortable, I’m happy to transfer you back to Canberra’. I actually agreed to do it on the spot. I knew, even at that time, that they were looking for a different style of management.

400

The Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts hearing into the management of the Antarctic Division began in Hobart on 11 July 1988. Although to some extent it was a reaction to allegations of irregularities in ship tender processes and ‘certain payments’ that surfaced in the press in early 1988, it also concerned itself with questions raised about internal management practices in the division dating back to the Joint Management Review of 1983. Some of the issues addressed were: performance of the division’s shipping broker; proper procedures allegedly not being followed concerning a fruit and vegetable contract; that Lady Franklin was unsafe and there were irregularities in the tendering process; staff-management relations; and concerns about the tender process for Aurora Australis. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was not the only body investigating Antarctic Division affairs. DASETT initiated its own internal departmental inquiry, a ‘Review of the Tendering Process for the Antarctic Replacement Vessel’, which was completed by September 1988. There was also a report from the Auditor-General, ‘Antarctic Supply Vessel—Chartering Arrangements’, released on 2 November 1990. Neither the DASETT review nor the Auditor-General’s report found evidence of any irregularities by anyone in the division or DASETT. However, the PAC was by far the most wide-ranging investigation and concluded its hearings on 13 April 1989. Chaired by Labor MP Robert Tickner, it comprised five Senators and eight members of the House of Representatives. Witnesses who appeared before it included senior bureaucrats from DASETT and the Antarctic Division, representatives of South West Chartering Pty Ltd (ship brokers), Guenther Schulz (the owner of Icebird)

T

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

and the ubiquitous ‘I C White’ (Geoff Dannock) who had originally raised a number of alleged improprieties at the division with the former minister for Science, Barry Jones. Dannock, who still works at the Antarctic Division, says his career has suffered as a result of his actions but has no regrets. Jim Bleasel’s fate had been sealed well before the results of the PAC inquiry were known. Senator Richardson wanted him out. The deputy secretary of DASETT, Peter Kennedy, flew to Hobart and told Bleasel he was to be transferred back to Canberra whether he wanted that or not. Bleasel announced his resignation as director on 2 December 1988. He told the press he was proud of his achievements, but needed a further four years to complete his transformation of the Antarctic Division from ‘a boy scout operation to a professional organisation’. After the challenge of ANARE, transfer to a ‘boring’ job in Canberra was not on. ‘I couldn’t go to a grim death in Canberra living the life of a public service zombie.’16 He decided to stay in Hobart—where he has since pursued a successful business career. Despite all the allegations and dirty washing aired at the long-running parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (the evidence filled four volumes and 1143 pages of transcript) the final recommendations were surprisingly positive. Chairman Robert Tickner’s summary of its findings acknowledged that the division had made ‘significant headway with respect to financial, personnel and other management practices’ since the Joint Management Review of 1983. Tickner also acknowledged that ‘there had been an evident lack of attention to some of the processes and requirements expected of government agencies’. The report recommended that ‘greater attention be paid to obtaining legal advice and to adhering to the terms and conditions of contracts’. But it then became clear that the parliamentary members of the PAC had become fascinated by Australia’s Antarctic activities, particularly the scientific work being done, and in Tickner’s words, ‘the committee moved further away from the allegations to examine the role of science in the division and the level of resources available to the division to achieve its purpose’. In so doing, it recognised a point made by Jim Bleasel in his evidence that, despite all the criticism of his management style, ‘the Antarctic Division. . .has been filled with people who work very hard and are very dedicated’. The PAC report: • recommended that the role of the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee (ASAC) be widened to provide a better mechanism for the scrutiny and accountability of the division’s activities. . .

401

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

JAMES EDWARD BLEASEL, BSC Jim Bleasel was 48 when he came to the Antarctic Division in 1984. He spent his boyhood in Sydney and left school at the age of fourteen in 1959 to join the PMG (PostmasterGeneral’s Department). No one asked him his age, but fortunately he had turned fifteen by the time a permanent position was available. Within the PMG he qualified as a senior technician and by the time he was 24 was the youngest supervising technician in Australia. At that time he went to night school to get the formal qualifications he had missed by leaving school so young. After matriculating, he went on to do a university degree in engineering, specialising in electronics and communications. He had to take a demotion in the PMG to start at the lowest level for engineers, but worked his way up to a Class 4 Engineer (Class 5 is the top). Bleasel moved to the National Materials Handling Bureau in 1974 in charge of engineering and special projects until becoming director in 1979. I was the director for five years, and we built up the reputation of getting things done! Amongst other things we prepared the concept designs for the new wharf at Darwin and several rail terminals and plans for fruit and vegetable handling systems. . .We did a lot of work in South-East Asia, principally to do with livestock, grains and fish handling. We concept-designed an abattoir in India and a cold store in Egypt. He went to Hobart in 1984 and during his four years with the division took a particular interest in setting up mechanisms for long-term planning, trying to solve the shipping problems

ANTARCTIC DIVISION DIRECTOR JIM BLEASEL (LEFT) AND PETER WILKNESS, US DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, AT THE DIVISION, KINGSTON, JANUARY 1985. (R REEVES)

in coping with an ambitious rebuilding program as well as carrying out normal resupply and an expanded program of marine research. While he was director Icebird was chartered, and the decision made to build Aurora Australis. Bleasel took a close interest in the selection and assessment of personnel for Antarctic service, and introduced new selection procedures for officers-in-charge (station leaders). He increased the number of summer bases in the AAT with the aim of expanding the annual summer programs to make maximum use of this accessible time. These included Law Base in the Larsemann Hills, Dovers Base in the Prince Charles Mountains, Edgeworth ➤

T

David Base in the Bunger Hills and a refuge at Cape Denison, near Mawson’s Hut, as a basis for future work in the eastern sector of the AAT. Bleasel started the program of returning the nation’s Antarctic garbage to Australia and negotiated with the directors of all other nations active in Antarctica to do the same. The Antarctic Science Advisory Committee (ASAC) and the ASAC research grants scheme were put in place during his time with the division—at the instigation of the Minister for Science, Barry Jones. He reduced the size of the rebuilding program and increased the number of scientists going to Antarctica. Australians knew a great deal about what ANARE was doing in Antarctica while Jim

U R B U L E N T

T I M E S

Bleasel was Director of the Antarctic Division. The publicity was not always positive, but people were in no doubt that Australians had a role in Antarctica. His policy of inviting politicians to voyage south as guests of the Antarctic Division resulted in considerable bipartisan support for ANARE activities. When he left the division in 1988, Bleasel went into the hospitality industry: I have developed hotels, restaurants, bottle shops, a mini-brewery—the only one in Tasmania—and a night club. Since I retired my annual turnover has gone from $1 million per year to $12 million. That speaks for itself.

• proposed that the division would need more resources to achieve ASAC’s objectives. . . • confirmed the importance of scientific research in Antarctica, recognising also that environmental policy had an increasing role to play. . . • gave a ringing endorsement to Australia’s involvement in the Antarctic ‘and wishes to see Australia’s credibility maintained and enhanced by observing appropriate administrative, environmental, safety and scientific programs that will demonstrate the commitment’.17 It was an outcome difficult to foresee when the PAC began its hearings the previous year amidst a plethora of newspaper headlines alleging mismanagement and doubtful tendering procedures. During the final hearings in April 1989, the secretary of DASETT, Tony Blunn, confirmed what all insiders already knew: that the former director ‘did not enjoy the confidence of the Minister’. Blunn described Bleasel’s management style as ‘crash through’—adding that he thought ‘there was a definite place for that management style. I thought he achieved much.’ Blunn confirmed that the deputy director, Rex Moncur, would act as director until a permanent appointment to the position was made.18 In earlier evidence to the PAC, Moncur made it clear that he did not think there was ‘any big bang solution for the Antarctic Division’. ‘What we really need is a period of stability. We need to define our goals for a

403

L

I V I N G

D A N G E R O U S L Y

1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8

long period and we are doing that so that the staff who are there can plan. . .’19 It was time for the Antarctic Division to disappear from the headlines. This was certainly a priority in the upper echelons of DASETT. Tony Blunn: I certainly saw Rex as providing a very stable, thoughtful approach to the work, and as a person having a very fair opportunity of quietening things down, and processing what I thought was one of the most important projects we had at the time—the Aurora Australis.

After seven months of negotiations between the Antarctic Division and P&O Polar since the letter of intent was signed in December 1987, the contract for construction was signed on 17 July 1988. Construction of Aurora Australis began at the Carrington THE LAUNCHING OF AURORA Slipways, Newcastle, on 29 October. AUSTRALIS, CARRINGTON On 18 September 1989, the bright orange hull of SLIPWAYS, NEWCASTLE, 18 Aurora Australis slid sideways and splashed spectacuSEPTEMBER 1989. larly into the water after being launched by Mrs Hazel (AAD ARCHIVES) Hawke, wife of the Prime Minister. At 94 metres and 3600 tonnes it was the biggest (and last) vessel ever built at the Carrington Slipways. As the Antarctic Division prepared to take delivery of its multi-purpose research and resupply flagship in time for the 1990–91 shipping season (with accommodation for 109 passengers, a trawl deck for state-of-theart marine science and oceanography, and a helipad and hangar with space for three helicopters), there was hope that the trials and tribulations of the 1980s were about to give way to a renewed and confident approach to Antarctic science in the 1990s—symbolised by the arrival of Aurora Australis.

404

CONTEMPORARY ANARE 1989–1997

T W E N T Y- O N E

T O WA R D S 2 0 0 0

R

ex Moncur became acting director of the Antarctic Division in April 1988 at a time of considerable corporate angst. The organisation was about to be investigated by a Federal parliamentary inquiry, and the speed of change and reforms driven by Jim Bleasel—together with various allegations of mismanagement—had combined to create a volatile and uncertain environment at the Kingston headquarters. The personal styles of Moncur and Bleasel were vastly different. Moncur, a quietly spoken self-described conservative and ‘old fashioned public servant’, preferred to operate behind the scenes, while Bleasel, an ebullient extrovert, ‘led from the front’. Moncur: Graham Richardson is supposed to have said, ‘There is only one person in this portfolio who gets more publicity than me, and that’s Jim Bleasel’! And I think that’s why a different style was required. I knew when I came into the job that Rex Moncur was not to get any publicity, and we were to make sure that it all went to the minister. . .I moved to a very consultative way of working with staff and with unions. Some people think I went too far, but I thought it necessary to recover the ground and stabilise the organisation.

Moncur remained as acting director while the Public Accounts Committee completed its inquiry. As well as responding to questions from the committee on its management practices, the Antarctic Division was able to put proposals to it—with a very positive outcome. Moncur: As a result, another ten science positions were created and a number of other positions in operational areas that were important—an environment officer for instance, and a legal officer so we could progress initiatives

407

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

with the Protocol on Environmental Protection [Madrid Protocol]. . .And so we finished up with 20 extra staff positions.

On 21 December 1989 Rex Moncur was confirmed as Director of the Antarctic Division: Partly because we’d been through some pretty difficult circumstances, I thought it was important to have a focus and a direction for the organisation. And I also saw it as important to do this in a consultative way. So I started up a fairly long process of talking to staff about the directions of the organisation. . .setting out goals, objectives, guiding principles and the way ahead.

408

Moncur’s corporate goals for the Antarctic Division were listed under two main headings, ‘Guiding Principles’ which related to how the division was to function internally, and ‘Goals to 1997’ which would attempt to set priorities for the scientific work to be carried out in Antarctica. The direction of those goals was about to be profoundly influenced by international events. The concept of Antarctica as a potential resource, an undiscovered source of mineral riches, had always been a primary—if unstated—concern of all nations with an interest in the continent. With all but 2 per cent of Antarctica covered in ice, and with any planned offshore oil rigs having to contend with vast moving icebergs, mining or oil drilling was always going to be a last resort activity. However, in the mid-1970s there were headlines in the Australian press like: FROZEN ASSETS—ORE FOUND ON ICECAP—MINERAL FORTUNE FOUND IN POLAR MOUNTAINS—this last referring to ‘a mountain of iron ore’ discovered by Russian scientists working in the Prince Charles Mountains in the Australian Antarctic Territory.1 Ten years later, this hype had been replaced by more authoritative reports. On 22 May 1985 the Sydney Morning Herald reprinted a New York Times article claiming that a West German research ship had found ‘unambiguous’ evidence of oil deposits beneath the Bransfield Strait, near the Antarctic Peninsula in an area subject to competing territorial claims by Britain, Argentina and Chile. By the early 1980s conservation organisations world-wide were already taking a keen interest in trying to prevent any oil-drilling or mining in Antarctica. In May 1982, the Australian headlined, CAMPAIGN FOR WORLD PARK IN ANTARCTICA, spearheaded by ‘the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition—ASOC’, said to represent ‘almost 200 animal welfare and environmental groups’.2 By early 1983 reports that the Weddell and Ross Seas might contain 50 billion barrels of oil resulted in the Sydney Morning Herald reporting a London-based story, GREENIES OUT TO ‘SAVE’ ANTARCTICA,

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

and claiming a world campaign to try and prevent ‘the potentially disastrous effects of drilling for oil and minerals’ in Antarctica. With no obvious disagreement from any of the Treaty parties, the adoption of a mineral resources convention seemed assured after the fourth Antarctic Treaty Special Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Wellington, New Zealand, on 2 June 1988. This agenda was about to be dramatically reshaped by a controversy which erupted over Australia’s sudden refusal in May 1989 (supported by France) to ratify the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources (CRAMRA) which had been adopted by all the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties at its meeting in Wellington in June 1988. CRAMRA was an attempt to develop an internationally approved regime to govern any commercial mineral activity which might be proposed in Antarctica, and formal negotiations had been going on between Treaty parties since 1982. Some of those involved in the CRAMRA negotiations, like the Antarctic Division’s David Lyons, now see the reference to the ‘regulation of Antarctic mineral resources’ as a public relations disaster. It did not seem so at the time. Lyons: The Swedes suggested that it should be called, ‘The Convention for the Protection of the Antarctic Environment’. . .[because] what the Convention did was to close down Antarctica to minerals activities, and then have a very rigid and detailed process to look at the possibility of opening it. So it was a very good title. There were a few chuckles around the room at the Swedes’ idea, and it was put aside. But, in retrospect, if it had been called what they suggested, it’d still be around. The majority of the people who criticise it have never read it and don’t understand the contents of it. Although you joke about the titles of things they are actually terribly important.

Lyn Goldsworthy, then co-director of the influential international conservation group ASOC, disagrees: A name change would certainly have made the Convention more difficult to reject—a name can hide a thousand lies—but most nations acknowledged that the Convention wasn’t about protection. The minerals negotiations were clearly predicated on the assumption of mining. Initially the strict regulations were negotiated primarily to maintain the scientific cooperation upon which the Antarctic Treaty is based, rather than any strong concern for the environment. . .

Goldsworthy is in no doubt that in dismissing CRAMRA, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties accepted that mining ‘was not acceptable—however strictly regulated—in the world’s last great wilderness’.

409

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

The proposal that Australia would support CRAMRA had been put to the Australian Cabinet when it met in Melbourne on 28 March 1988. The proposal was endorsed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Antarctic Division both of whose representatives had been attending international meetings on this issue for seven years. Paul Keating was then Treasurer: It was unusual for the Cabinet to meet out of Canberra, we did it maybe once a year. . .and it was a foregone conclusion that we would sign the Minerals Convention. . .Graham Richardson, who was Environment Minister, and Gareth Evans [Minister for Foreign Affairs] had discussed this earlier and Richardson and his department had come to the view [we] were better signing. . .it was better to have a regime than no regime.

No opposition was expected, and there was some surprise when both Keating as Treasurer and Peter Cook as Minister for Resources opposed signing the CRAMRA agreement. Keating: Peter Cook worked simply, I think, on his departmental brief which said: ‘Our rights and ownership down there are uncertain, and. . .the opening up or discovery of mineralisation and its exploitation may disadvantage us in the longer term.’

Keating’s objections were largely environmental—that the area was pristine, the Southern Ocean was a very large reserve of food which was important in the ecological balance, and ‘we can, on this occasion, afford to stop’. He argued that CRAMRA had been conceived ‘in the post-OPEC shock’ and that ‘we should let the thing drop’: Well, this was just heresy at this meeting. . .and in fact Hawke made a few derisory remarks about my contribution, saying, ‘Where had I been living. . .didn’t I understand this had been going on for so long. . .God, I’ve never heard such rubbish’—all this sort of stuff. And I said there’s another reason—and that’s Cook’s reason. . .If we’re a major player in the world mineral trade—and we are, we’re the largest exporters of coal and one of the largest exporters of minerals—why would we let the Japanese, the Americans, the Russians and everyone else hop into another continent full of minerals?

410

Keating and Cook were the only members of Cabinet to oppose CRAMRA and the decision was made to continue negotiations to sign the agreement. Six months later, in September 1988, Paul Keating travelled to Paris shortly after Michel Rocard of the French Socialist Party became prime minister after two years of conservative government:

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

I went there with Don Russell, my private secretary, and the then Australian Ambassador, Ted Pocock. And I was the first minister to visit the French Government in probably ten years. . .It was quite an occasion as it turned out, because there’d been a sort of breakdown in relations over the Pacific [nuclear] testing, even while the Fraser Government was in office.

Rocard and Keating quickly established a personal rapport and discussed a variety of topics ranging from economics to trade unionism and the policies and politics in New Caledonia. At the end of their discussion, Rocard told Keating that he and President Mitterrand were looking for an appropriate way to celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989. One suggestion was to promote the formation of an international agency to monitor and safeguard the world’s environment. Keating told Rocard that when the vested interests of different countries were taken into account on issues like greenhouse gas emissions, such an agency would take many years to achieve, and would certainly not be in existence in time for the 1989 Bicentenary the following year. Rocard asked the Australian treasurer if he could suggest something that was international—not just French. Keating: I said, ‘As a matter of fact I do have an idea—but before I tell you about it, let me be honest and say that my own Government doesn’t support it, and I’m in a minority of two in my own Cabinet on it’. And he said, ‘What’s that?’. I said, ‘[Very soon] we and all of us are going to sign the Minerals Convention on Antarctica, and I think this is a great mistake, because we’re going to put up the green light to exploit the area. . .And I think it’s possible for us to say, ‘Look, I know we’ve been moving down this road towards a convention now for a decade. . .but it’s not really a good thing to do, and it’s not all that useful, and on second thoughts we’re not going to be in it. We’re pulling out.’

CRAMRA was due to be opened for signing on 25 November 1988 (and remain open for that purpose for a year). Rocard asked Keating how the Minerals Convention could be stopped at such a late stage. The Australian treasurer said he believed that if France and Australia, ‘two serious players in world affairs’, were to take such a view, other countries could be persuaded to join them. He reminded Rocard that his own Cabinet intended to sign. Keating: He said, ‘Well, what could I do?’. I said, ‘Well, it’ll be better for you to be in touch with Hawke, because in a sense, my views on this are a bit tainted. It’ll look [as though] I’m trying to refight the fight. But if I were able to go back and say to him that I’d spoken to you and that

411

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

you were interested in it—that would, I’m sure, interest him. So you’d better prepare a letter, or a telex or fax, and I can tell you what approach to take.

After their meeting, Keating spent some time with one of the French prime minister’s secretaries giving him advice on the line to take: I’m not sure whether they actually sent the correspondence. . .or made a phone call, but I told him it would be better to be in touch with Bob personally. . .Bob picked it up and it all went on from there.

In Australia, Greenpeace and other non-government organisations were mounting an emotive and powerful campaign against signing the Minerals Convention. Division policy manager Andrew Jackson recalls that between 1988 and 1989 there were some 12 000 letters and postcards on the issue sent to the minister for DASETT. The anti-CRAMRA forces received an unexpected propaganda boost when the Argentine ship Bahia Paraiso ran aground and sank near the Antarctic Peninsula on 28 January 1989, spilling about 675 000 litres of fuel and oil. That accident was followed by a far worse ecological catastrophe on 24 March 1989—the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, which spilled 49 million litres of crude oil into the Arctic environment. Political support in the Labor Party against CRAMRA was escalating, fuelled by the member for Dunkley, Bob Chynoweth. Chynoweth joined four other Federal parliamentary colleagues on Voyage Six on Icebird, in January and February 1989, as guests of the Antarctic Division for a resupply voyage to Mawson and Davis. The ALP was represented by Chynoweth, Peter Milton, Alan Morris and Colin Hollis. Ian Cameron, then member for Maranoa for the National Party, was the sole representative of the Coalition. All the Federal members (except Colin Hollis who was there representing the Parliamentary Public Works Committee) travelled south as members of a parliamentary committee preparing a report on tourism in Antarctica. At Davis Station, Chynoweth was part of a group flown to Platcha Hut, in the Vestfold Hills. On the evening of 1 February he tired of a vigorous political discussion in the hut with Milton, Cameron and the ANARE people there, and walked some distance away to sit by himself on a rock waiting for the moon to rise so he could photograph it against the background of the rocks and the ice cliffs that marked the inland border of the Vestfold Hills:

412

It was midnight, and the sun takes about an hour and a half to set. Just to say that you are the first person to sit in this place is awe inspiring. It made me more conscious of the environment than ever, and how lucky

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

we are to have places like this which haven’t been spoilt. That’s why we’ve got to hang on to them.3

Chynoweth later likened the experience to a kind of ‘sermon on the mount’. He had been ambivalent about the issue of signing the Minerals Convention before he went to Antarctica. At that moment, sitting on that rock in the Vestfold Hills, he decided to try and save it. He talked it over with Peter Milton later, and got his support. On his return to Australia he made up a folder of some of the photographs he’d taken in Antarctica, and sent it with a covering letter to all ministers and every member of caucus, pleading that the Minerals Convention not be ratified. As well, he presented a petition to Federal Parliament with more than 30 000 signatures. He was well aware of the significant support for ratifying CRAMRA, not only from the Department of Foreign Affairs, but from both Graham Richardson and Gareth Evans: Peter Milton and I decided to take the argument up with Richardson and Evans. They both said it couldn’t be done. Gareth said to me when I met him at Canberra Airport one day, ‘You won’t do it’. One day I was flying to Canberra with Peter Milton talking about the no-mining push. Andrew Peacock [then Liberal Shadow Treasurer] was sitting behind us, and he said, ‘I wish you people wouldn’t talk so loud’. Both major political parties were in agreement on the issue.

Events were moving swiftly. On 12 April there was a debate in the Senate, during which the Australian Democrats called on the Government not to sign CRAMRA but to promote an alternative regime based on the world park concept. By 20 April, Prime Minister Rocard announced in Paris that the French would not ratify CRAMRA as it stood. Then on 2 May, Leader of the Opposition John Howard announced that it was Coalition policy not to sign CRAMRA. On 3 May, the Senate passed a motion, supported by the Australian Democrats and Independents, against signing. The Labor caucus also opposed signing CRAMRA on 11 May. Australian delegates to the preparatory meeting for the 15th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Paris from 9 to 13 May were asked to informally sound out the views of other countries’ delegates to gauge what response there might be if Australia did not sign CRAMRA. Andrew Jackson, from the Antarctic Division, was a member of the delegation: What Australia was hinting at was a great threat to the stability of the Treaty system, and other nations just looked at us in horror. I remember the other delegations with whom we normally got on very well—like

413

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States—literally hissing at us! Even to this day we still feel some of the effects of us having broken the ranks.

The critical decision on Australia’s position was taken at the Cabinet meeting of 22 May in Canberra. By that stage Prime Minister Bob Hawke (after reviewing the arguments and taking advice from one of his most trusted advisers on economic and environmental matters, Craig Emerson) had decided Australia should not sign CRAMRA. The main opposition came from Gareth Evans, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Graham Richardson, the Environment Minister. Hawke: They pressed their arguments; a no-mining stance would damage Australia’s relations with our Antarctic Treaty partners; the convention was a fait accompli and we would be ridiculed internationally; rearguard opposition was pointless as the work had already been done; whether we liked it or not, the new treaty had to be ratified for reasons of realpolitik.4

The Prime Minister said he refused to accept these arguments, and announced that Australia was going to try to lead the world on the issue and change the world’s thinking on it. He believed his view was in tune with a growing anxiety around the world on global environment issues such as the impact of greenhouse gases and the damage to the ozone layer: I felt the general public was years ahead of bureaucrats and governments in such matters and that we could advance the right case on a rising tide of public opinion which, in the end, the bureaucrats and their political masters would not be able to withstand. And so, with an amused tolerance, and almost total scepticism, the Cabinet let me have my head. We announced that Australia would not sign CRAMRA and that we would seek the agreement of our Antarctic Treaty partners to replace that convention with a new agreement which would provide for a comprehensive protection of Antarctica as a ‘Nature Reserve—Land of Science’.5

Graham Richardson’s memory of that Cabinet meeting was that Paul Keating argued strongly on economic rather than environmental grounds:

414

When it came to the Cabinet discussion Keating was the key figure—he was the one who turned it. . .Keating was in full flight, and he did it very, very well. . .Hawke ran with Keating. Why wouldn’t he?

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

The first step in what Hawke dubbed his ‘Mission Impossible’ was to enlist the support of the French. Australia had supported the South Pacific Forum in condemning French policy in New Caledonia, but the election in 1988 of the Socialist Prime Minister, Michel Rocard, had eased tensions—particularly with the signing of the Matignon Accords which set out the steps towards a referendum in 1998 on the future status of New Caledonia. In June 1989 Hawke flew to France, where he met the great international environmentalist Jacques Cousteau, a man he had long admired: There was a mutual sense of excitement as we joined forces in pledging to take on the world. Cousteau had already spoken to [President] Mitterrand, and promised to speak to him again before I met the President the next morning; he had already spoken with Rocard. Jacques was enthusiastic about our strategy of mounting the international campaign around the concept of making Antarctica a ‘Nature Reserve—Land of Science’.6

The odds seemed extremely long against international agreement to abandon CRAMRA. On 28 June 1989, while the Prime Minister was overseas trying to enlist other Treaty countries’ support, the Australian editorialised about ‘The futility of the Federal Government’s political posturing on Antarctica’, and concluded: After London and Washington, Mr Hawke should realise just how isolated he is on the issue, and just how hopeless is his tilting at windmills. He should, for a moment, think beyond the ALP’s wooing of the ‘green vote’ and sign the convention before the deadline.7

Hawke had a polite hearing from the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, but no promise of support. ‘Margaret tended to be suspicious of anything sponsored by the French. . .’ In Washington President Bush was equally polite, but ‘locked into the position of his officials who were among the most unrelenting proponents of CRAMRA’. Hawke was encouraged, however, by a meeting with Senator Al Gore (later US vice-president) who believed that public opinion could be mobilised behind the Australian–French proposal.8 Australia embarked on a massive diplomatic effort. Foreign Affairs doubled the size of the Antarctic Section and sent people all around the world. Andrew Jackson: They had their foreign missions all lobbying for our position. That would not have been sufficient on its own. What had changed the Government’s position in Australia was public opinion, and public opinion had to be

415

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

changed in other countries as well. We had the most unusual position of the Government and the NGOs [non-government organisations] all lobbying for a common position! We had a very close liaison between the Government and Greenpeace, and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) working in other countries.

The diplomatic campaign for a new agreement continued throughout 1990 and Australia had attracted some support, but not of the key powers. Andrew Jackson remembers a very long and difficult meeting in November at Vina del Mar in Chile, with seemingly little prospect of reaching an agreement: Australia was very much persona non grata here—we were really despised. We were often taken into smoke-filled rooms and basically abused by the heavyweights from some of these delegations trying to get us to break down our position and to weaken the solidarity of the ‘no mining’ countries. This was a real difficulty, as the four countries [Australia, France, Belgium and Italy] didn’t agree on some fundamental issues themselves, but we had to present ourselves as being totally united!

There was at least agreement that negotiations should keep going, and that there should be a Protocol rather than a Convention. A further meeting was scheduled for Madrid in April 1991, immediately before the preparatory meeting of the 16th Treaty session. Intense lobbying continued, and Japan and the United States did not agree to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) until June 1991. The Antarctic Division’s Rex Moncur played a key role in these negotiations: I had some terrible slanging matches with the US. . .[they] were just so negative to anything that Australia put forward. [It] is US broad policy not to bind the US to anything as it doesn’t have to be bound to. . .they want as much flexibility in anything that they can ever have. And so the idea that they might be prevented from mining in Antarctica was, just in broad principle, contrary to their views.

At the last moment, the United States refused to agree to the formula on a review of the crucial mining prohibition. The Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, intervened personally, both writing to and telephoning US President George Bush:

416

I was able always to talk with George on a rational basis. . .it was the intrinsic merit of the case, and also the question of leadership. I pointed out the experience they’d had in Alaska [with the Exxon Valdez oil spill]

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

and that not only was this case important, but this was something that there should be leadership from the United States on, rather than negativism.

Hawke’s initiative was fruitful. On 4 July, President Bush announced that the US would agree to the Protocol effectively banning any mining in Antarctica for 50 years. Prime Minister Hawke went further, saying it would be virtually impossible to begin mining after the 50-year ban: I think Australia is to be congratulated with France on the way in which we have stuck to our guns. Largely as a result of the initiative by Australia. . .that great wilderness in the Antarctic is going to be preserved.9

Only the formalities remained. On 3 October, the final Special Consultative Meeting in Madrid agreed to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, designating Antarctica as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science—as well as four annexes relating to environmental impact assessment, conservation of Antarctic fauna and flora, waste management and disposal and the prevention of marine pollution. (A fifth annexe on area protection and management was negotiated in Bonn at an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in October 1991.) Australia had played a key role in overturning CRAMRA and substituting the Protocol on Environmental Protection. Yet the haste with which the Protocol had been drafted had resulted in a document which, in the opinion of negotiators like Andrew Jackson, was full of legal loopholes, vague language and ‘weasel words’—ways out of your obligations: Compared to CRAMRA, the Madrid Protocol is a political document full of broad objectives and intentions, but very thin on detail about how things would actually happen. CRAMRA, on the other hand, was a very simple document in political terms, but enormously detailed in terms of legal precision. It was very carefully drafted.

The Madrid Protocol was negotiated just in time for the Antarctic Treaty meeting in Bonn to adopt a formal declaration recognising the 30th anniversary of the Treaty on 18 October. The Protocol was cited as ‘a fitting tribute to the anniversary’ and a symbol of the way in which Treaty parties had worked in Antarctica ‘in a uniquely successful agreement for the peaceful use of a continent’.10 Jackson: There never was the review which had been allowed for in the Treaty. Of course, by the end of all this the Treaty nations were all punch drunk

417

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

with the negotiations! We have seen a very quiet time in the Treaty system since then.*

Ros Kelly took over from Graham Richardson as Minister for the Environment on 4 April 1990. She did not have a quiet time. During the negotiations for the Madrid Protocol, Australia agreed to remove its husky dogs from Mawson Station to comply with strict new environmental guidelines on introduced species in Antarctica. It was an emotional issue—not made any less so by a statement from Graham Richardson in 1988 that the huskies would stay in Antarctica. This followed criticism by Greenpeace representative Lyn Goldsworthy of the dogs as an ‘alien species’, of the fouling of the area near the dog lines, and of their penchant for ‘regular mauling of penguins silly enough to stray close to the dog line or not quick enough to escape when the dogs are free’.11 There had been howls of protest from dog-loving expeditioners and many letters written to the ANARE Club’s magazine Aurora and other publications. The Antarctic Division’s director, Rex Moncur, was well aware of Richardson’s statement on the Mawson huskies: We actually responded [at the time by] writing to the ANARE Club saying, ‘The minister has made a decision that we will keep the dogs’. So when it came to negotiating the Madrid Protocol at Vina del Mar, we had an annexe that was all about flora and fauna and the concern was to avoid introduced species. And being aware that my minister had made a decision about the dogs, I had to say, ‘Well, Australia needs an exception to this. And while we acknowledge the problem of introduced species, we want to keep the dogs we’ve already got. And because of the problem of inbreeding, we want a mechanism whereby we can bring additional dogs.’

When the next round of negotiations began in Madrid in April 1991, the Americans—who were irritated by Australia’s about-face on CRAMRA—homed in on the issue of the huskies in Antarctica. Moncur: The American representative, Bob Hoffman, pointed out that there had been examples of transfer of canine distemper to seals in the Northern Hemisphere and he was very concerned about having dogs transfer it. And he was also concerned that you just can’t have a special case for the dogs that are there at present. If you’re going to allow dogs, there might be other people who might want to take dogs. . .then disease could get transferred.

418

* By February 1997, 23 of the 26 Treaty parties involved in drawing up the Madrid Protocol had ratified it. The United States, Japan and Russia were yet to do so. Although all Treaty parties have agreed to abide by the provisions of the Protocol, it will not be formally binding until it is ratified by all parties.

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

The only nations with dogs in Antarctica were Australia, Argentina and Britain. When Britain agreed to remove its dogs, Moncur knew Australia’s position was becoming extremely weak: Here we are trying to push this most stringent environmental regime, and we’re holding out on one issue of wanting an exception to the introduced species criteria. So I said to myself, ‘We’re going to have to change. That’s the only way we’re going to get the Madrid Protocol.’

Moncur consulted with Argentina’s negotiators, and discovered they were prepared to remove their dogs to enable a consensus. He got in touch with Tony Blunn, the Secretary of the Environment Department, and asked him to get a decision from Ros Kelly to reverse Graham Richardson’s ministerial decision. Kelly agreed, and Australia announced its decision to pull its huskies out of Antarctica. There was immediate outrage from the ANARE Club and all those who had wintered with or worked with the Mawson huskies. A ferocious campaign was begun to try to have the decision reversed. Ros Kelly remembers it as the most intense and highest profile of all the issues that arose in her entire time as Minister for the Environment: The intensity of it caught me by surprise—I even had people crying on the telephone! It was a very emotive issue, and logic just didn’t come into it. There was really no alternative action for us to have taken. If we had not agreed to bring the dogs out, the whole negotiation process for the Madrid Protocol would have collapsed.

Opponents of the decision to remove the huskies from Mawson pointed out that the dogs had been isolated in the pristine Antarctic working environment for 41 years ‘with no record of acquiring, carrying or transmitting disease and it is ludicrous to suggest that they could now introduce diseases’.12 As to the threat to wildlife, the taking of seals for dog food was abandoned in 1982. Huskies were an important historical link with the past, they were still the safest way of travelling over sea ice or crevassed territory, and were an important boost for morale for wintering ANARE expeditioners. Questions were asked in Federal Parliament, petitions presented, and articles written for magazines and daily newspapers. Moncur, who had gone as far as he could to retain the huskies, was unimpressed by some of the tactics used: The ANARE Club in Canberra—just prior to an election—went around with photographs of these dogs interviewing little children in the ten to fourteen age group and saying, ‘Your local MP Ros Kelly is proposing to take these lovely dogs out of Antarctica where they have been all

419

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

their lives. . .’ And the kids made comments like, ‘Our Member is being dreadful. Isn’t she mean, taking the dogs away from their homes and their mothers.’ I thought it was far too extreme. Ros stuck to the decision through all of this, and it was a horrendous campaign on her.

There were even suggestions that all the huskies would be shot, which was not true (although individual, old huskies had been put down by a combination of shooting and humane injections for many years). Under the terms of the Madrid Protocol, all dogs were to be out of Antarctica by 1 April 1994. As it happened, they went sooner rather than later. The Antarctic Division wanted the dogs kept together as working teams, with living conditions as close as possible to those they had experienced in Antarctica. The preferred option was an outdoor recreation and educational establishment near Ely, Minnesota, but places could not be guaranteed for the dogs after December 1992.13 Aurora Australis took the nineteen youngest dogs and three pups from Mawson on 4 November 1992, leaving six of the older dogs for another year. A film, The Last Husky, was made documenting the journey from Mawson to Minnesota. Rex Moncur had been quoted in the Independent newspaper, London, as saying that ‘the only problem we expect at first is that they may be frightened of trees’. As viewers of that documentary now know, the Antarctic huskies reacted to their first ever trees in Minnesota by marking them instinctively in true doggy style. With images of the huskies cheerfully pulling sledges of sightseers through snow-filled woods, and housed in wooden kennels (instead of staked out in the open as they had been at Mawson), press and public interest in the huskies waned (much to the relief of the beleaguered Antarctic Division and Ros Kelly). The ANARE Club’s virulent campaign subsided and turned towards nostalgia and the celebration of 41 continuous years of working with and enjoying the company of huskies in Antarctica. Much of this nostalgia was captured in a book published in 1995, Huskies in Harness—A Love Story in Antarctica, edited by Shelagh Robinson. With the Madrid Protocol agreed to, and his own position as director confirmed, Rex Moncur turned his attention to the Antarctic Division’s priorities for the 1990s: There was a clear need to give far more emphasis to the environment. Australia had led the rest of the world with France, but Australia was primarily responsible in setting up this comprehensive protection of the Antarctic wilderness. . .we needed to give leadership. . .so part of the focus was the environment.

420

At a meeting in Canberra to discuss the future directions of the division, Minister for the Environment Ros Kelly stated that research into

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

global change was a priority. Moncur: This clearly linked very much into a lot of the work we were doing. So I then combined the importance of protecting the Antarctic environment with the importance of understanding global change as goals.

Moncur began to encourage debate on the Antarctic Division’s future goals through his membership on the board of the Antarctic Foundation, talking to seminars and interested parties like the ANARE Club and meeting staff throughout the division. He referred to the original policy aims set by the Menzies Government back in the 1960s which set great store on sovereignty, and the strategic importance of Antarctica to Australia—an issue which had diminished in importance following the end of the ‘cold war’:

TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION ON THE HELI DECK OF AURORA AUSTRALIS FOR MAWSON’S HUSKIES AS THEY LEAVE

ANTARCTICA EN ROUTE FOR THEIR NEW HOME IN

MINNESOTA, USA, NOVEMBER 1992. (J DALLAS)

If we could no longer pursue our interests through sovereignty—which was clearly impractical—we had to pursue them through the Antarctic Treaty system. So having a stronger role and influence in the Treaty system was fundamental to achieving Australia’s interests. And undertaking science had to my mind become much more important. First of all because it was clear that Antarctica was critical to understanding global change; secondly it was still of enormous practical importance for weather forecasting; and thirdly because science was essential to underpinning management decisons aimed at the protection of the Antarctic environment.

Following the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) review of the Antarctic Division and its performance in 1989, the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee (ASAC), then chaired by Professor Neville Fletcher, was asked to assess the division’s scientific productivity after some criticism at the PAC that it was not as high as it should be. It had even been suggested that the division should not undertake its own

421

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

T

he following excerpts are from an essay ‘A Love Affair In Antarctica’ by Tom Maggs—one of the many ANARE expeditioners who contributed their memories of the huskies to the book Huskies in Harness. Doggers, you left the dogs behind at Mawson, and they make the place complete. They passed down their bloodlines, the shifts of the wind, the creak of the heaving ice, and a million small doggy footsteps at the service of us all. . .‘The huskies’ belonged to Mawson, just as surely as the Opera House does to Sydney, as Uluru does to central Australia, or as Clancy does to the Overflow. . . . . .You can see the little buggers leaping, and you can hear them yelping and hooting, squealing and barking out their excited welcome, and you feel the hair on your neck rise. . . ‘They’re OK, they won’t bite humans but you’ve got to pat them all’, your guide says, and you start methodically with the first one on the lines, and he leaps and grabs at your shoulders. He splats those big hairy, pooey feet on your clean ventiles, for God’s sake, and he puts his nose in your mouth and his tongue in your nose, and he headbutts your sunglasses off your face, and he squeals and sings his welcome and his joy at you. And you do the whole line, you do it all. . .and they are all the same, full of life and joy and energy. . . As your time passes at Mawson. . .occasionally if you’re lucky, a massed exalted howling, a spine chilling song of the soul, when every dog raises its head, lays back its ears, and sings its heart to the aurora, or the moon, and its dog spirit. . .and by God you’d better be there, and you had better sing too. . .raise your head and hit

JIM MILNE CUDDLES NEMARLUK AGED ABOUT 18 MONTHS ON THE MAWSON DOG LINE, 1978. (AAD ARCHIVES)

that note that sets them off, and you close your eyes and come together in a spine tingling hymn of being. . . Where do we doggers tell about our dogs?. . .Where do we tell of the dogs singing to the katabatic, of the awe at a first-time mother eating her puppies, or the dark abyss of Charlie’s courageous black eyes? How do you describe the trembling and the fumbling as you check the chamber of the .38? The tightening in your chest and the lump in your throat as you pat, then stand beside and take aim at that big furry head? The guilt you carry like a beacon when you return past the dog lines to the station alone, and the lying awake and the tears you have to hide for nights afterwards. . .? ➤

T

Did you say your farewells to the boys properly before you left Mawson?. . .make sure you get those memories out now and then. . .share those feelings with your best friends, and those who’ll understand. Let the boys all choose their places, let them tangle up their traces, let them fight and bark and pull and sing along. Let it all return, that rage and laughter, joy and sorrow, boundless energy and fatigue. And keep alive that bond the Mawson huskies formed with you and your dogging mates. Remember the huskies.14

AUSTRALIAN SLEDGE DOGS IN ANTARCTICA: A CHRONOLOGY 1947

British offered Labrador huskies from their Antarctic Peninsula operations to Australia; offer declined after long negotiations because of logistics and quarantine complications. 1948 The British Labrador dogs (donated to the French by the Governor of the Falkland Islands) and additional Greenland huskies obtained by French Antarctic Expedition for use at station to be established in Adélie Land. 1949–50 French expedition arrived in Melbourne after failing to reach Antarctic coast. Huskies placed in quarantine at Melbourne Zoo for winter, and dogs not needed by French, along with pups born over winter, acquired by Australian Government for training and use at Heard Island prior to establishment of Antarctic station.

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

1950

On 15 January, twelve huskies loaded in Melbourne aboard HMS Labuan, arriving at Atlas Cove, Heard Island, on 5 February. 1951 Further sixteen dogs shipped from Melbourne Zoo to Atlas Cove. ‘Oscar’ born at Heard Island. 1953 Heard Island dog population about 60. 1954 On 21 January, 30 huskies loaded aboard Kista Dan to be landed at Mawson 9 February 1955. 1957 On 19 February, dogs landed at Davis, including Oscar, then six years old. 1959–62 Alaskan Malamute dogs at Wilkes transferred to Australian care when station became a joint Australian– US establishment. Oscar moved from Davis, via a short sojourn in Melbourne Zoo, to Wilkes, where he fathered more than 50 pups before dying in a blizzard in 1962. 1962 Two New Zealand dogs backloaded from Scott Base to Mawson to improve bloodlines. 1963 Three Greenland huskies shipped to Mawson and Davis aboard Nella Dan. 1965 Davis Station temporarily closed and dog operations ended. 1969 Wilkes closed and operations transferred to newly completed Casey. Dog operations end soon after. 1979 Three dogs from Scott Base sent over on C130 flight to Casey and two shipped on to Mawson. (The Casey pet dog was put down shortly after.) ➤

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

1986

1992

1993

A N A R E

Hobart-bred dog Jock and Alaskan Malamute added to breeding stock at Mawson. On 4 November, nineteen dogs, all of Mawson’s working huskies, plus three pups taken aboard Aurora Australis bound for Hobart and then by air to Los Angeles, USA, before road journey to Ely, Minnesota. On 15 December 1993 the last five older dogs left Mawson on Aurora Australis for Hobart and private adoption in Tasmania and Victoria.

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

In 1974 a husky named Cactus was sent from Mawson to Davis Station as a pet. He was a mixed blessing for the Davis winterers, who split into two camps—Cactus haters and Cactus lovers. During the winter Cactus (who was stone deaf) slipped his collar and escaped. Remarkably, he survived for several months in the wild before being found, proving that a husky can live through the winter without human aid. Senior biologist Knowles Kerry is not sure how Cactus did it: ‘He may have eaten dead penguins, or managed to find the Amanda emperor penguin rookery.’ Cactus was put down early in 1975.

scientific programs, but simply provide logistic support for research in Antarctica carried out by university scientists. A sub-committee chaired by Fletcher, assisted by Professor Roye Rutland and Professor Michael Bryden, conducted an extensive review, interviewing many members of ANARE inside and outside the division. Its conclusions and recommendations were published in its 1992 report, ‘Antarctic Science—The Way Forward’. Fletcher, Rutland and Bryden found that criticisms of the division’s scientific programs and its performance aired at the PAC could not be sustained. In fact the division’s research performance was creditable compared to that of other nations, and the published output of both the division’s and outside scientists had increased by about a factor of two over the previous five years. Fletcher: [The sub-committee] saw a clear continuing role both for the division and for scientists from outside agencies in the ANARE program, but also saw a clear necessity for a more carefully planned approach to Antarctic science programs if the best scientific output was to be achieved.

424

They recommended the upgrading of the position of Assistant Director (Science) to Chief Scientist for ANARE, the appointment of several senior scientists, and the expansion of the division’s scientific personnel numbers—these extras to be covered by decreases in logistic expenditure with the winding down of the station rebuilding program. The ASAC report stressed that the first priority should be given to research that ‘primarily relates to studies of global and regional change

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

(particularly climatic change), the management of the marine ecosystem and associated data gathering and monitoring’. This influential ASAC report recommended some fundamental changes to the way the Antarctic Division organised its science program: The total Antarctic program should be restructured into six principal sub-programs concerned with Atmospheric Sciences, Biological Sciences, Glaciology, Oceanography, Geosciences and Human Impacts respectively. Lead agencies should be given responsibility for coordinating each of these sub-programs. . .15

These new directions were approved by the Government and welcomed by Rex Moncur. In 1993 the Cabinet reviewed the Antarctic program and agreed to the following key goals which derive from both the debate which Moncur had stimulated and the recommendations of the ASAC report: • • • •

understanding global climate change; protecting the Antarctic environment (including the marine ecosystem); obtaining information of practical importance; and maintaining the Antarctic Treaty system and Australia’s influence in it.16

Strategic plans for all areas were developed during 1994 and 1995, and program leaders progressively appointed. The 1995–96 season was the first during which the new arrangements were fully implemented into the ANARE program. Meanwhile, through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the rhythm of annual resupply and the support of scientific programs had been proceeding despite the trauma of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee inquiry and administrative angst caused by leaked documents (and other information) to politicians and senior officials outside the division, aimed—according to assistant director of the Antarctic Division Jack Sayers—at undermining senior management: Initially the leaks were targeted at Jim Bleasel, but later other members of the management team, including Rex Moncur and myself, were included in the net. . .Some of the anonymous actions were particularly malicious and cowardly. . .

Although Sayers was aware the allegations were aimed at undermining particular individuals, he claims the real effect was to cause serious damage to the division’s public image, and place an enormous work load on those who had to prepare extensive briefs and reports as rebuttals:

425

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

W

A N A R E

hen ANARE first went to Heard Island in 1947, it was intended to establish a base at Spit Bay, on the eastern end of the island, but bad weather and the exposed coast forced the landing to be relocated to Atlas Cove in the north-west. It would be 45 years before Spit Bay would see a wintering ANARE party. Although there had been three summer visits from 1985–1988, a short winter visit to the island in May and June 1990, led by biologist Ken Green, had revealed a surprisingly high number of seals on the eastern end of the island in winter—about 1700 Antarctic fur seals and 4500 elephant seals. Green and Harry Burton, manager of the Antarctic Division’s land-based biology program, believed a year-long study of these animals, as well as of king penguins, was warranted—particularly in view of potential competition for food resources between the Heard Island animals and any future commercial fishing. The Antarctic Science Advisory Committee found the proposal had scientific merit and recommended that it go ahead. Green and Burton argued that it would cost only $70 000 to link two summer programs to a wintering one. They proposed a base camp comprised of four ‘Apple’ huts (circular portable fibreglass constructions), one ‘Melon’ (an extended Apple), and a portable toilet and shower unit. This equipment was purchased and packed by October of the preceding year by Green and field equipment and training officer Rod Ledingham for a four-person party. But according to John Wilson, the division’s chief engineer, their cost estimate would have had the team ‘living in tents and washing in the surf’. Wilson approached research and development engineer Attila Vrana to apply for the position of expedition leader, and his

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

subsequent application was unanimously accepted by the expedition planning committee on the basis that Vrana would also provide technical support for the party. Wilson and Vrana were interested in testing new field designs for a wind electricity generator and a fibreglass ‘Googie’ field hut for extreme conditions—an elliptical module supported above the ground by a tubular steel structure. On this basis, Vrana costed a wintering expedition at $1.5 million, including shipping and other infrastructure costs. The Antarctic Division decided to proceed with the program, but Ken Green feared that the project was being hijacked by the division’s engineering section. Green had led the 1990 expedition. He then worked for two years to convince the Antarctic Division that the winter expedition of 1992 was worth doing. Consequently he was particularly upset when the Division appointed Vrana as the field leader. Green told Vrana he should not have accepted the field leader’s position, and asked him to stand down. Vrana (who had been appointed while Green was away on Macquarie Island) refused to do so. Personal relations between the two men were cool, and remained so throughout the expedition. The proposal to use one Googie was somehow expanded to four Googies and a large fibreglass shed as a store (as well as four Apples and a Melon) for base camp accommodation; this meant that preparations took longer than planned. Vrana had to stay behind when Aurora Australis left for Heard Island on 9 January 1992 with the other four members of the party, Green, Dave Slip, Geoff Moore and the doctor, Erwin Erb. In a repeat of the 1947 experience, bad weather forced the ship to land the party at Atlas Cove instead of Spit ➤

426

T

Bay. There they conducted what studies they could for four weeks, broken by a visit by Aurora Australis on 12 and 13 February. Meanwhile Attila Vrana had boarded Icebird with field huts and equipment, visiting Davis and Mawson stations before arriving at Atlas Cove on 22 February. Icebird then sailed for Spit Bay where relatively good weather allowed all huts, equipment and supplies to be ferried ashore by a combination of amphibious LARCs and helicopters. Erecting the buildings took seven days, with the help of ten Antarctic construction workers on their way home. Because of weight restrictions, the four big Googies were shipped in an unfinished state and Vrana had to complete them after the ship’s departure, adding their electrics and plumbing. Tools for installation and maintenance of the expedition’s huts were in very short supply because the tool kit had been misplaced on the ship (it was found among the ship’s tools a year later). A single precious screwdriver was dubbed ‘the most treasured tool on the island’. Adding to the party’s woes were a lack of petrol for the power generator, and a communications problem that prevented telex traffic between the island and the division’s communications centre in Tasmania. These difficulties were not resolved until Aurora Australis made a special detour to the island carrying fuel and replacement radio-telex equipment on its return from Davis in March. Vrana’s work on the base camp took some months to complete, and he was unable to begin to set up the wind generator until spring. However, when finally installed in mid-November, the wind generator operated satisfactorily for three months until a gale on 1 February temporarily put it out of action. While operational it produced over 5000 kilo-

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

A SQUIRREL HELICOPTER ABOUT TO LIFT A PORTABLE GOOGIE HUT OFF ICEBIRD, HEARD ISLAND, 1992. (K GREEN)

watt hours of energy and except during calm or very windy periods carried the full electrical energy demand of the base. (The same unit, after a minor welding repair, operated at head office and subsequently at Casey for a whole year.) It was an idea worth pursuing in the light of increasing pressure on ANARE to seek alternative energy sources. The other buildings, though their construction had caused so many difficulties, were appreciated. Moore found the controversial Googies ‘good in a big blow’: They [all] felt more secure than the Apples, and made working in the labs and living more comfortable. This was particularly true ➤ 427

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

when you were trying to use the computers. At least they stayed dry! But the social situation at Spit Bay was far from promising. Ken Green’s relationship with Vrana was the main concern, although fortunately Green was away from the base camp most of the time working on macaroni penguins near Winston Lagoon. The other biologists, Dave Slip and Geoff Moore, lived simply at Doppler Hill three kilometres to the south of Spit Bay, using a gas cooker and 12-volt lighting. Green exchanged few words with Vrana when back at Spit Bay, but tensions came to a head when Green judged that Vrana had failed to pass on quickly enough his wife’s wedding anniversary greetings. Green: Words were said, blows nearly came to fruition and a frosty, formal communication that had existed between us for eleven months ended, and we did not speak to each other for the next four months—or since for that matter. Geoff Moore felt the tension keenly as he, Green and Vrana were the only three wanting to climb Big Ben, the active volcano on Heard, and he was on good terms with both men. Moore found Erwin Erb to be ‘the most selfcontained individual I have ever met—a truly wonderful man’ and noted that Dave Slip ‘was immune to most things, and let the tension pass over him without getting involved’. But in the entire year the five men had only one meal together —Moore’s birthday on 21 May. Despite the space age accommodation, living was basic and far removed from the normal ANARE station life of the 1990s. During winter the Heard Islanders had to crack ice out

A SMALL TOWNSHIP OF FIELD HUTS AT SPIT BAY, HEARD ISLAND, 1992. (K GREEN)

of the creek near the lagoon, carry it back to camp and melt it down. Like the sealers a century earlier, they augmented their frozen rations with Kerguelen cabbage as a flavoursome antiscorbutic. All but Erb (a Swiss) used skis all winter, and all stayed very fit. A stitched finger which Ken Green injured while cutting through a container was Erb’s only major medical case—apart from consistent dentistry from the cold conditions and sugar-rich diet. Most of all, Heard Island in 1992 was an experience of raw nature in one of the world’s wildest places. Geoff Moore found it astounding: It was the last of the great ANARE adventures. You travelled independently over the glaciers and around the coastline. . .You have to be alone in this wild, furious landscape to realise the insignificance of the individual. It’s like going to the moon. . . Big Ben erupted during the year and steam ➤

428

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

from the crater 2745 metres above could be seen clearly on the rare clear days. On 18 December all the huts began to shake, and all five men had the same thought—an elephant seal was trapped under the supporting scaffolding. Green: Only then did it occur to us that it was an earthquake. Pumice, washed ashore over the next few days, confirmed that it was an undersea volcanic eruption between Heard and the McDonald Islands only 35 kilometres away. One of many rewarding parts of Moore’s year on Heard Island was spending the winter living with the animals and observing the seasonal changes such as the arrival of the bull elephant seals, courtships, couplings and births, and the raising of young. Moore has vivid recollections of the king penguins raising their chicks through the harsh winter and the enormous numbers of macaroni penguins arriving at Long Beach ‘to transform the desert landscape within a week to a colony of a million penguins’. He also recalls his experiences in passing through 15 000 fur seals, mostly aggressive males, between Spit Bay and his Doppler Hill field camp: At first I was intimidated, but I ended up fairly blasé about it. You learn to understand their personal space—I just put up my foot and they always backed off. In the winter they get cheeky, it’s hilarious. They love snow and will toboggan down the slopes at you! The winterers’ experience came to an end with the arrival of Icebird on 10 March 1993.

WORKING WITH ELEPHANT SEALS AT SPIT BAY, HEARD ISLAND, 1992. (K GREEN)

For a week the ship stood off Spit Bay while virtually all trace of the expedition was removed from the site, leaving the island once more to itself. For two of the biologists, the end came all too quickly—Green’s and Slip’s contracted positions with the division ended only six months after they returned, although in Moore’s estimation ‘they needed at least two and a half years to write it up adequately. . .Ken is still writing his results up in his own time’. On the whole the participants found the 1992 Heard Island wintering well worthwhile. To Vrana, it was enjoyable, unusual and exciting, though he had some regrets: ➤ 429

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

It could have been one of the best years in our lives for all of us! We could even have climbed the mountain together, but it was a fairly lonely year. . .I would have felt less lonely if I had been there alone than I was there that year with that group. For Green, the expedition demonstrated that good science could be done by a small team with few home comforts. Despite the personal friction, he is adamant that the winter of 1992 was the best of his eight years with ANARE:

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

The freedom on Heard Island was absolute. You lived or died by your own decisions. . .and because of that you treated the environment with respect. It had more than just wildlife for me. I totally immersed myself in its history, searching out undocumented sealers’ ruins and a water reticulation system that still worked in winter one hundred years on. Wherever you went the mountain was always there, dominating your life as it dominated the weather. . .I would do the fourteen months all over again.

A number of us felt particularly bitter because proponents of this game caused considerable costs to the taxpayer. . .yet were able to hide comfortably behind their anonymity. Despite all the allegations and leaks, there was never any indication of dishonesty or misdemeanour.

Some of these allegations surfaced at the Public Accounts Committee hearings and involved chartering arrangements for the German-owned ship Icebird. During the late 1980s there were a number of serious contractual difficulties with Icebird, which Sayers remembers as an ‘ongoing series of nightmares’: I recall that in the middle of one shipping season [1988–89], a dispute between the owners and a former owner-manager of the ship almost resulted in the ship being detained and placed under arrest in Hobart. Thankfully this did not happen—otherwise we would have faced enormous logistics problems in resupplying and changing over our personnel at our stations.

430

In 1991, with the station rebuilding program still unfinished, it became necessary to renegotiate the charter of Icebird to complement Aurora Australis in carrying out the scientific and logistic aims of the Division. The ownership of Icebird had changed since 1988 and its former ownermanager Guenther Schulz offered the division another ice-strengthened vessel used by the Russian Antarctic program, Akademik Federov. Sayers recalls taking part in events that were ‘more like the plot of a spy thriller than a government tendering process’. After high-level discussions with a number of government agencies it was agreed that the authenticity of the offer could only be resolved by face-to-face discussions with the principals involved. Sayers:

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

I was despatched to Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and Hamburg in an attempt to resolve the matter. I went to see the deputy director of the Russian Antarctic program who expressed great surprise that his ship was being offered to the Australian Antarctic Division. ‘How could this man offer the use of our ship, he doesn’t control the Russian Antarctic program!’, said the deputy director. My visit to Hamburg involved hurried meetings in back-street coffee shops, cars and airport lounges in my efforts to keep the protagonists apart and ferret out the truth.

The result was that Icebird was again chartered by the Antarctic Division. By early 1993, Rex Moncur was confident he had the support of Environment Minister Ros Kelly and Cabinet to carry through the Antarctic Division’s revised scientific program. But by mid-1993 he was told the division was about to face a substantial cut in its budget. Moncur recalls the departmental secretary, Stuart Hamilton, saying to him in Canberra: ‘Well, Ros has no choice. She’s decided to close an Antarctic station—and this can’t be made public.’ The situation was that the Expenditure Review Committee had told Ros, ‘Unless you turn up to the meeting [it was within a couple of days] with specific proposals to cut, we will not accept any of your new policy proposals’.

Faced with this bombshell, Moncur told Hamilton he would prepare a Cabinet submission advising on the implications of closing a station. But the news was even worse. Hamilton told Moncur that not only was a station to be closed, but there was to be a major review of the Antarctic program—with the clear implication it was to be cut even further. Rex Moncur returned to Hobart to consider a number of unpalatable options. Just at a time when ASAC had recommended additional expenditure on science positions and a strategic approach to science, he was faced with the closure of a station and a substantial reduction of ANARE activity. It was the beginning of a hectic two weeks of crisis planning, colloquially referred to in the division as ‘panic fortnight’, while various scenarios and models were considered. With the rebuilding program all but complete, one obvious saving was to dispense with the charter of Icebird and try to do everything with Aurora Australis. Moncur was aware that the Department of Finance did not think Icebird should be retained when the rebuilding of the stations was complete. However Aurora Australis, primarily designed as a marine research vessel, had a limited cargo capacity. There was also the issue of safety. With two ice-strengthened ships available, one could go to the aid of the other in the event of engine failure or besetment. With each of four stations requiring its own resupply visit through the summer season, marine science programs would be compromised. Ship days could be

431

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

REX LEONARD MONCUR, ASSOC. DIP.COM.ENG. (RMIT) Rex Moncur says he ‘grew up in Barry Humphries country’, beginning his education at Moonee Ponds West State School and moving on to Essendon High School before enrolling at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to study communications engineering. He left in 1962 to join the Bureau of Meteorology as an Observer Radio—responsible for flying meteorological balloons and seeing that the radiosondes they carried aloft worked. Within a year he became a Technical Assistant Grade 2 and finished off his engineering course begun at RMIT. Moncur: I reached Engineer Class 2 and was responsible for developing automatic weather stations, radiosondes, sea-surface temperature buoys—forerunners of today’s free-floating buoys deployed off our ships in Antarctica. The radiosondes I developed ultimately went to Antarctica and were used there until the early 1990s. There were other coincidental Antarctic connections. In the 1960s Moncur trialled his radiosonde systems from the vessel Thala Dan, chartered by the Antarctic Division. Later when his radiosonde research work was connected with rockets being tested at the Weapons Research Establishment in South Australia, the project was headed by Bryan Rofe, who became Director of the Antarctic Division in 1970. In 1972 when the Whitlam Labor Government came to power, the Department of Science was formed with Sir Hugh Ennor as the departmental secretary. He and his deputy Jack Lonergan introduced the then radical notion of ‘program budgeting’ under which organisations like the Bureau of

REX MONCUR—DIRECTOR OF THE ANTARCTIC DIVISION FROM DECEMBER 1988. (R REEVES)

Meteorology and the Antarctic Division had to state their objectives and then justify the funding of specific projects. Before program budgeting, Treasury allocated money to specified categories like salaries, stores, capital works or depreciation. Program budgeting’s architect, Jack Lonergan, maintained the old system made it difficult for an organisation to begin a new research program under the former traditional, inflexible financial categories. The new system, according to Lonergan, was ‘output oriented—that is, you identified what you wanted to achieve and how much it was going to cost to do it’. ➤

T

Moncur applied from Melbourne to join the Department of Science and help introduce program budgeting. He heard nothing until a telephone call on a Friday asking him to start in Canberra the following Monday. As Moncur was married with two young children at that stage, he asked if he could delay until the Wednesday! His responsibilities included the Ionospheric Prediction Service, then run by Clarrie McCue—who became the Antarctic Division’s director in 1979. After being made permanent in the Department of Science in 1975, Rex Moncur increased his contacts with the Antarctic Division and ANARE activities, often dealing with Ray Garrod, Director of the Antarctic Division from 1972–79. As Director, Projects, looking after grants to scientific bodies (and working with the secretariat of the Australian Research Grants Committee), Moncur had increasing contacts with academics and senior scientists with Antarctic interests—including John Lovering and Neville

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

Fletcher, both of whom chaired the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee (ASAC). By 1982 Moncur won the job of Assistant Secretary Resource Management for the Department of Science, work which involved liaising with the Department of Finance and the Public Service Board: At this time Jim Bleasel, recently appointed acting director of the Antarctic Division, was trying to get funding from the Department of Finance to allow for the charter of Icebird and I was working with him on this issue to convince Finance that the division should have this money. After approximately six months Bleasel asked Moncur if he would take the position of Deputy Director of the Antarctic Division, and he transferred to Hobart in January 1985. Rex Moncur was confirmed as director of the division in December 1989. He had the satisfaction of leading ANARE into its 51st year.

saved, however, if the Antarctic Division had the ability to fly personnel between Davis and Mawson with fixed wing aircraft—which could also service summer field parties in remote locations like the northern Prince Charles Mountains as had happened in the late 1950s with Beaver aircraft. Such flights would save on expensive, fuel-hungry overland traverses with tractor trains to establish the summer camps. The use of short take off and landing (STOL) Twin Otter aircraft was considered. These aircraft can be fitted with extra tanks for long hauls and have a useful cargo-carrying capacity. The Australian adventurer and businessman Dick Smith had helped ANARE out in the 1989–90 season, when he and his pilot Giles Kershaw landed on the sea ice near Icebird and flew personnel into the Prince Charles Mountains via Mawson. But a rock airstrip would have to be built near Davis in the Vestfold Hills (an expensive option), and the Twin Otters were too big to carry south on Aurora Australis. One option canvassed was to use long-range twin-engined Sikorsky 76 helicopters. Two of these machines could be carried south on Aurora Australis and would have the capacity not only to fly personnel

433

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

and cargo between stations, but to establish and support summer field parties in remote locations like the Bunger Hills near the Shackleton Ice Shelf. It was all very well designing cost-saving scenarios, but Moncur had been specially instructed to prepare plans to close a station. Moncur: ‘LEGOLAND’ IN ANTARCTICA, 1993. CASEY STATION IS THE FIRST OF THE THREE ANARE CONTINENTAL STATIONS TO BE COMPLETELY REBUILT.

(K BELL)

So I went back to Stuart Hamilton [the Environment Department Secretary] and said, ‘Look, you’ve told me I’ve got to close a station, but I have another way of producing the saving you want which is, I believe, in our interests. I’m also not keen to go through a major review of the Antarctic program which is going to take at least twelve months—yet another one—which is going to put the whole place in turmoil and uncertainty just as we were starting to get focused’.

The station-closing option was prepared for Cabinet, as well as the ‘one ship’ proposal with several variants. There was a budgetary sleight of hand about aspects of the one ship option of which Moncur was very aware: Part of the way I was achieving the saving was to use helicopter support out of Davis so that we didn’t have to have traverse support out of Mawson for field parties. That meant that we didn’t have to construct a great big workshop at Mawson and we could reduce the scale of it. Also part of the saving was achieved by running Macquarie Island as a small observatory station. . .therefore I was able to say [to the Department of Finance], ‘You’re going to save money in not rebuilding these things to the same level you otherwise would have’.

434

It was not a real saving because the division had not yet been given the money for this building work anyway—as the Department of Finance made clear to Moncur. But even so, the Government went along with the alternative plan, and all four ANARE stations stayed open. Moncur:

T

Even though the Government went for my best option, I didn’t get all the money that I thought I was going to get. You know, with hindsight there might have been some better tactical ways of handling that, but doing all this in two weeks with a very small group and with enormous pressure—I still think it was a terrific result.

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

ONE OF THE NEW GENERATION OF LONG-RANGE

A wide spectrum of the division’s staff did not immeTWIN-ENGINED S76 diately think so, and the ‘one ship option’ was seen as HELICOPTERS READY FOR a major loss for the ANARE program—coupled with TAKE-OFF FROM AURORA the added risk factors. Two long-range S76 helicopters AUSTRALIS, 1994. were chartered by Helicopter Resources and tests found (K BELL) they could just be accommodated in the hangar on Aurora Australis with a small hole cut in the steel door. Moncur was well aware he was on ‘thin ice’ operationally with the one ship option, although it was tested successfully in the 1994–95 season—the first year, coincidentally, that ANARE cargo operations had been conducted without the help of the army and their amphibious LARCs.* Moncur argues that the Aurora Australis gives the division significantly more capacity than it had before Icebird was chartered to help with the rebuilding program, and that the science program has not been compromised: What’s happened is we’ve moved from a situation where we had about thirty people at each of our stations over winter to something like twenty * In the 1995–96 season Aurora Australis was out of service for 32 days with mechanical problems which needed repair in dry dock at Fremantle. Fortunately another vessel was available to assist with resupply and marine science. It had been decided to charter a second ship every three years to assist with backloading rubbish from the stations, and carrying items of cargo too large for the hold capacity of Aurora Australis. Ironically that second ship was Icebird—now renamed Polar Bird and owned by the Norwegian shipping company Rieber.

435

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

people. . .we will be running sixty to eighty people at each station over summer. . .We are adapting the Antarctic program to the new goals. And in terms of science that means automating a lot of the observations we do over winter. . .but over summer, when people can move out from the stations, we will have a greater number of people in the field.

In March 1996 thirteen years of Federal Labor rule ended when Prime Minister Paul Keating’s administration was decisively defeated by the Liberal–National Party coalition headed by John Howard. Unlike previous changes of government during ANARE’s half century of operations, there was no dramatic departmental shift. The Antarctic Division remained under the Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories (DEST) with Senator Robert Hill as the responsible Cabinet minister, replacing Labor’s Senator John Faulkner. Prime Minister John Howard appointed a junior minister and a parliamentary secretary to assist in the management of this large portfolio, with the Tasmanian MHR Warwick Smith responsible for Sport and Territories and Senator Ian Campbell from Western Australia becoming parliamentary secretary overseeing the Antarctic Division and ANARE operations. The Howard Government came to power promising to rein in an ‘eight billion dollar black hole’ budget deficit. Having just survived budget cuts under Labor which had led to the ‘one ship option’, Rex Moncur knew that any further significant cuts would have disastrous consequences for ANARE. Eighty per cent of the division’s budget goes on the infrastructure required just to be in Antarctica—stations, shipping, helicopters and field operations—leaving only about 20 per cent for the cutting edge of science and policy work. Moncur was asked to prepare options for a range of cuts, up to several million dollars, and called to Canberra to explain to ministers Hill, Smith, Campbell and the new DEST secretary Roger Beal how he proposed to meet the cuts. Moncur: I said I was reluctant to cut field programs as these provided the regional survey capability necessary to understand the role of Antarctica in global climate change. Reducing ship time would also cut the marine component of these regional surveys.

436

The director was asked about the possibility of closing stations. He pointed out that not only did they all contribute to the support of the science programs, but if a station was closed it could not be mothballed or left there; it would have to be completely removed under Australia’s obligations to the Madrid Protocol on environmental protection. The associated costs would wipe out any savings for many years: ‘While this situation did not apply to Macquarie Island, Warwick Smith, as a Tasmanian,

T

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

was quick to see the political disadvantages of closing Macquarie.’ Moncur also told the DEST ministers that he and Neil Streten (from the Bureau of Meteorology) had just completed an ASACrecommended major review of the division’s resources to try to reallocate funds from support activities to scientific research. This review had located some $350 000 to fund five new research scientist positions AURORA AUSTRALIS BEGINS and upgrade a further five scientists to this level. While THE FIRST EVER MAJOR there was the option of not proceeding with these posiRESUPPLY OF DAVIS STATION tions, Moncur said it was essential to maintain the OVER THE SEA ICE, NOVEMBER division’s scientific momentum if the Government’s 1994. Antarctic goals were to be achieved. (K BELL) Evidence that the director’s arguments had been heeded was contained in the August 1996–97 Federal budget. While other elements of the public service were slashed, the division escaped relatively lightly. Moncur was told that the division would have to meet the 1 per cent efficiency dividend imposed by the previous Government ($450 000), the 2 per cent cut announced by the Coalition in its election platform ($900 000) and a further $400 000 as the division’s contribution to the ‘black hole’ budget deficit. The good news was that the Government remained committed to keeping the four ANARE stations and pursuing a substantial scientific program, allocating a total of $61 million to the Australian Antarctic program. Keeping the funding for the extra science positions was a notable achievement considering the staffing cuts in most other areas of the public service. The Antarctic Division still had to trim $1.75 million. One immediate casualty was the ground-based 1996–97 Prince Charles Mountains field program—although plans were prepared to experiment with supplying field parties by long-range helicopter in the Southern PCMs as an alternative. Other savings were to be made by reductions in field programs and ship time, and from administration. In reality the Antarctic Division had survived a tough budget with some belt-tightening—rather than the amputative surgery that might have been required. 437

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

W

‘

hen I say let go—jump! Trust me. I’m a Larcie.’ The motto was unofficial, but often shouted by soldiers manning the amphibious LARCs to nervous expeditioners descending a Jacob’s ladder from the side of a rolling ship at Buckles Bay, Macquarie Island. With the LARC often rising and falling on the swell for distances of three and four metres, it was essential to time the disengagement with the ladder perfectly. It was said—unkindly—that the more attractive the female expeditioner, the more ‘Larcie’ hands reached out to grab and secure the boarding passenger. On 28 March 1994 the Australian Army officially ended 46 years of continuous association with ANARE. In the summer of 1947–48 (following problems with landing cargo at Heard Island) army amphibious DUKWs were used

AN ARMY LARC IS UNLOADED OVER THE SIDE OF ICEBIRD. (N LOVIBOND)

AMPHIBIOUS ARMY DUKWS WERE FIRST USED ANARE SERVICE AT MACQUARIE ISLAND IN 1948. (I FOX)

ON

to ferry passengers and cargo ashore to establish the ANARE station on the isthmus at Macquarie Island. The World War II DUKWs were ideal for the job, as they could not only negotiate rough seas and surf, but carry their cargo directly to the station site.* (DUKW was Army code for: D—date of manufacture; U—utility; K—front wheel drive; W—with winch.) These rugged all-purpose vehicles were effectively 6-tonne GMC trucks with a ➤

438

* The versatility of the DUKW was shown in the summer of 1954–55 when it was used as a support vehicle for an ascent of Mt Henderson, behind Mawson Station. It actually fell into a crevasse, but was winched out!17

T

boat’s hull built around them. They were used at both Macquarie and Heard Islands, and also on the Antarctic continent from 1955 to ferry heavy cargo ashore through open water to the stations when ice conditions permitted. Their crews were known to ANARE expeditioners as ‘Duckies’. In the summer of 1970–71 a LARC (Lighter Amphibious Resupply Cargo—with a load capacity of 5 tonnes) was tested at Macquarie alongside the DUKWs. While the DUKW was essentially a truck with a hull around it, the LARC was a purpose-designed boat with wheels. (The LARC was designed in the United States in the early 1960s for operations in the Mekong Delta in the early stages of the Vietnam War.) Its seaworthiness can be judged by the first circumnavigation of Macquarie Island by LARC in eighteen hours, during the 1976–77 changeover. LARC personnel, inevitably, were dubbed ‘Larcies’.

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

THE AMPHIBIOUS LARCS WERE PARTICULARLY USEFUL FOR UNLOADING HEAVY CARGO ON

MACQUARIE ISLAND FROM 1970 TO 1993. (AAD ARCHIVES)

Although one DUKW was wrecked and lost on a rock at Lusitania Bay on Macquarie Island in May 1951, and several DUKWs and LARCs were sunk when overloaded with cargo (and subsequently recovered), no lives were lost in the Antarctic or sub-Antarctic during army amphibious operations by the 10th Terminal Regiment during 46 years. The two LARC crews at Macquarie Island went into action with great courage when Nella Dan was driven on to the shore in Buckles Bay in a south-easterly gale on 3 December 1987. They rescued passengers and crew despite horrendous weather and sea conditions, ➤

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

and were all later commended by the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General L O’Donnell. The crews were: Lieutenant Phil Clark, Corporal Tim Gay, Corporal Ken Barrington, Lance-corporal Greg Kenny, Private Alistair Scott and Private Dudley Crowe. (Due to the sinking of Nella Dan the summering LARC crew on Heard Island remained there for six months—the longest summering party ever for a LARC crew.) Since the 1970s the Larcies had established an enviable reputation as entrepreneurs in the small business of selling T-shirts, windcheaters and badges. In 1988, at the celebration of 40 years of army involvement with ANARE, Jack Sayers (then Assistant Director Expeditions, Operations Branch) pointed out that the Larcies had become an integral part of the Antarctic Division’s voyage support staff, whose advice was often sought during operations: Larcies have earned a respected reputation for working hard and playing hard, they

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

have a down-to-earth commonsense approach to problems, and have developed a culture on our expeditions. I might add they have also been responsible for enriching the language of some of the less worldly expeditioners, or those who’ve led a somewhat sheltered life!18 The time spent in Antarctica was a welcome break from the Larcies’ training exercises—loading boxes of rocks on and off their LARCs in Middle Harbour, Sydney. In 1994 the army withdrew from its association with ANARE and disbanded the army ANARE Detachment with its fleet of ageing LARCs. Fittingly their last operation was at Macquarie Island where it all began. A LARC crew completed an unescorted circumnavigation of the island in under eleven hours, breaking all previous records. Army records show that 268 personnel have served in the Detachment since 1948.19

A

s ANARE began its 50th year of existence, travel by ship to its four Antarctic stations was the only option. The oft-debated plans for direct flights to the Australian Antarctic Territory remained unrealised. The most recent attempt was in 1989, when a RAAF Hercules aircraft was made ready to fly directly from Hobart airport to a compressed snow runway at a site named S1, seven kilometres behind Casey Station. This attempt was aborted because of an unusually high snowfall just before the team preparing the runway was due to leave at the end of summer. Assistant director Jack Sayers remained optimistic:

440

We know how to produce satisfactory runways on snow or ice, but we don’t have the funds to do it. During the last couple of years we have been liaising at an operational level with the Russian Antarctic Expedition in developing the concept of an East Antarctic Air Network, known as EAAN.

T

I

n the summer of 1988–89, two expeditioners broke their ankles out in the field near Davis Station. Fortunately for them, an internationally coordinated rescue could be organised. At the time, James Shevlin was leading a field party in the Larsemann Hills at Law Base. He overheard a message being relayed to the Davis station leader: ‘Oh Davis, we’ve had a bit of a problem with an accident. A skidoo went over the edge of an ice cliff. . .and we went over with it and we have both broken our legs! We are currently in sleeping bags and are warm, but we can’t move at all.’ It was an amazingly controlled call, with no hint of panic. The two men were evacuated by a helicopter sent from Davis Station, where X-rays revealed it was essential to get the injured men to Australia within ten days, as they needed major orthopaedic surgery just so that they could walk again. On the same day Shevlin had seen a Russian aircraft for the first time that season in the Larsemann Hills. After consultations with head office he was asked to contact the Russians to investigate the possibility of assistance: We didn’t have any transport at Law Base, but the Soviet Progress Station was only about half an hour away, so I walked over the hills. They were on a different time zone, and were all asleep. The station leader got out of bed and without further ado said that their aircraft would take off in half an hour!

O W A R D S

2 0 0 0

The Russian aircraft was a veteran propeller-driven Ilyushin 14 which was quickly stripped to take two stretchers. A Russian and an Australian doctor flew with the injured men to Molodezhnaya Station 1400 kilometres to the west, near the western border of the Australian Antarctic Territory. On arrival, two ship-based Russian medical officers were also on hand. Shevlin: They then arranged for one of their jet aircraft to fly in via South America to Molodezhnaya for the evacuation. It was incredibly expensive, but the wonderful thing about the story is that in an emergency everyone just drops everything and assists without any question of cost. . .everyone is there working in an adverse environment and there is a fair bit of camaraderie because of that. The Russians flew the two men to South America and they went on to Sydney by commercial flights. They were in hospital within seven days of the accident. Unhappily there was a tragic sequel to this operation. Three crew from the Russian aircraft were killed in a refuelling accident at Mirny within a week of the successful medical evacuation. Shevlin: So it was one of those things that while it had been a wonderful exhibition of how people work together in Antarctica, it also illustrated once again that it wasn’t a totally hazard-free operation.

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

Such a scheme would involve flights from Hobart to Cape Town and return via several Antarctic stations including Casey, the Russian station Druzhnaya (which is between Mawson and Davis in the Prydz Bay Region) and through Queen Maud Land. Sayers: The Russians have aircraft—the Ilyushin 76—which are ideally suited to undertaking the flights. There are a number of countries operating stations in the region which would be interested in operating such a service, including the Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Swedes, South Africans and of course ourselves and the Russians. A meeting was held in Washington DC in May 1995 to explore the feasibility of a cooperative air network, and further discussions will take place over the next year or two.

Apart from the time saved getting scientists in and out of Antarctica in a matter of hours, instead of spending six weeks on a ship, there is also the important matter of safety. Although all nations represented in Antarctica attempt to assist in times of accidents or medical emergencies, there is no guarantee—particularly during winter—that an air evacuation can be carried out. Sayers believes that there will definitely be an inter-continental air service to ANARE stations within the next five to ten years: ANARE cannot enter the 21st Century without a vision which includes an enhanced and effective logistics capacity in support of science—and this must include an inter-continental air capability.

442

T W E N T Y- T W O

CHANGING

THE

C U LT U R E

I

t took 34 years from the founding of ANARE for a woman to winter on the Antarctic continent. As with Zoë Gardner’s historic year on Macquarie Island in 1976, the male ANARE bastion on the mainland was breached because of a shortage of doctors. Dr Louise Holliday was appointed medical officer at Davis Station in 1981. She entered not only a male domain, but one which was actively hostile to her presence. Aware of the institutional resentment of her appointment by the 1980 winterers at Davis, she ‘tried to reassure them’ by talking socially on regular radio-telephone ‘skeds’ before she left Melbourne. She believes now that these sessions were used as occasions for ridicule. The rumour was put about that she proposed to give all the men on the station a monthly massage.1 Dr Holliday had high expectations of her year in Antarctica. As a child she was profoundly influenced by the stories told to her by a family friend, Captain Morton Moyes, who had been south with Shackleton and Mawson. ‘He really fired my enthusiasm to go.’ Moyes was still alive, aged 94, when she sailed south. Interviewed in the Sydney Daily Telegraph before she left in December 1980, Dr Holliday said she thought the ratio of 24 men to one woman ‘sounds very nice, doesn’t it?’ She hoped her presence would help make Davis Station ‘a little more civilised’: ‘That sounds really awful doesn’t it? It makes them all sound like apes, and they aren’t.’2 She hoped to handle her job with ‘good sense and poise, and to be flexible and tolerant. I have had extra preparation through the year and I am a Christian so if I have any worries I will pray about them.’3 Her ship, Nanok S, called first at Casey and she wore a skirt for her first trip

443

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

I

A N A R E

n the early 1970s, Antarctic Division photographer Jutta Hösel applied repeatedly to go south. After yet another refusal for no apparent good reason, she stormed into the director’s office and demanded to know why she had been refused yet again. ‘Well’, replied Ray Garrod rather defensively, ‘we don’t have toilet facilities for women

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

in Antarctica.’ ‘I don’t care!’ retorted Jutta. ‘I’ll hold on till I come back!’ In the summer of 1975–76 Jutta Hösel joined Shelagh Robinson and Elizabeth Chipman to become the first ANARE women to officially visit the Antarctic continent during a summer season.

ashore. ‘I thought I’d better do the right thing by the guys, and they were awestruck—and very deferential—and very friendly and pleasant.’ Davis Station turned on a welcome of a different kind. Some members of the outgoing 1980 party left crude and obscene drawings on station notice boards, her luggage boxes and field hut notebooks. There were photographs of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and carrying captions referring to her.4 MEDICAL OFFICER LOUISE HOLLIDAY, THE FIRST WOMAN TO WINTER ON AN ANARE CONTINENTAL STATION, AT DAVIS IN 1981. (S BROWN)

Reflecting on her experiences more than a decade later, Louise Holliday does not regret going to Antarctica:

I understood that old ideas die hard and some of these guys felt fairly threatened. I did my best to be friendly and didn’t want to really hassle. After the first few weeks things settled down. . .I had a very good year. . . I had people I could talk to, and as a Christian I prayed about it, and I rang home a couple of times. You just have to use your own resources and realise they’re not really attacking you—they’re just feeling a bit threatened themselves, and you just brush it off eventually.

444

She spent quite a lot of her time in the surgery, choosing not to socialise during bouts of heavy drinking, or when ‘blue movies’ were screened. After those sessions, she did ‘not want to meet them on a dark night’.

C

Looking back, Louise Holliday thinks that she may have failed to be a community member, ‘because I didn’t get drunk, watch porn, and wandered off earlier than many from the living quarters. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have chosen me.’ Her year in Antarctica changed her outlook on life in a number of ways: I certainly learned things I didn’t learn at the college or high school. And I think I appreciate people more for who they are—not male/female. I am aware of the beauty of nature even more. . .but not seeing the sun for six weeks down there, I can thank God every day when the sun rises. I think I matured as a person. I became a bit more tolerant, because one has to be tolerant down there.

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

E

xcerpts from OIC Gert Wantenaar’s station log reveal little group consideration for the lone woman who hoped to make things ‘a little more civilised’ at Davis: Sunday 22 March—Louise caused a stir by appearing in the LQ [living quarters] in shorts though she is unlikely to repeat the experiment for a while, from the ribald reception she received. . . Monday 18 May—Geoff’s birthday—this turned out to be a most enjoyable night, continuing into the early hours. Louise lingered longer than usual departing at 10.30, when she was unable to cope with both robust styles of dancing and the number of gentlemen requiring a female partner. . . Tuesday 18 August—It was an embarrassing day for me because I had to see Louise about a small growth on a very private part of my anatomy. I took Bob with me in case Louise thought I was putting the hard word on her. But in true professional fashion she dismissed Robert and inspected the offending part. It was nothing serious. . .

Holliday’s wintering at Davis did not herald an immediate flood of female expeditioners. Doctors continued to be the only wintering ANARE women, with Julie Campbell at Mawson in 1982, Robyn McDermott in 1983 and Lynn Williams in 1984. Dr Williams had first wintered at Macquarie Island in 1981 and went south with her electronics engineer husband, Warwick, becoming the first married couple to winter on the continent as ANARE expeditioners. Dr Campbell returned to Australia at the end of her year at Mawson angry at the treatment she received from a small group of men at the station. She reported her sleeping quarters were broken into at least twice ‘by men affected by drink’.5 There was institutional resistance in ANARE, reflected in the division management, to sending women to the Antarctic because of the fear of unleashing sex—with all its perceived attendant complications—to the isolated communities there. Sex was not identified as a problem in the all-male stations up to the 1980s, although ANARE expeditioners were unamused about a story published in the Melbourne Age in 1980

445

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A PERFORMANCE OF THE BAWDY PANTOMIME

CINDERELLA AT MAWSON, 1982. FROM LEFT: BILL COUCH, DAVE PHILLIPS AND MARK GALLAGHER. (K IRVING)

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

by Ross Clark (a senior research fellow in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Melbourne) on how men cope without women in the Antarctic. Clark said that the lack of sexual gratification was often overcome by increased oral gratification—eating. He went on to say that overt homosexuality was non-existent. ‘But mild covert homosexuality runs virtually through the group. The guys would not admit that it was homosexuality.’6 Clark said homosexuality took the form of horseplay, including pretend kissing and cuddling. Overt homosexual advances were rare and were frowned on by the rest of the group. While the occasional midwinter pantomime performance of Cinderella, with its attendant burlesque drag, was regarded by its participants as letting off harmless sexual steam, the inclusion of ‘real’ women in the community was a significant change to the culture. Both Jeannie and Rod Ledingham on Macquarie Island in 1977 and Lynn and Warwick Williams at Mawson in 1984 were careful about how they behaved in public. Lynn Williams:

The group on the whole accepted it pretty well. . .although you sleep in the same room at night. . .you’re by no means in a normal social environment. So displays of affection, for example, are just not on.

446

In later reflections on ‘mixed groups’ in Antarctica, Lynn Williams made the point that it is too simplistic to talk of male–female relationships. All should be thought of as expeditioners who are ‘mixed’ on many levels. For example, the scientist and the tradesman or builder (‘boffin’ versus ‘tradie’), the ‘barfly’ with indoors interests versus the more adventurous, outdoors-oriented expeditioner. Then there were the ‘macho-heroic’ types, who saw themselves as intrepid conquerors of the ‘Great White Hell’ of Antarctica, measured against those who thought ‘my Grandma could do it’. Another distinction could be drawn between those who were interested in pornographic movies and girlie posters, versus those who ‘chose to do something else when a porn movie is shown on film nights’.7

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

All personal relationships on an Antarctic station are subjected to far more pressure and scrutiny than communities elsewhere. Expeditioners see the same people every day for meals, socialise and work with them for at least nine months of the year. There is nowhere else to go. Personal disagreements simply have to be worked through. Tolerance is regarded as a prerequisite for successful wintering in Antarctica and there are ‘good’ years and ‘bad’ years, depending on a volatile mix of personalities, professions and leadership that defies any psychological screening process yet devised. ANARE’s male-dominated history is shared by most other nations active in Antarctica. Only six countries of the nineteen who had wintering communities in 1992 had women in those communities in the previous ten years.8 Women were perceived as a ‘problem’ for Antarctic communities long before they wintered on stations.9 When the first women flew in to the United States McMurdo station in the 1960s—Pan-American air hostesses—the station refused to turn out at the airport to welcome them, even though they were only in transit.* Antarctic communities are necessarily a mix of those who actually keep the stations operating, with two main groups known (since the early 1980s) as the ‘tradies’—diesel mechanics, carpenters, radio operators—and the scientists or ‘boffins’—meteorologists, glaciologists, physicists and biologists. There is a third group made up of shift workers like meteorological observers, communications officers and chefs who occupy the middle ground. The scientists are dependent on the tradies not only for general living on the stations, but also for technical support for field expeditions. The advent of wintering women on the continent in the 1980s coincided with the rebuilding program, and construction workers from the Department of Housing and Construction not only worked through the summer season, but numbers of them joined the wintering groups as well. This weighted the population more towards the ‘tradie’ side of the population equation—and further confirmed the ‘blokey’ elements of traditional ANARE culture. Dr Louise Holliday’s initial ambitions to bring a ‘civilising’ influence to Davis were unrealised. When Jim Bleasel took over as director of the Antarctic Division in 1984, he sampled ANARE communities in Antarctica during the maiden voyage of Icebird . He was less than impressed by the ‘ocker’ element he encountered, and later described the communities as being composed

* The first women to winter over with the Americans at McMurdo in 1974 were two biologists, Dr Mary Alice McWhinnie and Sister Mary Odile—a maiden aunt and a nun (their own description of themselves). In 1979 Dr Michele Raney became the first woman to winter at the United States Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole.

447

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

of the ‘goods’ and the ‘bads’. Bleasel found that many of the goods—‘nice, intelligent’ people, categorised by the OIC as making a good contribution to the station—told him that they would never voyage south again. They said it’s because of the animals that you send here. They used this term ‘animals’. I found at each base it was a constant term, so it must have been an ANARE term for these gross people.

Bleasel believed the recruiting was moving more towards entrenching the ‘bad’ element he had identified. In April 1985 the Hobart office of the Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association (representing Antarctic Division staff) unsuccessfully attempted to get a copy of a telex Bleasel was alleged to have sent from Antarctica using the word ‘animals’ to describe certain expeditioners. The matter was raised a year later, as part of a package of complaints and grievances about the administration of the division. In his response of 14 April, the director made reference to the term ‘animals, misfits and weirdos’, saying that the expression was in common use among expeditioners. The rebuilding program had a significant effect on the population mix on the stations. The construction workers from the Department of Housing and Construction not only swelled the summer populations, but on some stations they outnumbered other expeditioners. Building teams also wintered over. Although every expeditioner is a member of ANARE, there was divided command as construction workers worked to their foreman, not to the ANARE OIC. Perhaps not surprisingly under these circumstances, a robust male culture was the order of the day and strong leadership was needed to keep control. However, in 1985 the situation at Casey Station got out of hand when the construction crew effectively took over. Writer Stephen Murray-Smith visited Casey in the summer of 1986 on Icebird when the extent of the ‘ocker’ takeover of the station was revealed: The party that has come in for next winter has been forced out of the ‘club’ to take shelter in their tiny cubicles. ‘Let’s see who can get drunk quickest’ parties have been held on the home brew. The women have been harassed. Four of the party brought in for next winter have asked to be taken home. . .Even the more civilised are frightened not to accept the standards of the yobbos. . .they certainly triumphed at Casey this year where they got away with putting a baby’s chair in the mess for the OIC and labelling it WIMP.10 448

Later the relieving OIC told Jim Bleasel what he saw when he flew in to Casey on the first helicopter flight from Icebird. Bleasel:

C

P

aradoxically the OIC of an ANARE station (officers-in-charge became known as station leaders in 1988) is the only person on station who need not have a specialist skill specifically related to working in Antarctica. Previous Antarctic experience might be taken into account, but has never been regarded as essential. History has shown that if the station leader fails or does not command respect, the community—essentially composed of self-motivated professionals—can still function adequately, with the station leader bypassed as a paper-shuffler. In such cases the community may accord respect to a de facto leader. That may or may not be the official deputy leader. Traditionally the wintering doctor is not made the station leader, and is someone who can be a confidant or provide an outlet for an expeditioner who may be having problems with the rest of the group, or with the leader. Some doctors, though, have been OICs as well—even on one occasion taking over the station leadership during the year when the OIC was unable to cope. In recent years there has been an attempt to specifically codify the powers of a station leader. Michael Carr, station leader at Davis in 1994: Station leaders [are] special constables under ACT law so we are sort of ‘Inspector Plods’ if you like and we have certain powers. My powers have stayed in the filing cabinet all year. I’ve never had to resort to them or read them, but I suppose if they were to build a brig down here, sure we could throw someone in it, but it’s not that sort of culture.

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

Whether a leader’s powers are specified or not, the group’s respect has to be earned. Military officers who have gone south as ANARE leaders soon realised that they could not issue orders as though they were still in the army or navy. Lem Macey, who is acknowledged as one of the best OICs ever, and whose experience ranged from the 1940s to the 1970s, once defined the secret of leadership success on an ANARE station as: Do nothing for a few weeks until you can see in what direction the group is heading. Then rush out in front and say, ‘Follow me’! Despite rigorous selection procedures, lasting five days for station leaders in recent years, there is no certainty about how successfully a particular individual will manage his or her station. Normally the Antarctic Division expects wintering communities to sort out any leadership and morale problems on site. However, for the first time in the history of ANARE operations, a mediator had to be sent down to Casey on the first voyage of the 1996–97 season following a vote of no confidence in the station leader by all the other fourteen winterers who signed a fax to head office in early September. The situation was defused on 4 October when the mediator, the division’s deputy station and field operations manager Rob Easther, accompanied by twenty of the 1996–97 station and summer field party, flew by helicopter from Aurora Australis to Casey. Easther stayed on until January 1997 to assist with station management and investigate the grievance.

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

He said the chopper circled a group of unkempt, long-haired, long-bearded men standing in a circle. . .they were the untidiest, dirtiest bunch he’d ever seen. There was food in the beards of some of them and they looked terrible. Looking down, he said, it looked like a scene from the film Deliverance.

Bleasel decided the situation was so bad that the entire construction crew would have to be pulled out and that was done during the next two voyages. While this incident was by no means typical of the behaviour of the many decent, conscientious workers and engineers who had done tremendous work with the ANARE building program in the 1980s, it was influential in reaffirming Bleasel’s ambition to examine and restructure ANARE society. One obvious starting point was in the selection and training of Antarctic-bound personnel. Bleasel found the army-conducted psychological screening tests on expeditioners wanting. Richard Mulligan, the division’s expedition operations planning manager, says Bleasel wanted to bring about a fundamental cultural change, ‘both in the nature and the quality of expeditioners’: The first thing he did was to change the priority in selection. . .[which] had been primarily on the work skills the person had—personal qualities came second. He reversed the order. . .personal qualities were considered foremost.

The selection of OICs, Bleasel believed, needed to be overhauled. He was concerned about a division panel selecting an expedition leader largely on the basis of a 30 or 40 minute interview. He decided to use the training facility the division has in the highlands of Tasmania, Bernacchi. Bleasel asked for a list of the top eight or ten people for the four available positions: I selected a group of high level people to go with me, and we went up to our lodge at Bernacchi and we spent one week with these people up there, with a series of tests that we devised, in getting to know them under all sorts of conditions. . .and we immediately got better quality station leaders.

450

Another important reform concerned the system of reporting on an expeditioner’s performance. Procedures had not changed since the Phil Law era, and were based on a military system, adapted for ANARE, called the X-Y-Z system. These letters represented three separate reporting periods over the duration of an expedition. Over the years the X and Z reports were dropped and only the Y report remained. The Y was a report on each expeditioner which that person never saw

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

and which, according to Richard Mulligan, ‘had on occasions resulted in unsuitable people being reappointed to another year in ANARE service’. By the 1980s in Australia there was an increasing concern by those responsible for drawing up administrative regulations that there be more openness and fairness in compiling personal dossiers on staff. An ANARE Code of Personal Behaviour was developed in August 1987, attempting to outline appropriate standards of personal conduct to be observed by expeditioners in Antarctica, as well as outlining basic safety and work requirements. This was signed by all departing ANARE personnel. The issues of sexual and other harassment were brought up in group discussions before departure. The Australian Army had been conducting ANARE’s psychological tests for more than twenty years and Bleasel wondered how ‘they could be getting it so wrong’ and compounding the situation by allowing bad officers-in-charge and expeditioners ‘who’d been dreadful’ back for a second and third time. The new director engaged a management consultant, Tim Dalmau, to review the selection process. With mixed communities came relationships, and the possibility of pregnancies in Antarctica. Children had already been born in Antarctica during 1978—on the Argentinian station, Esperanza, on the Antarctic peninsula. The children were born to the wives of army personnel stationed there and represented the colonisation of Antarctica rather than just the establishment of scientific bases. (It was also an obvious attempt to strengthen Argentina’s interests in an area of Antarctic territory also claimed by Britain and Chile.) The prospect of an Australian woman giving birth on an ANARE station was not high on the list of the Antarctic Division’s priorities. Dr Gillian Deakin: ‘No one wants to become pregnant down there, no one wishes a baby to be born down there. I think it would just put that much bigger burden on the station and the station medical officer.’ The possibility became more than academic in 1985 when a wintering expeditioner became pregnant on her way south. She returned six months later to have her child in Australia. Gillian Deakin makes the point that relationships in the Antarctic are not just a woman’s problem and believes the issue should be put to all potential expeditioners before they sign on: The expeditioners must address the questions themselves and have it clearly in their mind what the risks are. . .Naturally the question arises about adequate contraception. . .all the doctors going down there are well-versed in the use and supply of those sort of things.

451

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

S

andy Cave, the senior communications officer at Casey in 1989, was the second ANARE woman to become pregnant in Antarctica. Her partner, John Freeman, was a diesel mechanic on station. She said the other expeditioners reacted in various ways to the news, but ‘nothing negative’. Cave: They were all very supportive. I didn’t make a martyr of myself. I still did my work and as the pregnancy progressed John helped me all he could. Towards the end he used to share my night watch and help me with slushy and station work. . . Cave says she was not concerned about being isolated, and returned to Australia seven months pregnant. For a time she considered having the baby in Antarctica: ‘The women’s magazines would have loved it! But we decided

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

against it, as it would have had a terrible effect on station morale if anything had gone wrong.’ After her daughter Casey was born she applied to go south again in 1991, but before she could be selected was involved in a bad car smash: I was in a coma for four months, and then in hospital for a year. I am in a wheelchair now, but I can stand up at times so I am able to look after my three young children. The youngest one, Elysia, was born after my accident. Sandy Cave had three daughters, and believes that for some reason this is typical of returning ANARE expeditioners who, she says, more often than not have girl children: ‘This could be the beginning of the end of the breed of Australian males in Antarctica!’

How lone women survived a year on a male station depended a lot on their personality, social strategy and luck. In 1986 Denise Allen, a weather observer, was helicoptered into Mawson from Icebird at Easter after her male counterpart was unable to stay. There was a party in the mess that night—but not as a welcome for her. As the evening progressed, ‘about 80 per cent of the blokes made it clear they hadn’t wanted a woman on the station—and the other 20 per cent said they thought I’d be an improvement on the person that had left’. Denise Allen decided not to ask the men at Mawson to change their behaviour, but instead to earn their respect. She made it clear that she was not interested in any sexual relationships: That was my attitude as a professional at the Bureau of Meteorology—not to be involved in a relationship with any member of staff. At Mawson the situation was exactly the same—except that I was on duty, effectively, 24 hours a day.

452

The Mawson medical officer, Kevin Donovan, was one of those who preferred an all-male year. But he soon changed his mind:

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

D

enise Allen made a decision to be an expeditioner first, and a woman second. She was not particularly concerned about ‘girlie’ posters in work areas, and joined in traditional celebrations like the staging of the bawdy pantomime ‘Cinderella’ at midwinter. Her own contribution has gone down in the annals of ANARE entertainment. Dressed as a man, complete with beard and corn-cob pipe, she brought the house down with a localised version of the rambunctious poem ‘MacArthur’s Fart’. At other times, it was a delicate balance of being accepted as one of the team, without losing her femininity: I think I was treated as an equal. Some of the guys said [my presence] toned down their behaviour. . .it kept them a little bit more courteous and remembering some of the social behaviour that’s appropriate at home. . .even though I never asked for that specifically. There is a well known adage quoted by women who have wintered with ANARE: ‘Men are like huskies. If you pat one, you’ve got to pat them all’. On Saturday nights Denise made a point of changing out of her work clothes, using perfume, and making a conscious effort to mix with the group:

DENISE ALLEN, IN ‘BLOKE’ MODE, RECITING A SCATALOGICAL POEM AT A MIDWINTER DINNER, 1995. (COURTESY D ALLEN)

Anybody who wished to talk to me, who wished to have a drink with me, I would make a special effort. Because people are only natural and men like to spend time in the company of women. . .in my first year I found it very hard to have a little bit of time for myself.

She was particularly skilful in forming a sibling relationship rather than a male–female relationship with the men in the wintering party. That certainly took away any sexual stereotypes. They treated her like an older or younger sister.

The prevailing male culture that Denise Allen entered at Mawson in 1986 was basically unchanged from the first ANARE expeditions almost forty years earlier. In those days, the majority of the expeditioners were ex-servicemen. In 1993 Phil Law wrote:

453

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

They brought with them maturity and service attitudes to discipline and conformity and then, on the other hand, a certain amount of male boisterousness, rough language, horseplay and a propensity for hard drinking when opportunities offered. In contrast was the behaviour of the unworldly young scientists, fresh from the prolonged adolescence of undergraduate life. They were treated initially, in most cases, with amused contempt or outright intolerance—to which they tended to respond with intellectual arrogance.11

Law went on to say that—except for occasional individuals—the divisions between the two groups tended to dissolve away under the gregarious influences of GILLIAN DEAKIN, MEDICAL station life and the need for the various members of OFFICER, DAVIS STATION, the wintering group to depend on each other. 1986. Arguments about ‘lack of facilities’, which had been (R REEVES) used as one of the arguments to keep women out of Antarctica, vanished as soon as women went south. Unisex toilets were a matter of common sense. There were, however, certain basic differences between men and women that needed to be addressed where field work was concerned. ANARE-issue cold-weather clothing, with lanyard-operated zip flies, were of little benefit to women. Antarctic expeditioners are often asked by people who have never been there, ‘How do you pee in a blizzard?’ (Answer: ‘Quickly!’) Dr Gillian Deakin, who wintered at Davis in 1986, thought about this before she left Australia: I found a little device called a Sanifem, and I recommend every woman in the outdoors should purchase one of these. It makes life very easy. It’s a shaped funnel with a long tube that fits nicely between the legs and serves the purpose very well. Using that meant I never had to take off my [cold-weather] clothing at all for a pee. . .you had to direct the funnel carefully though!

454

These days, Sanifems are standard ANARE issue to all women going south. Those who went first, though, had to solve problems as best they could. Denise Allen loved running and sledging with the huskies, and camping out in a polar pyramid tent. After possibly setting world records in retention, Denise called on the ingenuity of the 27 men sharing her year at Mawson to help solve her difficulty:

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

So they came up with a device that was a plastic eye-piece with a doctor’s surgical glove attached to the bottom of it. And it worked wonderfully, provided you didn’t overflow it. So the next time I was blizzard-bound in a tent for more than 24 hours, I filled that up, lifted up a corner of the ground sheet and poured it into the snow.

The impact of women on station culture remained minimal while so few wintered over. Gillian Deakin did record one significant change, however. After consultations at Davis in 1986, the party did not perform ‘Cinderella’ at midwinter: We felt that Antarctica had come of age and we could move on from a fairly puerile production, dare I say. . .So we wrote a play—I suppose you could call it an Antarctic political satire—and we had a lot of fun with that.

In 1983 Pene Greet, an upper atmosphere physicist, was to be the first non-medical female scientist to winter on an Antarctic mainland station. Greet was 22 years old, attractive, and excited about the prospect of her year’s scientific work at Mawson. She had an affair with one of the officers of Nanok S on her way south, and on arrival at Mawson learned that she had been instructed to return to Australia on the return voyage. When Greet’s return was featured in the national press, the Antarctic Division’s director in 1983, Clarrie McCue, said reports that her recall amounted to sexual discrimination were ‘a load of rubbish’, and that the reported affair with the Nanok S crewman was not the main reason for her coming back. He did say that the affair had been seen as ‘a demonstration of her immaturity’.12 Greet says she was not debriefed or consulted by anyone at the division on her return to Australia for her side of the story, and says ‘the reasons for my enforced return were not consistent with my own experiences’.13 She believes her affair with the ship’s officer on the voyage down was, in fact, the main reason she was not allowed to stay in Antarctica. The first woman scientist (other than medical officers like Louise Holliday and Lynn Williams who also undertook research projects) to winter over on an ANARE station was Peta Kelsey, a geophysicist, on Macquarie Island in 1983. Kelsey also shared the first continental wintering with Gina Price (upper atmosphere physicist) at Mawson in 1985. Jim Bleasel appointed Lorraine Francis Acting Assistant Director, Management Services, and the Antarctic Division’s first female Branch head. Part of her later brief as Assistant Director, Resource Management, was to have the final say on the composition of selection committees.

455

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

P

ene Greet again applied to go to Mawson during the 1986–87 summer, a research trip initially approved by the Antarctic Division. Three weeks before she was due to sail permission was withdrawn and she complained to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The Ombudsman’s report in April 1987 was highly critical of the way the matter had been handled, concluding that the Antarctic Division’s actions were ‘unreasonable and unjust’. Ms Greet was paid $9000 in compensation for the loss of income and financial outlays preparing for her Antarctic journey. As well as recommending the division apologise to Ms Greet and pay compensation, the Ombudsman recommended that the relevant staff in the division be counselled, that it prepare new selection procedures, and that it give appropriate advice to nominees found unsuitable in future. The Department of Science (then the Antarctic Division’s parent Federal department) agreed

UPPER ATMOSPHERE PHYSICIST PENE GREET AT MAWSON, 1982–83. (K IRVING)

to all of the Ombudsman’s recommendations, and later asked him to comment on draft procedures for personnel working in Antarctica.14 (Greet eventually wintered at Mawson in 1990, and Davis in 1997.)

She pushed very hard, against stiff opposition, to have at least one woman appointed to each panel. Francis: Many males who had been on the panels would, of course, have been displaced if this practice was adopted and some were livid. They attacked the concept and said if there were no female applicants then it was not valid practice. We were beginning to get a spate of harassment complaints from the stations and I thought that if we had a woman’s perspective on the panels, we might be able to select out those who would make trouble for women. However it almost caused World War III!

456

She was supported by the present director of the Antarctic Division, Rex Moncur, and since 1993 women have been represented on all selection panels. Rob Easther, deputy station and field operations manager, believes that Jim Bleasel’s decision to bring in management consultant Tim Dalmau was also a key factor in advancing and involving women in ANARE. Easther:

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

The way Dalmau went about it was questionable at times. . .he directly challenged ANARE culture when perhaps a more oblique approach would have been better. . .The method of training—‘touchy, feely’, and totally foreign to the people involved—really showed how tolerant expeditioners could be. . .Jokes about butcher’s paper still prevail!

Until Australia’s bicentennial year in 1988, no woman had claimed the glittering prize of ANARE work—officer-in-charge, or station leader (the job was renamed in 1988)—but already in 1979 Diana Patterson, a Tasmanian-born career public servant, nurtured a private ambition to work in Antarctica: Growing up in Tasmania you had a great sense of that wind coming off the ice and I think most Tasmanians have an affinity with the South. . .The leadership role was one that appealed to me. . .and I felt my skills and background were very similar to a lot of men that had been selected as the OIC.

Patterson was not successful in 1979, although she was told they would have welcomed her application as a cook or radio operator. She decided then she would set her cap at being the first female OIC. She reapplied in 1986, felt she was an object of curiosity in the division and had a gut feeling she would not be selected. She decided to work on a two-year plan. In 1986 she would get the division used to the idea of having a woman OIC, and then apply a year later: ‘I think I had a problem with height as much as gender—by being only five foot two, I don’t project a tough image. And I think that was a bigger disadvantage in those early days.’ Jim Bleasel believed it was better to have more than one woman on an Antarctic station. Patterson knew she had done well in the selection process, but was aware of the director’s concern about making sure the appointment of the first woman station leader was a complete success. ‘So I suggested to him that in fact it could be to his advantage with the Bicentennial coming up that he had the opportunity for Australia to have the first woman station leader in the world.’ However Bleasel wanted to take out some insurance. He was already concerned about ‘first timers’— male or female—going down to run a station when up to 40 per cent of the expeditioners there had been before. This group had the potential to challenge the authority of the station leader: I thought it was very important that the first time we sent a woman it be very successful. . .so that people would say, ‘Gee, she did a good job, there is nothing wrong with having a woman station leader’.

Although Patterson had passed the selection procedures, Bleasel was concerned about sending her down for a full year in 1988 as station

457

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

leader and proposed to send her to Casey for the summer to gain experience first: I asked Personnel whether we could say, ‘Yes, you are selected, but you’re selected for the following year. And this year we’ll send you down over summer to get experience of your station ‘. . .And when she went down the next time she’d be the absolute whiz on the station, with first-hand experience from the two OICs who were down there. She’d be really strong—and the first woman [station leader] would be a huge success.

Patterson felt patronised, but there was little she could do about it if she wanted to achieve her goal. Her summer at Casey did enable her to field-test the practical realities of living in a previously all-male environment: I was a bit conscious of not walking into the urinals if there was a man standing there. But it took me about three days to work out that most men were more embarrassed swearing in front of me than they were taking a leak in front of me. So I thought, well, if it doesn’t bother them, it doesn’t bother me.

At Casey, Patterson wondered what all the fuss had been about. The men accepted her, judging her not on her gender, but ‘how well you did the job’. By the time she returned to Australia, Bleasel had left the division, and the original deal was off. Patterson was told she’d have to go through the selection procedures again: There were problems for me. I felt quite outraged. I’d given up a good job—at that stage I was assistant director of the Department of Sport and Recreation in Victoria. I’d have suffered a loss of face, I’d not only have lost out on income, my career was affected and it would have been a pretty bloody embarrassing situation!

458

Although some of her friends recommended taking legal action against the division—as her appointment had been confirmed in writing before she went to Casey—she gritted her teeth and went through the arduous selection process yet again, setting her sights on Mawson as the premier station. ‘I thought if I get Mawson, that will put an end to this token woman attitude I experienced at Casey.’ Diana Patterson achieved her goal and was appointed OIC Mawson. Although she was dubbed ‘Lady Di’ in the early part of 1989 as a result of perceived authoritarian behaviour, she was determined to establish her authority early. ‘It’s very hard to regain it later on, once you’ve lost

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

W

hile Diana Patterson was the first woman station leader on the continent, Alison Clifton pipped her to the post as the first woman station leader for ANARE. She and Diana attended the same training and selection course. At the time, Clifton was unaware that there had never been a woman OIC or station leader. Clifton was appointed to Macquarie Island, and took up her duties there before Diana left Australia for Mawson. She arrived on her thirtieth birthday. Alison Clifton had a good year at Macquarie, but her year as station leader at Davis was a harder assignment. She went there with her partner, and says this was very difficult: I couldn’t talk to him [about station relationships] because of the issue of confidentiality. For the people who didn’t like my style, that was another thing they could latch on to. They could get to me through him, by criticising him. . .For most people I don’t think it was an issue. A highlight of her year at Macquarie was a long satellite telephone call to Diana Patterson at Mawson. ‘We got into trouble because it cost a fortune, but it was so good!’ Another

DAVIS STATION LEADER ALISON CLIFTON ON A CHINESE SKIDOO, ZONGSHAN STATION, LARSEMANN HILLS, 1991. (P BOURKE)

high point happened at Davis: ‘At the end of the summer one woman came up to me and said, ‘‘It’s been a great summer and I have been proud to have a female station leader’’.’ In her two stints as station leader, Alison Clifton said she felt triply isolated—’geographically, as a woman—and at Davis because I was the only one there with my partner’.

it.’ She made a point of taking part in field training and doing her share of dirty jobs around the station. ‘If I’d hidden away in my office and worked on paperwork, I wouldn’t have established that credibility.’ Running with the huskies was one of her greatest joys. On the annual expedition over the sea ice to the emperor penguin rookery at Kloa, she lost five kilograms in ten days: I learned a lot about handling men from handling dogs, and breaking up dog fights. My technique was to grab the dog that I thought was losing by the tail and yank it out of the scrimmage as hard as I could. I worked on the theory that it was a way he could save face by retreating from the fight because I was pulling him out.

459

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

One evening in the mess Diana had a chance to put her theory to the test. Two expeditioners were rolling around the floor, locked in combat: ‘I went for the guy I thought would end up getting killed if he stayed in, got him out of the scrimmage and gave him the opportunity to save face, by breaking the fight up.’ Only one member of the wintering community made it clear that he continued to resent having a woman as station leader. His aggression boiled over one night, and he emptied a glass of beer over a surprised Diana. She defused the situation as best she could, and walked out of the building. The beer-thrower followed her out, still shouting abuse. Although Patterson was upset by the MAWSON STATION LEADER incident, she felt she had finally achieved full equalDIANA PATTERSON WITH VERY ity—because ‘during all his abuse, he hadn’t once used SPECIAL FRIEND, 1989. a gender specific term. He was abusing the position (COURTESY D PATTERSON) of station leader, not Diana Patterson.’ The point about women’s ability to lead ANARE expeditions was further buttressed by Alison Clifton’s appointment as station leader at Macquarie Island, also in 1989, and again at Davis in 1991. Patterson went to Davis as station leader in 1995, and was officially complimented on her management of the station by a United States inspection team, visiting under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty.15 Joan Russell went to Casey as station leader in 1990. Russell joined the division from her previous job as Equal Opportunities Officer in the South Australian Department of Personal and Industrial Relations. A former publicity officer with the Women’s Electoral Lobby in 1975, Russell was prominent in the development of the women’s movement in South Australia. At Casey she was one of three women in a wintering group of twenty-six. Apart from the expeditioners appointed by the Antarctic Division, there were eight construction workers from Australian Construction Services. Joan Russell’s stewardship of Casey in 1990 is known in the division as ‘The Big Poster Year’. The station newspaper, the Casey Rag, regularly published a page three ‘girlie’ photograph. In June, Adele Post (biologist) wrote to the Rag editors about this feature, ‘complaining of the journal having a repetitious sexist outlook’. Russell wrote in the station log: 460

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

I had to ask them to desist with page three, or put me in line for a sexual harassment case. They did not take this well, but later discussed their grievances quite calmly with me. The notions of sexism and sexual harassment and the right of women to expect to live and work free of these petty irritations appear foreign and unacceptable to most men on the station.16

Russell was also unimpressed by a ‘bad taste awards’ occasion after the midwinter dinner (one of the prizes, entitled ‘Best Supporting Act’, and representing two feet sticking out between plaster buttocks, was presented to deputy station leader Peter Read). Russell noted in the log that the ACS [Australian Construction Services] foreman had not taken part in making the plaster models, but had nevertheless presented the ‘awards’. I nonetheless condemn his behaviour as inappropriate for the ACS foreman. Also sent his letter to the Casey Rag (4 June) on to the director as requested, asking for a response to [his] interpretation of affirmative action in recruiting women for ANARE as discrimination against men.17

While sexism might be regarded as a community issue to be debated and hopefully resolved on the spot, refusal to abide by safety instructions constituted a direct threat to the physical safety of expeditioners. On 6 September Russell received official notice that safety helmets were to be worn while riding ‘quads’—four-wheel all-terrain motor bikes. After determining from head office that the policy was to be enforced, Russell resolved to do so, including ‘grounding of non-helmet-wearers’. This announcement was made at a special station meeting. Resentment on station simmered, and after Russell grounded one offender several days later, she was surprised to find out that the helmet policy was not being enforced at the two other continental stations. She requested clarification from Kingston, but to her dismay was told that the existing occupational health and safety policy on helmets was suspended ‘pending further research and the issue of appropriate helmets’.18 On 8 November Russell’s feminist principles were affronted by the ruling of her immediate superior in Hobart to allow the display of ‘girlie’ posters in work areas and private ‘dongas’. She registered a formal complaint to Kingston. Several weeks later she was shocked and disgusted when a large, explicitly genital ‘girlie’ poster appeared in the powerhouse.19 Her personal request to have the posters removed from the trade workshops was rejected.20 On 14 November, Assistant Director Expedition Operations Jack Sayers clarified the position, making it clear that ‘these posters have always been prohibited by divisional policy. . .that the division’s

461

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

sexual harassment policy would be reissued’ with special instructions to the 1991 station leaders. Russell: I suggested that the policy be reissued at changeover, rather than right now because it was a more favourable time strategically and I’m too weary to fight on single handed. He gladly accepted this suggestion.21

JOAN RUSSELL, STATION CASEY, 1990,

LEADER AT

WHILE CROSSING THE

ANTARCTIC CIRCLE EN ROUTE TO LAW DOME. (COURTESY J RUSSELL)

The new policy on the elimination of sexual harassment in the workplace was issued by the director, Rex Moncur, on 14 December 1990. He made clear in an accompanying memo that the display of posters was recognised as a form of sexual harassment, and ‘as such does not meet the standards of conduct expected of staff at the Division’.22 Writing her report on what had been a difficult year at Casey, Russell acknowledged that some of the issues she had confronted appeared trivial in retrospect:

But at the time, and in the hotbed context of station life, they had a negative impact upon community morale. Some members remained permanently estranged from the Station Leader. Most rose above their feelings of the time, to suffer no lasting effect worse than an entrenched personal opinion. It is to the station’s great credit that this is so.23

Russell felt there was some confusion about the various forms of decision-making on station. ‘A mild form of mob rule’ was generally accepted as the time-honoured and appropriate way for the station to conduct its affairs. The role of the station leader in this form of management, Russell said, was ‘deemed moderately marginal and irrelevant’ by the expeditioners. Reflecting on her experiences several years later, Russell wrote:

462

Real women are those who have not only survived the crippling, poisonous, testosterone-laden culture of ANARE, with their bodies and spirits intact, but made a difference to it while doing their jobs in Antarctica under the almost insurmountable additional burden of their gender.

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

Real men, on the other hand, are those who love, admire, support and enjoy them while they are doing that.

Russell returned to Australia somewhat drained by the stress of the year at Casey, but she was not deterred from going south again—to Macquarie Island as station leader in 1994. While Russell was battling the issue of ‘girlie’ posters at Casey, upper atmosphere physicist Pene Greet was the lone woman expeditioner at Mawson. Following her abortive attempt to go south in 1986, she had worked in Antarctica over the summer of 1988–89. Selected to winter at Mawson in 1990—seven years after her enforced return—Greet also had problems with what she considered ‘explicit pornography’ in the station newspaper. Suddenly one day in mid-June, there were full genital pornographic pictures in this newspaper. . .you’re faced with this stuff at breakfast. And I wrote up a probably fairly nasty comment on the board, saying: ‘Would the fucking MCPs who put together the fucking newspaper please distribute their pornography more discreetly.’

The station leader, Bob Parker, took Greet aside and told her she was being ‘a bit aggressive’ and that ‘the men concerned don’t like being called male chauvinist pigs’. Parker did ban explicitly sexual posters from the kitchen, but the station newspaper was permitted to continue as before. While Greet had little success in influencing the publication and circulation of sexually explicit material, she found the attitude to male–female relationships in general on station had changed markedly by 1990. Greet had gone south ‘without any preconceived ideas’ about a relationship. She did, in fact, team up with one of the diesel engineers, Paul Myers, and they maintained their relationship through the year. The following year, 1991, two women station leaders went south, Alison Clifton to Davis, and Louise Crossley to Mawson. Crossley, who combined an academic background with practical outdoor skills, took an active role with field work, leading the annual winter supply traverse to the Prince Charles Mountains and driving a D5 bulldozer. Before leaving Australia, all the 1991 station leaders were told that, following Russell’s formal complaint, they should make sure all ‘girlie’ posters were removed from all station work areas. Crossley: We all said, ‘no way’! My point was that such a radical change of policy needed time and discussion to work through.

463

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

At the end of the summer season at Mawson, the ACS crew presented ‘a framed, rather lewd’ girlie picture to the winterers, to be hung in the Mawson bar. Crossley suggested to the barman that it be taken down, but he refused: I decided to raise it as a community issue, and said I did not feel comfortable in the bar with the ‘girlie’ picture. I also pointed out there was an official policy on such material in public areas. There were mutterings and murmurings—but several expeditioners agreed they didn’t like it either.

Crossley did not order its removal—but it had gone by the next evening. Although the display of such material has become symbolic of the resistance of the old ANARE ‘boys’ club’ culture to social change, not all women who go to Antarctica are worried by it. Medical officer Lynn Williams expressed the view that such pornography could be educational for women: Women read romantic novels and men read pornography. It would make more sense if we all knew what everyone else was reading. And then you can choose the way you want to live your life anyway. . .it doesn’t worry me whether there were pictures. . .[of] nude women around.24

464

Current policy allows pin-ups and sexually explicit material in an expeditioner’s private ‘donga’, but not in work areas. In the view of medical officer Lynn Williams, this is a reasonable compromise, but ‘in the long run, tolerance and understanding are more helpful than rules and regulations’. In August 1993 a conference was held in Hobart titled, ‘Living in Antarctica: Women in a Man’s World’. The conference name reflected the situation still being faced by women going south with ANARE into the 1990s. Yet there has been a substantial effort by the Antarctic Division to educate expeditioners about Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) issues and acceptable behaviour, as well as their rights, from the late 1980s. Lorraine Francis had continually maintained that harassment was a problem and that if women complained formally it was going to be very embarrassing for the Antarctic Division, but old ways died hard. Rex Moncur spent a summer in Antarctica in 1991–92 and many women took the opportunity to tell him about their experiences. Moncur was surprised by what women told him about harassment in Antarctica and, when he returned, he not only supported the concept of the conference on women in Antarctica, he chaired one of its two days and spoke on the issue himself. Francis believes that the director’s support was extremely influential:

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

EEO is not a popular topic. Over my time I have seen an improvement, people are increasingly supportive of EEO in its breadth and depth. Many scientists say that they prefer to go to a station where there are women. It is more normal and civilised. The resistant ones have gone underground as they are in fact reducing their power base. Women are now accepted professionally—it is in the social arena that there are still problems. But not so many years ago it was a case of ‘women don’t belong in Antarctica’ full stop. So this is a positive development.

One of the recommendations from the conference was more training in conflict resolution for station leaders and expeditioners. Tom Maggs, a division workplace harassment officer, does not minimise the difficulties of implementing EEO policies: ‘In a way the Antarctic Division is ‘‘damned if we do and damned if we don’t’’ in regard to this training. It is perceived as too legalistic and also as not being enough!’ One of the main difficulties is that an Antarctic station does not replicate a ‘normal’ workplace. Expeditioners cannot go home after a day’s work. They are living continuously on the job in an isolated situation. Any upsetting of the status quo can have a devastating effect on group morale: We need to get away from EEO as such—women, ethnic minorities. . .and hark back to the old ANARE values of fairness, tolerance and respect. These, of course, are the cornerstone of EEO anyway. . .The role of the station leader is crucial in tuning in to all these aspects.

Mary Mulligan, also a workplace harassment officer, believes there has been a huge change within the Antarctic Division over the last few years in implementing EEO policies. Not so long ago there was a fear, particularly by women, that if they complained about unacceptable behaviour on station they would be ostracised by their fellow expeditioners and unable to go south again. But now: The Antarctic Division is supportive of those who complain and every complaint is taken seriously. Complainants should not feel that they will suffer any adverse consequences as a result. The division hopes the fear of complaining is less common now than it used to be. A complainant against unfair harassment is more likely these days to be supported for speaking up.

With mixed groups now a regular feature of ANARE activities, married men are often under pressure. Mulligan has seen many happily married men go south only to fall foul of the social life:

465

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

Many women go down looking for a relationship on station and many men are really intimidated by such overt behaviour. The belief that ‘anything goes’ often prevails and there are fewer restrictions down there. In reality an Antarctic station is really a microcosm of our society, but because of the nature of life there, the potential for harassment and misreading messages is magnified.

While the experiences of early women expeditioners like Louise Holliday showed social change was needed on ANARE stations, there are some who feel that the onrush of political correctness has swung the pendulum too fast and too far. With sexual harassment now illegal (the Sex Discrimination Act 1984), the emphasis given to the issue in training has caused some resentment. The Antarctic Division’s Tom Maggs believes that the emphasis on the legal aspects of ‘your rights as a harassed person’ (in line with Commonwealth legislation and policy) ‘took the safety catch off the gun, so to speak’. People are quick to now scream on that and they know they can get onto the Ombudsman. They know they can write to the director, and they know that it’s a very bright flag and if you hoist it, you’re going to get everyone’s attention. So it’s a really vile weapon at the moment. . .we were quick to tell people what their EEO rights were, but not so quick to think, ‘Oh, we haven’t told them what their responsibilities are’.

The division’s head of polar medicine, Des Lugg, makes the point that there have always been instances of men harassing other men by bullying or intimidation on ANARE stations—harassment is not always sexual—and in later years instances of female to female provocation. Maggs would also like to see less emphasis on gender. ‘I hope that something happens to split the harassment from a ‘‘woman’’ to a ‘‘people’’ issue.’ Diana Patterson agrees and feels that the behaviour of a few men, particularly in the 1980s, has reflected badly on the whole male ANARE culture which has been, in the main, ‘civilised’. There is no reason to expect in the 1990s that the ‘tradie’ culture will necessarily be rough, or ‘ocker’. Indeed, Diana Patterson has encountered many ‘sensitive new-age tradespersons’ among the young men going south. She believes that the role of the station leader is critical in setting standards:

466

I think it’s too easy to say, ‘Oh, we had a bad group’. You have to come back to the leadership and your role, and the whole ethos that prevails in the community—and the station leader is in the position to do some-

C

H A N G I N G

T H E

C U L T U R E

thing about that through key people on the station. . .and you can change the ethos.

At present comparatively few women winter on the stations and the Antarctic Division’s Director Rex Moncur would like to see the ratio improve: My own view is that it’s not unreasonable to think that in twenty years’ time, something like about 30 per cent of the people on our stations will be women. And I think that’s very valuable to life on our stations. I think the more we can have a community that represents the community in Australia, the more it will reduce some of the tensions that we have to manage. IMPROMPTU ANARE

The participation of women in ANARE life has TRANSVESTISM. HELICOPTER increased greatly in the last fifteen years and has ushered PILOT PIP TURNER (LEFT) IS in arguably the most fundamental changes in half a HELPING WEATHER century in the way station life is conducted. In the early FORECASTER ‘WOK’ 1980s the only wintering women on the continent were BROMHAM CELEBRATE ON doctors, and they were there by default because there ICEBIRD IN 1989 AFTER were not enough men. Today there is a wide range of BROMHAM UNILATERALLY specialist skills represented by women in Antarctica NOMINATED 21 FEBRUARY AS over the summer season and during winter. The first ‘LINDA RONDSTADT DAY’. women ‘tradies’ were Kay Grist (painter) at Casey in (T BOWDEN) the summer of 1988–89 and Macquarie Island 1990–91, and Catherine White, an Asset Services plumber at Mawson in the summer of 1994. Women like biologist Anitra Wendin have dived under the ice and there are regular visits from female communications officers, biologists, physicists, field training officers, forecasters and chefs. Annie Wessing was ANARE’s first woman field training officer in Antarctica in 1991–92, and Vanessa Noble spent the 1995–96 summer at Davis as a helicopter engineer. Women now run ANARE stations with barely a mention in the newspapers. Australia’s then highest ranking female Air Force officer, Wing Commander Angie Rhodes was station leader at Casey in 1994. 467

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

ANARE DIVER ANITRA WENDIN BREAKING THE ICE NEAR DAVIS STATION. (P BUTLER) SQUADRON LEADER ANGELA RHODES, STATION LEADER, AT CASEY STATION IN 1994, IN RELAXED MODE EMERGING FROM A CREVASSE. (COURTESY A RHODES)

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

The Antarctic Division’s policy on relationships has moved with the times. In the 1970s and early 1980s married couples were first allowed to go south. Rex Moncur: Our policy on relationships in Antarctica is that people should be discreet, but that relationships should occur in just the normal way they will happen back here in Australia. We do, for example, where people develop an ongoing relationship, make arrangements by providing a double bedroom for them and assisting them. So that when things develop they are seen to be normal, just as they would occur back here in Australia.

On 3 September 1994, Colin Blobel and Denise Jones made history by being the first ANARE couple to marry in Antarctica, at Davis Station. (As this ceremony was not recognised under Australian law, the couple tied the knot again officially when they returned from Davis.)

468

T W E N T Y- T H R E E

SCIENCE

AND

THE FUTURE

I think most who go to Antarctica for any length of time do go through some sort of personal reassessment. A sense of feeling infinitesimally small in the face of the magnitude of nature. Phil Law

M

ost scientific projects now undertaken by ANARE in Antarctica are linked to international programs. This is a radical change from the 1950s and 1960s when there was a strong feeling that Antarctica—because of its geography—was set apart from the rest of the world. Australian scientists, confronted by a virgin, largely unexplored region, began by trying to cover the ground and find out what was there. ANARE Chief Scientist, Patrick Quilty: Science was strongly curiosity-driven and exciting. There was a focus on projects in which the individual had a major formulating role. Now there is more emphasis on team science, which often acts against the interests of the unconventional individualist or loner—probably to the detriment of science and the development of new ideas.

Although the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957–58 had led to unprecedented international cooperation in Antarctica, individual scientific projects were pursued by researchers from the twelve nations involved. The Special Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) formed in 1958—later renamed the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research—was created by the IGY participating countries, even before the Antarctic Treaty came into being in 1961. Although SCAR attempted to coordinate international programs in those early years, it was unable to be

469

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

effective. Its first successful effort to achieve international cooperation in a major Antarctic project was the International Antarctic Glaciology Program (IAGP) which began in May 1969 and in which ANARE played a major role. The IAGP was an initiative of the operating agencies responsible for expeditions in the IAGP region and in particular by the glaciologists who were also members of the SCAR working group on Glaciology. The Working Group later adopted IAGP as a formal project and the scientific basis of the project was endorsed by SCAR. Uwe Radok (from Melbourne University) was invited to the first meeting in his capacity as the secretary of the SCAR Working Group on Glaciology. It was through his participation that Australia was directly involved from the outset. The close involvement of both the logistics and science representatives was the key to the success of the project and led to close cooperation. Patrick Quilty believes two events changed the perception of Antarctica as set apart from the world: One was the publication of space images of the earth which led to the concept of ‘Spaceship Earth’ showing that we are all in it together. The other was the phenomenon of stratospheric ozone depletion which reinforced the view that no place on earth is exempt from the influence of activities conducted elsewhere.

470

Antarctica is a continent of surprises. Despite having an estimated 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water reserves locked up in its ice sheet, it is the driest continent on earth, with less moisture falling on it than the world’s hottest deserts. It is also the coldest (the lowest temperature ever recorded was minus 89°C), windiest (winds up to 320 kilometres per hour), and the highest (an average elevation of 2300 metres). Only about 2 per cent of its surface is exposed rock and its vast ice sheet is permanently on the move, eventually breaking off at the edges as icebergs. During winter the sea ice freezes around Antarctica, forming a band of some 19 million square kilometres of frozen sea ice and creating a huge ice-covered area in the Southern Hemisphere of between four and five times the size of Australia. All biological life in Antarctica is restricted to the coastal regions and sustained by the waters around it. Its ecosystems are almost all contained within the Antarctic Convergence (more recently named the Polar Front) which surrounds the continent around latitude 58° south—an invisible and constantly moving dividing line that separates the chilled waters of Antarctica from the comparatively warmer waters of the Southern Ocean. Only large mammals like whales and seals, and wide-ranging sea birds like the magnificent wandering albatross, cross this Front.

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

T

he International Antarctic Glaciology Program (IAGP) was conceived following a major international symposium ‘Antarctic Glaciological Exploration’ in the USA in 1968, during which it was realised that there was a very large sector of the ice sheet in East Antarctica over which almost no glaciological measurements had been made. Four nations with active programs in that sector of Antarctica—Australia, France, the USSR and the USA—agreed to take part, as well as the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) from the UK. Japan joined as the fifth nation some years later. A complete study of the ice sheet was planned, including its shape, motion, history of change and interaction with the environment. Measurements would be made from the air, using radio echo-sounding to get profiles of the ice and underlying bedrock, as well as glaciology traverses on the surface of the ice cap with ice core drilling to trace the history and records of past climate. An important contribution in the planning stage was made by the ‘Melbourne Group’ (Uwe Radok, Bill Budd and Dick Jenssen) using early computer modelling techniques. The project was run by a coordinating council from the nations and organisations taking part which met each year to assess results and plan future activities. Australian field work under the IAGP banner began in 1971 with an exploratory survey inland of Casey, testing new survey techniques, and continued in 1973, 1975 and 1976 from the

RUSSIAN AND AUSTRALIAN GLACIOLOGISTS AT THE BEGINNING OF JOINT IAGP TRAVERSES, MIRNY, 1977. THE LARGE OVER-SNOW VEHICLE (RIGHT) IS A SOVIET KHARKOVCHANKA. (N YOUNG)

summit of Law Dome to the 2000 metre elevation contour at 69°south latitude. Temperatures experienced by the survey teams were at times as cold as minus 50°C, where metal can become brittle, and diesel mechanics often performed miracles to keep tractors and equipment operating in good order. Those early days also saw the first use of the US Navy Satellite Navigation System (NAVSAT) to survey the location of markers on the ice through the participation of surveyors from the US program. This satellite survey technique made the surveys of ice movement in the interior of the continent feasible and became a basic tool for Australian activities. Australians pushed in to the interior of Wilkes Land in 1978 and 1979 to take the first comprehensive glaciological measurements in this region. Further surveys continued into the early ➤

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

ICE CORE DRILLING INSIDE THE SHELTER AT DOME SUMMIT SOUTH SITE, LAW DOME, CASEY, 1991. (G SNOW)

1980s, extending the areas of operation. Final surveys were made on each of three major routes out of Casey: south in 1984, east in 1985, and west in 1986. Ice drilling continued on Law Dome. Other IAGP groups were active in East Antarctica in the 1970s and 1980s. The Soviet Antarctic Expeditions (SAE) conducted surveys out of Mirny and also a long-term deep drilling program at Vostok. The French expeditions made traverses out of Dumont d’Urville as well as deep drilling at Dome C with aircraft support from the US. Glaciologists from the Scott Polar Research Institute made airborne radio echosounding surveys in the 1970s in conjunction with the Americans using ice thickness radar mounted in long-range Hercules aircraft. Australian glaciologists took part in joint Australian–Russian surveys of the ice sheet

ICE CORES RECOVERED FROM DEEP DRILLING AT LAW DOME, CASEY, 1992. (M HOLMES)

across the inland of Wilkes Land from Mirny to Dome C, using Russian vehicles and Australian satellite survey equipment—Neal Young (1976–77; 1977–78), Vin Morgan (1978–79), Ross Walsh (1980–81) and Trevor Hamley (1984–85). Some of the activities like the deep core drilling and ice core analysis are continuing, but the main objectives of the IAGP planned 25 years ago have been achieved. The ice cores from Vostok and Law Dome have become an important contribution to the study of past environmental change. The international cooperation between Australia and the other IAGP contributing countries continues to this day.1

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

Ships sampling sea water temperature note a drop of up to 5°C as they pass over the Convergence. One indication of the change for the traveller at that point of entry to the Antarctic ecosystem is wheeling and feeding seabirds, taking advantage of the nutrients pushed up to the surface by upwelling currents. One obvious effect that Antarctica has on the rest of the globe is its generation of powerful weather systems. Another less obvious but powerful influence has only been detected and studied within the last three decades. When ice forms on the sea surface in the Antarctic winter, its salt is excluded into the water below, forming cold, very saline and therefore dense water. This sinks to the ocean floor and spreads throughout the world’s ocean basins. The effects of this massive transference are still being assessed. Quilty: Something like 50 per cent of the world’s water masses are generated in the Antarctic, largely through the freezing of the surface water in winter. Now in generating these oceanographic water masses—which are even recognised way up in the Northern Hemisphere in the Atlantic Ocean—it’s taking with it into the deep ocean anything that it dissolves, or sucks out of the atmosphere. This includes carbon dioxide and some of the CFCs that are blamed for some of the ozone problems in the stratosphere. . .It takes these, and it takes them from the surface into the deep ocean.

A growing realisation of the important influences of Antarctica on the world’s environment was mirrored in the number of nations signing the Antarctic Treaty. Twelve countries had signed in 1959, including countries with territorial claims like Australia, Norway and France, and the United States and the Soviet Union which were active in Antarctica but had no existing claims. By 1975 there were twenty nations acceding to the treaty, and by 1985 the tally was 33—including major powers like China and India, as well as a broad spectrum of governments like Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Italy, Peru, Hungary and Cuba. There was more behind this than international interest in the purity of scientific research. The possibility of mineral exploitation was a key factor. Quilty: Malaysia was very vocal in its criticism of the Antarctic Treaty, in fact it took its concerns to the United Nations in 1982, wanting to see the end of the treaty system.

Mining Antarctica was always going to be extremely difficult, and a last resort activity. The exploitation of biological resources in the waters around the continent was far more easily realised—as had happened with whaling and sealing activities since the nineteenth century.

473

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

474

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

In 1972 the Antarctic Treaty nations agreed on the ‘Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals’. This, in the view of ANARE biologist Harry Burton, was little more than ‘feel-good international window-dressing’ as the Antarctic seals were not being exploited commercially at that time. Other species, however, were already being harvested in large quantities. In 1967, Russian fishing fleets began taking commercial quantities of finfish from around the Antarctic peninsula and sub-Antarctic islands. It took the largest catch of any nation fishing in the Southern Ocean in one year—400 000 tonnes of Antarctic cod and icefish in 1969–70. Overfishing quickly led to decreasing catches which were down to 40 000 tonnes by the early 1970s. At this time the Soviet Union turned its attention to the huge swarms of krill in Antarctic waters. By 1982 the Russian krill fishing fleets were harvesting 500 000 tonnes a year—an estimated 93 per cent of all krill being commercially fished. In 1982, 200 000 tonnes of krill were taken by the Russians off the coast of the AAT near Mawson Station. Other nations involved to a much lesser degree were Japan, Chile, South Korea and Poland. As krill is the major link of the food web for all Antarctic fauna—sea birds, seals, penguins and whales—scientists attending regular meetings of SCAR were concerned that unregulated fishing of krill could trigger a massive collapse of populations of seals and whales. This led to the biggest combined biological experiment ever undertaken in the world—BIOMASS (Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks). It began in the 1980–81 season, and Nella Dan was specially modified to enable ANARE to contribute from the beginning. BIOMASS involved fifteen ships from eleven countries, and ended in 1991. One of the remarkable things about BIOMASS was how it was organised by scientists from nations participating in the Antarctic Treaty without any formal secretariat to oversee the complex arrangements. Both Antarctic Treaty and SCAR meetings are essentially unsupported by any permanent administrative body. The perceived urgency of doing something to regulate possible over-fishing in Antarctic waters was discussed at the Ninth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in London in 1977. In 1978 the first of three special meetings was held in Canberra, the second six months later in Buenos Aires, both to discuss the concept of a special body to oversee monitoring and control of fishing and biological resources in Antarctic waters. The third and final meeting in Canberra in May 1980 resulted in the adoption of a plan to create the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources—CCAMLR. CCAMLR came into force on 7 April 1982 and its first meeting took

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

place in Hobart during May and June of that year.* Darry Powell was the first executive secretary of the CCAMLR Commission and held the job for ten years. His quiet diplomacy, before and after the setting up of CCAMLR, is credited with having brought together successfully the difficult mix of scientific and political interests in a way never before achieved by the loose association of nations involved in the Antarctic Treaty. Quilty: CCAMLR meets for two weeks every year in Hobart. The Scientific Committee meets during the first week, and the second week is the meeting of the Commission. It has a series of working groups—for example, the fish stock assessment working group—and it has an ecosystem monitoring program as well.

CCAMLR is the first coordinated international effort to protect the delicate environmental balance in the Antarctic and Southern oceans. It did not set out to ban fishing in Antarctic waters—a point emphasised by Darry Powell: The unique thing about it was that it specified explicitly that there would be an ecosystem approach to the management of the fishing, or resource harvesting of whatever kind, and that there were to be no activities agreed or undertaken that could cause an irreversible effect on any aspect of the marine ecosystem.

An early criticism of CCAMLR was that its Scientific Committee seemed to be concentrating on single species management, such as the Antarctic cod, or krill. The most urgent and obvious need, however, was to examine the species that were actually being harvested and establish some controls, while at the same time getting information that would enable CCAMLR to develop an ecosystem management regime. To get a wider understanding on how the food resources of the Southern Ocean were shared, a working group for the scientific committee suggested that the study should use what they called ‘indicator species’. Powell: They chose krill predators that had some particular aspect of their life cycle or their actual biology which would give an indication of the possible impact of krill fishing—it might be the weight of chicks at first fledging, the blubber thickness of an animal at a particular time of the year—that kind of thing.

The selection of species to be monitored on a regular basis through a network of stations had enormous repercussions on how biological * The location of its permanent headquarters in Hobart is said to have been adroitly secured by the then Liberal MHR for Denison, Michael Hodgman, who was involved in organising an extremely successful weekend excursion in Tasmania for the international delegates to the third conference in Canberra.

475

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

research was to be carried out by the Antarctic Division and other nations active in Antarctica. By 1988 the scientific committee and working groups had become influential enough to direct the work of the Commission so that its decisions became based more on scientific advice, rather than reflecting narrow individual national priorities. Powell believes that the successful model of CCAMLR was an important influence in bringing about international agreement on the Madrid Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty. Powell: CCAMLR probably demonstrated to the Treaty parties themselves that their scientists could be gathered together and encouraged to work together in programs that would be useful in monitoring environmental impacts. If CCAMLR hadn’t been going, I think it would have been harder to get the details into the Madrid Protocol.

Environmental organisations like Greenpeace have been critical of CCAMLR, alleging that it is unable to ensure that nations fishing around Antarctica abide by agreed quotas. At CCAMLR’s November 1995 meeting, the British Government reported that ‘catches from illegal fishing now exceed those taken legitimately’ in the waters around South Georgia.2 The Antarctic Division’s Patrick Quilty acknowledges that there is some illegal fishing, and CCAMLR tries to keeps tabs on it. Before CCAMLR, all scientific programs had been coordinated by SCAR. But with marine science the most rapidly expanding discipline and CCAMLR initiating its own programs with its own scientific committee and a permanent secretariat in Hobart, the reality was that SCAR had lost some of its scientific initiative. As no science can be done in Antarctica without the extensive logistics provided by participating countries, SCAR had a logistics working group to help facilitate agreed projects. In 1986, the Antarctic Division’s director, Jim Bleasel, and Peter Wilkniss from the US (Head of the Division of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation) combined to change these long-standing arrangements and effectively hijacked the scientific agenda from SCAR by replacing the Logistics Working Group with a kind of Antarctic directors’ club with the acronym COMNAP—the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs. Bleasel was unapologetic about this move as he (and Wilkniss) did not like the budget priorities and expensive joint projects of their Antarctic programs being decided by a group of scientists on their own:

476

If you have a bunch of, say, marine scientists together they would naturally feel that marine science is the most important thing. But very, very rarely did any scientific discipline agree with the priorities of any other scientific discipline.

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

Bleasel and Wilkniss organised a committee of some fifteen Antarctic program directors who met outside the framework of normal SCAR meetings: So in this way we decided first what science we wanted to do. We consulted with our scientists, we knew what they thought was important, and that which fitted into our priorities—and then we would decide among ourselves how we were going to do that.

The COMNAP group would then liaise with SCAR, outlining what scientific programs would be supported. Bleasel: The bulk of Antarctic problems are operational matters really. . .Where we needed the scientists’ input, we’d get that, and then we’d put the scientists on to the scientific parts of it. It worked extremely well.

The scientists were not impressed as they perceived COMNAP as a threat to SCAR’s influence in the Treaty system. The SCAR Logistics Working Group was dissolved and replaced by a Standing Committee (of COMNAP) on Antarctic Logistics and Operations (known as SCALOP). COMNAP did not weaken SCAR’s position in the Treaty system and the international coordination of multi-national science programs has improved. COMNAP and SCALOP now meet concurrently with SCAR every two years to discuss the logistics and funding implications of large science programs. Australia has played a major role in the work of COMNAP–SCALOP and the division’s assistant director, Jack Sayers, was elected chair of SCALOP in 1992. In 1996 COMNAP decided to transfer its secretariat from Washington DC to Hobart, with Jack Sayers taking up the position of executive secretary.

A

n Australian scientist wishing to work in Antarctica not only has to choose a project that accords with the international obligations of ANARE, but must also convince the Antarctic Division that the proposal merits the necessary logistic support. In the early years of ANARE, the Executive Planning Committee advised the Antarctic Division on general policy and scientific objectives. It was chaired by the then director, Phillip Law, and did not survive his departure in 1966. In 1979 the Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee (ARPAC) was established under the chairmanship of David Caro, vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and later of Melbourne. ARPAC’s first report was tabled in Federal parliament the following year and recommended among its long-term guidelines that Antarctic research be directed towards the living (including marine) and mineral resources of the Antarctic

477

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

and the environmental effects of their exploitation. The effect of the Antarctic climate, weather, and ocean circulations in the Southern Ocean area was also singled out, reflecting the growing awareness of the importance of Antarctica to the world’s environment. Patrick Quilty thought highly of ARPAC: There was no way that the chairman or any member of ARPAC was going to be told the way [to] operate by government. Caro was a very independent chairman.

All ARPAC could do was provide good advice and hope its recommendations would be acted on by the Antarctic Division or the Government. One of its recommendations—that a separate fund of $500 000 be set up to support research projects of merit that could not be funded through normal channels—was never realised. In 1985 the Minister for Science, Barry Jones (the most enthusiastic pro-science Federal minister ever to hold office), was keen to promote Antarctic science broadly within the Australian scientific community and proposed a new advisory body, ASAC (Antarctic Science Advisory Committee). John Lovering, then vicechancellor of Flinders University, was approached to chair it. Lovering: I said I’d do that on the understanding that we would have money available—there would be a budget to support research from people outside the division. We’d set up our own little research grant body called the ASAC Research Grants, and Barry agreed that would happen. Now the only problem was that he didn’t actually have the money to do it, and. . .the poor old Antarctic Division was required to find it out of its own resources.

Lovering consulted with his predecessor on ARPAC, David Caro, who advised him not to take the job unless ASAC had its own funding. Bleasel supported ASAC and found the money for its research grants scheme. This is still in existence, although, according to Patrick Quilty, its role changed significantly when Lovering left in 1990 and Neville Fletcher, then Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO, took over the chair. Lovering: I’ve always seen ASAC as much more hand-in-glove with the directorship of the Antarctic Division. . .and thus the advice it gives is a bit less independent. It’s different in another sense in that it’s had the half million to administer every year and that’s developed a new layer of bureaucracy within the Antarctic Division.

478

As well as awarding grants for Antarctic science, ASAC maintained a key role in formulating overall policy for ANARE activities. Before the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) was negotiated in 1991, the emphasis on Antarctic research

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

S

ince it began in 1947 the Antarctic Division has involved scientists from a number of Commonwealth Government agencies and universities in its research projects under the umbrella of ANARE. Ever since the division moved from Melbourne to Hobart in 1981 there has been an important concentration of Antarctic-related research activity in Tasmania. The world headquarters of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources was established in Hobart in 1982 and in 1988 the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies (IASOS) was established at the University of Tasmania, with the aid of Federal Government funding, to promote and focus Australian academic activity concerned with Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. In 1991 the Cooperative Research Centre for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Environment (Antarctic CRC) was established to research the role of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in global climate change. It addresses this and other questions by conducting research on the links between the oceans, the sea ice, the atmosphere and the

THE INSTITUTE OF ANTARCTIC AND SOUTHERN OCEAN STUDIES (IASOS) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA. (GLENN JACOBSON)

continental ice sheet. The Antarctic CRC is a Commonwealth-funded, independent research organisation with five equal partners: the Australian Antarctic Division, the Australian Geological Survey Organisation, the Bureau of Meteorology, the University of Tasmania and CSIRO’s Division of Oceanography (also located in Hobart). The Antarctic CRC has a major role in the training and education of about 70 postgraduate students through IASOS and is situated on the campus of the University of Tasmania in Hobart.

was more resource-driven to find out what minerals, as well as biological resources, were there. Lovering, a resource geologist, is unapologetic about this approach in the 1980s: People were starting to look at exploiting—that nasty word—the Antarctic. And I think whether you’re actually going to do it or not is another matter, but I always thought at least you ought to know what’s there. . .But

479

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

other people don’t agree with that, they say, ‘Well, you shouldn’t know’. I think that’s stupid. You’ve got to know, I believe, what is there and if you have to exploit it, how you would do it in a sustainable way.

By the 1990s there were remarkable changes in international attitudes to Antarctica. Antarctic Division director, Rex Moncur: The end of the ‘cold war’ and tougher economic times world-wide, along with the growing strength of the Treaty System as a means of influence, have reduced the drive for territorial claims. With the signing of the Madrid Protocol, the influence of potential mineral resource exploitation has virtually disappeared—replaced by a need to protect the Antarctic environment.3

The internationalisation of Antarctic science had been occurring since the early 1980s. The Madrid Protocol simply re-emphasised the importance of a global approach. Patrick Quilty: What it means is that the geologists, biologists, oceanographers and glaciologists, instead of operating as individual disciplines, are very much more integrated. Geology controls where the continent is, it controls the elevation of the land. Oceanography controls the water masses that are circulating around the continent—and in the long run that influences the animals that live there. . .It’s a very complex, vast mechanism that we’re talking about, and for the first time we’re starting to try to pull this lot together as one system.

One alarmist theory has it that if the entire ice cap of Antarctica were to melt, the world’s oceans would rise around sixty metres higher than their present levels. The reality is different. Glaciologist Ian Allison: For that to happen is going to take tens of thousands of years. . .Another thing is that most of the ice mass in Antarctica is at temperatures well below minus 20°C. Even if the temperature were to rise a couple of degrees—in extreme global warming, people are talking about a few degrees in a century or so—that’s not going to melt.

480

In fact, according to Allison, global warming is likely to create more moisture, which may cause increased snowfall on Antarctica, and the ice sheet would then increase in size. Glaciologists are keen to find out whether the Antarctic ice sheet is in balance or whether more ice is flowing off the continent as icebergs than the amount of precipitation falling on it as snow. A key indicator is the great Lambert Glacier, the world’s largest, flowing down into the Amery Ice Shelf, which actually drains some 10 per cent of the entire Antarctic continent. With Mawson

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

Station to the west of the Amery, and Davis Station (and Law Base) to the east, Australian glaciologists THE 1994–95 have been studying the ice flow of the Lambert Glacier DAVIS–MAWSON–DAVIS since the 1950s. The original marker poles and strain TRAVERSES gauges of thirty and more years ago are still valuable indicators for comparison, but satellite technology and GPS (Global Positioning System) can now chart the movement of the ice with extraordinary accuracy. (Australian glaciologists led by Bill Budd began computer modelling as early as 1968, and led the world in this area. The Derived Physical Characteristics of the Antarctic Ice Sheet was published in 1971, and was the first comprehensive computer model of the Antarctic ice sheet.) Despite space-age technology, surface observations are still essential. In 1994 and 1995 tractor trains with teams of six men completed a return 481

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

traverse of 4500 kilometres around the head of the Lambert from Law Base in the Larsemann Hills to Mawson Station. Ice sheet and bedrock elevation were measured continuously along the traverse route, and markers were placed every 15 to 30 kilometres to determine velocity and every two kilometres to measure the rate of snow accumulation—as well as ice cores obtained to record fluctuations in snowfall over the last century. ANARE scientist Knowles Kerry ranks the Davis–Mawson–Davis traverse among the greatest journeys ever made in Antarctica—including those undertaken in the ‘Heroic Era’ by explorers like Scott, Shackleton, Mawson, and the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1957–58. Glaciologist Martin Higham led the 1993–94 leg from Mawson to the Larsemann Hills, and Rob Kiernan (who also travelled with Higham’s party) led the return traverse back to Mawson in 1994–95. Even in summer the glaciology teams high on the ice cap work in temperatures of minus 30°C. Andrew Brocklesby was in charge of the ice radar, measuring the thickness of the ice cap over the underlying bedrock during both legs of the Lambert Glacier traverses in 1994–95: Every day is similar. The landscape never changes—just the same, day after day. We had two vans, four in one van and two in the other. I was in the van with only two of us. We travelled thirty kilometres each day. One van would reach a GPS marker pole, thirty kilometres apart, and the other would leave for the next one. . .We were always apart unless we had to carry out repairs or drill ice holes—we drilled three or four of these over the whole 110 days. It was very slow going, we travelled only about five kilometres per hour.

High on the Antarctic ice cap, the terrain is utterly featureless—just a seemingly unending expanse of white ice from horizon to horizon. Brocklesby: You cannot compare being on a traverse to a voyage on the open sea because at least waves move, and there are seabirds from time to time. But where we were there was just nothing, maybe occasionally a little lump or a bump, but that is all. It is very hard to describe it—Ranulph Fiennes, the Antarctic explorer, describes it as sensory deprivation. Everything sort of collapses in on you.

482

Traverse life is the ultimate test of personal relations in Antarctica. There is a similarity with space travel and Brocklesby and his companions were assisting in a NASA–Antarctic Division joint experiment, charting their mood swings and emotions daily on specially designed lap top

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

computers which sent data instantaneously to Houston, Texas. Brocklesby found traversing extremely testing: Because there is nothing else but the other guy in the van, mountains can be made out of molehills—and we were together 31¼2 months living in a small container—and you can’t get away from anyone. It’s difficult to leave the van to go for a walk because there is nothing to walk to. You have to set yourself goals or take up a hobby. I used to run alongside the van sometimes and do chin-ups on the radar antennas. One guy did a management course while we were away—others looked forward to a drink at the end of the day!

Preliminary results from the traverse, associated with other long-term observations of the movement of the Antarctic ice sheet, show that the system is not quite in balance—more snow is actually falling on the continent than is being discharged as icebergs. Glaciologist Ian Allison: The models at the moment suggest that, if there is warming due to global change of one form or another, then in Antarctica we will initially get more snowfall on the continent. . .So for the [next] few hundred years the ice sheet will actually start to build up. . .

Recent studies have suggested that the vast distribution of winter sea ice around the continent may have more dramatic short-term impact on the world’s climate than the Antarctic ice sheet. Sea ice acts as an insulating blanket between a relatively warm ocean and a very cold atmosphere—it stops heat getting out of the ocean and into the atmosphere. Only in the 1990s were ANARE glaciologists able to voyage south in winter in Aurora Australis to study the distribution and thickness of sea ice at a time when ships do not normally attempt to enter the region. The results of these voyages dramatically changed previously held theories about the thickness and distribution of winter pack ice. It was found the ice varied from areas of two or three metres thick down to a few centimetres—resulting in an average thickness of only about 30 centimetres. Glaciologist Jo Jacka: There are a heck of a lot more areas of open water and very thin ice that we previously hadn’t known were there. We had assumed that within the sea ice zone you had a continuous cover of sea ice. In fact you don’t. You have large areas of open water and large areas of very thin ice—by very thin, I mean less than ten centimetres.

As even quite thin ice acts as a blanket for heat loss from the ocean, quite small increases in air temperature could dramatically increase the areas of open water, which would in turn release more heat from the ocean into the atmosphere. One way of studying the thickness and

483

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

composition of the drifting pack is to sink a buoy containing a monitoring system to the ocean floor—deep enough not to be affected by drifting icebergs. Allison: This tethered sonar system goes ‘ping’ every five minutes and has an on-board recorder. As the ice slowly drifts over the top of it with the wind and currents—because the pack ice is always moving—we’re getting a continual profile of the thickness of the ice that drifts over the top.

EARLY OCEANOGRAPHY. RELEASING A DRIFTING BUOY THALA DAN IN A JOINT CSIRO/METEOROLOGICAL BUREAU EXERCISE, JANUARY 1976. (B MILLER)

FROM

The importance of the ocean as an instrument of climate change is further emphasised by ANARE’s involvement in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). Planning started in the early 1980s and some twenty countries are involved in a major world-wide field program from 1990–97. The scale is enormous. According to John Church of the CSIRO’s Division of Oceanography, the one billion dollar program will gather in seven years the equivalent of all oceanographical observations done this century:

We are focusing on the ocean because it is a central part of the climate system. Its heat capacity is much greater than the atmosphere. The upper three metres of the ocean can hold the same amount of heat as the entire atmosphere. It absorbs heat and transports it to another part of the ocean and can release it perhaps decades later.

Surface floats are released to drift around the ocean measuring water temperature and surface currents. As well, Aurora Australis has been involved in dropping special floats in the Southern Ocean. Church:

484

They descend down to 800 metres, drift with the currents for two weeks to a month, return to the surface, establish their position by satellite,

S

descend back to the same depth and measure again. These have roughly fifty cycles.

Water samples are also taken from varying depths in the ocean to investigate the absorption of carbon dioxide—as well as temperature, salinity and nutrients in the water column. Church: The ocean stores about fifty times as much carbon dioxide as the atmosphere. Of the 6 gigatonnes of CO2 released annually from burning fossil fuels, about 50 per cent stays in the atmosphere, 2 gigatonnes is absorbed into the ocean—much of it into the Southern Ocean, and the rest is thought to be taken up in the terrestrial biosphere.

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

I

n 1992 SCAR formalised a plan to coordinate Antarctic research on global change under the control of the Group of Specialists on Global Change and the Antarctic (GLOCHANT) identifying six priorities: The Antarctic sea-ice zone: interactions and feedbacks within the global geosphere-biosphere system; Global palaeo-environmental records from the Antarctic ice sheet and marine and land sediments; The mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet and sea-level contributions; Antarctic stratospheric ozone, tropospheric chemistry, and the effect of ultra-violet radiation on the biosphere; The role of the Antarctic in biogeochemical cycles and exchanges: atmosphere and ocean; and Environmental monitoring and detection of global change in the Antarctic.

The powerful Antarctic Circumpolar Current—the world’s biggest ocean current—carries vast quantities of water, heat, salt and carbon dioxide between the world’s oceans. Australian research shows that the eastward flow of this current, south of Tasmania, is about 150 million cubic metres per second—about a thousand times the flow of the Amazon River. The ocean, atmosphere and sea ice interact to form very cold salty water masses which sink to form deeper layers. Those layers spread throughout the world’s oceans. Changes in any of these related phenomena may have a profound impact on the earth’s climate. Curiously enough, the man-made CFC gases which are rising into the atmosphere and contributing to the thinning of the vital ozone layer have been a useful research tool for scientists studying the movement of the super-chilled Antarctic bottom water throughout the world’s oceans. The advent of Aurora Australis has enabled ANARE to contribute significantly to this new research. Church:

We can determine the currents by noting the distribution of the CFC content. The efficiency with which the Antarctic shelf forms Antarctic bottom water is a new discovery. We have determined this using CFCs

485

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

LIDAR Upper atmosphere studies have been undertaken by ANARE scientists in Antarctica from the early 1950s. Until the early 1990s, the emphasis of upper atmosphere physics involved the study of the complex interplay between radiation from the sun and interstellar space with the earth’s magnetic field. Today, ANARE is focusing on the structure, chemistry and dynamics of the region known as the middle atmosphere between fifteen kilometres and ninety kilometres above the surface of the earth. This increased scientific interest in the entire atmospheric column is a direct result of concerns about global change. Over the past three decades, scientists have developed a technique called LIDAR—an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging—which provides a very effective ground-based means of remotely sensing conditions at high altitudes. From 1998 the Antarctic Division and the University of Adelaide will use LIDAR to obtain a comprehensive view of the atmosphere above Davis Station. Andrew Klekociuk, from the Antarctic Division’s Atmospheric and Space Physics Section, describes LIDAR as a very powerful remote sensing technique with some similarities to radar: We’re using a very powerful laser beam and transmitting into the atmosphere. The laser light bounces off molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere and a portion of that light gets scattered back to the ground. By making some fairly careful measurements of that light we can infer information about the density of the atmosphere as a function of

altitude, and also the temperature of the molecules and. . .the presence of winds blowing molecules around up there. Recent northern hemisphere LIDAR measurements have shown a cooling trend of a few tenths of a degree Celsius per year in the middle atmosphere which may be related to human activities. The use of LIDARs in Antarctica is only a recent development, however, and not much is known about conditions there. Klekociuk: The LIDAR at Davis was designed by the late Fred Jacka of the University of Adelaide who pioneered Antarctic atmospheric studies from the early days of ANARE. The LIDAR will operate day and night, weather permitting, and will probe to greater altitudes than most other such instruments. LIDARs are operating at other Antarctic sites including the South Pole, McMurdo and Syowa, but these are not able to directly measure winds and temperatures in the novel way that we do. The main aims of the LIDAR project are to determine the long-term climate above Davis and to study phenomena which may occur on short time scales—such as atmospheric waves and high altitude clouds. This work will combine with observations from other instruments at Davis and various international projects to gain a better understanding of the Antarctic atmosphere and its influence on global conditions.

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

as tracers. . .they are tests for ocean models. . .[we now have] a much more accurate model of what really happens.

Without doubt sea levels are rising—between ten and fifteen centimetres during the last century. John Church: There are a number of causes of sea level rise. Firstly, there is the non-polar glacial melt from places like New Zealand. Secondly, and most importantly in this century and the next, is the thermal expansion of the oceans. When the ocean warms, the water expands and the sea level rises. . .A range of fifteen to ninety-five centimetres is predicted by the year 2100 AD.

According to a recent report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), ‘The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate’. Church: With less sea ice and warmer oceans there will be more evaporation, warmer atmospheres with more water in the atmosphere, therefore more snowfall in Antarctica. This will offset some of the increase in sea level rise from other components. But we are still looking at an order of fifty centimetres rise in sea level, which of course is very significant for [Pacific] island countries and nations like Bangladesh.

A NTARCTIC

ORGANISMS AND CLIMATE

One of the most fascinating new areas of ANARE research concerns the interaction of living organisms and climate over the Southern Ocean. Biology program leader Harvey Marchant: [We] are looking at effects on the biota that are a result of the greenhouse effect and also the effect of ozone depletion. . .some Antarctic organisms are not only affected by climate change, some can also influence climate. The alga Phaeocystis produces a chemical, dimethyl sulfide—DMS for short.

When ventilated to the atmosphere it forms aerosol droplets. The sulfur-containing compounds from Phaeocystis play a role in the formation of clouds and so have a direct effect on the climate. (Its cloud-forming qualities are significant. A doubling of DMS to the atmosphere has been predicted to cause a 2°C drop in global temperature.) Vast quantities of phytoplankton (single-celled floating plants), protozoa (single-celled animals) and bacteria are the basis of the marine food chain. Phaeocystis

487

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

forms massive blooms on the surface of the Southern Ocean from September to midsummer. Marchant: I regard that as perhaps the most single important species in the Southern Ocean. It is there in huge quantities—we’ve counted up to 60 million cells per litre. The water when it’s like that looks like minestrone—a sort of pale, browny kind of soup. If you get a bucket full of sea water it looks like strings of brown goop in the water. ANARE BIOLOGY PROGRAM LEADER HARVEY MARCHANT AT THE MICROSCOPE IN THE MARINE SCIENCE LABORATORY

AURORA AUSTRALIS. (GLENN JACOBSON)

ON

The Phaeocystis blooms happen to coincide with the ‘ozone hole’ over Antarctica which exposes the algal cells to high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In the mid 1980s some scientists feared that this increased UV radiation might be affected to such an extent that there could be a collapse of the Antarctic marine food chain. Early experiments on the effects of UV on phytoplankton seemed alarming. Marchant:

The organisms they looked at were mostly diatoms—which are of high food value to krill and other grazers [and] which suffered a very rapid knockdown in these studies. . .But the story is much more subtle than that because different organisms have different tolerances to UV and have different food values.

The soup-like Phaeocystis resists increased UV radiation more efficiently than the diatoms because it produces its own sun-screen—which it secretes into the mucus that surrounds the cells. There is considerable commercial interest in this phenomenon by manufacturers of sun-screen and other health care products. Negotiations are continuing, and the compounds that protect Phaeocystis from UV damage may one day protect humans.

K RILL

488

The vast swarms of krill in the Southern Ocean are dependent on the nutrients and phytoplankton which are effectively the pastures of the sea on which every other living thing depends. But there was no reliable knowledge on the extent of the krill in Southern Ocean waters or on

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

their breeding and life cycle. The early marine science experiments under the umbrella of BIOMASS (Biological THE DELIGHTFUL SHAPES OF Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks) SINGLE-CELLED ORGANISMS were dependent on having ships equipped with trawlREVEALED BY THE ELECTRON ing nets, echo sounders and laboratory facilities. MICROSCOPE. (BIOMASS involved fifteen ships from eleven counLEFT: PYRAMIMONAS, tries and was the biggest marine biological experiment DIVIDING—MAGNIFIED 3500 ever undertaken in the world.) Nella Dan was modiTIMES. fied in time to contribute to FIBEX (the First International RIGHT: TRANSMISSION Biomass Experiment) in the summer of 1980–81 and MICROGRAPH OF THE the voyage leader was Knowles Kerry. ANTARCTIC MARINE DIATOM Shipping problems caused an embarrassing last ASTEROMPHALUS, THE MAJOR minute cancellation of ANARE’s involvement in SIBEX FOOD ITEM FOR KRILL AND 1 (the first phase of the Second International Biomass OTHER GRAZERS, FROM 62° Experiment) in 1984, but SIBEX II, led by Harvey SOUTH. THIS ORGANISM IS Marchant the following year, spent 45 days investigatAROUND 20µM ing Antarctic marine ecosystems and brought back live (20/1000MM) IN DIAMETER. krill, including newly hatched juveniles, to the Antarctic (COURTESY AAD Division’s laboratories at Kingston. Up till 1982 no krill ELECTRONMICROSCOPE had been successfully bred or kept alive outside Antarctic UNIT) waters. Research biologist Tom Ikeda was recruited specifically to run the Antarctic Division’s krill program and did so from 1982 to 1987. Stephen Nicol then took over. Nicol: Tom Ikeda single-handedly turned the krill research upside down at an international level. In 1964 [a United States biologist] Mary Alice McWhinnie had kept krill alive in captivity in Antarctica —the first to do so, but only for a short time. Tom, however, was the first to keep krill alive in captivity outside Antarctica for any length of time

489

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

(eleven years) and thus saw how long they lived and how fast they grew. The krill that he grew were the first to spawn in captivity. He was the first to see that they shrink by up to 75 per cent of their body size if they are kept without food, thus proving that you cannot age krill by body size.

Krill is a general term used to describe about 85 species of open-ocean crustaceans known as euphausiids. They look like smaller versions of more familiar crustaceans, like prawns or lobsters, and range in size from small tropical species less than a centimetre in length to little-known deep sea giants that can be as long as fourteen centimetres. In summer, female Antarctic krill lay up to 10 000 eggs at a time, sometimes several times a season, into the surface waters of the Southern Ocean. The eggs are thought to sink to a depth of 2000 metres before hatching. They then begin their long ‘developmental ascent’—up to ten days—during which the newly hatched larvae journey up towards the sunlit waters to feed. Nicol: Krill live in large aggregations or swarms that can be made up of more than a billion animals. The development of scientific echo sounders has provided a way to ‘see’ krill swarms but it has not made the distribution question any simpler; the echo sounders have revealed that the swarms have a complex horizontal and vertical structure.4

Krill are in the central position of the Antarctic ecosystem, eaten not only by land-breeding carnivores such as penguins and crabeater seals, but by whales, bottom-dwelling fish and squid. Their bodies and waste products become food for molluscs and other invertebrates on the sea floor. The krill themselves feed on phytoplankton. Nicol: It is thought that a large krill fishery might disrupt the entire ecosystem and have a particular impact on the land-breeding predators that live in colonies near the most popular fishing grounds of the South Atlantic.5

The remarkable ability of the krill to reduce its size in lean times has made it difficult for scientists to keep track of its age and longevity. The Antarctic Division leads the world in this research. Nicol:

490

We now have 2000–3000 krill. This is the only facility of its type in the world—we are the only people in the world to keep krill all year round. This has enabled us to carry out research that requires large numbers of replicate measurements and to study the relationship between repro-

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

duction and moulting, growth rates and ageing. Some of our recent studies with a visiting Chinese student indicate measurement of the eyeball diameter may be the best way to distinguish age.

Excellent echo sounders, netting facilities and laboratories on Aurora Australis have been a valuable addition to the practice THE UBIQUITOUS KRILL of ANARE marine science from 1989. (One limitation EUPHAUSIA SUPERBA. THIS on commercial exploitation is the difficulty of proCOMPOSITE PHOTOGRAPH WAS cessing krill. Unless they are processed within three TAKEN WITH A SCANNING hours of being caught, powerful enzymes break down MICROSCOPE. the flesh, making it unsuitable for human consump(COURTESY AD tion. Krill skeletons also contain high concentrations ELECTRONMICROSCOPE of fluoride, so the flesh must be quickly removed from UNIT) the skins. (Even the processing of krill as protein for animal food must be completed within ten hours.) Krill, the animal with the greatest biomass on earth, is preyed on by blue whales, the largest animals that ever lived, and by crabeater seals, the most plentiful large mammal surviving in the wild. Not all Antarctic fauna survives on an exclusive diet of krill, but other animals in the food chain, like finfish and squid, depend on it. The ANARE biological science program seeks to increase biological knowledge of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic ecosystems and of the organisms of the region, and to assess and predict the possible effects of environmental change and human impacts on them.6 On 1 November 1996 CCAMLR announced it had set the first annual catch limit of 775 000 tonnes of krill in Southern Ocean waters adjoining the Australian Antarctic Territory. This decision to allow limited fishing was based on the results of an extensive survey of krill stocks in the area conducted by ANARE marine biologists from Aurora Australis earlier that year. (At the same time CCAMLR accepted the advice of its scientific committee to increase the catch limit for the Patagonian toothfish in sub-Antarctic waters between Australia and Antarctica from 297 to 3800 tonnes.) These decisions were enthusiastically endorsed by 491

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

THE SAD TALE OF ALAN THE KRILL Tom Ikeda’s research into krill longevity suffered a serious setback in the early 1980s. As there were only a few specimens, they had names. ‘Alan’ was special. He had survived in his jar longer than any of his fellow captive krill, and looked like proving that krill could live much longer than originally thought. Each day Alan’s jar would be examined by a technician to see if he had shed his skin, and each week 80 to 90 per cent of the water would be decanted off, to be replaced by fresh seawater imported specially from the Tasman Peninsula.

For three years this ritual was carried out successfully until the technician made an unfortunate error. Uncharitable co-workers suggested after the event that the technician concerned may have had a hangover or, for some reason, not been as alert as usual. But on this fateful day he misjudged the decanting, and flushed the hapless Alan down the sink. The enormity of this disaster was not apparent until some years later when new, younger krill survived in captivity for about nine years. Only then was it realised that the flushing away of Alan had set back the discovery of the longevity of krill by many years.

Senator Ian Campbell, then the Coalition government’s parliamentary secretary responsible for Antarctic matters: We would very much like an Australian company to be able to harvest that resource for the benefit of Australia and Australia’s export earnings—helping to feed the world. If we don’t do that, then I presume some other nation will come and do it. But at least Australia has conducted the science and we can assure the rest of the world that harvesting is within limits and is sustainable.

M ONITORING

492

FOOD CONSUMPTION

Monitoring the food consumption from the Southern Ocean of selected ‘indicator species’ like sea birds, penguins and seals, one of the most exciting new areas of ANARE research, has only been possible since new technology has been able to attach computers and transmitters to individual animals. This makes it possible to monitor—sometimes with the aid of satellites—where they go to feed and, in the case of seals and penguins, how deep they dive to capture their prey. Instrumentation attached to the great wandering albatross, which breeds in the sub-Antarctic region, has shown the birds often fly right around the globe, ranging down into Antarctic waters, and also up into sub-tropical regions. They are particularly vulnerable to long-line fishing

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

for tuna, diving down to take the baits as they sink below the surface. Long lines have been used since the 1950s, but it was not until the 1980s that the depletion of wandering albatross (and other albatross species) was linked to the long lines. The ‘wanderers’ only breed every second or third year and only have one chick, so they are particularly vulnerable. ANARE sea bird ecologist Graham Robertson is gloomy about the prospects for this species: I expect the wandering albatrosses will go the way of the blue whales when they were harvested years ago—they just disappeared. Albatrosses are being seen less and less frequently. The ‘wanderers’ in South Georgia are in deep trouble because they fly to places like Brazil—and even Wollongong—and get caught by tuna boats.

Robertson believes the problem could be mitigated if fishermen set their lines in total darkness, weighted them so they sank more quickly, and used bird-scaring streamers to frighten the birds away: Most fishermen don’t really see it as an issue because they don’t think they are catching many birds, maybe one a night. But if you multiply this one per night for every boat—there are 55 million hooks going into the water per year in the Southern Ocean—it comes up to several tens of thousands of albatrosses. . .fishermen need education as soon as possible.

In 1988, Robertson and his field assistants from Mawson worked at Auster Rookery right through the winter, studying the foraging ecology of the emperor penguins there. Emperors are the only penguins to breed on sea ice and the males incubate the eggs, huddling together for group warmth through the winter blizzards. To do this they fast for around 115 days, including the courtship and mating in March, through to December when the ice breaks up and the chicks take to the open water. Emperors are the largest of the 16 penguin species, standing 1.15 metres tall and weighing up to 40 kilograms. During their long fast, the male emperors lose some 20 kilograms of their body weight while the female forages for food in the Southern Ocean. During the breeding season the adult birds have to trek some 70 to 80 kilometres over the sea ice to reach open water to bring back food for their chicks. During 1988 Robertson managed to attach data loggers to individual birds and then recover them when they returned to feed their chicks. This winter field work was continued by Roger Kirkwood in 1993 and Barbara Wienecke in 1994. The research has revealed that emperors often dive deeper than 500 metres and can hold their breath for 22 minutes—much longer than any other bird species. There are about 23 000 birds at Auster and

493

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

it is now known that to rear their chicks they take some 11 000 tonnes of krill, fish and squid from nearby waters. Graham Robertson:

A PENGUIN ON A WEIGHBRIDGE AT

BÉCHERVAISE ISLAND, NEAR MAWSON STATION. THIS UNIQUE SYSTEM, ABLE TO WEIGH A MOVING BIRD, WAS INVENTED IN 1991 BY ANARE SCIENTISTS KNOWLES KERRY AND GRANT ELSE. THE CONCEPT HAS SINCE BEEN TAKEN UP BY THREE OTHER

This is a phenomenal amount and suggests the ocean is very productive even in the throes of winter. A single chick requires 84 kilograms of food to develop properly—its ration is less than 10 per cent of that of an adult for self-maintenance. In a twenty-day foraging trip an adult can get the chick’s ration in less than one day’s hunting. Clearly the adult’s priority is its own self-maintenance. The chick comes next.

In past years, krill and other fishing has been carried out along the edge of the continental shelf which is where the emperors forage for their food. After it has hatched and reared the chick, the male emperor has to double its body weight in a short period before preparing for another four-month fast:

NATIONS, REVOLUTIONISING PENGUIN ORNITHOLOGY.

PENGUINS ARE IDENTIFIED AND WEIGHED AS THEY MOVE TO AND FROM THEIR COLONY.

(COURTESY J CLARKE)

So if there is any competition between sea birds and mankind through the harvesting of commercial fisheries, the emperors have probably got most to lose. . .If there is any impairment in the male’s ability to fatten and if they come in to breed a bit lighter, then their body fat reserves will run out before the eggs hatch and they will have to abandon them.

Robertson makes the point that the world’s population is increasing at such a rate that pressure to get food from the oceans is going to increase:

494

So this program is pre-emptive. We have to focus our work on CCAMLR related issues to try to get measurements that are conservative for seabirds and other animals.

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

W

hen she is kneeling on the ice, petite biologist Barbara Wienecke is the same height as an emperor penguin—about one metre. As emperors can weigh anything from 22 to 40 kilograms, and are extremely strong, Barbara—the first woman biologist to winter with the birds at Auster Rookery in 1994—had problems catching and restraining them to attach data loggers and make other observations: When you think that two-thirds of their front muscle power is in their flippers, it is not surprising that these are so strong. Their flippers are their main weapons. I was getting very badly bruised arms, so I cut up an old foam mattress and made some arm shields out of it. I also got some spare Explorer socks and doubled them up over my arms and this worked very well. Wienecke and her assistant Kieran Lawton lived in a field hut eight kilometres from Auster Rookery, set amongst spectacular grounded icebergs: The hut is only about 2.5 metres by 7.5 metres, with no privacy at all. Sometimes we would send each other out on long walks! Every bit of water we used had to be chipped off an iceberg just off the island and melted. Everything in the hut would freeze overnight. You would wake up in the morning to minus 26°C. Even the toothpaste was frozen. On one occasion during the winter they had warning of a blizzard and took out a small sledge to collect lost eggs from around the colony to keep count of the mortality rate of

BIOLOGIST BARBARA WIENECKE INSIDE HER APPLE FIELD HUT OUT ON THE SEA ICE AT AUSTER ROOKERY. SHE STAYED WITH

PORTABLE

THE EMPEROR PENGUINS THROUGH THE WINTER OF

1994. (I CUMING)

the incubating chicks. Barbara was having trouble even moving against the freezing wind, her face battered by whirling snow. She thought to herself, ‘Just what am I doing here? I hate this wind!’: Out of the drifting snow came an emperor, tobogganing on his stomach, looking so casual, ever so relaxed. He stopped briefly near me and looked at me, as if to say, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Then he took off again, so gracefully. It was a magic ➤

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

moment! The contrast of me—with my 15 kilograms of clothing, sweating profusely, and hardly able to breathe as it was so cold—and this big beautiful animal who was able to do just what he wanted to do, was ludicrous. Wienecke and Lawton had twelve transmitters, valued at $3500 each, which are recycled when their batteries run down. They are glued to the backs of selected penguins to monitor their swimming and diving patterns. Unfortunately, probably due to a late breakout of the sea ice, the parent birds were not able to bring back enough food and the breeding success rate at Auster in 1994 was only 65 per cent. A critical moment for a newly hatched chick is when the female returns from fishing, and the male (who has hatched it from

496

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

an egg) somewhat reluctantly hands it over. Wienecke: The chicks sit on the feet of the parents for about 50 days. Once they thermo-regulate, they have to be able to walk. Initially they are utterly uncoordinated, partly because their bellies are so huge—they fall over on their little tum-tums! Biologists try to keep physical contact with the emperors to a minimum, and Wienecke and Lawton used sophisticated telescopes from a small radio tower to monitor the colony: The tendency of biological sciences now is for less and less interference—a far cry from the old days when you believed you could do anything in the name of science.

Establishing how much emperor penguins and their chicks eat demands highly invasive procedures where animals have to be captured, injected with isotopes, captured again for blood samples and their stomachs flushed out with warm sea water to measure how much food they have gathered. The research and monitoring being conducted as part of the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program (CEMP) at an Adélie penguin colony since 1991 on Béchervaise Island near Mawson Station is far less drastic. Here Adélie penguins are studied by an automated penguin monitoring system conceived and developed by Knowles Kerry and Grant Else of the Antarctic Division. The Adélie penguins carry an electronic identification tag. They walk to and from their nesting area over a special weighbridge which automatically reads their tags and registers their weight as they come and go from their fishing grounds. In 1994–95 biologist Heather Gardner at Béchervaise Island saw what could happen when, for whatever reason, the birds were unable to find krill at their normal fishing grounds. Within one month of hatching all 1800 chicks were dead and the colony deserted. Satellite tracking showed that birds travelled up to 170 kilometres for food and returned to their chicks with none. Judy Clark, who had been working with the Adélies for five summers, noted:

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

There was very little krill around that year, so we assume that was the reason for the deaths. What we don’t know is why the krill stocks decline. Was it due to some natural cause? Is it perhaps a natural cycle? We have only been measuring for a few years, not long enough to really know.

With a world-wide population of over two million pairs, such seasonal fluctuations pose no threat to the Adélies’ survival as a species. According to Knowles Kerry, the breeding failure at Béchervaise Island is ‘an opportunity to study an event that simulates heavy fishing and the removal of the penguins’ food supply’. The study of seals and how they feed is an enormous scientific challenge. Because crabeater seals live and breed on the pack ice they are not only difficult to count, but even harder to monitor. An international circumpolar project to determine pack ice seal abundance and distribution, APIS (Antarctic Pack Ice Seals Program), is scheduled for 1998–99. ANARE biologist Colin Southwell is coordinating a program that began in 1994 to attach radio transmitters to crabeater seals and track them by using the French ARGOS location and data relay satellite system. First catch your seal. Crabeaters are big aggressive animals and teams of up to twelve people have to be lowered on to the sea ice from Aurora Australis. After chasing and netting a seal—some of the team have fallen through thin ice into the freezing water in the process—the animal is anaesthetised. Southwell: The satellite-linked dive recorders are instruments about ten centimetres square and a couple of kilos in weight and we stick those on their back just behind their shoulders. These instruments record their diving behaviour, how [deep] they dive, how frequently and how much time they spend above the water on the ice and how much time below.

Elephant seals on Macquarie Island are easier to get at, because they come ashore to breed and moult. There are some 100 000 elephant seals that come to Macquarie and 20 000 pups are born each year. But the populations are now half what they were thirty years ago, although the numbers seem to be stabilising at a lower level. Biologists do not know why there has been this decline. Again, sophisticated dive recorders have been used to monitor the swimming and feeding behaviour of adult elephant seals in recent years. The elephant seals are built like submarines, weighing up to four tonnes. Research scientist Harry Burton thinks they should be called ‘surfacers’, not ‘divers’, because they spend forty minutes underwater for every four minutes on the surface. They

497

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

dive to phenomenal depths—dives below 1500 metres are common, and some go down two kilometres to feed on their preferred diet of squid:

BIOLOGIST NICK GALES (CENTRE) ASSISTED BY MECHANIC NEALE GENTNER (LEFT) AND CARPENTER RICK BESSO (RIGHT), WEIGH A 3-TONNE ELEPHANT SEAL ON THE BEACH AT DAVIS, 1995–96. (R EASTHER)

One seal stayed down two hours, and then came to the surface for four minutes before diving for another half an hour. Physiologists can’t explain how they do this. They do have an enormous number of red blood cells. The last thing they do before diving is breathe out, so they have no air in their bodies. We are not even sure how they locate the squid. They have huge eyes, so perhaps they can pick up bioluminescence transmitted by the squid. Their whiskers may pick up vibrations in the water. We simply don’t know.

Almost nothing is known about where elephant seals go to feed in the Southern Ocean. In 1995 a program of fixing transmitters to the heads of juvenile elephant seals was begun at Macquarie Island. A sample of 24 seals was equipped, and 22 out of the 24 swam south-east of Macquarie Island to an area south of the Antarctic Convergence (Polar Front), and south of New Zealand. Why they do this, and what they do when they get there, is a fascinating puzzle yet to be unravelled.

T HE

498

FORMATION OF

A NTARCTICA

Research into the basic structure and history of the formation of Antarctica crosses a number of scientific disciplines. The meteorologists are interested in the record of Antarctica’s past climate contained in the ice cores obtained by glaciologists working at Law Dome near Casey and other sites in the Australian Antarctic Territory. Apart from studying the geological history of the continent from the exposed rock in areas like the Prince Charles Mountains and the Vestfold Hills, geoscientists from the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) have undertaken a

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

program of high resolution seismic measurements of the sea floor in Prydz Bay to look at the sediment laid down on the ocean floor by the Lambert Glacier. In an associated experiment in 1995, scientists from the CRC at the University of Tasmania, working from Aurora Australis, obtained samples by coring and dredging from the sea floor at other points around Antarctica to the south-west of Australia. Samples obtained contained pollen and even wood dating back 40 to 45 million years—evidence of a much warmer Antarctica. In 1985 dolphin and whale fossil skeletons that are 3.5 to 4 million years old were discovered in the Vestfold Hills near Davis Station, giving a dramatic illustration of how previously held theories on Antarctica are being revised. These skeletons are the only known vertebrate fossils from the Antarctic from the last 40 million years, since the development of the Circumpolar Current which gave rise to a new, distinctive Antarctic ecosystem. Other information in the rocks at Marine Plain (now declared a site of special scientific interest) suggests Antarctica was a vastly different and warmer place before the present large icecap developed. The sea level was much higher than now, there was a much smaller amount of ice on Antarctica, and parts of the continent carried a vegetation similar to that found in the mountains of Tasmania, including a deciduous beech almost identical to a present-day Tasmanian species. The discoveries at Marine Plain—and fossilised wood found in the Transantarctic Mountains in 1985–86 by American researcher Peter Webb—have challenged the previously accepted view that Antarctica has been much the same as it is now for the last 15 million years or so. Patrick Quilty (who discovered the first fossilised bone fragments at Marine Plain) is in the thick of the controversy: There is a very, very bitter and heated debate going on at the moment about what was the environment of Antarctica between about 2.5 million years and maybe 5 million years ago. . .The uniqueness of Marine Plain is that the rocks are where they were laid down, and they haven’t been moved since they were deposited—the only place in Antarctica where that’s true. So this is the best place for getting a record of what life has been, or has evolved from, within the modern Antarctic ecosystem.

P RESERVING

THE ECOSYSTEM

Keeping that ecosystem uncontaminated is a concern addressed by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) agreed to by nations with interests in Antarctica in 1991. The

499

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

Antarctic Division established a Human Impacts Research Program in 1992 to carry out the aims of the Protocol in achieving a ‘. . .comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and associated ecosystems. . .’ The havoc caused by the introduction of cats, rabbits, and other domestic and feral species on the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island has not yet been fully addressed. Although human impact on Antarctica in the early years was most evident in the savage exploitation of the large whales, fur and elephant seals, the establishment of permanent human settlements on the continent has impacted on a fragile environment. An increased environmental consciousness has resulted in old rubbish dumps near the ANARE stations being backloaded and returned to Australia, sewerage systems built, and now in a policy that all rubbish and wastes from field parties be returned to base for incineration or backloading to Australia. The most urgent concern is to prevent introduced species of any kind contaminating the Antarctic continent. While the hostile environment has prevented the kind of fauna and flora invasion that scarred Macquarie Island, some unfortunate accidents have already occurred. Some are of particular concern to microbiologists engaged in ‘microbial prospecting’ in what they hope is a pristine environment. A wood-rotting fungus, Phylophora fastigiata, was discovered by ANARE biologist Elizabeth Kerry at some moss beds near Mossell Lake in the Vestfold Hills in 1988. It is possible that it was introduced with the timber of the field hut as it normally colonises softwoods. There is a danger that it could change the ecology by colonising the cellulose of the native mosses. (Elizabeth Kerry has also isolated the fungus Botrytis cinerea, which causes ‘noble rot’ in wine grapes, at Mawson Station. It is quite widely distributed. Whether it is indigenous or introduced via ANARE liquor supplies is not known.) The theory has it that an organism has a niche within an ecosystem because there is no stronger competitor. The strength of those organisms present in Antarctica lies in their ability to cross the ocean. Knowles Kerry: There are other organisms which could probably survive better than these in Antarctica, but they are too weak to cross the ocean barrier. However when they are introduced by man. . .then they could potentially change the environment quite drastically!

Introduced plants can also thrive on ice-free areas near the Antarctic coast. Martin Riddle is the Antarctic Division’s first Human Impact Program Manager: 500

We have found three species of plant in the Larsemann Hills recently—a grass and two flowering plants! We didn’t bring them in, the Russians

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

did. They are in a very small area near their Progress Station. We found two species first in 1994 and removed all of them. This last season we found three species and 23 individuals. The grass was about an inch or two [21¼2 to five centimetres] high. . .The buildings contained pot plants which died, and these were swept outside.

Riddle also makes the point that the Antarctic is important on a world scale as a natural laboratory for monitoring global changes in pollution loads. There is a risk that our local activities may degrade our ability to pick up global changes: If we protect the environment as a scientific resource, this should ensure that nothing we do threatens the integrity of the ecosystem or is a threat to human health. We might have to draw up a whole new series of criteria concerning what is acceptable—we are doing this now. Protecting the scientific value of Antarctica is one of the more hard-nosed reasons for why we might have higher environmental standards. There is also a widely held public expectation that we have very high standards of stewardship for Antarctica.

Because the human impacts program cuts across all the scientific disciplines and requires access to all information on Antarctic research and logistic activity, Riddle was involved in organising the Australian Antarctic Data Centre in 1996—a powerful and comprehensive data base of integrated ANARE research which is also available on the Internet. The ANARE rebuilding program and expansion of scientific laboratories on the continent led to a considerable increase in the burning of fossil fuels to keep the increasingly complex stations running. In 1988, the station leader at Mawson, Philip Barnaart, wrote in his annual report: In a period when science is telling us to reduce the burning of hydrocarbons to minimise the ‘greenhouse effect’ and for other environmental reasons, we are increasing our fuel consumption in Antarctica at an alarming rate. Ten years ago 300 000 litres of SAB [Special Antarctic Blend] lasted the station a year. . .Mawson in 1989 was scheduled to receive one million litres of SAB. With the rebuilding program at Mawson less than half finished, one wonders what the fuel figure for a year is likely to be in, say, ten years time.7

ANARE has also had to address an increase in tourism to Antarctica from the late 1980s. While non-stop overflights by jumbo jets have minimal impact on the Antarctic environment, ship-based tourism involves increasingly large numbers of people coming ashore by inflatable boat and walking around Adélie penguin rookeries and other sensitive areas. While

501

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

most tourist ships ply the shortest route between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula, ice-strengthened tourist ships now regularly operate from Hobart, calling in to Macquarie Island and to Commonwealth Bay (to see Mawson’s hut) on their way to the Ross Sea. Macquarie Island is a State nature reserve managed by the Tasmanian Department of Environment and Land Management, TOURISTS FROM THE RUSSIAN which also has a responsibility to ensure no unwanted ICE-BREAKER KAPITAN foreign seeds or vegetable matter are unwittingly KHLEBNIKOV ENJOYING CLOSE brought to the island by tourists. Since 1989 responENCOUNTERS OF A PENGUIN sible tourist operators have adopted a voluntary code KIND ON MACQUARIE ISLAND, of conduct, including a program of lectures on board 1993. their ships to instruct tourists on how to behave while (R LEDINGHAM) on shore. In 1989 the Tasmanian Government built boardwalks and lookout platforms near penguin and sea bird rookeries on Macquarie Island, financed by a levy from the companies organising the Antarctic tours. In 1995, the Tasmanian Government set a limit of 500 visitors to Macquarie per year. The situation is virtually uncontrolled on the continent. The historic hut at Cape Adare (where Carsten Borchgrevink and his party completed the first wintering in Antarctica) is situated in the middle of an Adélie penguin colony. Tourists have to walk through and around the nests of breeding birds to get there. Anywhere on the Antarctic coast, a single bootprint in a patch of Antarctic moss or lichen will be evident for perhaps half a century or more. In 1994 Janet Dalziell, Antarctic programs coordinator for the environmental group Greenpeace, claimed that US and New Zealand VIP helicopter flights to a penguin rookery at Cape Royds on the Ross Sea since the 1970s have caused a population decline. She claimed the penguins were stressed when they saw humans, and that mating and egg-laying cycles had been affected. ‘That’s the one example [Cape Royds rookery] that’s been documented’.8 Cape Royds and Cape Adare are in the sector of Antarctica claimed 502 by New Zealand and are popular Ross Sea tourist destinations. But tourist

S

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

ships are increasingly turning their ice-strengthened bows towards the Australian Antarctic Territory. In May 1989 a group of five Australian parliamentarians produced a report for the House of Representatives, ‘Tourism in Antarctica’, following a visit to Mawson and Davis Stations arranged by the Antarctic Division earlier that year. Their report gave cautious approval to ship-based tourism providing an appropriate management regime could be not only established, but enforced, if necessary under Australian legislation: The Committee does not accept that the Antarctic experience should be reserved for the privileged few who are involved in Antarctic research. . .The Committee supports tourism to the Antarctic provided it is conducted with a regime which ensures proper protection of the wilderness values of the continent.9

In 1992 the Antarctic Division allowed a limited number of tourists from the chartered Russian ice-breaker Kapitan Khlebnikov to visit all three ANARE continental stations. More visits are planned for 1997–98. (Tourism has even been suggested as a source of revenue to assist ANARE programs in the event of budget cuts. This option was canvassed by the Antarctic Division’s assistant director Jack Sayers in 1993. An alternative to closing down a station could be to lease accommodation to tourist operators, or leasing stations to tourist consortiums ‘with guaranteed access for scientists at an agreed level. . .’).10 This option has not been seriously considered yet. However the issue of tourism was raised at the 17th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting at Venice in 1992, the first since the adoption of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol). After discussions focused on whether there should be a new annexe to the Protocol to formulate measures controlling tourism and other nongovernment activities, there was disagreement between Treaty nations about a new annexe to cover tourism.11 In 1994 the 18th ATCM passed major recommendations setting out guidelines for the management of ship-based tourism. However within a few months of this meeting, Australia introduced the notion of overflights by commercial airlines. In the 1995–96 summer nine Qantas non-stop tourist flights were made, and thirteen were scheduled for 1996–97.

L IVING

IN

A NTARCTICA

While a good deal of effort is now being made to rationalise and minimise the impact of human activity on Antarctica, the effect of Antarctica

503

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

HERITAGE BUILDINGS IN ANTARCTICA Below the snow and ice of Whitney Point, Wilkes sleeps quietly, much of it the same as when ANARE abandoned it in 1969 and moved across Newcomb Bay to the replacement station Repstat (named Casey on completion). Ironically, Wilkes has outlived its successor which was removed after the modern buildings of new Casey opened in 1988, replacing buildings that had been occupied for less than twenty years. At Wilkes the radio masts are still visible, and if the snowdrifts retreat at the height of summer the roofs of the timber IGY buildings emerge. Some see them as waste, to be removed like old Casey, others see them as a priceless record of the first generation of stations in the region. The debate about what to keep of the past is echoed at Davis, where the original donga line stands empty, and at Mawson, where Law’s original huts nestle between the bold steel and concrete of the 1980s. The Explastics huts erected in 1954 stand largely intact, despite the daily katabatic. But it may not be wind that ultimately brings down the buildings. Antarctic Division policy manager Andrew Jackson: We have a dilemma. Mawson is the oldest continously occupied station south of the Antarctic Circle, and those early buildings are part of Antarctic history—just like Douglas Mawson’s hut at Cape Denison. But some of them are unsafe and we simply can’t afford to keep them all heated if we are not

using them. What we have to do is find the balance between what can be kept on site as a permanent record, and what could be brought back for public display.

WILKES’ HISTORIC TIP CIRCA 1992—HERITAGE RICHES OR A LOAD OF OLD RUBBISH? (W NICHOLAS)

The future of even older relics must also be decided. Some of the original buildings at Macquarie Island are still in use, although the same cannot be said of the wreckage of the ANARE camp at Atlas Cove on Heard Island. Also on Heard are faint signs of the stone shelters used by sealers who worked there from 1855. It is the wind that brings down these buildings, but it also protects them for future archaeologists by burying them in a blanket of black volcanic sand. According to Jackson, the weather also plays a role in protecting Mawson’s hut: ➤

S

Snow has penetrated every little crack of the hut and now it is almost completely full of ice, permanently anchoring it to the ground. When the tourists arrive at Cape Denison they cannot go in, which means that little can be disturbed inside. I’m happy with that if it means our most important historic building can stay where it is. But leaving Mawson’s hut in place may not be enough to ensure that it will be there for next century’s tourists. In 1996 plans

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

began to take shape for an expedition to Cape Denison the following year to ensure that the hut will survive beyond 2011—the hundredth anniversary of Douglas Mawson’s landing at the site. The conservation work will have an unusual similarity with Mawson’s AAE expedition—it will be almost entirely privately funded. The ‘new’ approach of seeking commercial sponsorship for some of Australia’s Antarctic work is a return to the path chosen by ANARE’s predecessors in Antarctica.

on human beings is also an important and continuing ANARE research activity. Investigations into the physiology and psychology of wintering expeditioners have been carried out by station doctors as individual research projects and as part of an ongoing Antarctic Division research program on human interaction with the Antarctic environment. In 1980–81, under the sponsorship of SCAR, scientists from Argentina, Australia, France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom joined together in the International Biomedical Expedition to the Antarctic (IBEA) devoted solely to looking at ‘the performance of man in cold and isolation’.12 Twelve men—most of them doctors—agreed to undergo a battery of physiological, biochemical, microbiological, immunological and psychological tests. These tests were conducted in three phases: before going to Antarctica; then during 65 days of travel by motorised toboggans inland from the French station at Durmont d’Urville; and finally a third set of comparative tests back in Australia. Half the group were artificially acclimatised by daily cold baths at 15°C at the University of Sydney before leaving for Antarctica. One of the twelve subjects was film maker David Parer, who produced two ABC documentaries titled Antarctic Man which followed the progress of the experiment. Some idea of the discomforts tolerated by the intrepid researchers can be gauged by the situation of French scientist Dr Claude Bachelard, who shared his sleeping bag with a bulky recording device nicknamed ‘Alfred’ which monitored changes in his sleep patterns and body temperature during the night. By day he endured fierce winds and temperatures as low as minus 40°C with a rectal thermometer in situ which provided data for a clothing insulation study.13 The team members lived in tents on the polar plateau. As well as travelling, cooking food and melting water, they had to undergo a battery

505

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

MEMBERS OF THE 1980–81 INTERNATIONAL BIOMEDICAL EXPEDITION TO THE ANTARCTIC HAD TO ENDURE A SERIES OF COLD BATHS AT 15 DEGREES CELSIUS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, BEFORE HEADING SOUTH TO BE SUBJECTED TO FURTHER

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

of tests each day including metabolic and biochemical fluctuations, energy expenditure, dehydration, nutrition, sleep patterns, psychological changes, and immunological responses. As if that wasn’t enough, questionnaires had to be filled in regularly, and memory and perception skills tested against machines. One of the party withdrew from the experiment in the field. Des Lugg, ANARE’s head of polar medicine who led the field project, noted that some of the experiments, although more sophisticated, continued some of the work done on Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1911–14. Small wintering groups in the Antarctic provide ideal situations not only for studying how people adapt to cold and isolation, but also for microbiological research on colds and infections. Lugg:

RIGOROUS PERSONAL

Recently we have studied changes in the immune response. We’ve found that groups in Antarctica—like (D LUGG) groups in space—have a depressed immune response. The reasons are not clear. So this has led to a collaborative agreement between NASA and the Antarctic Division for using our stations as an analogue for space research. . . ORDEALS.

The comparison between small communities living in isolation in Antarctica and astronauts in space is useful for medical and psychological research. Human beings certainly exist there as though in space, taking with them everything they need to survive and maintain life. But the interaction of Antarctica with the earth’s environment and the implications for its ecology were largely unknown when the first satellites were launched above the earth’s atmosphere in the late 1950s. Patrick Quilty is unequivocal about the scientific significance of Antarctica: 506

Study of the Antarctic is probably just about the most important study, on a continental basis, you can do anywhere round the world. In terms

S

T

he immunological project is a collaborative one between the Antarctic Division, the Universities of Tasmania and Newcastle, and NASA. Konrad Muller is Professor of Pathology at the University of Tasmania: Changes in the immune responses begin soon after arrival in Antarctica, but peak around August or September. The immune depression is linked to anxiety and appears to be triggered by stress factors such as isolation and personal stress situations which are clearly imposed on people who live in a small, confined community for a year. Researchers are now looking at what chemical substances in the human brain are triggering these changes, which in turn impact on the immune system. Muller:

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

Currently NASA is doing some parallel studies on the activation of viruses. These joint investigations show that depression of the immune system enhances the shedding of viruses into the saliva. However this is not at a level to cause illness. . .we are talking about a healthy population responding to a stressful and isolated situation. Muller believes these studies have profound implications for how people react to living in Antarctica and will lead to a better understanding of the human brain and immune system. An associated NASA-related project is the use of portable computers in the field in Antarctica, seeking to relate immune changes in individuals to the stress of isolation in an extreme environment.

of international or global impact, Antarctica is more important, say, than Australia. One of the reasons for saying that is that so much of the world’s weather is generated in Antarctica, and in oceanographic terms, something like 50 per cent of the world’s oceanic water masses are generated around Antarctica. . .In that sense there is really no other continent that matches Antarctica for global importance.

Just how much science is done in Antarctica depends on how much governments are prepared to spend on it. Australia, with its claim of 42 per cent of the continent, has maintained a high international profile which dates back to its important contribution to the diplomacy leading up to the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, despite the ‘cold war’ then preoccupying the USSR and the US. More than two decades later the establishment of CCAMLR in Hobart is not only an acknowledgment of the international regard for Australia’s contribution to the Antarctic Treaty, but also of the quality of scientific research generated by ANARE—particularly in marine science. Perhaps one unintended consequence of adopting the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) in 1991 (removing the option of mining in Antarctica) was

507

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

MICROBIOLOGY AN EXCITING NEW GROWTH AREA Because of its isolation, Antarctica has a variety of unique organisms that have adapted to intense cold. In 1995 the Australian pharmaceutical company Amrad signed a contract with the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) at the University of Tasmania and contributed $500 000 to research into micro-organisms collected for and identified with the centre. The ability of some phytoplankton to develop their own sun screens is an area of obvious interest to the pharmaceutical industry, but there are many other possibilities. There are some species of Antarctic fish which live in water so cold that they have developed their own anti-freeze chemicals to stop their blood and tissues from freezing. Harvey Marchant: There is some discussion on how this could be used in, say, transplant technology. If you get a kidney or some other bit of a human being now, it has to be used in a very, very short time. One of the possibilities is that this organ could be perfused with anti-freeze chemicals. . .[so] it could mean that instead of organs having to be used within a couple of days they could be kept for a couple of months. The saline and fresh water lakes in the Vestfold Hills near Davis Station have proved a treasure trove of unique organisms. Ekho Lake, for example, has a most unusual ecosystem with bottom temperatures of about 16°C all year round—yet its surface is covered by ice for nine months of the year. Novel species isolated from Antarctica are maintained in the Australian Collection of Antarctic Micro-organisms at the CRC in Hobart.

In 1993 Paul Holloway, a PhD student, isolated seventy strains of Streptomyces spp. from six separate Antarctic soil samples. Half of these strains produced antibiotics. Further analysis of only three of the strains found that two of the antibiotics had been discovered previously, but that the third was novel. This high ‘hit’ rate was instrumental in Amrad investing in the CRC’s research.14 Holloway: The potential for other new things out there is very great if we could find one [so] quickly. There are potentially hundreds of new strains and some of these could be very useful to us. Since 1993 that particular antibiotic has been handed over to Amrad which is now investigating its potential. It takes about ten years of research before a new antibiotic goes on the shelf—it may well be toxic to humans and so must go through a rigorous trial process. Various single-celled organisms in Antarctica produce compounds that can affect ice, either becoming incorporated into ice or avoiding being incorporated into ice. This may have an application in food technology. Harvey Marchant: Your ice cream may not become crunchy after you’ve left it out on the counter a little too long before putting it back in the freezer. . .the ice cream is a fairly trivial example. What we are seeing at this stage is really the dawn of Antarctic biotechnology. Each antibiotic-producing bacterium is a potential cure for a human or animal disease, ➤

S

each Antarctic yeast (a kind of microscopic fungus) could be of great interest to the food industry, and some ‘waste-munching’ bacterium could be the key to cleaning up oil spills or other environmental pollutants. In an era when human impacts on Antarctica are being carefully reassessed, there is an extremely positive aspect to biotechnical research. Marchant:

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

It has no environmental impacts at all. You can get bacteria from the soils, from out of the sea ice, and when you’ve got just a small sample you can grow them up [in a laboratory] and away they go. So we have here the opportunity for a real flourishing of biotechnological industries that will make no scars on Antarctica at all.

the impression that the continent was somehow ‘saved’, and that governments would not need to spend so much money there. Rex Moncur: The perception that Antarctica is ‘saved’ is a worry for me. Certainly in a number of other countries they are finding it more difficult to get funding for their programs. In the Australian context, I don’t believe that’s a significant factor. I believe there is bipartisan [political] support for a strong Australian Antarctic program. . .so I am convinced we will be able to maintain a strong program.

Since the Madrid Protocol, the Antarctic Division has reorganised its science priorities to stress the importance of research into global warming, to protect the Antarctic environment (particularly its marine ecosystem) and to continue obtaining information of practical importance. Under the Labor Government, the emphasis on maintaining the Antarctic Treaty system and Australia’s influence in it—including our territorial interests—was listed as the last of four main objectives. In 1996, following the election of the Coalition Government, ANARE’s scientific priorities in Antarctica are basically unchanged. Rex Moncur believes that the future of ANARE science is linked to integrating its work with other nations in order to build up a composite picture of the whole Antarctic region: The most important role for Antarctic science in the future is the contribution we can make to understanding global change. Without the information we can gain from Antarctica, I don’t believe we can make any sensible predictions of global change. Antarctica therefore becomes the new priority area for scientists who wish to understand global change, and is the priority area for our own scientists.

On 17 September 1996, the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Guy Green, convened a forum, ‘Tasmania, the Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic’. During a wide-ranging address to the forum, the coalition’s parliamentary

509

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

secretary responsible for the Antarctic, Senator Ian Campbell, was optimistic about Australia’s commitment to Antarctica into the 21st century. He announced a review by the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee to develop strategic options for ANARE after the year 2000, ‘to extend the boundaries of previous reviews and present thought. . .The new millenium will present new scientific challenges, many of which may be foreseen now.’ These included the possibility of a direct air service to the continent, shipping options after the end of the Aurora Australis charter in 2000, and the future of tourism in Antarctica: It is my own strongly held belief that the Antarctic continent is the reservoir of a treasure of information about our planet. . .Antarctica has challenged generations of Australians. . .I believe that our greatest feats as a nation are ahead of us. Our monumental achievements in Antarctic exploration and fifty years of Antarctic expeditions can and will be surpassed.15*

Certainly the importance of monitoring subtle changes in the Antarctic environment long-term is crucial if Antarctica is to live up to its promise of being the barometer of global health. Martin Riddle: To identify the subtle early signals of global change against the background noise of variability requires reliable, long-term data. The only way to ensure that data. . .is to ensure continuity of data collection, and this requires a long-term commitment to support the Antarctic program. Without this all our efforts in the past could come to nothing.

Perhaps more private corporations will invest directly in supporting ANARE research if the new products and drugs stemming from Antarctica’s unique ecosystem are to be fully explored. When ANARE geologists, surveyors, and glaciologists began exploring the coast and interior of the Australian Antarctic Territory from 1954, they were participating in basic discovery—finding out what was actually there. As we reach the end of the 20th century the excitement and challenge of the new face of polar exploration may lie in the single cell of a unique Antarctic micro-organism. It is a development which would have intrigued Sir Douglas Mawson, who not only laid the foundations of Australia’s claim to such a large area of the Antarctic continent but whose BANZARE voyages devoted so much time to marine biology in the Southern Ocean. Mawson lived

510

* In November 1996, Senator Campbell was promoted to Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, and Queensland Liberal Senator Ian MacDonald took over Antarctic responsibilities, reporting to the Minister for the Environment Senator Robert Hill.

S

AT THE CUTTING EDGE In the Antarctic, science has a status enjoyed nowhere else. Its value to global understanding now provides nations with a powerful argument for being there. But in these costtrimming times, Antarctic scientists have found that simple curiosity or opportunism are no longer sufficient arguments to support their projects. For better or worse, the individual adventurer–scientist is fading from view, and being replaced by national research programs with their inevitable strategies, goals and objectives. Fitting a good scientific idea into this new model while keeping its freshness and innovation is not always easy, yet Antarctic science has continued to show resilience, resourcefulness and results. ANARE’s record at the leading edge of Antarctic science in the 1980s and 1990s is impressive. Australians have developed world-leading investigative techniques and equipment for studying ice. Drilling into the Antarctic ice cap and traversing enormous areas over land and sea, scientists have obtained new information on how Antarctic ice forms, moves and deforms, on what it tells us about past climates, and on how it profoundly affects the world’s oceans and climates. Starting from scratch by modifying an ageing Nella Dan to study the vast but little known Southern Ocean, Australian marine biologists have built a reputation out of all proportion to the country’s size and resources. From 1991, the availability of the ice-breaking research ship Aurora Australis enabled the collection of high-quality data on living resources augmented by innovative statistical techniques which are vastly improving

C I E N C E

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

the information available to international management regimes. As the first nation to breed krill successfully in captivity enabling significant discoveries about its life and reproduction, Australia has led the world in studies of this crustacean central to Southern Ocean ecology. Australia has also become a leading nation in studies of the carbon flux and the effects on microorganisms of enhanced ultraviolet exposure in the Southern Ocean. Using advanced technology, Australians are in the forefront of research on the behaviour and foraging ecology of seals, penguins and flying birds in Antarctic regions. These studies have revealed previously unknown diving capabilities of elephant seals and emperor penguins. Ground-breaking automation technology has enabled year-round monitoring of the ecology of Adélie penguins. Antarctic sea ice and the vast Antarctic circumpolar current are now seen as vitally important elements in global processes. Using Aurora Australis, Australian scientists from many disciplines have come together to obtain key oceanographic, glaciological and biological data on an enormous segment of the Southern Ocean, looking at global climate issues such as the role of cold Antarctic bottom water, availability of food for micro-organisms, and heat exchange between ocean sea ice and atmosphere. ANARE physicists have continued Australia’s long and proud tradition of significant work on the middle and upper atmosphere with pioneering studies of the stratosphere, leading into the ground-breaking Davis LIDAR program ➤

C

O N T E M P O R A R Y

A N A R E

with its data on stratospheric and mesospheric composition, winds and temperatures from light reflected off atmospheric molecules hit by a powerful laser beam. This research affords exciting insights into the physics of the middle atmosphere and may provide a ‘litmus test’ for evidence of global climate change. Australian studies of auroras have played a key part in establishing that auroras occur within an oval centred over the Geomagnetic Pole in central Antarctica. Australia has supplied vital data to an international program which has established that southern aurora events happen at the same time as those in the north—that electrons move between hemispheres along magnetic lines of force. Modern technology has made possible wide Internet distribution of basic geophysical parameters in near real-time from ANARE’s southern physics experiments linked to significant international programs. Antarctic weather is directly relevant to that of the rest of the southern hemisphere.

512

1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 7

Meteorologists have used increasingly sophisticated Antarctic data, collated at Casey’s Antarctic Data Centre, to improve measurably the quality of Australian weather forecasting. Enderby Land to the west of Mawson contains some of the oldest rocks on the surface of earth, yielding unique information on its evolution. Measuring the rocks using stateof-the-art Australian technology will allow highly precise estimates to be made of the age of episodes of the earth’s history. Mysteries of the rocks under the vast Antarctic ice sheet are being revealed in Australian studies of the Antarctic sea floor. Pieces of continental rock, carried under Antarctic glaciers into the oceans and deposited there, are yielding to ANARE scientists excellent evidence on the age and environments of Antarctica’s rocks. Other ANARE sea floor studies are providing scientists with new information on the evolution of the continental margins of Australia and Antarctica, once joined as part of Gondwana.

to see his dream of permanent stations in Antarctica realised, and to influence directly the scientific work being done by ANARE during his membership of the Executive Planning Committee from 1947 to his death in 1958. Always the modern and innovative scientist and explorer, Mawson should have the last words in this jubilee history of ANARE. He would have delighted in the quantum leaps in communications and the sophisticated research techniques available to the men and the women—in his day not even considered for inclusion in expeditions—now working in Antarctica. He would have applauded their efforts to assess the continent’s interaction with the rest of the world and their continuing determination not only to push back the frontiers of scientific discovery, but to ensure the preservation of Antarctica’s wildlife and unique environment.

S

C I E N C E

Perhaps when on my printed page you look, Your fancies by the fireside may go homing To that lone land where bravely you endured. And if perchance you hear the silence calling, The frozen music of star-yearning heights, Or, dreaming, see the seines of silver trawling Across the ship’s abyss on vasty nights, You may recall that sweep of savage splendour, That land that measures each man at his worth, And feel in memory, half fierce, half tender, The brotherhood of men that know the South.16 DM

A N D

T H E

F U T U R E

LOUISE HOLLIDAY AND FRIENDS TRAMPED THEIR FAREWELL MESSAGE INTO THE SNOW COVERING A FROZEN LAKE ON THE TRYNE PENINSULA, VESTFOLD HILLS, 24 OCTOBER 1981. (COURTESY L HOLLIDAY)

513

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

ANARE

WINTERING

EXPEDITIONERS

1947–1997 Note: Members of the 1997 wintering parties are correct as of March 1997. Then the total number of wintering expeditioners 1947–1997 stood at 2573. Those men and women occupied 3674 positions because some wintered more than once. Key: A = Amery Ice Shelf; C = Casey (old and new); D = Davis; H = Heard Island; M = Mawson; Q = Macquarie Island; W= Wilkes (including Repstat). Example: M57 means wintered at Mawson in 1957. Station Leader or OIC indicated by * (e.g. M57*) Died in ANARE service = + Abbott, Ian C85 Abbottsmith, John H48 Abbs, Gordon Q54, M56 Abeysekera, Bob C83 Ackerly, John Q67, C71 Adam, Bruce C84 Adams, Ian Q56*, M58* Adams, John Q78 Adams, Neil C94 Adams, Warren M79 Adamson, Erica C88 Addicoat, Des D91, M94 Adolph, Jan D82, Q84 Afflick, Gordon M65 Aimer, Bruce C73 Aitken, Vicki Q83 Akerman, Graeme M76 Akerman, Jon D90* Alafaci, Maurice D86 Albion, Pat M56

Alcorn, Bruce C85, M89 Alden, Bruce D76 Alderdice, Henry (‘Harry’) W59 Alexander, Arthur M88, C92 Alexander, Nevil D77 Algar, Phil Q91 Allan, Bob W68 Allan, Joe Q64 Allardyce, Craig C96 Allen, Bill C77 Allen, Denise Q85, M86, D88, C92 Allen, Gary C74, M78 Allen, Gordon W65 Allison, Bob H49*, M55 Allison, Don M65 Allison, Ian M69 Allport, Bruce M64 Allwright, Barry C71 Almond, Dick M73

Anderson, Carl Q71 Anderson, Gary M83, M86 Anderson, Keith D71 Anderson, Mervyn (‘Max’) D88 Anderson, Morag D90 Anderson, Peter W68 Anderson, Ross C69 Anderson, Roy M69 Andrews, David Q75 Andrews, Keith Q72+ Andrews, Kerry C72 Andrich, Ingrid Q96 Anglesey, Scott D95 Arden, Peter M73, Q86, Q88 Armanini, John D62 Armistead, John M89 Armstrong, Barry M78 Armstrong, Chris M59 Armstrong, Dave Q70, D72, M74 Armstrong, Graeme C93*

517

A

P P E N D I C E S

Armstrong, John D88, M96 Armstrong, Mick M84 Arnel, Roy Q52, M57, M58 Arriens, Pieter D76* Arrowsmith, Tom M83* Arthur, John M60 Ash, Ray W63 Ashcroft, Gordon M81 Ashford, Tony M74 Assender, Ken M60 Atkinson, Jim Q60 Atkinson, Laurie H52 Atkinson, Mark D97 Atkinson, Phil Q64 Attard, Peter D90, C93, M97 Austin, Craig C72 Aves, Alan M86, M89 Ayton, Jeffrey C92 Azmi, Obadur C95 Baciu, Florian C91 Backhouse, Brett M92 Baggott, Peter M65, W67 Bagliani, Fulvio M75, M77 Bailey, Trevor D94 Bain, Chris M69 Baines, Fred Q58* Bajinskis, Ray Q96 Baker, Don D72 Bakker, Fred D64 Baldwin, John M65 Ball, Brian D76, M80 Ball, Dave C81 Ballantyne, Bob C82 Bandy, Bob M75, C78, D84 Banfield, Geoff M59 Bannister, Peter Q79, C86 Barber, Alan Q89, D91 Barclay, Garry C84 Barclay, Geoff M96 Barclay, Robert Q90, C92 Barker, John M75 Barker, Roger D75+ Barnaart, Phil D78*, C80*, Q85*, M88*, Q91*, Q97* Barnes, Graham C71 Barnes, Jason D96 Barnes, John Q68 Baron, Ray M88 Barr, Suzanne M95 Barratt, Noel D60 Barrett, Colin C79 Barrett, David D76, M78, Q80, Q85, M92

518

Barrett, Ken Q94 Barrett, Noel Q64, W66 Barrett, Peter C82 Barton, Gil M76 Barton-Johnson, Rod C75 Bates, Nick Q89 Batt, Ken C77, Q80 Battye, Alastair W62 Baulch, Roy Q77 Baxter, Brian C84, M86 Bayer, Ray Q58 Bayley, Mike W65 Bayliss, Peter D93 Beasley, Wally Q68 Béchervaise, John H53*, M55*, M59* Beck, John M64, W66 Bedson, Mark D74, M84 Beer, Geoff D81 Beggs, Helen Q87, C90 Behn, Les Q49 Beinssen, Konrad D82* Belcher, Ross C80 Bell, Brian Q62 Bell, Cameron Q94 Bell, David Q75 Bell, Elanor D96 Bell, John Q79 Bell, Stewart (‘Snow’) M59 Beman, Keith M69 Bence, Mick C81, C84, Q87 Bennett, Dave M73 Bennett, Jim M68 Bennett, John M. M65 Bennett, John Q70* Bennett, Ken M60, W65, M67, D69, Q73, Q76, Q82,D86 Bennett, Peter C72 Bennett, Roger Q48 Bensley, Pat M65, C71 Benson, Oliver C79 Bergin, Bob M61, Q63 Berridge, Howard D82 Berrigan, Max W61, Q65 Berry, Phil D92, D94, D96 Berzins, Bert C75, M78 Besso, Rick Q82, D85, Q96 Best, John M77 Betts, Martin Q69, M71 Bewsher, Bill M56* Bian Lin-Gen M82 Bicknell, Andrew C96 Biggs, Roger M68

Bilson, John W68 Binns, Darryel Q87, Q90 Bird, Garry M61 Bird, Ian M60 Birss, John M78 Bishop, Geoff C89 Bishop, Jim Q53 Bishop, John Q65, M67 Bishop. Dave C70, D73 Blaby, David C70, M80 Black, Henry (‘Harry’) Q57*, W60* Black, Ian E. M63 Black, Ian K. Q59 Black, Malcolm Q78 Blackwood, Michael D88 Blades, Quentin C69 Blair, Jim M58 Blake, Adrian M79, C82 Blake, Dave M68 Blake, Roger M58 Blakebrough, Dave C78 Blakeley, Leon C76 Blandford, Doug D74* Blight, David C70 Blobel, Colin C87, Q90, D94 Bloomfield, Ted M60 Blundell, Keith Q77, M79 Blundell, Tony W66, M68, Q71 Blyth, Alan W66* Blyth, Warren D93, M97 Bo Wen C89 Boda, John W59, Q61, D62, Q68 Bode, Ken M67, C69 Bode, Ortwin Q59, M62 Bodey, Alan C70 Bolza, Alf Q55, M58 Bonar, Derek D93 Bond, Dave M68 Bone, Steve W62 Bonnici, ‘Mick’ W64 Bool, Geoff M69 Borland, Ray H52, M58 Borschmann, Enid Q78, M85 Bott, Ken H51 Bottomley, Phillip D92 Boucher, Chris M97 Bourke, Peter J. M85, Q87, Q89, D91 Bourke, Peter N. M77 Bowers, Arthur Q51 Bowling, Lee Q74, D76 Bowtell, Peter Q66

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Bowthorpe, Mike W64 Boyd, Jeff D70 Boyd, John W65 Boyd, Trevior Q50 Braden, Lachlan Q85, C88 Brading, Matt Q94, M97 Bradley, Garry D62, M64 Brammer, Paul M75, C79 Brand, Alain D80 Brand, Russell M77, C84, C88 Brandie, Neil M78 Brandt, Henry W59 Brandt, Peter Q70 Branson, John M62 Braunsteffer, Claude D59 Brawley, Brian D82 Bray, Joe W66, W68, Q73 Breckinridge, John W61 Breckon, Ralph Q74 Bredhauer, Laurie C78 Breed, Anthony C97 Breen, John Q97 Breeze, Bill C76 Brennan, Bernard Q60 Brennan, Carl C74 Brennan, Joe C87, M89, D93 Brice, Neil Q57 Bridgeford, Randall D87, M89, M92 Bridger, David C81 Brierly, Keith M95 Briggs, Peter D83* Brightman, Grant M90 Brightwell, Neil W68* Brinkies, Hans W66 Broad, Dave W67 Broadhurst, Jonathan D77 Broadhurst, Mal M72 Broadhurst, Noel M77 Brockbank, Tony C80 Brockelsby, Keith M61 Brocklehurst, Frank M64 Bromham, Barry D73* Bromwich, Dave C70 Brookes, Ray D72, D74 Brooks, Andrew C96 Brooks, Jim H53 Brooks, Lawrie Q52, Q58 Brooks, Tom C74 Brooks, Trevor C76 Brophy, Brian M73 Brophy, Dennis W64 Brothers, Nigel Q76, Q79

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Brown, Alex Q56, M58, D61 Brown, Greg D78 Brown, Harold Q70 Brown, Ken H51 Brown, Lex C71 Brown, Peter E. D90 Brown, Peter L. H52 Brown, Rick C76, C79 Brown, Robin Q93 Brown, Ron C78 Brown-Cooper, Peter W65 Browne, Chris C87 Browne, Peter C82 Bruce, David C73 Bruce, Ian C88, Q97 Bruehwiler, Albert Q82, D86, M90, M93 Bruer, Mike H50 Bryant, Gerry M73, C76 Bryden, Mike Q65 Buckland, Rod M71 Budd, Bill W61, M64 Budd, Grahame H54*, M59 Budnick, Keith W64 Buis, Graham C85 Bulcock, Tony Q76 Bulling, Elizabeth C95 Bulu, Joweli D82 Bunning, Stephen D85+ Bunt, John Q51, M56 Bunt, Rod D80 Burch, Bill W61 Burch, Mike D79 Burchell, Rex M79* Burke, Chris D83 Burkett, Graeme W60 Burnett, Eric M58 Burnett, Hedley H49 Burns, Dave D75, D77 Burns, Gary C76, Q80 Burrows, Dave D82 Burton, Arthur H49 Burton, Gary C84, D95, M97 Burton, Harry D74, D78 Butcher, James M87 Butcher, Peter Q70, D72, C74 Butler, Bill M67 Butler, Ken M82, C85 Butler, Patrick M90 Butler, Paul M81*, D85*, D87* Butler, Rowan M81, C84 Butler, Wade M74 Butling, Don W60

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

Butterworth, Alan D86 Butterworth, Geoff W63, M66 Butterworth, Roy M87, M91 Byrne, Darryl C86 Cabrie, Ian D71 Callaghan, Jeff Q66, M70 Callow, Dave Q55, M57 Calman, Jim W62 Calver, Ross Q74 Calwell, Bob Q64 Cameron, Doug C80, D87, M89, Q91 Cameron, Geoff M74+ Cameron, Ian Q81 Cameron, Peter M74 Cameron, Scott M65 Campbell, Ian M73 Campbell, Julie M82 Campbell, Ken Q54* Campbell, Kevin M80 Campbell, Malcolm M90 Campbell, Mike W60 Campbell, Peter D75 Campbell-Drury, Alan H48 Cane, Richard. M91 Canham, John W67*, Q69* Cannon, Warren M80 Cantellow, Derek C72 Canterbury, Graham D86 Cao Chong D84 Cappelletti, Peter Q84 Cardell, Norm M64 Carey, Peter C81 Carmichael, Noel Q91, Q94 Carne, Bert M60 Carnegie, James M67 Carr, Gary C78 Carr, Jim H52 Carr, John D71 Carr, Michael D94* Carroll, Albert (‘Shorty’) H48 Carroll, Denis D78, Q80 Carstens, David M62 Carter, Brian M75 Carter, Bruce M65 Carter, David W67 Cartledge, Bill W62, M66, M71, M73 Cartwright, Geoff D95 Carver, Jim C70, C73 Casasayas, George Q59 Cassidy, Tim M69* Casson, Tony Q84

519

A

P P E N D I C E S

Caswell, John M79 Catesby, Dave C82 Catley, Simon C87 Cave, Peter D74 Cave, Sandy C89 Cechet, Bob M83 Cerchi, Warren M82 Cesar, Dave D90, M92, D94 Chadder, Ron Q48 Chamberlain, Bill Q63 Chambers, Brian D70 Champion, Clive W68 Champness, Rodney Q67 Channon, Grey M58 Chant, Ray D80 Chapman, Mike Q67 Chapman, Peter W63 Chapman, Phil M58 Chappell, Brendan Q78, D84 Charlesworth, Philip Q88 Cheeseman, Don C83* Cheffins, Dave H51 Cheney, Barry M67 Cheney, Chris C79, C83 Chester, Dave C80 Chester, Ken C76*, M78* Chesworth, Paul C80, M84, M85 Chilmaid, Brian M91, D93 Chittleborough, Graham H49 Chlebowski, Tom D89, Q93 Cholawinskyj, Charlie C89 Christensen, Kevin M84, C87, D89 Christensen, Merv Q53, M56 Christiansen, Col M71, C75, D77 Christie, Neil M84 Christmas, Ross Q74 Church, Stan W61 Clague, Eric W62 Clark, Gary M74 Clark, Greg C86 Clark, Irvin C70 Clark, Ray D83, C87, Q95 Clark, Russell C91 Clarke, Jim C84 Clarke, Michael D90 Cleary, John Q57 Cleary, Kevin H51 Cleland, Vic H54, W67 Clemence, Peter M57 Clements, Brian C79 Clemmett, Peter Q80 Clifford, Brian M72

520

Clifton, Alison Q89*, D91* Clifton, Ian C82 M89 Climie, Andrew Q84, Q93 Clough, Robert Q78 Clougher, Gerry Q84, Q87, D96 Coca, Alex M78 Cockburn, Peter D96 Cody, Richard D73, M76 Cohen, Derrick (‘Dick’) Q50* Colback, Graeme Q71*, D75* Cole, Keith Q56 Cole, Laurie Q77, C79 Coleman, Frank Q60 Coles, Dave D82 Colley, John M90 Collins, Bill M90, C93 Collins, Craig D88 Collins, Lee C69 Collins, Neville M57, M60, W62, A68 Compton, George H48 Conde, Mark M84, M86, M92 Conder, Dereck Q82 Conlon, Leo Q55 Connelly, John Q68 Conrick, Neil C84, Q87, M89 Cook, Bruce Q56, M58 Cook, George M66, Q68 Cook, Philip M92 Cook, Stephen M96 Cooke, Clive Q59 Cooke, David M63 Cooke, Robin Q62, M64 Cooke, Roland Q83 Cooley, Helen Q91, D94 Coolidge, Art Q77 Cooper, Bob Q79 Cooper, Gary M69 Cooper, Jim M79, M82, M85 Cooper, Noel M56 Cooper, Tayne C93 Copplestone, Bruce Q90, D92, C94 Copson, Geoff Q75, Q78, Q80, M82*, Q84 Corbett, Chris D80, M88 Corcoran, John C80 Corcoran, Peter D97* Cordwell, Tom Q58, W61 Corner, Peter C91 Cornwall, John M68 Corry, Max M65, A68*

Cosgrove, Chas C74, Q76, D78, M82 Cosgrove, Mike M59 Costello, Tony C79, D84 Costin, John D81 Couch, Bill M82, C85 Coverdale, John D79 Cowan, Alan C77 Cowan, Dave D69 Cowell, Bill M67, M69, D74, D87 Cowell, Trevor D78 Cowling, Geoff Q58 Crabbe, Arthur Q66 Crabbe, Steven Q90 Crabtree, Gil Q66 Craig, Derry M81 Cramond, Andrew M87, M92 Craven, Mike Q83, Q85, D88, M91, D94 Creed, Jim Q58 Creighton, Don M63 Cresswell, George M60 Crohn, Peter M55, M56, Q84* Croke, Andrew C93 Crombie, Alistair C70, D79 Crombie, Bob Q79 Cronly, Peter M66 Crook, Andrew M80, C85, M93 Croser, Peter D90 Cross, Fred W64 Crossley, Louise M91* Crossman, Alan M95 Crosthwaite, Peter M84, M89 Crothers, Tom M66 Crow, Greg D82 Crowle, Richard M81 Cruise, John M71 Cruse, Trevor C79 Csordas, Stefan Q55, Q57, Q59 Cummings, Peter C88 Curchin, Jerry M82 Currie, Graeme M60, W63, W67, C69, C74, M77, Q83, Q85, Q87, Q89 Currie, John Q70 Cusick, Mick D89 Cutcliffe, Max M66, M72 Cutler, Peter Q68 Dadswell, Graham C72, M74, M81, D83 Daff, Alan W68 Dahlberg, Matt D89, M93 Dalgety, James M66

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Dalgleish, Ken M86, M91 Dalgleish, Peter M84 Dalton, Bob Q53* Dalziel, Ken H53 Darby, Kerri M96 Dare, John M74, M82 Dart, Jack Q64, Q65, M69, M71, M73, M75 Dartnall, Herbert D91 Davern, Eddie W63, W67 Davey, Allan D80 Davidson, John M63 Davidson, Lawrie C72 Davies, Peter M76, Q78, Q80 Davies, Rex D94 Davis, Chas M68 Davis, Evan C81 Davis, Richard Q68 Dawe, Garry C85 Dawson, Peter L. M64 Dawson, Peter W. C73, M79 Dawson, Philip C91 Dawson, Stan Q50 Day, Dennis M85, D88, Q91 Day, Gavin M85, C87 Day, Lindsay Q76 de Deuge, Maria M87, M91 de Jonge, Klaas C79 de La Harpe, George W59 de la Mare, Bill Q72 de Silva, Fred Q63 de Vere, Steve M92 Deakin, Gillian D86 Dean, Adrian Q59 Dedden, Peter Q79 Delahoy, Andrew C88 Delahoy, George H54 Deland, Ray Q53 Delaney, Paul M79, D89, D93, M96 Delarue, Ashley C83 DeLeacey, David D87 Demech, Wally W65 Denereaz, William Q70 Denham, Bill Q49, M61 Denham, Kevin D83, C91 Denham, Les C70 Denholm, John Q57, W59 Dennis, Stewart M87 Denny, Graham D97 Dent, Vic M67 Deprez, Pat D84 Dettmann, Don C79, M81

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Deurwaerder, Maurice Q71 Devitt, Bob M72 Dhargalkar, Vinod D83 Dick, Bill M60 Dick, Tony D82 Dietrich, Max C82, M86 Dilger, Peter D91 Dingle, Bob H51, M54, Q56, D57*, W59* Dippell, Neville W68, M70 Disney, Trudy Q93 Dittloff, Heinz M81 Dodd, David Q61, D63 Dodds, Alan Q73 Dodds, Kevin M75 Don, Gavin M84 Donaldson, Andy D81 Donovan, Kevin D75, M86, M96 Doran, Luke C90 Dougheney, Peter C82 Douglas, Ian D60* Douglas, Leon M83 Douglas, Steve M82 Doutch, Fred Q50 Dovers, Bob H48, M54* Dowden, Dick Q56 Dowie, Don M56 Down, Horrie M69, C79 Downer, Graham M58 Downes, Max H51 Downey, Robyn M85, Q89 Doyle, Hugh H51 Draper, Geoff C90 Dreimann, Mark Q82, M84 Drinkell, Adam M95 Drummond, Neil C95 Du Toit, Carl W.C. Q48 Du Toit, Charles F. H49 Dubovinsky, Miro C94 Dubow, Bob M94 Dudley, John Q90 Duke, Alan M66 Dulfer, Steve C85 Duncan, John D75, D83, C88, Q92 Dunlop, Ross M59 Dunstan, Peter Q76 Durre, Mark Q79 Dwyer, Vic Q62, M64 Dyer, Ralph M60, M66, Q68, D71 Dyke, Graham M60 Dymond, Michael M89

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

Eadie, Jock D59 Ealey, Eric (‘Tim’) H49 Easther, Rob D86* Eastley, Wayne M83, C85 Eastoe, Harry M70 Eastwood, Gary C87, D91 Eather, Bob M63 Eavis, Chris Q83, M88 Edgar, Bill M66, Q72 Edward, Bill Q61, M63, M65 Edwardes, Dave Q66 Edwards, Darryl M69 Edwards, Hank C74 Edwards, Read D76 Edwards, Simon M95 Edwards, Tom W60, W62 Eiler, Steve D92 Ekstrom, Lou M72 Elkington, Ted W66, D74 Elkins, Terry M60 Elliott, Fred H53, M55, M58 Elliott, John W66 Elliott, Phil D84* Elliott, Wal M81 Ellis, Max D77 Ellis, Peter C82, M84 Ellis, Tom W64 Ellson, Mal D85, Q87, C90, M92, D95 Ellwood, Bruce Q63*, Q65* Ellyard, David M66 Emery, Edward Q75 Endacott, Richard M83 Enfantie, John C89, D91 Erb, Erwin M76, D84, Q85, C88, M91, H92 Eriksen, Brian C72 Erskine, John M67* Ertok, Ozcan M84, Q86 Esman, Rudi M93 Etherington, Ray C84 Evans, Anthony Q62 Evans, Bert M59 Evans, Col D83, Q85, D88 Evans, Dale C71 Evans, Desmond (‘Pancho’) M58, W62 Evans, John Q67 Everett, Tony Q78, M80, D83, M85, M88, Q92 Everitt, Dave D77 Ewers, Jeff Q97 Ewing, Adam C96

521

A

P P E N D I C E S

Eyers, Bruce D73, C97 Eyre, Bryan D63 Fahey, Brendan M89 Farley, John M64 Farrell, Leo D70 Faulkner, Jeff H52 Fawcett, Peter M70, M78 Feetham, Tim Q80 Felton, Kev M60 Fenton, Keith B (‘Peter’) Q50 Fenton, Paul C87, D89, M92 Ferguson, Ian Q82 Ferguson, Oscar Q60, M62 Ferris, John D86 Ferris, Ross C88 Fiebig, Brian Q53 Field, Ephraim (‘Jack’) Q53, Q55, M57, W62, M75 Field, Peter D96 Figg, Norm Q50 Filson, Rex M62 Fimeri, Mark Q81 Finlayson, Keith D96 Firmstone, Tom Q54 Firth, Eddie Q96 Fischer, Henri M58 Fisher, Morris M57 Fiske, Paul C82 Fittock, Paul D77, Q81 Fitzherbert, Phil C71 Flannery, John Q79 Fleming, Rick M81 Fletcher, Keith W62 Fletcher, Lloyd D78, M80, Q82, C86, M90 Fletcher, Ralph C76, Q78 Flett, Alan Q57, W59 Flint, Bruce M76 Flower, Bill Q50 Flutter, Max Q53, Q55, D58* Foale, Ron D63 Fogarty, Brian W64 Foley, Noel Q59, M62, M65 Foote, Glen C75 Foran, Peter C82, M84 Forbes, Alastair H52+ Ford, Leighton M84, M90 Ford, Peter Q51, Q55 Forecast, Mark W65, M67, Q69 Forrester, John Q76, M79 Foster, Allan M70, C73 Foster, Danny W62 Fox, Ivan Q56

522

Foxon, Ray D83 Franceschini, Jean-Pierre D75 Francey, Roger M64 Francis, Bob M61, M64 Francis, James M94 Francis, John Q80, D86 Frankcombe, Andrew D94, D95 Franzmann, Peter D84 Fraser, Brent D83 Fraser, Dave M82 Fraser, Ross Q53 Frearson, Keith M77 Freeman, Dave Q88, M90 Freeman, John H. C87, C89 Freeman, M. John M62, W64 Freeman, Richard C90 French, Dennis D88 French, John M89, Q92, D95 French, Simon D87 Freund, Eric Q97 Frew, Nick M93 Frisby, Chris M73, M94 Frith, Ken M70 Frost, Kym M89 Frost, Reg Q50, H52, Q61 Fuller, Horace (‘Ted’) D59 Fulton, Geoffrey M81, M96 Gadd, Trevor Q64, Q68 Gaddes, Simon C77 Gales, Nick D86 Gallagher, Barry D85 Gallagher, Christian C96 Gallagher, Mark M82 Gallagher, Peter M71 Galletti, Tony D92 Galli, Henry M93 Gamgee, Chris C75 Gardner, Joe M88 Gardner, Lin H54, M56, D58, D71* Gardner, Zoë Q76 Garnett, Ed M88 Garnsey, Ross C96 Garone, Peter C69 Garrick, Russell D87 Garriock, Andrew H49* Garth, John M70 Gate, Keith M75 Gaugler, Werner M75, D80 Gaull, Brian M80 Gauthier, Roger M85 Gavaghan, Eamoun (‘Joe’) M63, M65

Gebler, Barry Q70 Gentner, Neale D86, Q90 George, John Q61, Q65 Germein, Graeme M87, C90, D92 Geysen, Hendrick (‘Henk’) M60* Gherke, Heinz C70 Gibbens, Wayne Q95 Gibbney, Les H50, H52* Gibbs, Colin C73 Giblin, James C94 Gibson, Jeff Q84 Gibson, John D87, D94 Gibson, Peter W65, M69 Gibson, Tim M92, C94 Gibson, Vin C73, C76, C80 Giddings, Alby W59 Giddings, Ted M61, D63, Q65, W66 Gidley, Peter Q76 Giese, Arthur H51, M83, Q85 Giese, Phil Q84, M87, C91, Q94 Giffen, Adrian M94, M96 Gigg, Paul M90 Gilchrist, Alan H48 Gilder, Andrew D88 Giles, Jack Q54 Giles, Ted M72, M74 Gill, Ian D88 Gill, John M88 Gillard, Arthur C88, M92, C95 Gillespie, Des D72* Gillies, David M86, D97 Gillies, John M67, C69 Gillott, David C87 Gilmour, Ed D84 Gilmour, John M83 Givney, Rodney C90 Glackin, David C91, Q93 Glazebrook, Dave D88, Q90, Q93, C95 Gleadell, Jeff M54 Gleeson, Kevin W63, W65, Q67 Gleeson, Paul D89, M92 Glenny, Michael W65, W67, M69 Goble, Robert D88 Goddard, Jane D93, M97 Godwin, Brendan M74 Golden, John Q78 Goldenberg, Burt W62 Goldsworthy, Bob C82 Goller, Graeme C72, D75

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Gomez, Ron C70, M74 Good, Dave D93 Goodall, Mark C96* Goodall, Wally Q62, D64, Q68 Goode, Andrew C76 Goodricke, John Q60 Goodspeed, Jim M57 Goodwin, Ian C85 Gooley, Keith M71, C74 Gordon, John M65 Gore, John H50, H54 Gorman, Chris W62 Gormly, Peter C73, M77 Gornall, Chris M77 Gosman, Ron Q70, C80 Gotley, Aub H48* Gough, John C76, M81 Gould, Matthew D86 Gould, Robert Q86, Q96 Goulding, Peter M79 Gourin, Anatol Q54 Gowlett, Alan Q51, M55 Grace, Dan D73 Gracie, Rod D73 Graff, Tony M71 Grafton, Ron M63 Graham, Colin M76 Graham, Neal W60 Graham, Peter Q65 Graney, Dick D90, D94 Grant, Alan M93* Grant, Dave B. C70 Grant, Dave J. M76, Q80, M82, C84, M89 Grant, David K. Q55 Grant, George Q81 Grant, Ian Q86 Gras, John C69 Gray, Paul C90, M92 Gray, Peter C82, D85 Green, Doug C83, M86 Green, Ken D84, H92 Greet, Pene M90, D97 Gregson, Peter Q63 Grey, Jon D93 Grey, Vic D73 Grice, Rodney D83 Grieve, David D92 Griffin, Malcolm D79 Griffin, Peter D64 Griffith, Brian C91, D96 Griffiths, Bill M74 Griffiths, David Q77

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Griffiths, Peter M69 Griffiths, Trevor Q63 Grimsley, Steve W61, W63 Groom, Tony W66 Grove, Daryl D83, M86 Grove, Ivan M58 Grudgefield, Bill Q69 Grund, Don C71 Gully, Ray Q67 Gumbrell, Phillip D83 Gurr, Rob Q52 Guy, Peter Q74, M75 Gwynn, Arthur Q49*, H53 Hackett, Annette C96 Haddock, Pat D85 Hader, Fred W65 Hague, John Q64 Haigh, John M65 Hajkowicz, Alex Q66 Halden-Brown, Tim D80* Hale, Karen D90 Hall, Bill Q72 Hall, Jim C86 Hall, Ken Q49, H52 Hall, Murray C71 Hall, Ross W64 Hallyburton, Graeme D87 Halpin, Michael C95 Hamelink, Ben M82 Hamilton, Blair M71 Hamilton, Bob Q88 Hamilton, Gerry C82, M84 Hamilton, Traci D91 Hamley, Trevor C78 Hamm, George M68* Hammond, Charles M91 Han, Jian Kang C85 Hancock, John C91*, D96* Hancock, Rick C86 Hand, Ray D77 Hankinson, Ken C84 Hann, Ron W67, Q70 Hannan, Frank H51*, M57 Hansen, Erik W67, Q69 Hansen, Herb W59 Hansen, Paul C94 Hanson, Bill M60 Hanson, Ken M71, M73, M75, Q77, D78, Q80 Hanson, Scott M96 Harbour, Steve M70, M71, M73 Hardie, Garry M80, C83 Hardie, Michael C91

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

Harding, Bob C77 Harding, Geoff C81 Hardy, Dave M79 Hardy, Ken W59 Harlan, Kevin D97 Harley, Brian C83, C87 Harley, Greg M87 Harmon, Leonie Q82 Harrigan, Ed W61 Harris, Bruce M60 Harris, Charlie M61 Harris, Lex C83, C86 Harris, Ron W68 Harris, Steve M80 Harris, Stuart Q68 Harrison, Brian C75 Harrison, Chris M91, M93 Harrison, Dave M90, C93 Harrison, Roger C70 Harrop, Jim W60, D62* Hartnett, Michael M84 Harvey, Bill M54, Q58 Harvey, Brian C. D89 Harvey, Brian G. M77, Q79, C83 Harvey, Dave J. M61 Harvey, Dave W. Q69 Harvey, Ross W59, M62 Harvey, Sid W65 Harwood, Len M78, C81 Harwood, Tom Q59* Hasell, Leigh D91 Hasick, Jim Q65, Q68*, M86*, M92*, M95* Haste, Mark M81, Q83, D91 Hau V Ling C89, C91 Hauenschild, Lutz Q88 Haunn, Marvin W62 Haw, Graham C74, M83, Q85, D87 Hawker, Alan Q54, D57 Hawthorn, Ivan D71, D73, Q75*, Q79* Hay, Glen D80, C85 Hay, Malcolm D61* Hayes, Alan C88 Hayes, John D80 Hayfield, Ken W68 Haymann, Werner M74 Haysom, Noel Q49 Hayward, Ron C76 Haywood, Reg C72 Hazelton, Bill C86 He Fu Yang D88

523

A

P P E N D I C E S

Heap, Mike C72, M74 Hearfield, Ross M97 Hearn, Bernard Q86 Heath, Colin D81 Hedanek, George C79, M81, C83, C86 Hedt, Paul C76, Q82 Hegerty, Terrence Q76 Heinrichs, George Q58 Hemphill, George W61 Henderson, Cary Q74 Henderson, Murray H54 Henderson, Sydney C69 Hendy, Martin C81 Hennessy, Mike M87, M89 Henry, Russ M82 Henry, Tom C80 Henstridge, Graham C72, M74 Heron, Wayne D96 Herrington, Robert Q61 Hesketh, Peter C84 Hesse, Michael D90 Hetherington, John C82, D85 Hewitt, Bruce C97 Hickey, Maurice W61 Hicks, Chris C73 Hicks, Harry Q55 Hicks, Ken W63, W65 Hicks, Peter C80 Higgins, Mark Q92 Higgins, Stuart M79 Hill, Bob Q57 Hill, Brendan C97 Hill, Ian M82 Hill, Kim C86, M88 Hill, Peter Q73, M75 Hill, Richard D86 Hill, Shane C86, M88 Hill, Viv M60 Himsley, Paul C90 Hinch, Graham C72, M74 Hinchey, Michael Q75, M77 Hinchey, Ray C71, M77, D79, D82 Hindell, Mark Q85 Hindle, Alex C85, M88, M90, C92 Hindle, Kerrie M89, C92 Hines, Andrew M93 Hines, Ken Q48 Hines, Michael Q57 Hinton, John D94 Hiscock, Allan C84

524

Hobbs, Col C86, D89 Hobbs, Terry C74, C85 Hobby, Derrick D60 Hocking, Wayne Q69 Hodge, Bryan M89 Hodges, Ralph W67 Hodges, Stuart D84, Q86, M91, C93, D95, M97 Hoelscher, John C90, M92 Hoffmann, Greg M76, D78 Hogan, Bill W61 Hogan, Kevin C71 Hogg, John M69 Holbery-Morgan, Geoff D74, M76 Holbrok, Len C69 Holder, Jim D63 Holland, Bert C69 Holland, Steve D89 Holley, David Q97 Holliday, Louise D81 Hollingshead, John M56 Hollingshead, Rob C83, D85 Hollingsworth, Bob C82 Hollingsworth, Rod Q59, M61 Holmes, Alan M85, D91 Holmes, Bob W65 Holmes, Ian E. C83 Holmes, Ian E.B. C73 Holmes, Mandy C93, C95 Holmes, Mick M79 Holmwood, Owen C89 Honey, Greg Q96 Honkala, Rudi W60 Hope, Chris C71 Hopley, Reg W67, Q71, M78 Hopper, Peter C77 Horne, Paul D80 Horsley, Don D82 Horton, John Q69 Horton, Peter D76, C79 Hoseason, Richard H52+ Hosken, Rod C81 Hotchin, Murray D87, M89 Hothem, Larry M69 Houlihan, Darren D97 Hovenden, Mark C92 Hovmand, Claus Q69 Howard, Cyril (‘Sid’) M63 Howard, Tony C86 Howarth, Greg C74, M76 Howell, Tony D84 Howells, Ted C69*

Hucker, Andrew D89 Huddy, Colin W66 Hudson, John M66 Hudspeth, John C79 Hughes, Dale D94 Hughes, Jack H53, C74 Hughes, Ray Q56 Hughes, Steve M88, C91 Hulcombe, Geoff D62, W64 Hull, Warren Q96 Hulme, Geoff M68 Humble, John M60 Hume, Angus Q81* Humphreys, Alan W66 Humphries, Alf M80 Humphries, David C90 Hunt, Dave D91, M93 Hunt, Jeff D92 Hunter, Craig M90 Hunter, Dave D93 Hunter, Peter M77 Hutchins, Grant C93 Hutchins, Noel C78 Hutchinson, Rod A. M86, M88 Hutchinson, Rod L. C75, Q79 Hynes, Lyle Q80 Hynes, Michael Q55* Iliff, Fred Q71 Illingworth, John M67 Ingall, Lindsay H52 Ingarfield, Dale C89 Inglis, Terry Q67, C71 Innes, Bob C69 Innis, John M93 Ireland, Tim M93 Irving, Keith M82 Ives, Dan C75 Izabelle, Bernie H53, M57 Jabs, Vic D61 Jacka, Fred H48 Jacklyn, Bob Q51, M56 Jackson, Anne C93 Jackson, Bob Q75, M77, M82 Jackson, Brian Q65, M67 Jackson, Ian Q93* Jackson, John D72 Jackson, Ken Q73 Jackson, Peter W67, D69 Jacob, Peter M81 Jacobsen, Ian Q87*, D93* Jacquemin, Phil M64 Jagger, Bert C75* James, David Q68

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

James, Ian C73 James, Peter C83 James, Simon D90 Jamieson, John M92 Janson, Jarrod M97 Jaques, George M67, C76 Jarvis, Brian Q78, M82 Jefferyes, Jack Q55 Jeffrey, Alan D81, M83, D85, M87, M97 Jeffrey, Zeb Q51 Jelbart, John (‘Jo’) H48 Jelleff, Ron W67 Jenkin, John Q65 Jenkins, Dave D92 Jenkins, George M76 Jennings, Noel M60 Jennings, Tony Q82, D84 Jennings-Fox, Leon H53, M55, Q58, D60, W62, W64, Q66 Jeppson, Shane D83, M86 Jerums, Janis Q51 Jesson, Eric M58 Jew, Norm M68 Jewell, David M85 Jewell, Fred W61 Jiang Jialun D83 Jianping Lin D85 Johansen, Geoff M56 Johns, David Q54, M57 Johnson, Deirdre C89, Q91 Johnson, Frank (‘Narra’) M68, M70, M74, Q75 Johnson, Joe C81* Johnson, Shaun C93, Q95 Johnston, Bob M83 Johnston, Doug M57 Johnston, Ian M78 Johnston, Kevin H51 Johnston, Nigel M87, D89 Johnston, Tony M91, M95 Johnstone, Alan D74 Johnstone, Gavin Q70 Johnstone, Ian C82, Q83, C85 Johnstone, Phillip C69 Johnstone, Trevor M83 Jones, A. Norm H48 Jones, Alun C74 Jones, Bob N. C81 Jones, Bob T. Q92*, M94*, M97* Jones, Brendan M84 Jones, Brenton C89 Jones, Brian M82

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Jones, Damien C82 Jones, Denise C85, M87, Q90, D94 Jones, Evan Q69, M72, Q74 Jones, Gordon C74 Jones, Henry (‘Mike’) W64 Jones, John Q54 Jones, Keith W60 Jones, Max M66 Jones, Neil C73, D79 Jones, Nic C90, M94 Jones, Norman P. M81 Jongbloed, Albert M83 Jongejans, Ross D84, M86, C89 Jongens, Sjoerd M80, Q86 Jourdain, Steve D88, M93 Joyce, Brian Q74 Jury, Brian C86 Kaarsberg, John W68 Kalnenas, Kostos Q50 Kaloczy, Steve Q58, W66 Kalss, Willi C69 Karay, Steve C75 Kaszechki, Matthias C85 Kath, Darryl D76 Kavanagh, Ian Q77, D79 Kay, Amanda M97 Keage, Peter C76 Kearton, Peter M86 Keating, Frank H50 Keddie, Tom Q57 Keith, Kent Q56 Kellas, Bill Q57, M60 Kelly, Graham C83, Q90, M97 Kelly, Ian W67 Kelly, Paul M84 Kelly, Terry W68 Kelly, Tony C82 Kelsey, Peta Q83, M85 Kemp, Andy Q76 Kemp, John Q71 Kennedy, Malcolm D91 Kennedy, Ron M81, Q89 Kenny, Frank D96 Kenny, Ron Q48 Keogh, Bernie M79, Q84, Q87, D97 Kern, Ric C93 Kerr, Tony M67 Kerry, Knowles Q70 Keuken, Jannes D59 Keyser, Dave Q59, M61 Kibby, Julie Q89

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

Kichenside, Jim M60 Kiernan, Rob D94 Kildea, Patrick C95, Q97 Kilfoyle, Brian M66 Killalea, Pat C85 Kilpatrick, Jonathon C88 Kinder, Brian D87 King, Alan Q73 King, Colin Q74, M77 King, Eric D77, Q81 King, Peter C. Q64, M67 King, Peter W. Q48, M57, M58, C77, Q79 King, Richard C78 Kirby, Geoff M73 Kirkby, Syd M56, M60, M80* Kirkwood, John D85 Kirkwood, Roger M93 Kirton, Malcolm M59, W63 Kitchenman, Paul D89 Kitney, Vic M68, M83 Kizaki, Koshiro M66 Klekociuk, Andrew Q88 Klemes, Paul Q96 Knight, Ian Q75 Knight, Michael M86 Knowd, Ian M82 Knox, Harry Q58 Knox-Little, Mike C72, M74, M76, M79, M82, Q85, M87, D90 Knox-Little, Ulla Q85, M87, D90 Knuckey, Graham M58 Koch, Stephen D97 Koger, Lawry M72 Korlaet, Neven Q63, M66 Koschade, Walter Q73 Kosiorek, Piotr Q92 Kotterer, Chris D64 Kowald, Brian Q81 Kowalik, Glen Q88* Kraehenbuehl, Barry Q66 Krause, Chris D83, Q85 Kreidl, Fred M82 Kretowicz, Eddy C88, D90, M93 Kros, Martin C75 Krulis, Walter Q71 Kuhl, Susan Q86 Kuhn, Steve C69 Kulikowski, Willie Q73, M75 Kurtzer, Brian D78 Lacey, Bob M55 Lachal, Bob M65, Q86* Laird, Norman Q48

525

A

P P E N D I C E S

Lake, Dennis Q57 Lambert, Malcolm Q84, D89, Q95 Lambeth, Jim H48 Lamont, Grant M84 Landon-Smith, Ian M62 Lane, Jim Q91 Lane, Peter Q62, Q73 Lang, Robert D89 Langmaid, Chris C95 Langtip, Ray W67, Q69 Lanyon, Jack W65* Lark, Andrew M79 Larkins, Greg D93 Larsen, Lars M76 Lauder, Bruce C72 Laurence, Jim C82 Lauricella, Peter M91 Lawrence, Graeme C85 Lawrence, Jeff C87 Lawrence, Joe M59 Lawson, Eddie M64, M67 Lawson, Peter H51 Lawton, Kieran M94 Lazenby, Justin Q97 Le Compte, Peter C89, D91 Le Grip, Tony Q72, D75 Leach, Eric C78 Lebbon, Colin Q66 Leckie, Doug M56 Leckie, John (‘Jock’) M71, M73, Q75 Ledingham, Jeannie Q77, Q80 Ledingham, Rod Q77*, Q80* Lee, Evan D63, M69 Lee, John D83, C85 Lee, Kevin D92 Lee, Reginald (‘Pat’) M57, M66 Leedham, Roger Q68 Lees, Bruce D81, M84 LeFevre, Ian C86, D89 Legge, Chris C91, D93 Lehmann, Darron Q96 Lennox, Bill M89 Lensink, Bill W60 Leschinski, Roland D96 Leung, Sunny D94 Lever, Les C88 Levick, Robert Q60 Lewis, Andrew M90 Lewis, Keith C80 Li Jun C87 Libbiter, Bob M90, D96

526

Liddell, Bob W67 Liebeknecht, Les Q51 Lied, Nils H51, M56, D57, D61 Lightfoot, Dick C73 Liley, Phil C83, Q85 Lim, Gerry Q65 Limpitlaw, Dick C69 Linden, Jim C76 Lindholm, Earl Q51 Lindsay, Dave M94 Lindupp, Ray C85 Lippett, Richard M63 Lishman, Val M87 Little, Gerald Q85 Little, Mark Q76, C83 Little, Scott Q53 Little, Syd M67, C69 Llabres, Claude D81 Lloyd, Trevor C84, D87, M89, Q91 Loades, Don W68, M74 Lockhart, Peter M67 Lodwick, Graham Q64 Lodwick, Keith H54 Logan, Eddie M88 Longden, Peter M81 Longworth, Jeff C84 Love, Gerry C85 Loveridge, Mark M85, Q87, Q91 Lowe, Jim D78 Lu Peiding D82 Lu-Qiang Xu D87 Lucas, Bill D57 Lucas, Mike M62* Luders, Dave C72*, M74* Luff, Trevor M70 Lugg, Des D63 Lund, Rob Q86 Lunde, Jan W60 Lurz, Roger C95 Luu, Trang Q93 Lytwyn, Paul M85 MacDonald, Neil M76 MacDonald, Wayne C87 Macey, ‘Lem’ H48, M54, M71*, M75* MacGibbon, Eric C87 Macha, Bill C69, C71 Machin, Doug M60 Mackelvie, John C92 MacKenzie, Duncan Q66 MacKenzie, John A. (‘Jock’) M56 MacKenzie, Ron C78

Mackenzie, Jenny Q92, D95 Mackenzie. Rod W68 Mackereth, Jeff M88, Q91, Q97 Mackie, Ian Q72 Mackie, Rob M97 Macklan, Guy M76 Mackle, Stuart D92 Macklin, Eric Q52, M55, M59 MacLean, Paul Q77 MacLeod, Gary C89, C77, C92 Macleod, Rod M81 Maconachie, Jim C76 Maggs, Tom M77, M80, C88* Magill, Peter M79, M83 Maguire, Ossie M58 Maher, Gil W68, D71, Q73 Mahoney, Trevor C69 Main, Dale C88, C92, Q94, M97 Maines, Ron W61 Major, Gersh Q48, Q52 Major, John Q67, M69, Q71 Malachowski, Stan D83 Malcolm, Peter C87 Mallis, Michael Q82 Mallory, Roger W63 Maloney, Chris Q93 Mandelkern, Bernie M69 Manderla, Gunter M78 Manefield, Tom Q49 Manion, Michael M94, D97 Mann, Peter Q55 Manning, Graeme C79* Manning, John M67 Manning, Phil C89 Manning, Stephen C82, Q87 Manning, Stuart (‘Sam’) M58 Mantel, Peter C87, Q94 March, Gary D74 Marchant, Ian Q71, M73 Marks, Alan M81 Marnock, Russ M75 Marriner, Alan W59 Marron, Pat H50 Marsh, Cathy C96 Marsh, Col W68 Marsh, Craig C96 Marshall, Paul C87, D95 Martin, Alan Q48* Martin, Andrew C84, D88 Martin, Barry C86* Martin, Brian C82 Martin, Greg M65 Martin, Keith M66, M69, C71

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Martin, Michael C83 Martin, Neville D97 Martin, Peter M64* Martinez, Mario D97 Maslen, Graham M61* Maslen, Peter W68 Mason, John W. D88, C92 Mason, Jon P. C69 Mason, Ray C80 Massey, Paul M94, Q96 Mather, Keith M57* Matheson, Bronwyn C91, Q94 Mathews, Bob D81 Mattar, Adel Q69 Matthews, Paul C84 Maumill, Mark M92 May, Robert C94 Mayes, Dani D93 Mayman, Ken D64 McArthur, Neil Q79 McAuliffe, Glen D82, M86, D95 McBurnie, Stephen Q88 McCabe, Chris D82 McCallum, Alan D69 McCallum, Keith C80 McCarron, Terry C97 McCarthy, Ian M70 McCarthy, Jim H50*, Q52*, M56 McCarthy, Paul D93 McCarthy, Rex C81 McCombe, Lionel M79 McCombie, Sandy C84 McConnell, Christine Q90, M92 McCormack, Dave C72, M74, M78, M83, M86, M88 McCormack, John M83 McCue, Kevin Q69 McDermott, Robyn M83 McDiarmid, Graeme Q88, D92 McDonald, Bruce M68 McDonald, Donald Q64 McDonald, Graham Q56 McDonald, Ian C81, D83 McDonald, Keith Q59, M61, M63, C69 McDonald, Ken M62 McDonald, Nigel C70 McDonough, Geoff M97 McDowell, Mike Q71 McGann, Mike D71 McGarrigle, Leo H50 McGarry, Grant C88 McGhee, John W61, M65

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

McGill, Gerry C69 McGinley, Mark D70, M72 McGinley, Mike C69 McGlone, Terry C73 McGovern, Shaughan C85 McGrath, Peter Q63, M65, W67 McGrath, Ted M63 McGregor, John C73 McGregor, Peter Q52, M56 McHale, Cameron M97 McIlwham, John M85 McInnes, Brian Q58 McInnes, Gordon C70*, C73* McIntosh, Colin M80 McIntosh, Ian C73, M75, M77 McIntosh, Neil C82 McIntyre, Hedley M59 McKechnie, Keith C80 McKenzie, Colin Q57 McKenzie, Don M68 McKenzie, Graeme M93, Q95 McKenzie, Jack C83 McKenzie, John F. W63, W65 McKenzie, Peter Q76* McKern, Malcolm C87 McKinley, Bernie C88 McLachlan, Jim Q72* McLaren, Alan W65 McLaren, Dugald C86 McLean, Ian James D81, D88, Q94, M97 McLean, Ian John Q92, M95, C97 McLean, Ian R. Q74 McLean, Ron D69 McLeary, John C75 McLeay, Don Q77 McLennan, Peter J. M81, Q83 McLennan, Peter R. Q68, C71 McLennan, Roger C88 McLeod, Ian M58 McLeod, Tracey Q87 McLoughlin, Russell D86, D89 McMahon, Brendan D88, Q92 McMahon, Clive Q95, Q97 McMahon, Ray M63* McManus, Phil C82 McMullan, Maurice Q72 McMurtie, Lloyd C73, D80 McNair, Dick H53, M55, Q62 McNally, John Q61 McNamara, Terry C75 McNaughton, Colin Q57

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

McNaughton, Ian M61 McNeill, Alan D69 McPhee, Chris Q72 McQueen, James Q60 McRae, Cheryl C95 McShane, Ross M81 McSweeney, Pat D82 McTaggart, Andrew D88 McVie, Elizabeth Q86 Meades, Lindsay C81 Meadowcroft, Ted M84, Q88 Mears, Graeme C78 Meath, John Q70 Medhurst, Tim C83 Meerbach, Cornelius (‘Keith’) M72 Mehonoshen, Di D92, D95 Meldrum, David Q74 Melick, David C91, C94 Melick, Peter C95* Mellor, Malcolm M57 Melvold, Clarry M62 Menadue, Trevor M92 Menk, Fred D82 Mentha, Peter Q79, M82 Mercer, Barry D61 Mercier, Colin M86 Meredith, Neville M57 Merrick, Rob M60 Merrilees, Bill Q67 Merrill, Geoff M63 Merrony, Mike Q61 Merry, Hayden C72 Meyer, Mark Q71, D73, M81 Middleton, Geoff Q64 Mifsud, Noel C92* Miller, Chris C85 Miller, Donald D91 Miller, John Q62 Miller, Kevin M62 Miller, Les M64 Miller, Neil M85 Miller, Ray C88 Miller, Rod C97 Miller, Warren D94 Miller, Wayne C81, M84 Milliet, Roger D86 Mills, Graham M72, C87, D90, M92, Q95 Mills, Rodney M96 Mills, Sarah D96 Millward, Gerry D74

527

A

P P E N D I C E S

Milne, Jim M78, D80, C82, Q84, M86 Milne, John Q61 Milne, Mark D95 Minehan, Chris D79 Mino, Fausto M88 Mitchell, Ray W67, M69, M71, C72, M84 Mitchener, Ted Q75, M77, D79* Moffatt, Neil D76 Mohring, Charles Q92 Molle, John D60, D62 Monkhouse, Bill Q48 Monks, Dick W66 Monks, Don M60 Monselesan, Didier C93, C95 Moo, Vernon C87 Moonie, Patrick M67, M69, M71, M73, M75 Moore, Allan M63, M65 Moore, Geoff H92 Morgan, Jim Q56 Morgan, Peter W64 Morgan, Roger Q69 Morgan, Tony Q71, D72 Morgan, Vic Q60, W63 Morgan, Vin W68 Morris, Ray C78, D81, D85 Morrison, Chris C86, M93 Morrison, Dave Q82 Morrison, Grant M85 Morrison, Ken M66* Morrissey, John V. D79 Morrissy, John V. C74 Morton, Bruce W68 Mosmann, Jurgen M92 Mostyn, Todd D89 Mottershead, Geoff Q48 Mudge, Jennifer Q95 Mudge, Russell D96 Muir, Evan Q66 Munro, John A. C82* Munro, John E. M. Q59 Munro, Paul Q82, D85, M92 Munstermann, Horst (‘Harry’) Q58, M60 Murchie, George Q70 Murcutt, Stan M68 Murdoch, Ken C80 Murphy, Damian M91 Murphy, Mark M78 Murphy, R.D. (‘Mick’) M60 Murray, Andrew M81

528

Murray, Lyn Q63, W64 Murray, Ron M66 Murrell, Peter D80 Musgrove, Steven M81 Musk, Paul Q77 Myers, Paul C87, M90 Myles, Don Q63 Nagatalevu, Ulai C77 Nash, Norman Q62 Nash, Rob M75, M77, M93 Naughton, Geoff C77 Naughton, Peter D81, M87 Navin, Mark D72, D82 Neagle, John W68 Neal, Pete M69 Neff, Dick C75 Nehmelmann, Michael Q88 Neilsen, Peter D74 Neilson, Bruce W66, Q69 Neilson, Scott C87 Nelson, Bob M62 Nespor, Eric Q62 Neudegg, Dave D92 Newman, Alan D59, M61 Newman, Peter M89 Newton, Geoff M60 Newton, Malcolm Q70 Newton, Terry D87, D91, D94 Ng, Alan M96 Nicholas, David C84 Nicholls, David Q62 Nichols, Scott M90 Nicholson, Robert D71 Nicholson, Robert T. W66, W68, M70 Nickols, Alan A68 Nickols, Winston W68 Niehof, John D80, D93 Nielsen, Frank D77 Nilsson, Carl M57 Nissink, Henry M75 Nitschke, Kim Q88 Nixon, Robert D93 Noble, Roger M71 Norris, Dave M59 Norris, Trevor Q97 Norris-Smith, Peter C84 North, John D84, Q90 Nottage, Dave Q89 Nugent, Damien C86 Nunn, Bob Q64* Nutley, Alan Q82 Nutt, Wally Q50

Nye, Harvey W59 O’Brien, Cec H53 O’Brien, John C87 O’Brien, Ray M77 O’Connor, Bill C86 O’Connor, Frank C79 O’Connor, John A. D82 O’Connor, John J. C79 O’Gorman, Mike D59 O’Keefe, John Q59, M64 O’Leary, Ray W64* O’Mara, Tony C76 O’Neill, Alan M85 O’Neill, David C91 O’Reilly, Danny C83, M85 O’Rourke, Frank D87, M93, C97 O’Shea, Alan M64 O’Shea, John H. W62, W64, Q66 O’Shea, John P. D73 O’Sullivan, Huon Q87 Oakley, Steve Q96 Oatt, Ron H49 Ockenden, Jim C91 Ockwell, Bob Q81 Oetterli, Tony. M91 Oldfield, Bob M58 Oldham, Hugh Q51, M55 Oldroyd, Keith D60 Olesen Ole M72 Oliver, Leo M84 Oliver, Mark M74 Olrog, Trevor Q65, W67 Olsen, Lance Q78, C81 Oniszk, Ed C73 Onley, Les M59 Ooyendyk, Joe M94 Ooyendyk, Michael D96 Opulskis, Dail M94, D97 Orbansen, Peter C88, C90, M93, D97 Orchard, Bob C82, D84, M89, Q92, M94 Ormay, Peter W63, Q65, Q67 Ortner, Ricarda M87 Orton, Noel W61 Osborn, Eric C81, D90 Osborn, Ian D92 Osborne, Alan M91 Ostril, Lou D69 Owen, Gary D81 Owen, Seager (‘Sid’) M73 Owen, Steve Q95 Owen, Wally Q93

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Oxenham, Lindsay C74 Oxnam, Terry Q74 Paddick, John H49 Paine, David D82 Paine, Roley Q69 Paish, Peter W61, M63 Palmai, George Q60 Palmer, Garth M71 Palmer, Ian C81, M90 Papij, Alex M76 Parcell, Simon D93 Pardoe, Russ M61 Parer, David M70, M72, Q75 Park, Cyril Q50 Parker, Alan Q66, D77* Parker, Bob M90* Parker, Des D69*, Q71, M72, Q75, Q78 Parnell, Malcolm C86 Parrott, Tom C80 Parry, Ray C80 Parsons, Neville (‘Nod’) Q50, M55 Parsons, Rod C78 Parsons, Ron Q51, H53 Partridge, Rob D80 Paszowski, Janusz M70 Patch, Ron M78 Paten, Noel C95 Paterson, Lex M63 Paton, Robin D94 Patterson, Diana M89*, D95* Paul, Ray M95 Paulin, Dave D80, M84 Pavlinovich, Morris D95 Payne, Geoff W67 Payne, Robin D94 Paynting, Dick C75 Peake-Jones, Ken M59 Pearce, Geoff C81 Pearce, Simon C97 Pederson, Ian Q62* Peiniger, John M75, M81 Penney, Dick W59, W60 Penney, Scott M88 Penny, Charlie M68 Perger, Col C72 Perriman, Alan H52 Perrin, Rick D82 Perry, Rob M79 Peterkin, Doug C71 Peterkin, Ross C89 Peters, John C75

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Petersen, Bruce D75 Peterson, Roger Q64, W66 Petkovic, Josko M71, M78 Petrini, Rob Q77, M80 Petschack, Wayne C81 Pettit, Des C90 Pfitzner, Leigh W66 Phelps, Shane D93 Phillips, Alan C70 Phillips, Andre M84 Phillips, Bob Q82, C86 Phillips, Brad Q90 Phillips, David M82, C85 Phillips, Dick C70 Phillips, Ian Q77 Phillips, John M62 Phillips, Mike M72, M75, C78 Phu Thuong Si M93 Pickard, John D80 Pickering, Geoff Q66 Pickering, Ron M57 Pike, Ray D90, M92 Piket, Ed D85, M88, C90 Pill, John Q72 Pilmore, Gary C82, D84, C86, Q91 Pimenov, Igor D92 Pinn, John M57 Pitman, Tracey D92 Pitson, Graham D91 Pizzinato, John C97 Plant, Bill Q78, C80 Plumb, Don M69 Pocock, Doug Q65 Podkolinski, Mark D77 Pollard, John W64 Poltev, Yevgen M80 Poole, Gary M87 Poolman, Steven Q81 Porter, Adrian C77, C94 Porter, Andy M78 Porter, John Q76 Porteus, Ivan Q83 Post, Adele C90 Potrzeba, Ian C90 Pottage, Dave C72, M82, M85, M92, Q96 Poulsen, Barry Q67 Poulton, Michael M65 Powell, Dave C69 Powell, Mathew Q95 Powell, Owen D70 Powell, Tony C91, D93

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

Power, Keith D60 Prant, Fred C74, Q76 Prenter, Bill Q58 Price, Chris M96 Price, Gina M85 Price, Harry Q56, M59 Price, Murray Q69, C72, M76 Price, Tim D86 Priddy, Richard C81 Pridham, Linda D92 Primm, Roy D83, M86 Pritchard, Bill M76, Q79 Pritchard, Bruce Q52 Pritchard, Kevin M85 Pritchard, Phil Q78* Procter, Shane C96 Prohasky, Wendy Q84 Proudlock, Ray M78 Pryde, Graham M80 Pryer, Wayne D94 Puddicombe, Rhys D83 Purchase, Dave Q63, Q64 Pye, Carol D89 Pye, Terrence (‘Scobie’) Q80, Q82 Qian Songlin C83 Qin Dahe C84 Quinert, John M66 Quinn, Peter C78 Quinnell, Karen D95 Rachinger, Basil M73* Rachinger, Russell C87* Rada, Anton M93 Rahmat, Zain M83 Raisin, David M87 Randall, Julian M78, M84 Rankin, Lyn D92 Rankins, John M66 Rasch, David Q84, D87, Q92 Raymond, Ian C90, M93, Q95, D97 Rayner, Lou C81 Rayner, Stephen M88 Rea, Paul C82 Read, Peter Q77, C90 Read, Ted M75 Reardon, Leigh C88, D90, Q92, M94, C95 Rec, Otakar H51 Redfearn, Harry Q59, D61, Q63 Redpath, Allan Q95* Reece, Eric M96 Reeve, Geoff C79+

529

A

P P E N D I C E S

Reeve, Jon Q88 Regester, Robin M72, C76, D79, Q85 Reid, Don C81, D84, D86, Q88 Reid, Edwin Q61 Reid, Frank C74, Q76 Reid, Grant C73, M76 Reid, Ian M78, D81 Reid, Ivan M80 Reid, John Sinclair Q64 Reid, John Spencer Q67 Reid, Michael D89 Reid, Terry Q93 Reiffel, Kevine M67 Reilly, John M67 Reinhardt, Rod Q77 Reinke, Jason C97 Rendell, Steve C94 Retallack, Don M76 Reu, Ron W62 Reyes, Rick D78 Reynolds, Alan C77, M79 Reynolds, Bob M71 Reynolds, Janet D92, C97 Reynolds, Mark M93 Rhemrev, John Q63 Rhodes, Angela C94* Riach, Allan D94 Rich, John Q90* Richards, Stewart Q62 Richardson, Alan M58 Richardson, Kevin D89 Riddell, Alf H50, Q52, M55 Ries, Bryan D97 Rieusset, Brian W68 Riley, Gil Q75, M77 Riley, Max C80, D83 Riley, Mike C69 Rippon, Ralph M59 Ritchie, Frederick (‘Dick’) W63, M65, W68 Rivers, Joe Q66* Roach, Derek D88 Robaard, Abraham D83 Robb, Alec Q49 Robb, Dick Q65 Roberts, Darin C95 Roberts, Neil M72* Roberts, Nick D91 Roberts, Perry C91, M97 Robertson, Colin Q54 Robertson, Dave M70, M72, Q74, D80

530

Robertson, Geoff C83 Robertson, Graham M88 Robertson, Mal M70 Robertson, S.D. (‘Brian’) Q49 Robinson, Alan C73 Robinson, Bill C84, C87 Robinson, David M80 Robinson, Don C77 Robinson, Geoff M73 Robinson, Hartley Q55, W59+ Robinson, Sue Q96 Robinson, Tom D88 Roff, Bob W66 Rogers, Dave W64 Rogers, Trevor Q81 Rohan, Phil Q76 Rollins, Shane M79, D82 Rooke, Allen C79, C83, M85, D87, M92, Q94 Rose, Terry M81 Roser, David C90 Roskrow, Ann C89 Rosler, Horst M71, M75 Rosser, Dion Q86 Rounsevell, David D73 Rowden-Rich, Murray C72 Rowell, Peter Q82, D93 Roy, Richard M92 Rubeli, Max M68 Ruckert, Paul Q57 Ruker, Ric M60 Russell, Chris Q74 Russell, David C74 Russell, Graeme C75, C78 Russell, Joan C90*, Q94* Russell, John Q49, H52, M54 Russell, Ron D75 Rutter, H.E. (‘Basil’) M60 Ryan, Neville C86, C91 Ryder, Brian (‘Red’) M61, W63, W65, Q67, D71, Q73 Rynehart, Ross M96* Sadler, Geoff Q73, D75, D78 Saffigna, Luke Q92 Salmon, Keith C86 Sambrooks, Brett C94 Sampson, Bob D81, Q84, D86 Sandercock, Jim M59 Sandilands, Alexander (‘Sandy’) M57 Sansom, Julian A68 Sapalo, Peter Q97 Saunders, Bill W61

Saunders, Bob D76 Saunders, Lyn C69 Saunders, Ray C91 Saunders, Selwyn D93 Sawert, Alan M59, W66 Sawyer, Leon C71, C75 Saxton, Dick W63* Scally, Christopher (`Kit’) M71, M91 Scanlan, Mike D61 Scarborough, Dave M76 Scaysbrook, Frank W68 Scerri, Anthony C90 Schaeffer, Bob M63 Schafer, Keith C77 Schahinger, Robert M80, Q83 Schellaars, Arie C75, M78 Scherek, Bill Q78 Scherell, Glenn M93, C95 Schmidt, Dieter M73, C77 Schmidt, Richard Q67 Schmidt-Harms, Chris Q81 Schmiechen, Joc C89* Schmith, Rob C87 Schmitter, Rick D64, Q66, M78, C80 Schneider, Darryn C96 Schneider, David (‘Dick’, ‘Duke’) C74 Schneider, Merv M73 Schocker, Wayne M79 Scholes, Arthur H48 Scholz, Phillip D95 Schrapel, Rod C75, C78 Schwartz, Georges M54 Schwetz, Peter C71 Scoble, Charles Q48+ Scott, Fiona D91, D97 Scott, Jenny Q90 Scott, John Q56 Seaton, John M56 Seaver, Jim M61, M63 Sebbens, Jim D91, C94 Seedsman, Barry C77* Seedsman, Don W62, M64 Seidl, George Q78, M80, D84, C86 Sell, Helmut C76 Sellick, Brenton Q71+ Semmens, Jim C84 Sephton, Graeme M78 Severin, Dennis Q74 Sexton, Mike Q77, M79

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Seymour, Paul M87 Shadbolt, Keith D89 Shanahan, Michael C96 Shanks, Robert D96 Shannon, Frank Q52 Sharpe, David Q74* Sharrock, Ray M67 Shaughnessy, Peter Q66 Shaw, Bernie Q55, M57 Shaw, Dave Q80, M90 Shaw, John M57 Shaw, Peter H53, M55 Shaw, Robert C91 Sheehy, David C79 Sheers, Bob C77 Shennan, Ken M63, W65, Q67 Shepherd, Kevin M80, Q85, C90 Sheridan, Kevin M84, C86, M92 Sherlock, Matthew M86 Sherwood, Bob C79 Sherwood, Michael D86 Sherwood, Ron M79, D83, C91 Shipp, Erik Q50 Shirley, Tony M73 Short, Keith Q54 Sibthorpe, Dick D83, D86 Siddall, Paul M70 Sidebottom, Ron D81 Sigston, Jeff M80 Silberstein, Richie M82 Silich, Jovan M72, Q75 Sillick, John W66, C71 Silson, Alan M83 Silver, Craig Q86 Simmonds, Neil W64, C74 Simmons, Ted W65 Simon, Max Q60, W62 Simon, Robin W63 Simounds, John C76, C79 Simper, Donna C94 Simpson, Chris M67 Simpson, Harry Q68 Simpson, Ken Q65 Simpson, Rod Q68 Sinclair, Bill C85 Singh, Devindar C92 Single, Mark M62 Singleton, Bill C72, D81, M85 Singleton, John C70 Sisson, John M77 Siver, Dale C94 Skinner, Leigh Q81 Skira, Irynej Q74

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Sleeman, Bob Q82 Slip, Dave Q88, H92 Small, Graeme W64 Smart, John Q83*, C85* Smart, Phil Q87, C89, C90 Smethurst, Nev W61* Smith, Adrian C83 Smith, Barry D89 Smith, Bruce M70* Smith, Dale D81, M83, Q86 Smith, Deryk Q59 Smith, Eric C82 Smith, Frank M58 Smith, Geoff M61 Smith, Gordon W64 Smith, Graeme T. Q66, Q67 Smith, Graham K. C78, C81, D94, C96 Smith, Jeff C94 Smith, Jeremy Q96* Smith, Jim W60 Smith, John Q65 Smith, John R. Q72, M73 Smith, Ken M69 Smith, Ken M97 Smith, Kevin Q68 Smith, Laurie Q75 Smith, Neil M71, C82 Smith, Paul A. D92 Smith, Paul Richard C81 Smith, Paul Richard C94 Smith, Reg H49 Smith, Ron M68 Smith, Tony C80 Smyth, Patrick C90 Snow, Graeme C91 Somers, Kevin Q81 Sommers-Cain, Neil D82 Sorensen, Bernie M82, Q84, M86 Soucek, Frank Q52, W60, W62+ Southern, Barry C77 Spano, Angelo W60 Sparks, Andrew W66 Speake, Andy C87 Speedy, Charles Leigh Q48 Speedy, Doug Q87, Q89 Spence, Fred W63 Spitzer, Werner C73 Spooner, Mark M85, M87, C93 Spriggins, Shane C88, M90 Springlo, Ric M68 Springolo, Mario Q97

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

Sproson, Mike W68 Sprunk, Peter D85, D87, D92, D94, Q96 Spruzen, Peter M72 Spry, Christine D91, Q92, Q94, M96 Spry, George C96 Squibb, John D72, M76 Stadler, Sepp W61 Stair, Noel Q64 Stalker, John Q62, M64, D70*, C74, Q79 Stanborough, John M85 Stanfield, Eugene C75 Stanimirovic, Peter D72, Q76 Stansfield, Peter W61 Stapleton, Marc M64 Starr, Jack H51 Stean, Fred Q61* Steel, John Q73* Steele, David M80, C85 Steele, Merv C84, C87 Steers, Brett D89 Steiger, Otto D59* Stenton, Charles C86 Stephen, Dick C74 Sterrett, Ron Q49 Steuart, John Q57 Stevens, Sarah Q77 Stevenson, Chris M92 Stewart, David Q93 Stibbs, Keith Q51*, Q54 Stickland, Jeff W67 Stickland, Peter M80, C83 Stinear, Bruce M54, D57, M59 Stokes, Tom Q97 Stone, Adrian C72, M74 Stone, Greg D96 Stone, Ian C83, M86 Stone, Michael C79, M96 Stone, Trevor C69 Storer, Bill Q51, M54 Stott, David D92 Stow, Bob C78, D88 Stracey, Mike C74 Strawbridge, Wayne D87 Streten, Neil M60 Strochnetter, Fred Q52 Strover, Bill D63 Stubbs, Lindsay M79 Stucki, Chris C88 Sturrock, John Q53 Styk, Karol D81

531

A

P P E N D I C E S

Suckau, Jorg C70, D73 Sugrue, Garry Q83, C85, M91 Sullivan, Nerida Q81, Q83 Sullivan, Peter D83, D85, Q88 Sullivan, Reginald W68+ Sulzberger, Phil Q59 Summers, Bob M54 Sundberg, Gerry M56 Supp, Lyle C73 Sutcliffe, Peter M89 Suter, William D60 Sutherland, Ian C97* Sutton, John C79 Sutton, Robert Q65 Svensson, Alf D64, Q67, C69 Swadling, Kerrie D94 Sweetensen, Danny Q52, H54 Swindells, Lindsay D80, D88 Swords, Stewart M72, Q75 Sykes, Ron D82 Sykorra, Horst M84 Symonds, Steve Q72 Symons, Lloyd D91, C93, D95 Synnott, Paul D92 Szkup, Richard Q76 Szworak, Eric D75, D79, C84, M88 Taaffe, John D70 Tait, Martin M93 Tann, John M77 Tapp, Mark M86, C92 Tarbuck, John Q63, W65, W67, D69 Tarves, Tracy Q96 Tassell, Phil D93 Tate, Ken M62 Taylor, ‘Jock’ M64, W66 Taylor, ‘Pud’ Q78, Q80 Taylor, Alec C91 Taylor, B. William Q50 Taylor, Bob M80 Taylor, Brian D. C73 Taylor, Charles C83 Taylor, Colin C69 Taylor, David D89 Taylor, Graeme W. M75, Q78, Q88 Taylor, Graham M66, Q68 Taylor, Ian M73 Taylor, Ivan C82, Q84 Taylor, Mike Q52, Q54, Q60* Taylor, Roxanne D89 Taylor, Stan Q64, W66

532

Taylor, Trevor M96 Taylor, William T.J. M63 Teague, Ian M76* Teece, Richard M91, D93 Tenni, Peter Q53 Tepper, Graeme Q73 Terwin, Godfrey C97 Teyssier, Paul H52, M59, D62 Thelander, Hugh Q68 Thollar, Andrew C77 Thom, Ogilvie D96 Thomas, ‘Taffy’ Q53 Thomas, Alan Q61 Thomas, Bill M72 Thomas, Chris Q63 Thomas, Ian M67 Thomas, Ivan Q60, W63 Thomas, Robert Q86, Q88 Thomas, Robin M84, C87 Thompson, Bob J. D92, C97 Thompson, Bob W. Q73 Thompson, Garth Q89, D91, C94 Thompson, Graham C75 Thompson, Peter D91, C93 Thompson, Russ W63 Thomson, Bob W62* Thomson, George M81 Thorn, Dave C87 Thorne, Robert C95 Thornton, Harry H50 Thorp, Arnold W61 Thorpe, Bruce M95 Thwaites, Rick C84 Tibbits, John M76, C85 Tierney, Mike C78 Tierney, Trevor D73 Tihema, Robin D85, D96 Tindale, Ted Q51 Tingate, Trevor C93 Tink, Andrew C97 Tivendale, Charles D72, M80 Tod, Ian W59, M61 Tomes, Christopher C92 Tomkins, Bob M70, Q75 Tomkins, Michael M95 Toms, John D89, M92, Q94 Torckler, Ray D59, W61 Totten, John Q49 Towney, Graeme Q85 Townrow, Karen Q88 Townsend, Simon D89 Towson, Peter M66

Trace, Len C89, M93 Trail, Dave M61 Trajer, Frank D61, M64 Treloar, Jeff M84, Q87, M95 Tremethic, Scott Q97 Trengove, John M95 Tretheway, John M76, Q79 Trigwell, Elliott D58 Trost, Peter Q56, M58, M62 Trott, John C74 Trott, Norm D62, D64* Trouchet, Bevin Q84 Trupp, Norbert D85 Tschaffert, Helmut M58 Tucker, Mark D82 Tuckett, Phil M70 Tuckwell, Peter C80 Tully, John M95 Turnbull, Brian M84* Turnbull, Laurie M65 Turner, Glen C91, D92 Turner, Jack C70, M74 Turner, Judy Q83, M85 Turner, Peter D58 Turpie, Alex Q58 Tweedie, Craig Q97 Twelvetree, Peter C69 Twigg, Dudley (‘Doug’) Q56, M58, C78* Twycross, Will D79 Tymms, Tony D88 Tyrrell, Joe C76 Udovikoff, Serge H50 Ullman, Geoffrey M93 Underwood, Bob W59, W62 Underwood, Bruce C81, Q86 Underwood, Chris M91 Underwood, Mark Q89, D92 Upton, Ted Q82*, M85*, M87* Uren, Dale D81, M83 Urie, Alistair M84 Urquhart, Dave M75 Vallance, Jim C78, M80 Vallis, Andre Q78 Van Erkelens, Kees Q60 van De Geyn, John C89 van Hulssen, Frits M55, M59 Vandersant, Hans D77 Vardy, Phil D71 Varma, Paul C74* Varvel, Dave M79 Vaughan, Tony C93 Vause, Harry H50

A N A R E

W I N T E R I N G

Vella, Joseph M93 Verbruggen, Tony M77, Q81 Vernon, Bill C74 Vestjens, Wilhelmus Q62 Vilhjalmsson, Dagur D76, M80 Vince, Barry C76, M79 Vivash, Ian M77 Vizi, Andrew Q86 Voloshinov, Nikolay M79, D82 Von Bibra, Glen C81 von Renouard, Eddie M61 Vrana, Attila M65, M68, M72, H92* Vukovich, John M63 Wake-Dyster, Kevin M77, Q79 Wakeford, Reg M62 Walkden-Brown, Tim Q69 Walkem, Lance Q64, D72 Walker, Col C83 Walker, Don W62 Walker, Kevin C. D85, C87 Walker, Kevin G. (‘Mumbles’) M62 Walker, Robin Q67* Walker, Terry D81 Walker, Tim D85 Wall, Brian W60 Wallace, Geoff D86 Walsh, Graeme M83 Walsh, Jack H50, H51, H54 Walsh, John Q74 Walsh, Ross C79, C85 Walter, Jeff C71* Walter, Jerry C70, M74 Wang Zipan D84 Wantenaar, Gert D81*, D88* Warchot, Karl Q70 Ward, Alan Q75, D78 Ward, Dave W60, D62 Ward, Don D77 Ward, Jack Q50, M55 Warden, Ossie H49 Wardhill, Paul M83 Ware, Bill M68 Ware, Tom Q77 Warhaft, Naham (‘Jack’) M64 Warham, John Q60 Warner, Richard Q95 Warren, Peter C75 Warriner, Tony D61, M63, W65, C71, Q73 Washington, Dale M91, Q97 Waterhouse, Robbin D71, Q72

E X P E D I T I O N E R S

Waters, Ian C70, C73 Watkins, Brenton Q70 Watson, Anne C94 Watson, Bob M63 Watson, Garry D81, M83, C85, D94 Watson, Gordon D79 Watson, Keith C. Q61 Watson, Keith D. M65, M68, M70 Watson, Ken Q51 Watt, Iain D76 Watt, Vic D76 Watts, Geoff D88 Watts, John M62 Watts, Paul D69, M75 Waugh, Bob D76 Waugh, Don C85 Waugh, Stuart C78 Wayman, Peter H50 Weatherson, Terry M70, C72, M74 Weaver, Murray Q51 Webb, David D90 Webb, John D89, D92 Webb, Mick C70, C73, C75 Webb, Ron Q72, M83 Webb, Rowan M69 Webber, Bob Q53 Webster, Bruce Q58 Webster, Charles W63 Webster, Gilbert M65 Webster, Phillip C88 Wehrle, Egon C77 Weight, Dave Q80 Weir, Charlie W67, C69, D85, M87, Q89, M91, Q93 Weiss, Henry M81, Q83 Welch, Lennie H53 Weller, Gunter M61, M65 Wells, Geoff M82 Wells, Wayne W68 Welsh, Robin D80 Welsh, Roger D82, Q84 Werner, Ole M76, M82 West, Brian Q72, D74 Westbury, Matthew D89 Westerhof, Herman C81 Westwood, Dick D70 Wheaton, Randall Q89, D91 Wheeler, Graeme. M57 Whelan, Patrick C92 Whelan, Ron D64, Q66 Wheller, Shane C93

1 9 4 7 – 1 9 9 7

White, Alan C83, Q85, M88 White, Fred C73, Q75 White, Jim W61 White, Ken W66 White, Robert M63+ White, Sheryl C86 Whitehead, Colin E. W67 Whitehead, J. Colin Q77 Whitehead, Michael D87 Whitehorn, Lionel M90, D92 Whitehouse, Gordon M64, M66 Whitehouse, Joe Q70 Whitehouse, Mike D81, Q83, C87 Whiteley, Brian C84* Whiteside, Bob W68 Whiteside, Graham C75, D80, M90, M94, Q97 Whitfield, John Q74, D83 Whittle, Mick C86, M88 Whitton, Harry Q54 Whitworth, Roy W63, W64 Whyte, Peter Q63 Wicks, Bob C88 Widdows, Ian M59 Wienecke, Barbara M94 Wigg, David M62 Wiggins, Ron W65, C69 Wignall, John M79, D84 Wignall, Mike D64 Wilkinson, Alan C73, C80 Wilkinson, Arthur M89, Q91 Wilkinson, Bob Q53 Wilkinson, Geoff M61, W63 Wilkinson, Noel M87 Willdin, Michael M87 Willey, Russ C71, D73, D75, C77, M79 Williams, Alex D93 Williams, Allan M66, D70 Williams, Des M77 Williams, Dick D74 Williams, Geoff W64 Williams, Gwyn C91, C95 Williams, John (‘Snow’) W59, M62 Williams, Lynn Q81, M84 Williams, Norm M95 Williams, Paul M88 Williams, Pelham D84, D87, D90, D94 Williams, Rod D89, M93

533

A

P P E N D I C E S

Williams, Rodger M64, W66, W68, Williams, Warwick Q81, M84 Williamson, Trevor C96 Willing, Dick M57 Willis, Michael M83 Willmett, Dennis W66 Willock, Charles M82 Wills, Graeme C89, M93 Wills, Rob M78 Wilshaw, Jack Q69 Wilson, Ashleigh M95 Wilson, Bob C73 Wilson, David D90, M95 Wilson, Garry M82 Wilson, Hugh (‘Bill’) M58 Wilson, Ivan M83 Wilson, Jeff C77 Wilson, Jim Q71 Wilson, John D92* Wilson, Ken R. Q95, Q97 Wilson, Ken W. M72+ Wilson, Michael C87 Wilson, Peter D91, M93 Wilson, Richard D85, C89 Wilson, Stan W61 Wiltshire, Alan C.W. M68 Wiltshire, Alan Q94

534

Wiltshire, Denis C92, M96 Windolf, John M71 Windsor, John Q50+ Winter, Allan Q79, M81 Winter, Robin M95 Wiseman, George C97 Wishart, Ted M63 Withers, Ken M69, M72 Wohlers, Peter M77* Woinarski, Brian M65* Wolfe, Stuart M81 Wolter, Phil M76 Wood, Andrew C84 Wood, Harold M69 Wood, Ian M67 Woodberry, Barry M62 Woods, Nev W64 Woods, Rupert Q90 Woodsmith, David C75 Woollard, Warren Q93 Woolley, Gay Q83 Worden, Ron C71, Q73, C80 Wright, Chris Q81 Wright, Clint C71 Wright, Harold Q60 Wright, Ray C87 Wyatt, Jim Q51 Wyers, Bob M61

Wyld, Mike M76 Wythes, David D87, Q91 Xi Dilong C86 Xie Zichu C82 Xuereb, Joe C78 Yates, Peter M83, M86 Yeoman, Bob M81, C84 Yingling, Dave W60 York, Keith H48 Yost, Bob M80, C83 Young, Bill M61, D63* Young, Calum D85, C88, M94, D97 Young, David B. D88 Young, David G. M84 Young, Greg C82, Q86 Young, John C70, M72, M88 Young, Neal C71 Young, Peter H50 Young, Simon D89* Young, Ted C90, M94 Zacharia, Andrew C77 Zakharoff, Oleg M60 Zappert, Mike D70 Zhang Qingsong D81 Zimmerman, Harry M73 Zmood, John M73 Zwar, Meredy C91, M94, D97

APPENDIX II

MEDAL

AUSTRALIAN POLAR MEDAL RECIPIENTS (AFTER 1954) 1955 Dovers, Robert George Loewe, Fritz 1956 Allison, Robert William Béchervaise, John Mayston Crohn, Peter W Dingle, William Robert John Dovers, Robert George Clasp Elliott, Frederick Winton Gleadell, Jeffrey Desmond Gowlett, Alan Stanley Harvey, William Jelbart, John Ellis (Posthumously) Jennings-Fox, Leon Neville Eugene Lacey, Robert Harding McNair, Richard George Macey, Louis Edward Clasp Macklin, Eric Leslie Oldham, Wilfrid Hugh Parsons, Neville Ronsley Riddell, Alfred Davidson Robin, Gordon De Quetteville Russell, John R Schwartz, Georges Shaw, Peter John Randall Stinear, Bruce Harry Storer, William Joseph

WINNERS

Hannan, Francis Thomas Hawker, Alan Charles Izabelle, Bernard A H Johns, David Hubert Johnston, Douglas Malcolm 1958 King, Peter Wylie Abbs, Gordon Lindsay Lee, Reginald Thomas Albion, Patrick Neil Lied, Nils Tonder Clasp Bewsher, William Gordon Lucas, William Charles Bunt, John Stewart Christensen, Mervyn Valdemar Mather, Keith Benson Mellor, Malcolm M Cooper, Noel Munro Meredith, Neville Windeyer Dowie, Donald Alexander Nilsson, Carl Sigurd Gardner, Lionel George Pickering, Richard Ronald Hollingshead, John Alfred Pinn, John David Jacklyn, Robert Mainwaring Sandilands, Alexander Hardie Johansen, Geoffrey Raymond Shaw, Bernard Edward Kirkby, Sydney Lorrimar Shaw, John Eric Lied, Nils Tonder McCarthy, James William Parker Stinear, Bruce Harry Clasp Wheeler, Graeme Trevor McGregor, Peter Malcolm Willing, Richard Lyall Mackenzie, John Alexander Seaton, John Alex 1961 Stephenson, Philip Jon Adams, Ian Leonard Sundberg, Gerald Joseph Arnel, Royston Reginald Clasp Blair, James 1960 Blake, John Roger Arnel, Royston Reginald Bolza, Alfons Clemence, Peter Hugh Borland, Raymond Alexander Collins, Neville Joseph Brown, Duncan Alexander Dingle, William Robert John Burnett, Eric John Clasp Channon, James Edward Grey Field, Ephraim David Chapman, Phillip Kenyon Fisher, Morris Maxwell Cook, Bruce Graydon Goodspeed, Morley James Summers, Robert Olveston Van Hulssen, Frits Adriaan Ward, John Livingstone

535

A

P P E N D I C E S

Downer, Graham Kent Elliott, Frederick Winton Clasp Evans, Desmond John Fischer, Henri Jean-Louis Flutter, Maxwell John Gardner, Lionel George Clasp Grove, Ivan Laurance Jesson, Eric Edwin King, Peter Wylie Clasp Knuckey, Graham Alexander Leckie, Douglas Walter McLeod, Ian Roderick Maguire, Ossie Manning, Stuart Aubrey Oldfield, Robert Eric Thomas Richardson, Alan Keith Smith, Frank Aswell Trigwell, Elliot Sydney Trost, Peter Albert Tschaffert, Helmut A Turner, Peter Bryan Twigg, Dudley Raymond Wilson, Hugh Overend 1963 Johnston, William 1969 Battye, Alastair Cameron Bell, Stewart Bennett, Kenneth Lyle Bird, Ian George Black, Henry Preston Boda, John Budd, Grahame Murray Budd, William Francis Canham, John Richard Carstens, David Robert Carter, David Bevan Creighton, Donald Francis Eather, Robert Hugh Edward, William Walter Elliott, John Charles Felton, Kevin Vincent Foley, Noel Edwards Forecast, Mark Jones Freeman, Maurice John Giddings, John Edward Harrop, James Ronald Hay, Malcolm C Hicks, Kenneth Edward Hulcombe, Geoffrey Charles Kichenside, James Charles

536

Kirton, Malcolm Landon-Smith, Ian Hamilton Little, Sydney George Lugg, Desmond James McGhee, John McGrath, Peter James McLaren, William Allen McMahon, Raymond Manning, John Morgan, Cyril Victor O’Leary, Raymond Arthur Olrog, Trevor Ormay, Peter Ivan Pfitzner, Murray Leigh Ruker, Richard Anthony Saxton, Richard Alan Seedsman, Donald Lynton Shennan, Kennneth John Smethurst, Neville Robert Smith, Geoffrey Denys Probyn Soucek, Zdenck (Posthumously) Thomas, Ivan Neville Tod, Ian M Trail, David Scott Trott, Norman Edward Walker, Kevin George Warriner, Anthony Weller, Gunter Ernest Williams, John Stanley Marsden Wishart, Edward Robert Young, William Francis Zichy-Woinarski, Brian Casimir

1974 Anderson, Ross Mckenzie Brightwell, Neil Leonard Cartledge, William John Corry, Maxell John Cruise, John Oliver Currie, Graeme James Foster, Allen Lawrence Harbour, Stephen Richard Hope, Christopher Sladen Johnson, Francis Robert Mitchell, Raymond John Nicholson, Robert Thomas Parker, Desmond Arthur Aloysius Rubeli, Maxwell Neil Ryder, Brian Paul Styles, Donald Franklin Watson, Keith Douglas

1978 Ashford, Anthony Raymond Austin, Craig Raymond Clifford, Brian Francis Cutcliffe, Maxwell Arthur Dart, John Robert Giles, Edward George Harrison, Brian Robert Heap, Michael James Kros, Martin Lightfoot, Richard Milne Luders, David John Clasp Marchant, Ian Thomas Moonie, Patrick John Parer, David Damien Price, Murray Rachinger, Basil Francis Neil Regester, Robin Phillip Roberts, Neil Edwin Rounsevell, David Elliott Schneider, David (US) Stalker, John Francis Turner, Albert John Vrana, Attila Waters, Ian Bernard Watts, Edward Paul Weatherson, Terence William Zmood, Ian John 1979 Barkell, Victor George Cowan, Alan Normington Harvey, Brian Gavin Hoffman, Gregory McIntosh, Ian Lawrence Morgan, Geoffrey Francis Parker, Alan Douglas Seedsman, Barry William Wilson, Jeffrey Charles Young, Neal Warwick 1980 Bandy, Robert Charles Hoffman, Gregory Clasp McCormack, David Rockley Schmitter, Ulrich 1982 Dettman, Donald G Knox-Little, Michael Sheehy, David 1996 Law, Phillip Garth

M

AWARD OF THE ANTARCTIC MEDAL 1987 Besso, Ricky Blaby, David Andrew Burton, Harry Roy Corcoran, John Gerard Cosgrove, Charles Henry Lewis Ellson, Malcolm Charles Everett, Anthony Peter Fletcher, Lloyd Douglas Morris, Raymond John Orchard, Robert Campbell Pottage, David Arnold Reid, Donald Alexander Rollins, Shane Anthony Schmitter, Ulrich Sullivan, Peter Graham Westerhoff, Herman Henk Edward 1988 Allison, Ian Frederick Betts, Martin Stephen Conrick, Neil Joseph Dietrich, Maxwell Cecil Robinson, William Leslie Sorensen, Bernard William

1989 Allen, Denise Mary Barnaart, Willem Philip McCormack, David Rockley O’Reilly, Daniel Henry Rachinger, Russel Albert Robertson, Graham George Williams, Diana Lynn 1990 Grant, David John Ledingham, Roderick Bentley Tingey, Robert John Twigg, Dudley Raymond Wehrle, Egon Weir, Charlie Robert Reid 1991 Gormly, Peter James Mills, Graham John Osborn, Eric William Ware, William Royce 1992 Hotchin, Murray James Mackereth, Jeffrey Roger Williams, Richard

E D A L

W I N N E R S

1993 Bruehwiler, Albert Hasick, David James Kerry, Knowles Ronald Munro, Paul John Pike, Ray James

1994 Brand, Russell James Burton, Howard Douglas Moore, Geoffrey James

1995 Erb, Erwin Franzmann, Peter Damian Hornsby, Norman Leigh Kiernan, Robert Patrick Morgan, Vincent Ivor Zwar, Meredy Jane

1996 Clarke, Judith Rebekah Craven, Trevor Michael Rooke, Allen Carey Symons, Lloyd Peter

537

APPENDIX III

VOYAGE

LEADERS

A N D S H I P S ’ C A P TA I N S

Resupply ships used by ANARE 1947–1997 HMAS Wyatt Earp, HMALST 3501 (later HMAS Labuan), HMAS Stalwart, SS River Fitzroy, MV Tottan, MS Kista Dan, MS Thala Dan, MS Magga Dan, MS Nella Dan, MS Nanok S, MV Lady Franklin, MV Icebird (later MV Polar Bird), RSV Aurora Australis, L’Astrolabe, FTV Bluefin, MVPolar Queen 1947–48 Voyage leaders: S Campbell, Captains: G Dixon, K Oom

1953–54 Voyage leader: P Law Captain: H C Petersen

1948–49 Voyage leaders: P Law, T Heath Captains: G Dixon, W Brereton

1954–55 Voyage leaders: J Donovan, P Law Captain: H C Petersen

1949–50 Voyage leader: T Heath Captain: D Shaw

1955–56 Voyage leaders: J Donovan, P Law Captain: H C Petersen

1950–51 Voyage leader: P Law Captains: I B Cartwright, M Mathers

1956–57 Voyage leaders: J Donovan, P Law Captain: H C Petersen

1951–52 Voyage leader: P Law Captain: L Frederiksen

1957–58 Voyage leader: P Law Captain: K Hindberg

1962–63 Voyage leaders: W Jones, D Styles, P Law, F McMahon Captains: H Neilsen, G Bertelsen

1952–53 Voyage leader: J Donovan Captain: L Frederiksen

1958–59 Voyage leaders: D Styles, P Law Captains: H C Petersen, H M Pederson

1963–64 Voyage leaders: D Styles, W Jones, F McMahon Captain: H C Petersen

538

1959–60 Voyage leaders: R Thompson, P Law, D Styles Captains: H C Petersen, H M Pederson 1960–61 Voyage leaders: P Law, D Styles Captains: V Pedersen, H C Petersen 1961–62 Voyage leaders: P Law, D Styles Captains: H Neilsen, H C Petersen

V

O Y A G E

1964–65 Voyage leaders: P Law, D Styles, E Macklin Captains: W Gommesen, V Pedersen 1965–66 Voyage leaders: F McMahon, P Law, D Styles Captains: W Gommesen, V Pedersen 1966–67 Voyage leaders: F McMahon, D Styles Captains: B T Hansen, W Gommesen

L E A D E R S

A N D

S H I P S

’

C A P T A I N S

1973–74 Captains: J B Jensen, Voyage leaders: W Young, E G Gudjonsson, Macklin, D Lugg, G Smith P Granholm Captains: H O Klostermann, 1981–82 H Nielsen Voyage leaders: K Kerry, G Manning, R Ledingham, 1974–75 P Quilty, A Jackson, Voyage leaders: P Sulzberger, E I Marchant Macklin, F Smith, G Smith Captains: J B Jensen, Captains: J B Jensen, H Nielsen G Gudjonnsson, P Granholm 1975–76 Voyage leaders: W Young, D Lugg, A Humphreys Captains: H O Klostermann, H Nielsen

1976–77 Voyage leaders: A Humphreys, 1967–68 G McKinnon, W Young, Voyage leaders: R Weeks, A Vrana D Styles, F McMahon Captains: J B Jensen, Captains: B T Hansen, H Nielsen P Granholm 1968–69 1977–78 Voyage leaders: R Weeks, Voyage leaders: A Vrana, D Styles, R Spratt, G McKinnon, T Petry, E Macklin W Young Captains: B T Hansen, H Nielsen Captains: H O Klostermann, P Granholm 1969–70 Voyage leaders: G McKinnon, 1978–79 D Styles, E Macklin, Voyage leaders: A Argent, G Smith A Vrana, W Young, Captains: B T Hansen, T Weatherson A Jacobsen Captains: H O Klostermann, P Granholm 1970–71 Voyage leaders: G McKinnon, 1979–80 D Styles, G Smith, Voyage leaders: K Kerry, E Macklin R Lightfoot, I Marchant, Captains: H Nielsen, A Jacobsen A Argent, T Weatherson, I Holmes 1971–72 Captains: P Granholm, Voyage leaders: G McKinnon, J B Jensen, G Gudjonsson, D Styles, G Smith, W Young HO Klostermann Captains: B T Hansen, H Nielsen 1980–81 1972–73 Voyage leaders: I Allison, Voyage leaders: G McKinnon, K Kerry, T Weatherson, D Styles, E Macklin A Vrana, K Kerry, Captains: F V Larsen, A Jacobsen I Holmes, I Marchant

1982–83 Voyage leaders: D Lugg, K Kerry, R Ledingham, I Holmes, G Manning, A Jackson, A Vrana, I Marchant Captains: A Sorensen, G Gudjonsson, G Williams 1983–84 Voyage leaders: R Ledingham, M Betts, G Manning, A Vrana, K Kerry, I Marchant, I Allison, D Lugg Captains: A Sorensen, G Gudjonnsson, G Williams 1984–85 Voyage leaders: M Betts, I Marchant, A Jackson, H Marchant, A Ryan, J Bleasel Captains: A Sorensen, E Brune, P Granholm 1985–86 Voyage leaders: K Kerry, M Betts, G Manning, R Mulligan, T Maggs, R Moncur, I Marchant Captains: A Sorensen, E Brune 1986–87 Voyage leaders: R Mulligan, I Marchant, D Lugg, A Jackson, J Bleasel, R Moncur, R Williams, J Sayers Captains: A Sorensen, E Brune, A Dethlefs

539

A

P P E N D I C E S

1987–88 Voyage leaders: L Francis, A Vrana, R Moncur, D Lyons, J Sayers, I Marchant, R Mulligan, D Lugg Captains: A Sorensen, E Brune, R Russling, G Williams 1988–89 Voyage leaders: M Betts, G Manning, P Gard, A Vrana, A Jackson, D Lugg, R Burbury, D Lyons, R Mulligan, G Nash Captains: E Brune, G Williams, E O’Brien 1989–90 Voyage leaders: G Manning, B Taylor, P Gard, R Jamieson, T Maggs, R Mulligan, I Bear, R Williams, I Marchant, R Ledingham Captains: E Brune, M Aklestad, H Watz, R Russling

540

1990–91 Voyage leaders: R Williams, I Marchant, J Shevlin, M Betts, R Ledingham, R Williams, R Mulligan, G Manning Captains: R Russling, H Watz 1991–92 Voyage leaders: M Betts, R Ledingham, R Easther, V Restuccia, B Taylor, R Williams, J Shevlin, R Jamieson Captains: R Russling, P Bain, H Watz 1992–93 Voyage leaders: M Betts, R Jamieson, T Maggs, J Shevlin, B Taylor, R Easther, G Hosie, I Marchant, S Nicol Captains: R Russling, H Watz, P Bain, A Mahle 1993–94 Voyage leaders: R Williams, P Gard, J Brooks,

R Easther, R Ledingham, S Potter, J Jacka, V Restuccia, S Stallman Captains: R Russling, P Bain, H Watz, A Mahle, P Liley 1994–95 Voyage leaders: I Marchant, M Betts, S Stallman, R Easther, P Quilty, R Jamieson Captains: P Bain, P Liley 1995–96 Voyage leaders: I Allison, P Gard, R Easther, S Stallman, S Nicol, S Reeve, T Maggs Captains: P Liley, P Bain, A Breivik, P Klausen 1996–97 Voyage leaders: S Wright, M Betts, W Papworth, R Jamieson, P Quilty, A Jackson Captains: P Klausen, R Burgess, T Archer

APPENDIX IV

D E AT H S SERVICE

Charles Scoble John Windsor John Jelbart Alistair Forbes Richard Hoseason Hartley Robinson Robert White Frank Soucek Reginald Sullivan Brenton Sellick Kenneth Wilson Keith Andrews Geoffrey Cameron Roger Barker

Geoffrey Reeve Stephen Bunning Martin Davies

ANARE 1947–1997

ON

Macquarie Island 4 July 1948 Macquarie Island 5 January 1951 Maudhiem (NBSAE)* 23 February 1951 Heard Island 26 May 1952 Heard Island 26 May 1952 Wilkes 7 July 1959 Mawson 18 October 1963 Macquarie Island 24 December 1967 Wilkes 22 July 1968 Macquarie Island 2 January 1971 Mawson 18 August 1972 Macquarie Island 11 November 1972 Mawson 24 March 1974 Melbourne 7 February 1979 (died after evacuation to Melbourne as a result of injuries on Macquarie Island) Casey 6 August 1979 Davis 29 October 1985 (died during aircraft evacuation to McMurdo) Davis 25 November 1995

The following crew members died while serving on ships chartered to ANARE: Elmer Mortensen Nella Dan 1963 Roald Roenholm Thala Dan 1969 Kim Nielsen Nella Dan 1985 * Jelbart was an ANARE observer with the Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition.

541

ENDNOTES

INTRODUCTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A Grenfell Price, The Winning of Australian Antarctica—Mawson’s BANZARE Voyages 1929–31, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1962, p. 71. F Jacka & E Jacka (eds), Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988, p. 17. Grenfell Price, The Winning of Australian Antarctica, p. 17. Jacka & Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, p. 7. Grenfell Price, The Winning of Australian Antarctica, p. 164. ibid., pp. 162–3. Jacka & Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, p. 386.

CHAPTER 1: BIRTH OF ANARE Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (10 March 1988; 30 November 1987), Neil Streten (23 March 1994), George Smith (2 December 1987), Stuart Campbell (18 March 1987), John Abbottsmith (11 November 1987), Alan Campbell-Drury (29 November 1987). Daniel Connell: Fred Jacka (2 March 1988). 1

542

R A Swan, Australians in Antarctica—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961, p. 239. 2 DEA Document, 21 November 1946, item 1495/3/4/1, copy AAD Library. 3 Note from Australian Embassy Washington on US Antarctic activities, 6 December, DEA, item 1495/3/4/1, copy AAD Library. 4 Launceston Examiner, 20 December 1946; Sydney Morning Herald, 20 December 1946. 5 J K Davis Papers, 22 February 1947, AAD Library. 6 EPC Minutes, 5 May 1947, AAD Library. 7 Launceston Examiner, 7 March 1947. 8 Swan, Australians in Antarctica, p. 242. 9 EPC Minutes, 5 May 1947, AAD Library. 10 J K Davis Papers, 8 May 1947, AAD Library. 11 ibid., 12 May 1947, AAD Library. 12 EPC Agenda, 26 May 1947, AAD Library.

E

N D N O T E S

13 EPC Agenda, 26 May 1947, AAD Library. 14 Davis Papers, Davis to Campbell, 14 July 1947; Campbell to Davis, 15 July 1947, AAD Library. 15 EPC Minutes, 9 July 1947, AAD Library. 16 DEA Minute, 21 November 1946, AAD Library. 17 EPC Minutes, 9 July 1947, AAD Library. 18 Sydney Daily Telegraph, 15 November 1947. 19 EPC Minutes, 23 July 1947, AAD Library. 20 EPC Report, 16 August 1947, AAD Library. 21 K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, p. 85. 22 Interview F Jacka and K Ralston, 8 August 1990. 23 ibid. 24 DEA Agendum No 1275E, Recommendations Approved by Cabinet, 11 November 1947, EPC Minutes, AAD Library. 25 ibid. 26 A Scholes, Fourteen Men—The Story of the Australian Antarctic Expedition to Heard Island, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1949, p. 10. 27 ibid. 28 ibid., pp. 10–11. 29 DEA Agendum No 1275E. 30 Sydney Daily Telegraph, 15 November 1947. 31 S Campbell Papers, AAD Library. 32 A Scholes, Fourteen Men, pp. 12–13.

CHAPTER 2: HEARD ISLAND Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (30 November 1987), Peter Blaxland (2 March 1994), John Lavett (25 February 1994), John Abbottsmith (11 November 1987), Alan Gilchrist (14 February 1990), Stuart Campbell (18 March 1987), Alan Campbell-Drury (29 November 1987; 17 November 1993). Daniel Connell: Fred Jacka (2 March 1988). 1 2 3 4

5

6 7 8

9

B Roberts, ‘Historical notes on Heard and McDonald Islands’, Polar Record 5, nos 35–36, 1948–1950, p. 580. K Bertrand, Americans in Antarctica 1775–1948, American Geographical Society, New York, 1971, pp. 235–51. Roberts, ‘Historical notes on Heard and McDonald Islands’, p. 581. E von Drygalski, The Southern Ice-Continent: The German South Polar Expedition Aboard the Gauss 1901–1903, translated by Raraty, M Bluntisham, Bluntisham Books, Norfolk, 1989, pp. 123–6. J W Tonnessen & AO Johnsen, ‘The start of Antarctic whaling’, The History of Modern Whaling, translated R I Christophersen, University of California Press, California, 1982, p. 182. P G Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983, p. 44. A Grenfell Price, The Winning of Australian Antarctica—Mawson’s BANZARE voyages 1929–31, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1962, pp. 35–9. Tonnessen & Johnsen, ‘The start of Antarctic whaling’, p. 182; J Smith, Specks in the Southern Ocean, University of New England, Armidale, 1986, p. 39; Andre Migot, The Lonely South, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1956, p. 18; D Burke, Moments of Terror—The Story of Antarctic Aviation, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1994, pp. 174–5. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 9.

543

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

10 A Scholes, Fourteen Men—The Story of the Australian Antarctic Expedition to Heard Island, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1949, p. 16. 11 G Dixon, Navy News, 22 April 1960. 12 Scholes, Fourteen Men, p. 16. 13 ibid., p. 32. 14 ibid., p. 33. 15 ibid., p. 36. 16 D Wilson, Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991, p. 25. 17 Scholes, Fourteen Men, p. 47. 18 ibid., p. 63. 19 ibid., pp. 67–8. 20 Dixon, Navy News, 22 April 1960. 21 Scholes, Fourteen Men, pp. 77–8.

CHAPTER 3: MACQUARIE ISLAND AND PUSHING SOUTH Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (30 November 1987), Laurie Stooke (7 February 1990), Peter King (13 June 1988), Norm Tame (5 May 1993). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

P M Selkirik & D A Adamson , ‘Mapping Macquarie Island’, The Globe, Journal of the Australian Map Circle, no. 41, 1995, p. 53. J S Cumpston, Macquarie Island, ANARE Report No. 93, Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, Canberra, 1968, pp. 1–5. ibid., pp. 5–7. ibid., pp. 11–35. ibid., pp. 42–6. ibid., p. 66. ibid., pp. 322–33. ibid., p. 330. M Betts, ‘The first Macquarie summer: 30 years this March’ Aurora, Summer 1978, pp. 41–9. ibid. ibid. ibid. C Scoble Diary, AAD Library. P G Law, The Antarctic Voyage of HMAS Wyatt Earp, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1995, p. 49. ibid., p. 81. ibid., p. 85.

CHAPTER 4: THE FIRST OPERATIONAL YEAR Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (23 May 1994; 30 November 1987), Peter King (13 June 1988), John Abbottsmith (11 November 1987), Alan Campbell-Drury (29 November 1987), Alan Gilchrist (14 February 1990; 7 May 1993), Knowles Kerry (25 June 1996), Neil Streten (23 March 1994) Daniel Connell: Fred Jacka (2 March 1988). 1

544

2 3

A Scholes, Fourteen Men—The Story of the Australian Antarctic Expedition to Heard Island, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1949, p. 87. ibid., p. 90. C Scoble Diary, AAD Library.

E

N D N O T E S

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

ibid. A Gilchrist, Report on Food—Heard Island 1947–48, AAD Library. Heard Island Station Log 1954, AAD Library. Gilchrist, Report on Food. Scholes, Fourteen Men, p. 223. Station Log, AAD Library. Scholes, Fourteen Men, pp. 139–40. Scoble Diary, AAD Library. D Speedy, unpublished manuscript donated to Macquarie Island, December 1987. Poem in possession of Hazell Laird, Hobart. Scoble Diary, AAD Library. Document held with Scoble Diary, AAD Library. B Pottison, ‘Seaplanes in Antarctica’ Journal of Aviation Society of Australia, vol. 17, no. 6, January–February 1977. 17 ibid. 18 ibid. 19 G Mottershead, ‘Battle against darkness’ Parade, January 1969, p. 20.

CHAPTER 5: EARLY DAYS Research interviews Tim Bowden: Hugh Philp (31 May 1996), Stuart Campbell (18 March 1987), Phillip Law (3 November 1987; 30 November 1987; 23 May 1993; 8 November 1993), Des Lugg (31 May 1994), George Smith (2 December 1987). 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Notes of Interdepartmental Committee on Future Administration of the Antarctic Expedition held in Canberra, 23 April 1948, Establishment of ANARE, Early Papers, AAD Library. K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, pp. 102–3. ibid. Campbell to Burton, 3 November 1948, CRS A1838/245, item 1251/819 Pt 1, AA. Letter C Moodie to K Ralston, 7 August 1990, Law Papers, Melbourne. Campbell to Sir Douglas Mawson, 13 October 1948, CRS A1838, T173, item 1256/22, AA. Letter P G Law to C Moodie, 27 October 1948, Law Papers, Melbourne. ibid. Campbell to Burton 8 November 1948, CRS A1838 T173, item 1256/22, AA. Letter C Moodie to K Ralston, 7 August 1990, Law Papers, Melbourne. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 107. S Campbell & C Shaweevongse, The Fundamentals of the Thai Language, Paragon Books, New York, 1957. S Campbell, A Guide to the Hard Corals of Thai Waters, Zebra Publishing, Hong Kong, 1980. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 110. R A Swan, Australians in Antarctica—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961, p. 250. P G Law & J Béchervaise, ANARE—Australia’s Antarctic Outposts, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1957, p. xvi. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 120. Swan, Australians in Antarctica, p. 273. EPC Minutes, 3 June 1949, AAD Library, p. 2. ibid. EPC Minutes, 3 June 1949, AAD Library, pp. 2–3.

545

T

H E

S I L E N C E

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

C A L L I N G

Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, pp. 143–4. Heard Island Station Log, 11 and 12 June 1950, AAD Library. Wayman Diary held by Geoff Munro. Li Rogozov, Self Operation: Soviet Antarctic Expedition Information Bulletin (English translation), 4:233, 1964, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 144. Melbourne Sun, 22 July 1950. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, pp. 144–5. Interview J McCarthy and G Munro. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 145. Melbourne Herald, 26 July 1950. Heard Island Station Log, 30 July 1950. Un-named newspaper report 28 July, AAD Library. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 146. Submission No. 230, DEA, CRS A1838, item 1495/3/2/1/1 Pt 1, Antarctica, Cabinet Decisions on Antarctica since 1932, AA. Minutes of meeting of Ship Sub Committee of ANARE, 14 December 1950, AAD Library.

CHAPTER 6: TESTING TIMES Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (30 November 1987), Reg Frost (14 September 1994), Bill Taylor (15 February 1994), Trevior Boyd (12 October 1987), Richard Thompson (12 July 1994), Nils Lied (28 November 1987). Alison Alexander: Bill Taylor (15 February 1994). 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

546

21 22

K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, p. 156. P G Law, ‘The last voyage of HMAS Labuan’ Aurora, December 1990, pp. 7–8. Letter to Law, 22 September 1959, signed E Shipp, K B Fenton & J L Ward; letter (undated) Bill Flower MP, 1002/1, P G Law Personal, AA (Vic). R Frost, ‘Some memories of Macquarie Island 1950–51’ Aurora, June 1984, p. 16. Proposed Employment of Kostos Kalnenas, Report of the Deputy Director of Health, WA, and Public Service Inspector, undated, DEA, CRS AA138, item 1495/49, Antarctica. Death of John Windsor at Macquarie Island, AA. Melbourne Herald, 6 January 1951. P G Law, Voyage Report, The Relief of Macquarie Island, May 1961, AAD Library. ibid. N Lied, ‘A gutsy story’ Aurora, June 1987, pp. 9–10. ibid. ibid. ibid., p. 9. P G Law, Voyage Report, The Relief of Heard Island by MV Tottan, February 1952, AAD Library, p. 1. ibid. P Lancaster Brown, Twelve Came Back, Robert Hale, London, 1957, p. 17. Law, The Relief of Heard Island by MV Tottan, p. 2. ibid., p. 3. Lancaster Brown, Twelve Came Back, pp. 44–5. Law, The Relief of Heard Island by MV Tottan. Interview with J Carr and W Bunbury, undated, Social History Unit, ABC Radio National. Lancaster Brown, Twelve Came Back, p. 94. Interview J Carr and W Bunbury.

E 23 24 25 26 27

N D N O T E S

Lancaster Brown, Twleve Came Back, p. 116. ibid., p. 118. ibid., p. 120. Heard Island Station Log, 1952, AAD Library. Lancaster Brown, Twelve Came Back, p. 124.

CHAPTER 7: BREAKING THE ICE Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (30 November 1987; 1 December 1987; 10 March 1988). Alison Alexander: John O’Rourke (14 September 1993). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Letter P G Law to Nel Law, 17 March 1950. Cabinet Submission No. 230, DEA, CRS A1838, item 1495/3/2/1/1 Pt 1, Australian Interests in Antarctica. Construction of an Antarctic Vessel, AA. EPC Minutes, 29 September 1952, AAD Library. EPC Minutes, 22 April 1953, AAD Library. ibid. R A Swan, Australians in Antarctica—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961, p. 224. K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, p. 179. Melbourne Herald, 23 March 1953. Swan, Australians in Antarctica, p. 265. ibid., p. 59. ibid., p. 60. EPC Minutes, 22 April 1953. P G Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983, p. 14. ibid., pp. 20–1. ibid., p. 1. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 192. P G Law, Voyage Report, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land—1954, AAD Library. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 190. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 16. ibid. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land. A Migot, The Lonely South, Rupert Hart Davis, London, 1956, p. 131. ibid., p. 135. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 83. ibid., p. 86. ibid. ibid., p. 88. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 96. ibid., p. 99. ibid., p. 100. ibid., p. 108.

CHAPTER 8: EARLY EXPLORATION Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (30 November 1987; 1 December 1987; 2 December 1987; 17 March 1995), Doug Leckie (9 March 1988); 5 May 1993).

547

T

H E

S I L E N C E

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

C A L L I N G

K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, p. 205. ‘Chain blocks’ Aurora, March 1992, p. 25. P G Law, Voyage Report, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land—1954, AAD Library, p. 8. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 205. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land, p. 8; P G Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983, p. 115. ibid., p. 112. ibid., p. 114. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 206. D Wilson, Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991, p. 39. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 125. ibid. p. 247. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land, p. 8. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 207. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 137. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land. ibid. ibid. Interview R Thompson and K Ralston, 9 July 1990. Law, ANARE Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land. ibid. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 146. Alfresco Flight, pp. 41–2. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 146. P G Law, You Have to be Lucky—Antarctic and Other Adventures, Kangaroo Press, NSW, 1995, p. 11. ibid. p. 12. ibid. p. 13. ibid. Letter Captain V Pedersen to K Ralston, 4 December 1988. ibid. Law, Expedition to Mac. Robertson Land. Law, You Have to be Lucky, p. 17. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 217. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 172.

CHAPTER 9: VIRGIN TERRITORY Research interviews Tim Bowden: Robert Dingle (25 November 1987), Bill Storer (12 May 1993), Bruce Stinear (10 May 1993), John Béchervaise (3 December 1987). 1

548

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, pp. 126–7. Casey to Plimsoll, CRS A1838, item 1251/XA, P G Law, AA (ACT). Confidential Minute, Waller to Plimsoll, DEA, CRS A1838, item 1251/XA, AA (ACT). P G Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983, pp. 172–3. ibid., p. 173. Five Year Plan, 9 December 1954, EPC Minutes, AAD Library. R Summers, ‘Mawson 1954’, Aurora, September 1994. R Dovers, Field Trip Report, Eastern Coastal Journey—Mawson 1954, AAD Library.

E 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

N D N O T E S

ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. Summers, ‘Mawson 1954’. Dovers, Field Trip Report, Eastern Coastal Journey. ibid. Summers, ‘Mawson 1954’. R A Swan, Australians in Antarctica—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961, p. 272. Dovers, Field Trip Report, Eastern Coastal Journey. Summers, ‘Mawson 1954’. Dovers, Field Trip Report, Eastern Coastal Journey. P G Law, Voyage Report, Report on Voyage of MS Kista Dan January–March 1955, AAD Library. ibid. P G Law, You Have to be Lucky—Antarctic and Other Adventures, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1995, p. 80. G Wills-Johnson, Walk Magazine, no. 32, 1981, p. 31. Law, Voyage of MS Kista Dan. ibid. Swan, Australians in Antarctica, p. 278. Extract from Béchervaise Diary, Southern Journey 1955, held at Mawson Station.

CHAPTER 10: SPREADING WINGS Research interviews Tim Bowden: Doug Leckie (9 March 1988; 5 May 1993), Nils Lied (28 November 1987), Syd Kirkby (15 May 1993), Bill Bewsher (10 March 1988). Daniel Connell: Don Dowie (19 March 1988). Annie Rushton: Syd Kirkby (7 November 1994; 8 November 1994). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

P G Law, Voyage Report, The Voyage of MS Kista Dan to Antarctica January–March 1956, AAD Library. ibid. ibid. ibid. S Kirkby, ‘Mapping the Prince Charles Mountains—starting from scratch’ Aurora, September 1991. D Wilson, Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991, p. 46. ibid., p. 48. ibid. R A Swan, Australians in Antarctica—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961, p. 284. S Kirkby, ‘Sledge dogs to satellites’ Queensland Geographic Journal, vol. 8, 1993. W Bewsher, ‘Dog sledging in the Prince Charles Mountains—summer 1956–57’ Aurora, March 1989. ‘Chain blocks’ Aurora, March 1992. Bewsher, ‘Dog sledging in the Prince Charles Mountains’. Kirkby, ‘Mapping the Prince Charles Mountains from scratch’. Law, The Voyage of MS Kista Dan to Antarctica January–March 1956. Wilson, Alfresco Flight, p. 46.

549

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

17 ibid. 18 S Brogden and D W Leckie, Aircraft, February 1973, p. 11. 19 Law, The Voyage of MS Kista Dan to Antarctica January–March 1956.

CHAPTER 11: ANTARCTICA INTERNATIONAL Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (1 December 1987; 8 November 1993; 23 May 1994). Annie Rushton: Malcolm Booker (9 November 1994). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

550

R S Lewis, A Continent for Science—The Antarctic Adventure, Secker & Warburg, London, 1966, p. 62. ibid. Letter Waller to Law, 24 March 1955, DEA, CRS A1838, item 1251/XA, PG Law, AA. EPC Minutes, 9 December 1954, AAD Library. Lewis, A Continent for Science, p. 64. EPC Minutes, 29 August 1955, AAD Library. R A Swan, Australians in Antarctica—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961, p. 289. P G Law, ‘Establishing Davis Station’, Aurora, March 1990, p. 6. P G Law, Voyage Report, Report on the Establishment of Davis Station and the Relief of Mawson Station, 1957, AAD Library. ibid. ibid. D Wilson, Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991, p. 55. ‘Historic Wilkins documents rediscovered’, Aurora, Summer 1978, p. 23. H R Hall, 1994, International regimes formation and leadership: the origins of the Antarctic Treaty, PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, p. 61. ibid. ‘Argentines eject a British party: incident in Antarctica’, The Times, 2 February 1952. D W H Walton (ed), Antarctic Science, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1987, p. 250. K Suter, Antarctica: Private Property or Public Heritage?, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1991, p. 21. Hall, International regimes formation and leadership: the origins of the Antarctic Treaty, pp. 155–6. DEA Memorandum, 4 March 1959, CRS A1838/2, item 1495/3/2/1, Australian Antarctic Policy—General Policy, AA (ACT); DEA Memorandum 26 March 1959, AA (ACT). Barwick to Casey, 24 October 1959, DEA, CRS A1838/283, item 1495/3/2/1 Pt 20, AA (ACT). J R Moroney to W K Flanagan, 2 October 1959, DEA , CRS A1838/2, item 1495/3/2/1 Pt 18, AA (ACT). DEA Memorandum, 26 March 1959, A1838/2, item 1495/3/2/1, Australian Antarctic Policy—General Policy, AA (ACT). Hall, International regimes formation and leadership: the origins of the Antarctic Treaty, p. 178. ibid. p. 179. Discussion at Broadbeach, DEA Memorandum, CRS A 1838/2, item 1495/3/2/1 Pt 17, Australian Antarctic Policy—General Policy, AA (ACT). Hall, International regimes formation and leadership: the origins of the Antarctic Treaty, pp. 181–2.

E

N D N O T E S

28 Memorandum from US Ambassador Herman Phleger, 12 October 1959, Department of State Central Files, 702.022/10–1259. 29 Casey Diary, 13 October 1959, MS 6150, National Library of Australia. 30 ibid. 31 ibid. 32 K Suter, Antarctica: Private Property or Public Heritage?, p. 21.

CHAPTER 12: 1959—A YEAR TO REMEMBER Research interviews Tim Bowden: John Béchervaise (3 December 1987; 4 December 1987), Eric Guiler (15 June 1995), Phillip Law (1 December 1987; 3 December 1987; 8 November 1993), Jim Sandercock (8 March 1988), Robert Dingle (25 November 1987), Don Styles (15 June 1988). 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

J Béchervaise, Blizzard and Fire—A Year at Mawson, Antarctica, Angus & Robertson, Great Britain, 1964, p. 23. ibid. ibid., p. 24. ibid., p. 31. Tange to Renouf and Bourchier, DEA Memorandum, 16 January 1958, A1838/2, item 1495/3/2/6 Pt 1, AA (ACT). Arrangements for the custody of certain US Government-Navy Department facilities at Wilkes Station, Knox Coast, Antarctica, 3 February 1959, CRS A1838/2, item 1495/3/2/6 Pt 2, AA (ACT). Attitude of senior US scientist at Wilkes Station, 13 July 1959, CRS A1838/2, item 1495/3/2/6 Pt 2, AA (ACT). P G Law Voyage Report, Voyage of MS Magga Dan to Antarctica 1959, AAD Library. Béchervaise, Blizzard and Fire, pp. 46–7. Hobart Mercury, 13 March 1959. Hobart Mercury, 18 March 1959. Hobart Mercury, 9 April 1959. Call of the Royal, Macquarie Island, vol. 1, no. 3. Hobart Mercury, 8 April 1959. ibid. ibid. Hobart Mercury, 14 April 1959. Béchervaise, Blizzard and Fire, p. 59. Macquarie Island Station Log, 30 April 1959, AAD Library. R Dingle, Wilkes Station Log, 4 April 1959. H R Robinson, private tape recording made at Wilkes in April and July 1959. ibid. ‘Snow’ Williams, ‘Wilkes 1959’ Aurora, September 1989, p. 8. Robinson, private tape recording. Williams, ‘Wilkes 1959’, p. 9. Tange to Minister, 9 June 1959, CRS A1838/2, item 1429/3/2/6, AA (ACT). Robinson, private tape recording. J Williams, private tape recording, 25 June 1995. ibid. Wilkes Station Log, 7 July 1959. Williams, private tape recording. Béchervaise, Blizzard and Fire, pp. 140–1. ibid., p. 146.

551

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

34 D Wilson, Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991, pp. 77–8. 35 Williams, ‘Wilkes 1959’. 36 Wilson, Alfresco Flight, p. 78. 37 G M Budd, ‘A polio-like illness in Antarctica’, The Medical Journal of Australia, 31 March 1962, p. 485. 38 Béchervaise, Blizzard and Fire, p. 224.

CHAPTER 13: ANARE LIFE Research interviews Tim Bowden: Des Lugg (24 November 1987), Richard Thompson (12 July 1994), Phillip Law (1 December 1987), Stefan Csordas (17 June 1988), Robert Dingle (25 November 1987), Doug Leckie (5 May 1993), Fay Butterworth (25 May 1994), Mary Adams (23 May 1994), Trevior Boyd (12 October 1987), Sir John Gorton (10 May 1993). Annie Rushton: Susan Ingham (2 May 1995), George Owens (4 May 1995). Daniel Connell: Don Dowie (19 March 1988), Alex Nicol (September 1986). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

552

29 30

P G Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983, p. 202. ibid., p. 197. Interview A Tange and K Ralston, 6 July 1990. P G Law, 6 August 1956, CRS A1838, item 1251/XA, AA (ACT). Law, Antarctic Odyssey, pp. 192–3. Interview R Thompson and T Bowden, 12 July 1994. Interview R Thompson and K Ralston, 9 July 1990. A Gilchrist, ‘Slushy—from square rigger to Antarctic research stations’ Aurora, December 1995, p. 17. Interview W Stinear and K Ralston, 8 July 1990. Interview G Budd and K Ralston, 7 July 1990. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 193. ibid., p. 194. Interview Budd and Ralston. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 195. K Ralston, A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1993, p. 172. Interview Thompson and Ralston. Interview Budd and Ralston. Ralston, A Man for Antarctica, p. 172. P G Law, ‘Personality problems in Antarctica’, The Medical Journal of Australia, 20 February 1960, p. 274. ibid., p. 281. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 224. R Pardoe, ‘The evacuation of Alan Newman’, Aurora, May 1962, p. 17. R Pardoe, ‘A ruptured intracranial aneurism in Antarctica’, The Medical Journal of Australia, 6 March 1965, p. 345. Interview G Owens and A Rushton, 4 May 1995. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, p. 206. ANARE Code 22 August 1961. Law, Antarctic Odyssey, pp. 208–9. F Butterworth (ed), WYTOY WYSSA—The Antarctic Wives and Kinfolk Association of Australia: An Overview of 25 Years, Antarctic Wives and Kinfolk Association, Melbourne, 1990, p. 5. ibid., p. 10. Law, ‘Personality problems in Antarctica’, p. 280.

E 31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40

N D N O T E S

ibid., p. 280. ibid., pp. 277–8. ibid. P G Law, ‘The all-male expeditions, 1947–66’, Gender on Ice—Proceedings of a Conference on Women in Antarctica compiled by K Edwards and R Graham, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1994, p. 34. I Bennett, Shores of Macquarie Island, Rigby, Melbourne, 1971, p. 37. P G Law, ‘ANARE 1960–61’ Polar Record, no. 10 (67), pp. 397–401. Bennett, Shores of Macquarie Island, p. 37. Director Antarctic Division—wife to Antarctica?, DEA Memorandum, 24 January 1961, CRS A1838/245, item 1251/819 Pts 3 & 4, AA (ACT). 28 February 1961, CRS A1838, 1251/819 Pt 2, AA (ACT). Canberra Times, 18 March 1961, CRS A1838, item 1251/819 Pt 2, AA (ACT).

CHAPTER 14: FILLING IN THE MAP Reearch interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (1 December 1987), Richard Thompson (12 July 1994), Graeme Currie (12 September 1988), Syd Kirkby (15 May 1993), Neville Collins (14 July 1994), William Budd (24 January 1996). Annie Rushton: Syd Kirkby (7 November 1994; 8 November 1994). Daniel Connell: Jack Field (3 March 1988). Alison Alexander: Harry Black (12 November 1993). 1

2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

A Jackson, Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions 1947–1966, produced by the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group, Department of Administrative Services in collaboration with the Australian Antarctic Division, Department of the Arts, Sports, Environment, Tourism and Territories with assistance from P G Law, Commonwealth of Australia, 1989. P G Law, The Exploration of Oates Land, Antarctica, ANARE Reports, Series A, vol 1 no 71, issued by the Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, Melbourne, April 1964, p. 31. F Elliott, ‘State secret’, Aurora, March 1995, p. 25. ibid. ibid. The strategic importance of Antarctica—preliminary views of the Defence Committee, CRS A1209/23 item 57/1527, AA. O White, Melbourne Sun, cabled from Thala Dan, 3 February 1958. D Wilson, Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991, p. 92. K Felton, personal diary, 9 December 1960. G Budd and T Bowden, 12 September 1988. Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April 1961. Wilson, Alfresco Flight, p. 103. ibid., p. 110. ‘The Antarctic and Australian aviation—enter the helicopter’, Aurora, June 1987, p. 25. ibid. ibid., p. 26. ibid. P G Law, Voyage Report, The 1960 Voyage of MS Magga Dan, 1959–1960, AAD Library. Transcript and audio tape of radio transmissions from Magga Dan, 13 February 1960.

553

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

20 Law, The 1960 Voyage of MS Magga Dan. 21 Letter P G Law to R L Harry, Helicopters and political arguments, 28 March 1963, EPC Papers, AAD Library. 22 P G Law, Voyage Report of MS Nella Dan 1965, AAD Library. 23 Law, The 1960 Voyage of MS Magga Dan. 24 S Kirkby, ‘A jolly in Enderby Land’, Aurora, March 1987, p. 12. 25 M Corry, ‘The Amery Ice Shelf saga. Part 1—pre 1968’, Aurora, September 1986, p. 18. 26 J Williams, ‘Autumn field trip, Mawson 1962—the dieso’s dilemma’, Aurora, September 1984, p. 33. 27 R Thompson, The Coldest Place on Earth, A H & A W Reed, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 125–6. 28 ibid., p. 139. 29 ibid., p. 184. 30 P G Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983, p. 259. 31 ibid., pp. 264–5. 32 G W McKinnon (comp), Gazetteer of the Australian Antarctic Territory, ANARE Interim Reports, Series A (11) Geography, no. 75, issued by the Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, Melbourne, 1965. 33 P Moonie, ‘What’s in a name?’, Aurora, December 1988, p. 21.

CHAPTER 15: WHY ARE WE THERE? Research interviews Tim Bowden: Phillip Law (8 November 1993; 23 May 1994), Bill Taylor (15 February 1994), Tom Manefield (9 February 1990), Stefan Csordas (17 June 1988), Michael Bryden (13 October 1987). Alison Alexander: Bill Taylor (15 February 1994). Annie Rushton: Peter Crohn (1 May 1995). 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

554

P Quilty, ‘Introducing Antarctica’ Issues: ‘Why does the world need Antarctica?’, Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne, March 1995, pp. 9–10. P G Law, address to Sub Committee on Europe, the Commonwealth and Antarctica: Foreign Affairs Committee, EPC Minutes, AAD Library, 1 May 1963, p. 2. P G Law, Resources of Australian Antarctica, paper presented to Horizons in Science Today—Golden Jubilee Symposium at Wilson Hall, POA Chronicle, August 1963, p. 3. ibid., p. 6. Interview M Downs and G Munro, 19 May 1993. Letter F N Ratcliffe to P G Law, June 1951, ANARE Law Personal, MP1002/1, AA. Interview G Budd and K Ralston, 9 July 1990. F Bond, ‘A history of the Antarctic Division Physics Section’, Aurora, June 1989 & September 1989. G Chittleborough, ‘Early days at Heard Island’, Aurora, June 1986. Interview Downs and Munro. Cabinet Submission, 27 November 1960, CRS A1838/275, item 1495/3/4/27 Pt 3, AA. Cabinet Minute, Decision No. 1217, 16 February 1961, CRS A1838/275, item 1495/3/4/27 Pt 3, AA. EPC Minutes, AAD Library, 19 May 1961. P G Law, EPC Minutes, 7 December 1962, AAD Library. D Styles, EPC Minutes, 30 July 1965, AAD Library. M Kirton, ‘Some recollections of Wilkes Station 1963’, Aurora, September 1989, p. 12.

E

N D N O T E S

17 R Mallory, ‘Wilkes hard times’, Aurora, January 1964 reprinted September 1989, p. 13. 18 EPC Minutes, 30 July 1965, AAD Library. 19 G Smith, ‘REPSTAT—a vindicated camel’, Aurora, September 1982, p. 32. 20 ibid., p. 33. 21 P G Law, EPC Minutes, 28 August 1963, AAD Library. 22 ibid. 23 P G Law to J R Kelso, 3 July 1964, Closing of Davis Station, File 243/1/2 Pt 1, Box 7, Consignment B1370T3, AA (Tas). 24 ibid. 25 ibid. 26 P G Law, Voyage Report, Narrative of the Voyage of MS Nella Dan 1965, AAD Library. 27 Undated press clipping, CRS A1838/1, item 1495/3/4/14, AA. 28 J R Kelso to Secretary Prime Minister’s Department, Husky dogs at Davis Station, 14 December 1964, CRS A1838/1, item 1495/3/4/14, AA. 29 F Jacka, ‘A proposal for discussion’, Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research, File No. 1495/1/6/4; 86–964, Pt 1, AA. 30 Letter P G Law to DEA Secretary, 10 November 1964, item 1495/1/6/4, 86–964, AA. 31 Letter P G Law to F Jacka, 11 October 1965, item 1495/1/6/4, AA. 32 Letter Lady Mawson to Lord Casey, 6 April 1966, item 1495/1/6/4 P & B, AA. 33 Letter McIntyre to Lord Casey, 22 April 1966, item 1495/1/6/4 P & B, AA. 34 Confidential note for file, 8 November 1965, MP 1002/1, 201/17/1, AA. 35 ibid. 36 ibid. 37 A Jackson, Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions 1947–1966, produced by the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group, Department of Administrative Services in collaboration with the Australian Antarctic Division, Department of the Arts, Sports, Environment, Tourism and Territories with assistance from P G Law, Commonwealth of Australia, 1989. 38 ibid. 39 P G Law, Voyage Report, 1966 Voyage of MS Nella Dan, AAD Library. 40 P G Law, The Law Luck, unpublished manuscript, p. 182. 41 ibid. p. 182. 42 Law, 1966 Voyage of MS Nella Dan. 43 EPC Minutes, 18 March 1966, AAD Library.

CHAPTER 16: FROM PILLAR TO POST Research interviews Tim Bowden: John Lavett (23 March 1994; 26 March 1994; 29 March 1994), William Budd (2 October 1970), Martin Betts (9 November 1993), Ray Garrod (4 May 1993; 27 September 1995; 20 July 1996), Patrick Quilty (18 October 1995). Annie Rushton: Tom Lawrence (4 May 1995), John Coates (5 November 1995). Alison Alexander: Martin Betts (9 November 1993). 1 2 3 4 5 6

F McMahon, ‘Thala Dan voyage 1967’, Aurora, March 1967, p. 5. E Macklin, ‘Obituary—Donald Franklin Styles’, Aurora, September 1995, pp. 21–2. Scientific Research in the Antarctic, Report to the Department of External Affairs, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, August 1967. ibid. Executive Council Minute No. 26. CA 1873, Antarctic Division, AA (ACT). Commonwealth Government Gazette No. 55, 20 June 1968, p. 3370.

555

T

H E

S I L E N C E

7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

C A L L I N G

L Clark & E Wishart, 60 Degrees South, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, 1993, p. 30. G. Smith, ‘REPSTAT—a vindicated camel’, Aurora, September 1982, p. 10. Smith, ‘REPSTAT—a vindicated camel’, p. 10. Flagpoles and commemoration plaque at the new Wilkes Station, Letter M I Homeward to Acting Director Antarctic Division, 16 October 1968, File Box 71, 243/4/2, Consignment B 1370 T3 X33, AA (Tas). Cable from Spratt to Wilkes, 9 January 1969, File Box 71, 243/4/2 Consignment B 1370 T3 X37, AA (Tas). Davis Station Log 1969, AAD Library. D Parker, ‘A salad vegetable project, Davis 1969’ Aurora, June 1970, p. 30. F McMahon, ‘Obituary’, Aurora, November 1971, p. 2. Appointment of Director, Antarctic Division, press release, Department of Supply, 5 August 1970, File 72/569, AA (Tas). P G Law, ‘Banished to Hobart?’, Aurora, September 1973, pp. 2–3. Hobart Mercury, 14 May 1974. Hobart Mercury, 8 May 1974. M Glenny, ‘ANARE Club—The first 25 years’, Aurora, March 1987, pp. 30–1. Hobart Mercury, 6 February 1976. Launceston Examiner, 6 February 1976. Hobart Mercury, 11 May 1976.

CHAPTER 17: BUILDING AND MOVING Research interviews Tim Bowden: Don Styles (15 June 1988), Des Lugg (24 November 1987), Knowles Kerry (13 December 1993), Robert Sheers (11 July 1995). Annie Rushton: Nigel Brothers (25 October 1995), Ian Holmes (3 July 1995), Phil Incoll (24 August 1995), Dick Williams (19 July 1995; 18 September 1995), Jack Lonergan (26 February 1996), Patrick Quilty (30 June 1995), Graeme Manning (2 August 1995). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

556

Albury Border Morning Mail, 30 January 1974. E Chipman, Women on Ice, Melbourne University Press, Burwood, 1986, pp. 114–15. ibid., p. 114. Unavailability of doctors threatens Antarctic expeditions, press release, Department of Supply No. 71.40, File 72/569, AA (Tas). J Gillies, ‘Hazards of the nightwatch’, Aurora, December 1988, p. 20. Macquarie Island Station Log, 30 April 1976. Chipman, Women on Ice, p. 116. Macquarie Island Station Log, 10 June 1976. ibid., 6 June 1976. Hansard, House of Representatives, 18 May 1976, p. 2094. ‘Division’s budget up in real terms’, Aurora, Summer 1977, p. 2. Press release by Minister for Science, 13 February 1974, File 73.115, AA (Tas). ‘My say’, Melbourne Herald, 8 March 1974. Green Paper on Antarctic Activities—Towards New Perspectives for Australian Research in Antarctica, a discussion paper issued by the Hon. W L Morrison MP, Minister for Science, 26 February 1975, File 75.36, AA (Tas) p. 3. Interview K Kerry and T Bowden, 13 December 1993. The present and future role of the Antarctic Division, submission by J Reid in response to The Green Paper on Antarctic Activities—Towards New Perspectives for Australian Research in Antarctica, File 75.36, AA (Tas), p. 5.

E 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

N D N O T E S

ibid., p. 7. ‘Cinderella on ice’, National Times, 20 May 1978. ‘Indecision on the Antarctic’, The National Times, 10 December 1978. ‘Antarctic policy evaded’, Hobart Mercury, 21 March 1979. I Bird, ‘Rebuilding Australia’s Antarctic stations’, Aurora, December 1982, p. 4. P Incoll, ‘Australia’s Antarctic buildings’, ANARE News, no. 66, June 1991, p. 4. ibid. ibid., p. 5. ibid., p. 6. P G Law, ‘Banished to Hobart?’, Aurora, September 1973, p. 1. Burnie Advocate, 3 June 1977. P Quilty, ‘Obituary—Clarrie McCue’, Aurora, September 1992, p. 18. Display in Hobart, Note to the Minister, 19 April 1974, held in AAD Library. ‘Division’s HQ for Kingston’, Aurora, Midwinter 1977, p. 57. Department of Science and the Environment Annual Report 1978–79. Burnie Advocate, 20 August 1981. Launceston Examiner, 23 April 1981. ibid.

CHAPTER 18: FIELD WORK Research interviews Tim Bowden: Jo Jacka (13 December 1993), Neville Collins (14 July 1994), Max Corry (24 May 1994), Ian Allison (30 May 1994), David Parer (25 May 1994), Grahame Budd (26 October 1995), Knowles Kerry (13 December 1993), Stefan Csordas (17 June 1988), Geoff Copson (30 October 1995), Marc Duldig (14 February 1994), Ray Brookes (15 January 1996), William Budd (24 January 1996), Patrick Quilty (20 November 1995), Rod Ledingham (24 November 1987), Andrew Jackson (18 July 1996), Syd Kirkby (25 June 1994). Annie Rushton: Ian Holmes (3 July 1995), Nigel Brothers (25 October 1995), Knowles Kerry (21 September 1995), Attila Vrana (9 October 1995), Graeme Manning (2 August 1995), Syd Kirkby (8 November 1994). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

M Corry, ‘The Amery Ice Shelf saga. Part 1—pre 1968’, Aurora, September 1986, p. 19. M Corry, ‘The Amery Ice Shelf saga. Part 2—The Amery Ice Shelf project 1968’, Aurora, December 1986, p. 28. ibid., p. 31. M Corry, ‘The Amery Ice Shelf saga. Part 3—1969–70’, Aurora, March 1987, p. 29. G McKinnon, ‘The Prince Charles Mountains survey—1969’ Aurora, June 1969, p. 19. Prince Charles Mountains Survey Phase 6, Department of Science Annual Report 1973–1974, AAD Library. ANARE Field Training Manual, Macquarie Island 1994–95. R Ledingham, ‘Macquarie shakes again’, Aurora, October 1981, p. 6. ibid. ibid., p. 8. M Bryden, ‘Macquarie Island—a wonder spot of the world’, Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, vol. 122 (1), 1988. K Simpson, ‘Raised on a doorstep—a tale of a Weka chick on Macquarie Island’, Aurora, September 1973, p. 10. T Gadd, ‘Confrontation with a Weka’, Aurora, September 1973, p. 13. M A Hindell & H R Burton, 1987, Past and present status of the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina, Linn) at Macquarie Island. J Zool (Lond), in press.

557

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

15 L Macey, ‘Mawson United Miners Pty Ltd excavation and construction contract’, Aurora, June 1972, p. 17. 16 ibid., p. 15. 17 ibid., p. 16 18 Green Paper on Antarctic Activities—Towards New Perspectives for Australians in Antarctica, a discussion paper issued by the Hon. W L Morrison MP, Minister for Science, 26 February 1975, File 75.36, AA (Tas). 19 L Clark & E Wishart, 60 Degrees South, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, 1993, p. 43. 20 ibid., pp. 43–4. 21 ibid., p. 30. 22 ibid., p. 31. 23 I Holmes, ‘Casey: ten years on’, Aurora, Spring 1977, p. 162. 24 ‘International air transport discussed’, Aurora, Midwinter 1977, p. 76. 25 ‘Davis airfield survey carried out’, Aurora, Midwinter 1977, pp. 72–3. 26 ‘The Antarctic and Australian aviation’, Aurora, March 1989, p. 9. 27 ibid., p. 10. 28 ‘Antarctic research lagging’, Burnie Advocate, 5 February 1979. 29. Department of Science and the Environment, Annual Report 1979–1980, p. 39. 30 ‘Birdman tells of cliff ordeal’, Melbourne Age, 12 January 1979. 31 ‘Death mars summer operations’, Aurora, Midwinter 1979, p. 7. 32 ‘Birdman tells of cliff ordeal’, Melbourne Age, 12 January 1979. 33 ‘The Antarctic and Australian aviation’, pp. 18–19. 34 R Brookes, ‘Five weeks at the Home of the Blizzard’, Aurora, Spring 1978, p. 106. 35 ibid., p. 107.

CHAPTER 19: LIVING DANGEROUSLY Research interviews Tim Bowden: Roy Green (10 November 1995), Jim Bleasel (13 July 1995), Geoff Dannock (14 July 1995), Ian Marchant (2 June 1994), Ewald Brune (13 July 1995; 9 November 1995), Knowles Kerry (13 December 1993). Annie Rushton: Graeme Manning (2 August 1995), John Boyd (22 August 1995), Martin Betts (18 July 1995), Andrew Jackson (22 May 1996), John Whitelaw (21 August 1995), Peter Roberts (21 February 1996), Peter Boyer (13 March 1996). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Burnie Advocate, 26 July 1983. J P Young & Associates (Q’land) Pty Ltd, Joint Management Review into the Antarctic Division of the Department of Science and Technology, p. 12. D Lyons, submission to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts, Inquiry into the Management of the Antarctic Division, p. 2. ibid. I Marchant, Voyage Diary, 25 November 1984, AAD Library. A Jackson, personal diary, 26 November 1984. Canberra Times, 22 June 1985. Melbourne Age, 31 December 1985. ‘Compressed snow-ice runway proposed’, Engineers Australia, 31 May, 1985, p. 21.

CHAPTER 20: TURBULENT TIMES

558

Research interviews Tim Bowden: Ewald Brune (9 November 1995), Roger Rusling (6 January 1989), Jim Bleasel (2 June 1994; 13 July 1995; 5 May 1996), Geoff Dannock (14 July 1995), David Parer (25 May 1994), Leonie Balsley (14 May 1996), Peter Melick (27 March 1996), Graham Richardson (16 April 1996), Rex Moncur (29 July 1996).

E

N D N O T E S

Annie Rushton: Ian Marchant (8 March 1996), Barry Jones (23 August 1995), Rob Easther (15 February 1996; 13 March 1996), Rex Moncur (3 June 1996; 12 July 1996), Doug Twigg (23 February 1996), Ivan Bear (2 April 1996), Jim Bleasel (20 June 1996), David Lyons (1 August 1995), Tony Blunn (22 August 1995). Alison Alexander: Martin Betts (9 November 1993). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17

18

19

D Lyons, Voyage Report, Voyage 4 1987–88, Nella Dan, AAD Library. Macquarie Island Newsletter, AAD Library, December 1987. D Lyons, ‘The last voyage of Nella Dan’ ANARE News, March 1988, p. 3. Melbourne Age, 21 December 1987. R Rusling, Voyage Report, Lady Lorraine, Nella Dan Salvage Job, 7–29 December 1987, AAD Library. Macquarie Island Newsletter, p. 6. Preliminary investigation into the grounding of MV Nella Dan at Macquarie Island, 3 December 1987, Transport and Communications Maritime Safety Report, April 1988, p. 21. Letter A Maddox, Branch Secretary ACOA, to J Bleasel, 9 April 1986, AAD Library. Attachment to letter A Maddox to J Bleasel, 9 April 1986, AAD Library. Letter J Bleasel to A Maddox, 14 April 1986, AAD Library. Media release, Senator Graham Richardson, Minister for the Arts, Sport, Environment, Tourism and Territories, 16 December 1987. Charter of research vessel, Letter R Moncur to Manager P&O Polar, 18 December 1987, AAD Library. Auditor-General, Antarctic Supply Vessel Chartering Arrangements, Audit Report No. 9, 1990–91, Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1990, p. 1. Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 1988. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Joint Committee of Public Accounts, Management of the Antarctic Division, Minutes of Evidence, vol. 4, 6 April 1989, p. 1035. Sydney Morning Herald, 3 December 1988. Management of the Antarctic Division, Report 297, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Joint Committee of Public Accounts, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra 1989, pp. v–vi. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Joint Committee of Public Accounts, Management of the Antarctic Division, Minutes of Evidence, 13 April 1989, pp. 1103–1106. ibid., 15 December 1988, p. 1129.

CHAPTER 21: TOWARDS 2000 Research interviews Tim Bowden: Attila Vrana (5 August 1996), Ken Green (28 June 1996), Lyn Goldsworthy (1 August 1996), Paul Keating (3 June 1996), Bob Chynoweth (11 January 1996), Graham Richardson (16 April 1996), Bob Hawke (9 May 1996), Neville Fletcher (7 August 1996), Knowles Kerry (13 September 1996). Annie Rushton: Rex Moncur (3 June 1996; 20 June 1996), Attila Vrana (5 August 1996), Geoff Moore (9 October 1995), David Lyons (1 August 1995), Ros Kelly (6 June 1996), Jack Sayers (22 May 1996), Jack Lonergan (26 February 1996), James Shevlin (28 March 1996). 1 2

Sydney Sun, 8 January 1975; Launceston Examiner, 8 January 1975; Sydney Telegraph, 20 December 1976. Australian, 21 May 1982.

559

T

H E

S I L E N C E

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19

C A L L I N G

D Gadd, ‘Sun is setting on Antarctica’, Melbourne Frankston Standard 2 May 1989. R Hawke, The Hawke Memoirs, William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1994, p. 468. ibid., pp. 468–9. ibid., p. 470. ‘Hawke’s icy reception’, Australian, 28 June 1989. The Hawke Memoirs, p. 471. ‘Antarctica is safe—Hawke’, Melbourne Herald-Sun, 5 July 1991. Antarctic nations reaffirm Treaty after 30 years, media release from Department of the Arts, Sport, Environment, Tourism and Territories, 18 October 1991. L Goldsworthy, ‘The dogs of Mawson’, Aurora, September 1988, p. 1. P Moonie, ‘The Mawson huskies—the case for retention’, Aurora, September 1991, p. 1. ‘Selecting a new home for the dogs’ ANARE News, Spring/Summer 1992/93, p. 6. S Robinson (ed), ‘Love Affair in Antarctica’, Huskies in Harness—A Love Story in Antarctica, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1995, pp. 13–15. Antarctic Science—The Way Forward, A Report of the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee, June 1992, Department of the Arts, Sport, Environment and Territories, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1992. Looking South—The Australian Antarctic Program in a Changing World, Australian Antarctic Division, Commonwealth of Australia, 1995, p. 5. Army ANARE Detachment History—Significant Events, Disbandment Parade Program, 25 June 1994, p. 1. J Sayers, address at 40th Anniversary Army ANARE Detachment, March 1988. Army ANARE Detachment History, pp. 4–5.

CHAPTER 22: CHANGING THE CULTURE Research interviews Tim Bowden: Louise Holliday (18 February 1996), Jim Bleasel (2 June 1994; 13 July 1995), Doug Twigg (10 June 1988), Denise Allen (22 February 1996), Kevin Donovan (18 February 1989), Diana Patterson (24 May 1994; 16 March 1996), Joan Russell (13 March 1996), Pene Greet (1 June 1994), Louise Crossley (4 March 1996), Lynn Williams (11 March 1996), Rex Moncur (30 May 1994). Annie Rushton: Knowles Kerry (12 February 1996), Richard Mulligan (21 March 1996), Michael Johnson (15 February 1996), Gordon Bain (15 February 1996), Sandy Cave (12 June 1996), Lorraine Francis (5 March 1996), Rob Easther (15 February 1996), Diana Patterson (18 January 1996), Alison Clifton (30 April 1996), Tom Maggs (16 February 1996; 21 March 1996), Mary Mulligan (14 February 1996). Ros Bowden: Louise Holliday (1 July 1987), Lyn Williams (19 June 1987), Gillian Deakin (23 June 1987), Denise Allen (24 June 1987). Peter Fry: Ulla Knox-Little (February 1987). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

560

S Murray-Smith, Sitting on Penguins—People and Politics in Australian Antarctica, Century Hutchinson Australia, Sydney, 1988, p. 108. ‘A year on ice with 24 men’, Sydney Daily Telegraph, 18 December 1980. Sydney Daily Telegraph, 18 December 1980. Melbourne Age, 21 March 1983. ibid. ‘Oh for the warmth of a woman’s smile’, Melbourne Age, 31 October 1980. L Williams, ‘Observations on mixed groups in Antarctica’, Gender on Ice—Proceedings of a Conference on Women in Antarctica compiled by K Edwards and R Graham, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1994, p. 34.

E 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

N D N O T E S

T Dalmau, ‘International approaches: reflections on managing women and men in Antarctic expeditions’, Gender on Ice, p. 34. S Headley, Women in management on Australian Antarctic stations, unpublished dissertation, University of Tasmania, 1992, p. 27. Murray-Smith, Sitting on Penguins, pp. 105–10. P G Law, ‘The all-male expeditions 1947–66’, Gender on Ice, pp. 2–3. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April 1983. P Greet & G Price, Frost Bytes—A Story of Two Women at Opposite Ends of the Earth, Doubleday, Sydney, 1995, p. 14. ‘Selection of Antarctic expeditioners’, Aurora, March 1989, pp. 4–5. Report of the United States Antarctic Inspection Team, report of the inspection conducted in accordance with Article VII of the Antarctic Treaty under the auspices of the US Department of State and the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, February 9 to March 11, 1995. Casey Station Log, 2 June 1990, AAD Library. Casey Station Log, 25 June 1990. Casey Station Log, 24 September 1990. Casey Station Log, 10 November 1990. J Russell, Casey Annual Report 1990, AAD Library, p. 19. Casey Station Log, 14 November 1990. Elimination of sexual harassment in the Antarctic Division, AAD Administrative Instruction, File 90/0035. No. 27, 14 December 1990. Russell, Casey Annual Report, p. 19. Headley, Women in management on Australian Antarctic stations, p. 30.

CHAPTER 23: SCIENCE AND THE FUTURE Research interviews Tim Bowden: Patrick Quilty (24 November 1993; 30 May 1994; 22 November 1995; 20 November 1995), Neal Young (21 June 1996), Darry Powell (22 April 1996), Jim Bleasel (13 July 1995), Ian Allison (13 December 1993; 30 May 1994), Jo Jacka (13 December 1993), Colin Southwell (20 November 1994), Harry Burton (14 June 1996), Andrew Jackson (8 August 1996), Des Lugg (31 May 1994; 20 June 1996), Rex Moncur (30 May 1994). Annie Rushton: Patrick Quilty (30 May 1994; 7 May 1996), Harry Burton (20 May 1996), Jeannette Johanson (14 November 1995), John Lovering (22 November 1995), Andrew Brocklesby (15 May 1996), John Church (15 May 1996), Andrew Klekociuk (15 May 1996), Harvey Marchant (8 May 1996), Stephen Nicol (19 April 1996), Graham Hosie (4 June 1996), Graham Robertson (14 May 1996), Barbara Wienecke (1 May 1996), Judy Clarke (24 April 1996), Elizabeth Kerry (29 April 1996), Knowles Kerry (23 April 1996), Martin Riddle (23 May 1996), Konrad Muller (17 May 1996), Paul Holloway (5 July 1996). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

From text supplied by Neal Young, 21 June 1996. F Pearce, ‘The ones that got away’, New Scientist, vol. 149 no. 2012, 13 January 1996, p. 14. R Moncur, ‘To the year 2000—the future of Australia’s Antarctic program’, ANARE News, Spring/Summer 1992–93, p. 17. S Nicol & W de la Mare, ‘Ecosystem management and the Antarctic krill’, American Scientist, vol. 81, January–February 1983, p. 40. ibid., p. 38. ANARE Strategic Plans 1995–2000, Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories, Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 24. P Barnaart, Mawson Annual Report, AAD Library, p. 35.

561

T

H E

S I L E N C E

8 9

10

11 12 13 14 15

16

C A L L I N G

‘Tampering tourists menace Antarctica’, West Australian, 20 June 1994. Tourism in Antarctica, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts, Australian Government Publishing Service, May 1989, p. 45. J Sayers, ‘Infrastructure Development and Environmental Management in Antarctica’ in Towards a Conservation Strategy for the Australian Antarctic Territory—The 1993 Fenner Conference on the Environment, J Handmer & M Wilder (eds), Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993, p. 145. L Hay, ‘Tourism issues unresolved’, ANARE News, Autumn 1993, p. 4. ‘International Biomedical Expedition to the Antarctic’, Aurora, August 1981, p. 15. ‘Scientists freeze for science’, Adelaide Advertiser, 11 March 1981. P D Franzmann, ‘Due south for useful micro-organisms’ Today’s Life Science, June 1995, p. 28. I Campbell, Beyond the last great frontier—Australia and Antarctica: Federal Government policy into the next century, address by Senator Ian Campbell, Minister responsible for the Antarctic, to ‘Tasmania, the Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic: Tasmanian Governor’s Forum’, Hobart, 17 September 1996. J Chester, Going to Extremes, Doubleday Australia, Sydney, 1986, p. 10.

Transcripts of research interviews recorded for The Silence Calling are held at the Australian Antarctic Division library, Kingston, Tasmania.

562

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Advertiser (Adelaide) Advocate (Burnie) Age (Melbourne) Australian ANARE News—Australia’s Antarctic Magazine, Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, Australian Antarctic Division, Department of the Environment, Kingston. Antarctic Science—The Way Forward: A Report of the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee, June 1992, Department of the Arts, Sport, Environment and Territories, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1992 Auditor-General, Antarctic Supply Vessel Chartering Arrangements, Audit Report No. 9, 1990–91, Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1990 Aurora—Australia’s Antarctic Magazine, ANARE Club Incorporated, Melbourne Béchervaise, J The Far South, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1961 ——Blizzard and Fire—A Year at Mawson, Antarctica, Angus & Robertson, Great Britain, 1964 ——Men on Ice in Antarctica—Science, Lothian Publishing Co., Melbourne, 1978 ——Arctic and Antarctic—The Will and The Way of John Riddoch Rymill, Bluntisham Books, Huntingdon, 1995 Bennett, I Shores of Macquarie Island, Rigby, Melbourne, 1971 Bertrand, K Americans in Antarctica 1775–1948, American Geographical Society, New York, 1971 Bickel, L This Accursed Land, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1978 ——The Last Antarctic Heroes, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1989 Border Morning Mail (Albury) Bowden, T Antarctica and Back in Sixty Days, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney, 1991 Boyer, P Antarctic Journey—John Caldwell, Bea Maddock, Jan Senbergs, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1988 Burke, D Moments of Terror—The Story of Antarctic Aviation, New South Wales University Press, Sydney, 1994 Butler, R Breaking the Ice, Albatross Books, Sydney, 1988

563

T

H E

564

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Butterworth, F (ed) WYTOY WYSSA—The Antarctic Wives and Kinfolk Association of Australia: An Overview of 25 Years, Antarctic Wives and Kinfolk Association, Melbourne, 1990 Campbell S A Guide to the Hard Corals of Thai Waters, Zebra Publishing, Hong Kong, 1980 Campbell S & Shaweevongse, C The Fundamentals of the Thai Language, Paragon Books, New York, 1957 Canberra Times Cherry-Garrard, A The Worst Journey in the World, Chatto & Windus, London, 1951 Chester, J Going to Extremes: Project Blizzard and Australia’s Antarctic Heritage, Doubleday Australia, Sydney, 1986 Chipman, E Australians in the Frozen South—Living & Working in Antarctica, Thomas Nelson Australia, Victoria, 1978 ——Women on Ice, Melbourne University Press, Burwood, 1986. Clark L & Wishart, E 60 Degrees South, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania Cumpston, J S Macquarie Island, ANARE Report No. 93, Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, Canberra, 1968 Daily Telegraph (Sydney) Drygalski, E von The Southern Ice-Continent: The German South Polar Expedition Aboard the Gauss 1901–1903, translated by Raraty & M M Bluntisham, Bluntisham Books, Norfolk,1989 Edwards, K & Graham, R (comp) Gender on Ice—Proceedings of a Conference on Women in Antarctica, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1994 Examiner (Launceston) Fletcher, H Antarctic Days with Mawson—A Personal Account of the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition of 1929–31, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1984 Frankston Standard (Melbourne) Fuchs, V Of Ice and Men—The Story of the British Antarctic Survey 1943–73, Anthony Nelson, Shropshire, 1982 Fuchs, V & Hillary, E The Crossing of Antarctica—The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Penguin Books, Victoria, 1960 Greet, P & Price, G Frost Bytes—A Story of Two Women at Opposite Ends of the Earth, Doubleday, Sydney, 1995 Grenfell Price, A The Winning of Australian Antarctica—Mawson’s BANZARE Voyages 1929–31, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1962 Handmer, J & Wilder, M (eds) Towards a Conservation Strategy for the Australian Antarctic Territory—The 1993 Fenner Conference on the Environment, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993 Hawke, R The Hawke Memoirs, William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1994 Herald (Melbourne) Herr, R A & Davis, B W (eds) Asia in Antarctica, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University with Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre, Canberra, 1994 Herr, R A, Hall H R & Haward M G Antarctica’s Future: Continuity or Change?, Australian Institute of International Affairs, Hobart, 1990 Huntford, R Shackleton, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1985 ——Scott and Amundsen, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1993 Jacka, F & Jacka, E Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988 Lancaster Brown, P Twelve Came Back, Robert Hale Ltd, London, 1957 Law, P G The Exploration of Oates Land, Antarctica, ANARE Reports, Series A, vol. 1 no. 71, issued by the Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, Melbourne, April 1964 ——Antarctic Odyssey, Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1983

B

I B L I O G R A P H Y

——The Antarctic Journey of HMAS Wyatt Earp, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1995 ——You Have to be Lucky—Antarctica and Other Adventures, Kangaroo Press, NSW, 1995 Law P G & Béchervaise, J ANARE—Australia’s Antarctic Outposts, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1957 Lewis, R S A Continent for Science—The Antarctic Adventure, Secker & Warburg, London, 1966 Lied, N Oscar—The True Story of a Husky, John Kerr, Victoria, 1987 McKinnon G W (comp), Gazetteer of the Australian Antarctic Territory, ANARE Interim Reports, Series A (11) Geography, no. 75, issued by the Antarctic Division, Department of External Affairs, Melbourne, 1965 Mercury (Hobart) Migot, A The Lonely South, Rupert Hart Davis, London, 1956 Murray-Smith, S Sitting on Penguins—People and Politics in Australian Antarctica, Century Hutchinson Australia, Sydney, 1988 Nansen, F Farthest North, vols 1 & 2, Macmillan & Co, London,1897 Ralston, K A Man for Antarctica—The Early Life of Phillip G Law, Hyland House Publishing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 1993 Robinson, D (ed) Huskies in Harness—A Love Story in Antarctica, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1995 Sattlberger, C Antarktis, Verlag Christian Brandstätter, Wickenburggasse, 1996 Scholes, A Fourteen Men—The Story of the Australian Antarctic Expedition to Heard Island, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1949 Scott, K The Australian Georgraphic Book of Antarctica, Australian Geographic Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1993 Selkirk, P M, Seppelt, R D & Selkirk, D R Subantarctic Macquarie Island—Environment and Biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 Snowman, D Pole Positions—The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1993 Sun (Melbourne) Suter, K Antarctica: Private Property or Public Heritage?, Pluto Press, NSW, 1991 Swan, R A Australia in the Antarctic—Interest, Activity and Endeavour, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1961 Sydney Morning Herald Teague, I Polar Medals Awarded to Australians for Service in Antarctica (not yet published) Thomas, L Sir Hubert Wilkins—His World of Adventure as Told to Lowell Thomas, Readers Book Club, Sydney, 1961 Thomson, R The Coldest Place On Earth, A H & A W Reed, Wellington, 1969 Tonnessen, J W & Johnsen, A O, The History of Modern Whaling, translated R I Christophersen, University of California Press, California, 1982 Tourism in Antarctica, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts, Australian Government Publishing Service, May 1989 Walton, D W H (ed) Antarctic Science, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1987 West Australian Wilder, M Antarctica—An Economic History of the Last Continent, Department of Economic History, University of Sydney, 1992 Wilson, D Alfresco Flight—The RAAF Experience, Royal Australian Airforce Museum, RAAF Base Point Cook, 1991 Additional material Various Australian Archives documentation, journals and magazines, unpublished reports, papers, letters and diaries have been used as resources in the research of this book. For a full citation see the endnotes.

565

INDEX

Photograph and map references are in bold AD = Antarctic Division; HI = Heard Island; MI = Macquarie Island; PCM = Prince Charles Mountains ‘A-Factor’ 108, 110, 121 & hangar building problems 150 & rogue iceberg 356–9 Abbottsmith Glacier 257, 330 Abbottsmith, John 16, 19, 20, 27, 38, 55, 56, 59 on alcohol 55 on elephant seals 36 restricts power generation 63 accidents see health problems Adams, Mary 226 Adélie Land 89, 149 Administrative & Clerical Officers Association 389, 448 Advanced Base (Japan) 170 Advisory Committee on Antarctic Programs 296, 308 Aerial Depot 158, 165, 166 Aga stove 135 warms husky pups 152 air flights, long distance 176

566

air transport to Antarctica 348–51, 440, 442 direct 297, 379 aircraft 102, 205 Ann Cherie 240, 241 carrier 9 fixed-wing 152, 246, 327, 328, 348 for 1947–48 expedition 20 hanger 150–1, 151 Mawson (1956) 148 reconnaissance flight (1960) 240 see also Auster; Beaver; Catalina; Dakota; Globemaster; Gypsy Moth; Hercules; Ilyushin; Kingfisher; Neptune; Pilatus Porter; Qantas; STOL Twin Otters; Walrus Amphibian; Wirraway airfields & airstrips 378–81 Casey 348 Davis 348 Gwamm 294 ice plateau (Rumdoodle) 206, 240–1 Mawson 348 Vestfold Hills 301–2 albatross,

rookeries 60 sooty 60, 263 wandering 470, 492–3 Albert Park Barracks 12, 14 decoration of 73–4 Albion, Pat 165 alcohol 215–16 ‘aerovodka’ 200, 237 beer, for Davis party 189 ethyl alcohol 325–6 frozen beer 269 grog ration (HI) 55 heavy drinking 444 home brewing 215 wine 213, 239 wine tastings 216 All-Union Geographical Society 179–80 Allen, Denise 452, 453, 453 Allison, Ian 329, 333 ice cores & CO2 content 345 on global warming 480 on ice sheet balance 483, 484 survey of Amery Ice Shelf 327 Amanda Bay 257 Amanda Rookery 257 American Highlands 179 Americans, engineering ingenuity 198 Amery Ice Shelf 132, 149,

I 301, 323, 323 coastal survey 145 field work 322–7 glaciological research (1963–4) 249, 266 strain grids 323–3, 326 wintering party (1968) 323–4 Amery Peak 161 ‘Amery Troglodytes’ 324, 325–7 Amundsen Bay 156, 157, 240 exploration of 154 Amundsen–Scott station 447 ANARE 10, 12 administration problems 67–71 political disruptions (1970s) 284–5, 295, 297–300 biological science program 491 Code of Personal Behaviour 451 creation of station managers 392 formation of 6 ‘jollies’ 367–8 life 210–31 & merchant crew 86 Nella Dan replacement 387 Planning Committee 65 science achievements summarised 511–12 Symposium (1956) 174 uniform 214–15 X-Y-Z reporting system 450–1 see also Antarctic Division; BANZARE; Executive Planning Committee; expeditions ANARE Club 276, 298, 299 huskies in Antarctica 418–19 ANARE Ex-Members Association 299 ANARESAT 393, 395 Antarctic Acceptance Bill 5 Antarctic Circle 462 Antarctic cod 83, 474, 475 Antarctic Convergence 24, 48 see also Polar Front

Antarctic CRC 266, 479 sea floor investigation 498–9 Antarctic Division, administration (1940s) 12–13 management concerns (1980s) 367–8 ordering of supplies 74, 92–3 aims & objectives environmental focus 420 (1940s) 73 (1960s) 421 (1990s) 408, 420–1, 424 allocation of furniture (1980s) 320 appointment of acting director Don Styles 281 Jim Bleasel 365–6 appointment of assistant OIC (1948) 67 appointment of directors, (1949) Phillip Law 92 (1970) Bryan Rofe 292–3 (1972) Ray Garrod 295 (1979) Clarence (Clarrie) McCue 316 (1984) Jim Bleasel 447 (1989) Rex Moncur 408, 433 appointment of staff (1980s) 367, 407 assessment of scientific productivity (1989) 421 compensation awards 64, 456 EEO policies 464–5 finances, (1947) 73 (1993) budget cuts 431, 433–6 funds (1976–77) 307 general conditions (1980s) 363 headquarters, Collins St 92, 210 Kingston 298, 299–300,

N D E X

307, 315, 319–21 cost of 311 resignation of staff (1980) 319–20 Victoria Barracks (Albert Park) 12, 14, 73–4 Human Impact Program 500–3 logos & emblems 73, 373, 373 MI sealing affair (1959) 193 move to Hobart 298, 299–300, 307 NASA joint experiment on person relations 482–3 ‘panic fortnight’ 431 parliamentary inquiry into management (1988) 399 personal relationships policy 468 reviews of, (1960s) by DEA 284, 286, 288 (1983) by JMR 364–5 (1992) by ASAC 421, 424 sexual harassment policy 461–2 staff, on resupply voyages 214 members (1952) 92 salary scales 268, 274 women on selection panels 445 transfer of responsibilities to: (1968) Dept of Supply 287 (1971) Dept of Science & Consumer Affairs 299 (1972–73) Dept of Science 295 (1987) Dept of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism & Territories 396 see also ANARE; aircraft; Antarctic programs;

567

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

aviation & shipping options; expeditions; Kingston Headquarters; scientific programs; ships; stations Antarctic Glaciological Exploration Symposium 471 Antarctic Names Committee of Australia 256–7 husky names 159 Ivanoff Island 244 Antarctic Pack Ice Seals Program 497 Antarctic Peninsula 7 finfish 474 oil deposits 408 territorial claims to 179 Antarctic Policy & Transport Studies (APTS) group 379 Antarctic programs, artists in Antarctica 376, 377 Cabinet review (1990s) 425 funding cuts (1996–97) 436–7 key goals (1990s) 425 see also scientific programs Antarctic Research Policy Advisory Committee (ARPAC) 297, 318, 477–8 recommendations on longterm research 477 replaced by ASAC 365 setting up of 211 Antarctic School Science Prize 376 Antarctic Science Advisory Committee (ASAC) 365, 401, 403 grant scheme 391 options for ANARE post year 2000 510 review of science programs 421, 424–5 recommendations 424 Antarctic & Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) 416

568

Antarctic Treaty 178–86 Article IV 181, 184, 185–6 Australia’s objectives 181 Consultative Meetings 186, 474 freezing of national claims 181, 184–6 Madrid Protocol 416–20 nations acceding to 473 negotiations for 181 nuclear issues 182–4 signing of 181, 186 Antarctic Treaty Special Consultative Meeting Wellington, NZ (1988) 409 Antarctica, formation of 498–9 living in 503–7 & Madrid Protocol 416 proposed nature reserve 414 protection of 417 strategic importance of 15 territorial claims 1–2, 2 (map), 4, 132 World Park status campaign 408–9 Antarktis und Spezialfahrt Schiffartgesellschaft GmbM (ASS) 368 appendectomies, HI 87–8, 88 Mawson (1959) 192 appendicitis 77–8, 85–6 home remedy for symptoms 78 appendix, doctor decides to remove his own 79 doctor removes his own 78n removal of, for doctors 80 removed in seals 79 Aramis Range 159, 161, 328 Argentina, krill studies (1977) 308 medical research 503, 505–6 & nuclear tests 183 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 territorial claims 179, 180

ARGOS 497 Armstrong, Chris 246 Artists in Antarctica Program 376, 377 ASIO 210–11 astrofix calculations 317, 323 Atkinson, Laurie 94–6 Atlas Cove 23, 28, 34, 37, 89, 329, 330 Atlas Roads Peninsula 34 atmospheric research 177, 425 programs wiped out due to fire 193–4 see also upper atmospheric physics Auditor-General ship chartering arrangements (1990) 400 aurora 168 studies 63, 201, 264 Aurora (journal) 276, 337 Aurora Australis RSV 81, 420, 430, 431, 433, 437 charter ends 510 glaciology research 483 laboratory 488 launching of 404 naming of 399 oceanographic research 485 repairs in Fremantle 435 takes out huskies from Mawson 420, 421 Auroral Zone 103 Auster aircraft 106, 107, 109, 112, 113, 116, 119, 121, 148 Auster 200.5 129 test flight 120 Auster 201 for Mawson (1956) 148–9 coastal reconnaissance (1959) 234–5 damaged by wind 116 elevator controls jam 156 flight over Vestfold Hills 126–7 for reconnaissance work 109–10, 111, 112 on skis 110

I purchase of 99 salvage operations 118, 120 supplies, fuel & passengers carried (1956) 166 wrecked in hurricane 127–8 Auster Rookery 257, 344, 493–4 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14) 41, 103, 345 Australia, planned station (1957) 170 Australia signs Antarctic Treaty 181 Australia–French alliance & CRAMRA 415 Australia Day, ice ‘breaks out’ 110 Australian (newspaper), Government plan leak 285–6 Australian Academy of Science 174, 284 Australian Antarctic Building System (AANBUS) 315 Australian Antarctic Data Centre 501 Australian Antarctic Exploration Committee 3 Australian Antarctic Naming Committee (ANCA) 256–7 see also Australian Committee for Antarctic Names Australian Antarctic Territory 233 (map) coastal landings listed 277 establishment of 5 highest mountain 249 mapped area (1975) 301 proposed research station 102 Australian Army 42, 438–40, 451 Australian Army Psychological Service 218 Australian Committee for

Antarctic Names (ACAN) 159 see also Australian Antarctic Naming Committee Australian Commonwealth Naval Board 31 Australian Constructive Services (ACS) 312, 313 Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) 479, 498 Australian Heritage Commission 356 Australian Maritime College 320 Australian Research Policy Advisory Committee 297 Australian Shipbuilding Board 282 Australian Shipping Board 86 Australian Whaling Commission 192 Australians entertained by Russians 237–9 automatic weather station 244 aviation & shipping options (1960s) 282–5 (1980s) 379–80, 431, 433–4 (1993) 433–6 Ayers, Harry 234 Bachelard, Dr Claude 505 Bailey, Gavin 349 Balleny Islands 50 balloons, weather 135 for radiosonde equipment 52, 61 Banfield, Geoff 201, 204 BANZARE 4, 102, 103 achievements 6 expeditions 5–6 Heard Island survey 25 voyages 4, 20 barge caravans 136, 138, 138, 139 lost on sea ice 139 Barker, Claude 81 Barker, Roger 351–2 Barnaat, Philip 501 Barrington, Ken 440

N D E X

Barwick, General Sir Garfield 183 Basten, Henry 272 Battye, Alastair 253 Baudissen Glacier 55, 94, 95, 96 ice movement measurements 330 see also Little Challenger Glacier Bauer Bay, earthquake 335 field hut 334–5 Baumann, Miriam Rose 377 Beal, Roger 436 Bear, Ivan 395–7 beard, delays anaesthetic 88 growing competition 53 impact on typists 84 Beaver aircraft 150, 206, 328 aileron failure 201 flight from Mawson to Davis 176 for IGY activities 174, 176 photographic flight 149 radar-altimeter breaks 156–7 unscheduled ‘flight’ 207–8 (1956) for Antarctic flight 148 (1956) supplies, fuel & passengers carried 166 (1959) wrecked 209, 209, 239 (1960) wrecked 240 (1965) breaks through ice floe 246 Beaver Lake 161, 328 Béchervaise, John 144, 145, 145, 257 attempts to climb Big Ben 144 explores Prince Charles Mountains (1955) 147 on communication 226 opposes dog sledge journey 246 powerhouse fire, Mawson 196–7, 197 rescues expeditioners from field station 204

569

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

rescue of Thala Dan 187– 9 Béchervaise, Lorna Fearn 257 Béchervaise Island 496 beer see alcohol behaviour, ANARE Code 451 Antarctic celibacy 227 combat handling 460 complaints of 460–4 cure for annoying mannerisms 222 expected by Law 216 expected of women 230 expeditioner returns to Australia (1949) 72 in mixed groups 446 & married couples 446 mob-rule decision-making 462 ‘ocker’ 447, 448 rules for 213 see also films; personal relationships Belgium, planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 Bell, Brian 194 Bell, Sergt Stewart 207 Bellingshausen, Capt. T von 41, 179 Bennett, Isobel 230, 230 Bennett, Ken 247, 248–9 Bennett, Dr R 42 Berkner, Dr Lloyd B 168 Bernacchi centre, Tasmania 450 Bernacchi, Louis 3 Berry, Wing Comdr H.W. 69 Besso, Rick 498 Betts, Martin 293, 366, 387 Bewsher, Bill 153, 158 falls when climbing 234 (1957–57) PCM 157–61, 164–5 Big Ben 22, 94, 329 cloud forms 62 eruption 428–9 height of 30 biological observations, from Kista Dan (1956) 150 biological research 18, 60, 230, 267, 294

570

Davis Lakes 341–4 Heard Island program (1992) 426–30 Macquarie Island 335–7 sub-Antarctic islands 260–4 UV & Phaeocystis 488 BIOMASS program 309, 474, 489 Bird, Ian 311–12, 345 birds, banding 261-2, 263 for food 56 Magnetic Island 125 see also albatross; penguins; petrels; sea birds; shearwaters; skuas Bishop & Clerk Islands 51 Black, Harry 252–3, 344 Blaxland, Dr Peter 25, 26 Bleasel, Jim 390, 402 achievements 402–5 AD logo 373 AD management concerns 367 appointed acting director 365–6 appointed director 447 besetted ships 378–9 goes to Mirny on Icebird (1984) 370–3 on behaviour in Antarctic communities 447–8 on COMNAP 476–7 plans for AD 392 rebuilding plans 387–90 resignation from AD 401 Blobel, Colin 469 blubber, as lubricating oil 66 for oil (HI) 41 blubber stove 53 Blunn, Tony 396, 399, 403, 404 huskies in Antarctica 419 boats, Dingo Dan 247 long-boat 43 see also ships Boda, Dr John 199, 200, 201 Bolingen Islands 143 Booker, Malcolm 181–4 books for expeditioners 215 Borchgrevink, Carsten 3 Boyd, John 365, 379 Boyd, Trevior 85, 229

Boyer, Peter 377 Brand, Heinrich 375 Brandt, Henry 198–9, 200, 205–6, 217 Bransfield Strait 408 Breeze, Bill 219 Britain, territorial claims 179, 180 see also United Kingdom British Medical Association 16, 80 broadcasts, from Heard & Macquarie Islands 19 Brocklesby, Andrew 482–3 Bromham, ‘Wok’ 467 Brookes, Ray 343–4, 353–6 see also huts Brooks, Jim 121, 123, 125 Brothers, Nigel 306 Brown, Alan 338 Brown, Ken 87 Brown, Peter Lancaster 90, 91, 94, 215 Brune, Capt. Ewald 369, 379 Icebird diversion to Mirny 370–1, 372 Icebird module 375 Bryden, Prof Michael 263–4, 265, 424 Buckles Bay 42, 86, 384 earthquake (1980) 335 Nella Dan driven onto rocks 382 storm surge (1959) 197 Budd, Dr Graham 192, 208, 215, 262, 329–34 Budd, Prof W. F. ‘Bill’ 266n, 292 ice studies, Law Dome 345 & IAGP 471 snow runways feasibility study 481 Budnick, Keith ‘Soupy’ 270 Budnick Hill 303 buildings, design of 314 dongas 346–7, 383, 394, 461 heritage 504–5 maintenance budgets 314–5 plumbing 315 rebuilding programs:

I (1970s) 311–15 (1980s) 321, 430 science, location of in stations 314 state of (1976) 321 transport of materials 315–6 two-storey 313, 315 see also huts; laboratories Bull, Colin 292 bulldozers (D4) 44 iceberg removal attempt 358 Bunger Hills 341, 388 Bunning, Steve 377 Bunt, John 335 Bureau of Meteorology 11, 267, 479 joint CSIRO exercise 484 salaries 270 Bureau of Mineral Resources 11, 132, 133, 267, 277, 291 equipment for magnetic survey 121–2 Burke Ridge 329 Burton, Harry 426, 474, 497 Burton, John 11, 67 Bush, President George 415 US mining ban 416, 417 Butler, Paul 359 butter, as lubricating oil 66 Butterworth, Fay 225 Butterworth, Geoff 225 Byrd, Admiral R.E. 9, 178 cables (communication) 225 Caddy, Catherine 377 Caldwell, John 377 Calling Antarctica 226 Calling Australia 226, 326 Cambridge airport 65 cameras, Air Force F24 234 movie 30 trimetrogen 166 Cameron, Clyde 304 Cameron, Ian 412 Camp Hill 46 camp MI (1947–48 expedition) 43 Campbell, Senator Ian 436, 492, 510 Campbell, Dr Julie 445

Campbell, Grp Capt Stuart 1, 5, 13, 26, 35, 47, 49, 50, 57 achievements 12, 70 death of 70 leader of first expedition 11 OIC Antarctic Division 67 on icebergs 49 opposes Law 49, 68–9, 70, 71 organist 55 proclamation ceremony (HI & MI) 35 resigns as leader of ANARE 70 secures cargo 27 survives hurricane 34 Campbell-Drury, Alan 16, 21, 38, 54, 92 altercation over sealer’s grave 58 ANARE Club 299 greets Labuan (HI) 72 makes a seal deterrent 36 radio ham 36 Canberra Times, on Udivikoff appendix affair 7980 Cape Adare 502 Cape Ann 175 Cape Arkona 330 Cape Batterbee 247 Cape Bruce 103 Cape Darnley 122 Cape Evans 219 Cape Filchner 171 Cape Folger 345 Cape Freshfield 17, 103, 132 Cape Laurens 29 Cape Royds 502 Cape Town, direct flights to Antarctic 442 carbon dioxide, in ice core air bubbles 345 in the ocean 485 carbon monoxide poisoning 93, 204, 325 cargo 439 floating fuel drums (HI) 90–1 for Repstat, delayed 271 for Vestfold Hills (1956)

N D E X

174 lashing Icebird’s module 375 secured during storm 27 sledges 100 unloading problems (HI) 39, 42 use of floating pontoons 90, 91, 91, 92 see also DUKWs; LARCs Caro, David 18, 477, 478 Caroline Cove, field hut 334–5 horses 337–8 Carr, Jim 94 Carr, Michael 449 Carrick, Robert 262, 263, 336, 341 Carringtons Slipway 404, 404 Carroll, A. (Shorty) 38, 83 Cartledge, Bill ‘Slipta’ 340 Cartwright, Gordon 238 Cartwright, Lt Cmdr I. 83 Casey, Richard 70, 80, 102, 106, 173, 238 aircraft for ANARE 148 & Douglas Mawson 133 & Law 117, 122 message of appreciation to Soviets 201 negotiations over AT 184-6 & Capt. Petersen 131, 131 psychological tests 217 site for Davis Station 175 Wilkes Station takeover plans 190 Casey, Mrs Richard 106 Casey (Station) 346, 434 direct flights 297 first women 304 trades workshop 313 tunnel 346–8, 346, 347 see also buildings Catalina aircraft 65, 66 Cave, Sandy 452 cell, for sick expeditioner 199, 217 Chadder, R. 4 ‘Chain Blocks’ song 160, 177 Channon, Grey 192 Charpentier, Pierre 185 Charybdis Glacier 161, 164 Cheffins, Dave 88, 89

571

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Chick Island 244 Chifley, Rt Hon. J.B. 19, 20 Chile, krill studies (1977) 308 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 territorial claims 179, 180 Chinese, build Zhongshan Station 389 in Larsemann Hills 388, 389 Chipman, Elizabeth 303, 303, 444 Chippy’s Church hut 46, 376 Chittleborough, G. 260–1, 261 Christchurch, RAAF flights to McMurdo 349 Church, John 484, 485, 487 Chynoweth, Bob 412–13 cigarettes 54 circumcisions performed 61 Clark, Judy 496–7 Clark, Phil 440 Clark, Ross 446 Clemence, Peter, 174, 176, 257, 328 Antarctic Flight 1955–56 155 winter flights 176 Clifton, Alison 459, 459, 463 climate 345 & Antarctic organisms 487–8 climate change 485, 487 clothes & clothing 93, 213 ANARE uniform 214–5 cold-weather 79, 454 for company of HMAS Australia 79 silk combinations 19 ‘ventile’ cloth 99 for husky boots 164 waterproofing 264 (1947–48) expedition 16, 53–4 Clothing Factory 293, 297 coal 266, 267, 328 Jetty Peninsula 161 seams 267 Coates, John 297, 298, 300, 317 codes, Army code for DUKW 438

572

for confidential messages 199, 225 Morse 36, 224 Cohen, Dick 84 Cold War in Antarctica 170–1 Colley, Alan 287 Collins, Neville (Gringo) 249, 250 Amery Ice Shelf 324–7, 324 winter party (1968) 323 crevasse detection 250, 252 rescues slotted tractor 251–2, 251 steering 253 Vostok Traverse 253–6 Commonwealth Bay 18, 49, 132 base 387–8 Mawson’s Hut 354–6, 355 Commonwealth Oil Refineries 17 Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) 132, 291 Division of Oceanography 479 Hobart complex 320 & the International Geophysical Year 174 salaries 274 Wildlife Survey Section (MI) 336 see also Council for Scientific Industrial Research Commonwealth TransAntarctic Expedition 174, 482 communications 393–5 expenditure, in stations 224, 392, 394 for wintering parties 218, 220–3 in code 224-5 personal cables 225 telephones 394 see also codes communities in Antarctica, restructuring of (1980s) 450–1

sexist issues 447, 452–3, 453–4, 461–2 social structure 447–8 compensation awards 64, 456 Compton, G. (Swampy), 38, 62 conservation of Antarctic flora & fauna 417 conservation organisations mining 408 oil drilling 408 see also Greenpeace contraception 451 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) 474-6, 479 Ecosystem Monitoring Program (CEMP) 494 krill catch limit 491 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals 474 Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources (CRAMRA) 409–15 Australia–French alliance 410–12, 413, 415 Australia’s support for & opposition to 410, 412, 413 NGOs opposition 412 Cook, David 243 Cook, Peter 410 cooks 22, 214 bread baking 93, 288 broken denture 221 duties of (1947–48) 19 ‘slushy roster’ 214 Coombes, Bruce 235 Cooper, Cpl Noel ‘Toby’ 155 Cooperative Air Transport System for Antarctica (CATSA) 349, 379 Cooperative Research Centre for the Antarctic & Southern Ocean Environment (Antarctic CRC) 266n, 479

I Copson, Geoff 339 Corinth Head 72 Corry, Max 324, 324, 325 Cosgrove, Chas 306 cosmic ray equipment 50 cosmic ray laboratory, Mawson 339-41, 341 cosmic ray research 17–18, 146–7, 264, 265, 267 fire wipes out program 194 Cosmic Ray Research Group 17–18 cosmic ray telescopes, destroyed by fire 194 meson telescopes 146 cosmic rays, measurement of 62 Cotter, Keith 242 Couch, Bill 446 Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) 10 Antarctic activities 67 see also CSIRO Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) 476–7 Courve de Murville, Maurice 185 Cousteau, Jacques & CRAMRA 415 Cresswell, George 219 Cresswell, Wing Cmdr 242, 246 crevasses, detection of 250 Crohn, Peter 154, 328 geological research 266–7 observes optical phenomenon 154 PCM (1957–57) 157–61, 164–5 Crossley, Louise 463–4 Crowe, Dudley 440 Cruise, Dr John ‘Clem’ 340 Csordas, Dr Stefan 194, 221, 262–3, 340 CSR rum brew 215 cultural amenities 213 see also books; entertainment Cunningham, Jack 45

Currie, Graeme 240–1 cut lunch explorers 328–9 Dakota, DC3 209, 239, 241 Ann Cherie 240 reconnaissance flights (1960) 240 wrecked (1960) 240–1 Dalmau, Tim 451, 456–7, Dalziell, Janet 502 dangers of Antarctic life 93–4 Daniels, Paul 184 Dannock, Geoff 366, 390, 401 David, Prof T.W.E. 3 Davis, Capt. J.K. 20, 81, 122, 132, 133 BANZARE 4 & Davis Station 176 diet of 4 (1947) expedition 11–12 Davis Bay 149 Davis Lakes 341–2, 344 Davis (Station) 174, 176 biology building 313 closes down 270–1 dog team 176, 177 first woman doctor 443–4, 444 naming ceremony 176 re-opening 290–1, 291 site for 174–5 see also buildings Davis–Mawson traverse 481 de la Rue, E. Aubert 25 Deakin, Dr Gillian 451, 454, 454 deaths during ANARE service 541 Deception Island 179, 180 Deep Lake 342 Delahunty, A.E. 65, 66 dental fillings 19, 61, 221–2 dentistry, MO drills his own tooth 222 training for doctors 93, 221 Dept of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism & Territories (DASETT) inquiry into tendering for ships 400

N D E X

takes over Antarctic Division (1987) 396 Dept of Defence (1946) 10 Dept of External Affairs 132 bureaucratic dealings with Law 211–3 change of personnel 77 claims in Antarctica 169 Executive Committee formed (1954) 133 first planning committee 10 incorporates the Antarctic Division (1948) 67 nuclear waste disposal 183 ships for Antarctica 282, 284 territorial claims 19 transfer of Antarctic Division responsibilities (1968) 286–7 & Wilkes Station 190, 192 see also Executive Planning Committee Dept of Fisheries 10 Dept of Foreign Affairs 413 Dept of the Interior 174 Dept of Mineral Resources 10 Dept of National Development 174 Dept of Science, takes over Antarctic Division 289 Dept of Science & Consumer Affairs, responsible for Antarctic Division (1974) 299 Dept of Science & Technology 363, 364–5 Dept of Shipping 10 Dept of Shipping & Transport crew for a new ship 282, 284 Dept of Supply 10, 174 takes over Antarctic Division (1969) 287 diatom 489 Dibble Iceberg Tongue 244 Dillon, Iain 329–31, 333 ding parties 54, 215 Dingle, Robert 135 accepts ‘aerovodka’ 198

573

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

appendectomy 134 Davis Station (1957) 175–6 on food obsession 222 on Henry Brandt 198, 199 on 1953–54 expedition 104, 123 station duties 203 Dingo Dan (boat) 247 direction-keeping 253, 253 distance measuring techniques 159 Dixon, Lt Commander George 25 Captain, of LST 3501 21 Labuan 72 collects Stuart Campbell from HI 37–8 LST & rough seas 26–8, 34 outranked on MI 51 doctors, Australian recognised qualifications 78, 85, 87, 206 dental training 93, 221 medico-naturalists 60, 260, 262 recruitment of 304 women, wintering 443–5 Dålk Glacier 389 dog teams 161 accident, Napier Mountains (1960) 248 field trip (1954) 140 Southern Reconnaissance (1954–55) 140–1 to PCM (1956–57) 158–9, 159–61, 161 to Vestfold Hills 177 training 93 see also huskies dogs see huskies Dome C 472 dongas 346–7, 383, 394, 461 Donovan, Jeremiah (Jerri) 89, 131, 133 backs Law over budget 213 Donovan, Dr Kevin 452–3 Doutch, Fred 85 Dovers, Bob 20, 38, 53, 57, 141 as cook 57 illness & recovery 147 island 112

574

Weasel breaks through ice 108, 113 (1953–54) expedition 110, 111, 123 OIC 106 shore party 110, 111, 112, 113 (1954–55) at Mawson preparations for wintering 134 Scullin Monolith field trip 136–7, 138 Southern Reconnaissance 140–1 Dowie, Don 221–2 Downes, Max 87, 261–2, 264–5 Dowie, Dr Don 150–1, 151–2 drills, thermal 325, 345, 346 Du Toit, Carl (Charlie) 42, 42, 56 temperament of 61 uses local resources for meat 55 ‘Duckies’ see DUKWs ‘ducks’ see Walrus amphibian aircraft Duffell, Ken 117, 118, 126, 129 Duke of Edinburgh 170 DUKWs 51, 438–9, 438 code for 438 for cargo operations, HI & Horseshoe Harbour 142 for Davis Station 175 in gales, (MI) 86–7 Macquarie Island 338 supplied by Army for River Fitzroy 86 (1947–48) expedition 39, 42, 45 launching of on MI 43–4 (1953–54) expedition on Kista Dan 105 Dumont d’Urville, glaciological research 472 medical research 505 Dunlop, Warrant Officer C. 30 dunnies see toilets

Durré, Caroline 377 Dwyer, Jack 193 Dyke, Graham 163, 240 Ealey, Tim 260–1, 264 earthquake, MI 335 undersea volcanic eruption 429 East Antarctic Air Network (EAAN) 440 East Germany, krill studies (1977) 308 Easther, Rob 388, 389, 445, 449, 456–7 Eastman, David 29, 30 Economic Commission for Asia & the Far East agreement of Article IV, Antarctic Treaty 184 ecosystem, preservation of 499–503 ecosystem management regime, Southern Ocean 475 Edgeworth David, Prof T.W. see David, Prof T.W.E. Edgeworth David Base 387, 388 education see training Edward VIII Gulf 154, 156, 246 electric power 63 breakdown of generators, (MI) 65–6 Mawson 204–5 powerhouse maintenance 204 wind generators 426, 427 Elkins, Terry (Cheddar) 219 Elliott, Fred 125, 144, 237 Ellsworth, Lincoln 46, 126, 178 Else, Grant 494, 496 emblems see logos Emerson, Craig 414 Enderby Land 157, 175, 176, 205, 283 extent of mapping (1975) 301 field work (1974–5) 352–4 territorial claim 2 Engebretsen Capt. 89 Ennor, Sir Hugh 294, 295

I entertainment, chess 230 Christmas celebrations 21, 228 football 85 Mawson (1954) 122, 135 Macquarie & Heard islands 54–5 midwinter 219–20 pantomime 446, 446, 453 piano breaks loose 79 piano accordion 122 songs 117 Click go the Bolts 375 ‘Chain Block’ 160 (1940s) 21 see also parties; recreation environmental protection 416–8 see also Madrid Protocol Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) 460, 464, 465 equipment, condition of (1970s) 311 detonators & how not to light fuses 340 for Amery Ice Shelf party 323–4, 325 for magnetic survey (1954) 121–2 for Nella Dan replacement 396 ice-bound, Wilkes Station 191 & the IGY 177 lost in fire 204 meson telescopes 146 shortage of globes 202 used to remove iceberg 358 (1947–48) expedition 16–17, 20 (1953–54) expedition 121–2 Erwin, Dr Erb 420 Escudero, Prof. Julio 179–80 Esperanza (Station) 451 ethyl alcohol in melt water 325–6 Evans, Bert 197 Evans, Desmond (Pancho) 253

Evans, Sir Edward 219 Evans, Gareth 410, 413, 414 Evatt, Dr H.V. 12, 17, 103, 179 Executive Planning Committee (EPC) 131 Antarctic policies discussed (1949) 76–7 demise of 211, 278 & the IGY 174 siting of Antarctic station 103 (1947–48) expedition 10, 11, 11–12, 17, 48 (1954) Antarctic plans 132, 134 exotic species (MI) 336–7 expeditions, Heard Island 329–34 Bolingen Island (1955) 142 Southern Reconnaissance (1954–55) 140–2 Trans-Antarctic 151 Vestfold Hills (1955) 142 (1947–48) George V Land on Wyatt Earp 48–51 Heard Island 23–38 Macquarie Island 39–48 recruitment of expeditioners 15 rough seas 26–7 (1949) to Heard Island 71–2 (1953–54) 102, 106–31 establishing scientific program 121–2 funding 107, 131 Kista Dan returns 130 unloading stores on ice 111 Vestfold Hills excursion 125–7, 127 (1956–57) Prince Charles Mountains 157–61, 164–5 with dog team (1961) 249 (1959) Oates Land coast 233 food miscalculation 245

N D E X

(1959–60) first women members 229–30 (1962–62) Vostok Traverse 253–6 (1980–81) International Biomedical Expedition 506 (1994–95) Mawson–Davis–Maws on traverse 481 see also field work expeditioners, behaviour expected 216 duties of 214 interviews of 93 & midwinter 219–20 psychological screening 206, 217 reporting system 450–1 selection of, 216–17, 450 first woman scientist 455 radio operators 224 review of 451 see also Appendix I; training Explastics Ltd 120 Farrands, John 349 Faulkner, Jeff 95 Faulkner, Senator John 436 Fearn Hill 257 Felton, Sergt Kevin 240 Fenton, Dr Geoffrey 146, 265 Fenton, Peter 264, 265 feral animals (MI) 41 cats 336–7 Field, Jack 214 field work, air transport to Antarctica 348–9 Casey tunnel 346–7 Cosmic Ray Hut, Mawson 339–41 Davis Lakes 341–4 Enderby Land 352–4 evacuation of Roger Barker 351–2 glaciology 322–7 Law Dome drilling 344–6 Macquarie Island 334–9 Mawson’s Hut 354–6 Prince Charles Mountains 327–9

575

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

removal of rogue iceberg 350–3 rescue of Ian Holmes 356–9 see also expeditions Fiennes, Ranulph 482 Figg, Norman 84–5 films 215 Antarctic Man 505 Antarctic Summer 342 Antarctic Winter 342 blue movies 444 civilising effect of 229 outlet for sexual frustration 228 pornographic 446 The Last Husky 420 wildlife footage, Mawson 342 Firbin, Nicolai 184–5 fire, dangers of 195, 216, 268 field station hut (1959) 204 Macquarie (1959) 193–4, 195 Mawson (1959) 195–7 night watches 195 fire drill, 1947–48 expedition 19 fish, Antarctic cod 83 finfish harvesting 474 icefish 463 illegal fishing 476 Sea Fisheries Act & seals 195 Fisher, Morris 177, 228 flags 1, 2 flying protocol 191, 192 for route marking 250 Flanagan, J. R. 183 Fletcher, Prof. Neville 421, 424, 478 flying, civilian pilots 242 duration of flights (in Beavers) 155 hours flown (1956) 166 operational limits 157, 176 range of Beaver aircraft 176 twilight landings 155 see also air flights; air transport Foggydog Glacier 257

576

food, budgets 212–13 cut lunch explorers 328–9 fartable beans 269 hair pie 222 meat buried for preservation 55 miscalculation of quantity needed 245 penguin egg omelettes 56 resources in Southern Ocean 475 rotting galley scraps 90 seal liver 55 seal meat 135 Truegg 219 (1947–48) expedition 16, 17, 19, 44, 56–7 (1953–54) expedition 105 see also cooks food consumption (in food chain), in Southern Ocean 492–8 football 85 Forbes, Alastair (Jock) 94–6 grave 96 fossils 328, 499 Foster, Danny 253 Fram Bank 124 Framnes Mountains 115, 136, 165, 348 France, Article IV, Antarctic Treaty 185–6 & CRAMRA 410–12, 413, 415 & IAGP 471 medical research 505 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 supplies to 1953–54 expedition 108 territorial claims 2, 179 Francis, Lorraine 455 Franzmann, Peter 342 Frazer, Rt Hon Malcolm 299, 300, 307 opening of Kingston HQ 320–1 ten-year building program 321 unveils a plaque, Kingston 319 Frederisen, Capt L. 90, 91

Freeman, John 452 Fremantle, appendicitis drama 80 entertains expeditioners 26 repairs to Aurora Australis 435 repairs to Labuan 84 frogs (MI) 339 Frost, Reg 84–5 fruit trees (MI) 337 Fuchs, Sir Vivian 174, 482 fuel, airdrop 255 ATK 254 diesel, burns at Mawson 196 loss of drums (HI) 90–1 Macquarie Island 197 PCM expedition depot 158 Aerial Depot 154 refuelling from the sea 386 Special Antarctic Blend 501 transport of in cold conditions 254 (1947–48) expedition 19 (1953–54) expedition 108 fungi 500 yeast 509 Gadd, Trevor 337 Gadgets Gully 338 Gales, Nick 498 Gallagher, Mark 446 Gamma Island 179 Garden Bay 43, 51 Gardner, Heather 496 Gardner, Lin, PCM (1957–57) 157–61, 164–5 Gardner, Dr Zoë 298-301, 301 Garrod, Dr Ray 294, 295, 296 achievements & honours 296–7 Antarctic reorganisation 293 appointed Director, Antarctic Division 294–5 on women in Antarctica 302–4 proving flight to Casey 349

I retirement 316 Gay, Tim 440 Gendrin, Roger 329, 330, 332 generators, Lister diesel 63, 65 Gentner, Neale 498 geological history 499 geological observations from Kista Dan (1956) 150 geologists 11 Russian & Australian 471 geology 335 Heard Island 24, 59 Macquarie Island 40 Prince Charles Mountains 328 geology & surveying 266–7 geomagneticians 11 George V Land 48, 103 geosciences 425, 498 Geyson, Henrick (Hank) 251 Gibbney, Les 79, 96 Giddings, ‘Alby’ 203 Giddings, Ted 223 Gilchrist, Dr Alan 16, 18, 38, 61 biological research 60, 260, 262 excavates sealer’s grave 57–8, 56 motor cycle 20, 25, 32 on food 56 ‘slushy roster’ 214 succumbs to sea sickness 25 Gillham, Mary 229, 230 Gillies, John 305 girlie posters & photographs 446, 460, 463, 464 glacier travel 59 glaciers, movement of 323, 330 see also under Abbottsmith; Baudissen; Charybdis; Dålk; Foggydog; Gotley; Lambert; Little Challenger; Mertz; Ninnis Glacier Tongue; Sørsdal; Taylor; Vahsel; Vanderford glaciology 260, 265–6, 425, 498

Amery Ice Shelf 323 field work 322–7 & IAGP 470, 471–2 PCM 328 Gleadell, Jeff 135, 141 on 1953–54 expedition 106, 123 Gleeson, Kevin ‘Torch’ 269 global change 421 Global Change & the Antarctic (GLOCHANT) 485 Global Positioning System 323, 481 global warming 481 Globemaster aircraft 255, 255 goats on MI 53, 55 Goldsworthy, Lyn 409, 418 Gommesen, Capt. Wenzel 276 Gore, Al, US vice-president 415 Gormly, Dr Peter 325 drills his own tooth 222 Gorton, Senator John 227, 281, 367 Gotley, A. 28, 38, 38, 54, 56 altercation over sealer’s grave 58 Gotley Glacier 330 gravity observations & readings 236 from Kista Dan (1956) 150 Gray, Sqdn Ldr Robin 20, 50, 65, 66 Great Britain, first BANZARE expedition 4 see also United Kingdom Greater Antarctica 178, 114 Green, Sir Guy 376, 50 Green, Ken 326–30 Green, Roy 363, 364, 365, 390 Green Gorge field hut 335 Greenpeace 412, 416, 476, 502 Greenwich Island 179 Greet, Pene 455, 456, 456, 463 Gregory Bluffs 236 Grist, Kay 467 grog ration 55 see also alcohol Guiler, Eric 195 Gurevich, Dick 349

N D E X

Gwynn, Dr Arthur 123, 127, 262, 335 Gyspy Moth aircraft 1 Hall, A.W. (Bill) 145, 146 Hall, Steele 299 Hamilton, Stuart 431, 434 Hamley, Trevor 472 Hancock, David 385 hangar, built at Mawson 150–1, 151 Hannan, Frank 87 Hansen, Herbert 199 Hanson, Capt. H.O. 25 Hanson Atlas 123 Harrop, Gary 375 Harry, Ralph 231, 245 Harvey, William 106, 111, 117, 123 Harwood, Tom 193, 197 Hasluck, Paul 285–6, 287, 290 Hasselborough Bay 194, 197 Hasselburg, Frederick 40–1 Hatch, Joseph 193 Hawke, Rt Hon Bob & CRAMRA 414–15, 416, 417 on protection of Antarctica 415 Hawke, Hazel 404 Hayter, Alf 21, 45 Hayter Rock 45 health problems, broken leg 329–34 cerebral haemorrhage, Mawson 223 circumcisions performed 61 deaths see Appendix IV depression 85 & building design 314 diagnosis of a manic depressive 199 evacuation, of sick people 217 injured biologist from MI 351–2 fatal injuries 377 frostbite 30 Heard Island 61 heart attack 206 hypothermia 334 necessity for secrecy 199

577

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

poliomyelitis 208 psychiatric advice sought 199 psychological screening 206 sleeping tablets 129 tooth abscess 222 see also appendicitis; dental fillings Heard, Capt. John 24 Heard Island (HI) 24 (map) biological research 260, 261, 262, 264 discovery of 15–16 glacial travel 59 history of 24 ‘Hilton’ 54 observation studies 15 post office 35 postmark 19 proclamation ceremony 35 repositioning of 59 station closure 98, 133, 134, 146 (1947–48) expedition biology program 18 cargo unloading problems 31–2, 32, 33 field work 59-60 first operational year 52–66 LST landing 28, 29 search for main camp 29–30, 31 survey 59 wintering party relieved, (1949) 71–2 by MV Tottan (1952) 90–1 (1953–54) expedition 105, 107–8 (1971) expedition 329–34 (1992) biological program 426–30 Heath, Trevor 12, 13, 73 Helicopter Resources 435 Helicopter Utilities Pty Ltd (Hupple) 245 helicopters 232, 244, 245, 327, 348, 349, 352, 357, 358

578

advantages of 242 Bell 236, 350 crash near Vanderford Glacier (1960) 243, 342–3 Hillier 328 Hughes 500 328, 334, 353 in rescue of Roger Barker 352 long-range 433, 435, 435 Silorsky 176, 433–4 Squirrel 427 Hercules aircraft 284, 291 flight to Casey 349 slews off runway 350 Higham, Martin 482 Hill, Senator Robert 436 Hill, Shane 346 Hillary, Sir Edmund 482 Hindberg, Capt. Kaj 174 Hines, Ken 18, 63–4, 264 ‘hit & run exploration’ 232, 236 HMALST 3501 17, 21, 26, 32, 43 dips ensign 51 fracture mended 27–8 looses bow doors 25 repairs, in Williamstown 39 salt water in fuel 28 sets course for MI 39 unloading cargo, HI 31–2, 32 see also Labuan HMAS Australia rescues sick Doctor 79–80 HMAS Hobart rescues injured biologist 352 HMAS Labuan see Labuan HMAS Wyatt Earp see Wyatt Earp Hobart 39 Antarctic Division move 297–8, 299 see also Kingston Headquarters direct flight to Antarctica 442 River Fitzroy departure 86

seal meat industry plans 192–3 (1948) MI party 42 Hodgman, Michael 300, 307, 317, 475 Hoffman, Bob 418 Holliday, Dr Louise 443–5, 444, 447 Hollingshead, John, PCM (1957–57) 158–61, 164–51 Hollingsworth, Rod 223 Hollis, Colin 412 Holmes, Ian 312, 348 breaks a leg 329–34, 331, 333 rebuilding program 312–4 Holt, Rt Hon Harold 286 Homewood, Ian 287 homosexuality 220, 228, 446 Hope Bay 180 horses (MI) 337–8, 338, 339 Horseshoe Harbour 104, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 357 arrival, of shore party 114 blocked by iceberg 356–9 ice 118, 119 & Kista Dan 114, 118 site described 115 Hoseason, Dick 94–6 Hösel, Jutta 303, 303, 444 hovercrafts 301 Howard, Rt Hon John 436 & CRAMRA 413 Hudson, Ray 242, 243 Human Impacts Research Program 425, 500–1 Humanities Berths Program 377 Hupple see Helicopter Utilities Pty Ltd Hurd Point, earthquake (1980) 335 field hut 334–5 Hurley, Frank 193 hurricanes: (1947) Heard Island 34–5, 35 (1954) near Vestfold Hills 127–30 (1959) Mawson 207–9 (1966) 270. 272–4

I huskies 106, 107–8 accommodation, Aurora Australis 421 attack Kirkby 248–9 bored with deck life 111 born at Mawson 152 chronology, Antarctica 423–4 Davis Station (1965) 271 death of Mac, Dee & Brownie 164–5 donated to Trans-Antarctic Expedition 151 exploration & field work 249 food, pemmican 248 seal meat 122, 135 Huskies in Harness 420, 422 not honoured by ACAN 159 presence in Antarctica 411, 418–20 rescuing Brownie 161 & rock blasting 340 ruthlessly used 158–9 Snipe is killed 248 Streaky 165 The Last Husky 420 ‘turds’ appear as mountains in whiteout 154 wear boots 164, 164 see also dog teams Husky Dome 159 huts 428 AAE on MI 43, 44 Admiralty Hut 28, 30, 31, 36 ‘Apple’ 426, 427 at Cape Adare 502 at Lusitania Bay 86–7 Atlas Cove 37–8, 38 Biscoe 340 Brookes Hut 343, 343 Cosray 18 erection trial 93 Explastics 311, 504 ‘Googie’ 426, 427, 427 Green Gorge 334–5 Horseshoe Harbour 114 Jamesway, at Wilkes Station 191, 269 Law Hut 258, 305 Macquarie Island 44, 334–5

construction 307 Mawson’s hut 44 Mawson’s (Commonwealth Bay) 354–6, 355, 502 Mawson Station 120–1, 121, 135, 146, 315 ‘Melon’ 426 meteorological (MI) 47 NBSE 99, 106, 135 Platcha 412 Reid 391 Rumdoodle 240n Spit Bay 428 US signal corps 37, 37 (1947–48) expedition 16, 16, 44, 52–3 see also buildings hydroponic gardens 46, 292 hypoxia 154–5 ice, Amery Ice Shelf studies 322–7, 323, 349 brash 130, 137, 234 dangers of in polar conditions 93–4 drilling, Law Dome 325, 344–6 fast 110 movement 323, 471 on Kista Dan 129 sea ice, distribution & thickness studies 482, 483–4 travel on 16–19 sideways pressure to ships 113, 113 ice cap 168, 170, 249, 482 seismic soundings 267 ice cores 254, 471–2, 472 & CO2 in air bubbles 345 ice cliff behind Mawson 241 ice dome 316 ice grousers 249 ice sheet 168, 254, 483 ice yacht 122 icebergs 49, 143, 484 blocks Horseshoe Harbour 356–9, 357, 359 giant, off Kemp Land 323 Iceberg Alley 109 Icebird MV 356, 368, 369, 370, 433

N D E X

accommodation module 359–60, 375 bonus payment to ASS 369 diversion to Mirny (1984) 370–2, 389 living style 374–5 picks up Nella Dan passengers 383 rechartered (1991) 430–1 voyage (1984–85) 369–3 see also Polar Bird Ikeda, Tom 489–90, 492 Ilyushin aircraft 223, 223, 441, 442 Incoll, Phil 312–14 Ingall, Lindsay 95 Ingham, Susan 211, 229, 230 injuries see health problems INMARSAT 392–3 Institute of Antarctic & Southern Ocean Studies (IASOS) 476, 479 INTELSAT 393 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 487 International Antarctic Glaciology Program (IAGP) 470, 471–2, 471 International Biomedical Expedition of the Antarctic (IBEA) 505, 506 International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) 168 International Geophysical Year (IGY) 151, 168 achievements 178 Antarctic stations 172 (map) Australia’s financial commitment 174 extension of 178 nations involved 170 International Meteorological Organisation 11 International Polar Year (IPY) 103, 168 International Women’s Year 303, 304

579

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

ionosphere 169 recorder destroyed by fire 194 Irwin, Freddie 48 Ivanac, J. 42 Ivanoff, Peter 242, 243, 243–4 Ivanoff Head 244 Jacka, Fred 18, 20, 38, 53, 92, 273, 486 as anaesthetist 61 as peacemaker 58 aurora research 62–3, 264 biological research 263 checks out Windy City 31 ice drilling Law dome 345 & LIDAR 486 Mawson Institute 271–2, 273 plans for 272 on Law’s leadership skills 72 ozone measurements 178 Jacka, Jo 483–4 glaciology of Law Dome 345 movement of Amery Ice Shelf 323 Jacklyn, Bob 265, 339–40 Jackson, Andrew 356 & Bleasel’s appointment 366, 367 on heritage buildings 504–5 on opposition to minerals convention 405 on public opinion & CRAMRA 412 on the Madrid Protocol 417 Jackson, Dr John 343–4 Jacobson, Ian 383 Jagger, Bert 304 Japan, & IAGP 471 krill studies (1977) 308 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 JATO, rockets 65, 66 bottles 205, 205 Jayrow Helicopters 328 Jelbart, Jo 18, 38, 53, 83, 83 aurora research 264

580

catches fish 56 death of 83 Jennings, Tony 375 Jensen, John 357 Jenssen, Dick 471 Jessup, Senator Don 350 Jetty Peninsula 161 Johansen, G. 148 Johnson, Kevin 87 Johnston, Doug 155, 176 Johnstone, Gavin 341 Joint Intelligence Committee 238 Joint Management Review findings & recommendations 364–5 reactions to 364–5 Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) hearing into AD management 400, 421 inquiry into AD 391 findings & recommendations 401, 403–4 Jones, Barry, & ASAC 478 chartering of Icebird 374 funds for science programs 391 review of Nella Dan 389 scientific research for AD 387 Jones, Denise 458 Jones, Norm 17, 22, 38, 55, 56, 57 suffers from practical joke 60–1 Kalnenas, Dr Kostos 85–6 Keating, Frank 63, 64 Keating, Paul, opposes CRAMRA 412, 414 & Michel Rocard & CRAMRA 410–12 Kelly, Ros 431 removal of huskies from Antarctica 418, 419–20 Kelly, Terry 289

Kelly & Lewis mast 53 kelp 42 disables LCVP 45 Kelsey, Peta 455 Kemp, Peter 24 Kemp Land 2, 103, 157, 205, 283 extent of mapping (1975) 301 Kennedy, Peter 399–401 Kenny, Greg 440 Kenny, Ron 18, 42 Kerguelen cabbage 56, 429 Kerguelen Islands 73 (1947–48) expedition 16, 17, 25 (1953–54) expedition 106, 108 Kerr, Sir John 299 Kerry, Elizabeth 500 Kerry, Knowles 294, 482, 501 biology programs (1970s) 341–2 BIOMASS program 309, 489 horses on MI 338, 339 1985 378 monitoring Adélie penguins 497 on krill 309 penguin weighing machine 494 & rescue of Nella Dan 379 Kershaw, Giles 433 Kevin, Charles 77 Keyser, Dave 249 Kichenside, Jim 219, 240 Kiernan, Rob 482 King, Peter 46, 64 King Edward VIII Gulf field trip (1954) 140 food & fuel depot 154 King George V, HM 1 King George V Land see George V Land Kingfisher float plane 47, 50, 50 Kingston Headquarters, opening ceremony 320–1, 321 site 319, 319 Kirkby, Syd, dog team to

I Mawson (1960) 242–5 geological research 262–3 honours for Antarctic exploration 163 & hypoxia 154-5 observes optical phenomenon 153, 154 on buildings & isolation 314 on huskies 152 on Oates Land exploration 236 overcomes polio 162–3 PCM (1957–57) 157–65 rogue iceberg saga 356–9 Kirkwood, Roger 493 Kista Dan MS 100, 101, 102, 106–8, 107 arrives in Melbourne 104 description of 100–1 Heard Island 107–8 in Horseshoe Harbour 114, 118 in hurricane 127–8 in ice 109, 110–4, 113 looses steerage 128–9 sails to Scullin Monolith 122–3 voyage to Mawson, (1955) 142 (1956) 149–50 voyage to Vestfold Hills (1957) 174–6 Klekociuk, Andrew 486 Kloa 459 Knuckey Peaks 353 Kowalik, Glen 383 krill 488–92, 491 catch limit 491 food items 489 harvesting 308–9, 474 processing 491 the story of Alan the krill 492 Kruschev, Nikita 183–4 laboratories, Cosray, Mawson 339–41, 341 destroyed by fire 193–4 on HI 53 MI earthquake 335

see also buildings Labuan 80 breakdown & removal from service 82–4 relieves expeditioners from MI (1949) 73 & rough seas 71 Lacey, Rob 146 Laird, Norman 42, 193 Lake Dingle 349 Lake Ekho 508 Lake Lorna 257 Lambert, B.P. 258 Lambert Glacier 141, 149 (map), 166, 166 glaciology research 266, 327, 480–1 movement of 323 traverses (1994, 1995) 481–2 Lambeth, Jim 38, 59, 60 Land Ship Tanks (LST), described 23 in WW II 83 suitability for expeditions 8 see also HMALST 3501 Landing Bluff 324 Landing Craft Vehicle & Personnel (LCVP) 26, 29, 31, 45 Lanyon Junction 343, 344 LARCS 338, 359, 439–40, 438, 439 Lars Christensen Expedition 123 Larsemann Hills 175 bases 387, 388, 389 exploration (1955) 142–3 extent of mapping (1975) 301 Larsen, Hugo 276 Latham, J.G. 5 Laught, Keith 299 Lauritzen, Hannelore 382 Lauritzen, Knud 105 Lauritzen Lines 100, 105, 282 shipyards 104 Lavett, John (Southern Section, DEA) air transport to Antarctica 285 concerns over Dept of

N D E X

Supply 286–7 manning of new ship 282, 284 on ships 282 review of Antarctic Division 285 Lavett, Sub-Lt John 28 lands on MI 43 released from rocks, HI 33 Law, Nel 73, 79, 100, 303, 364 landscape painting 376 visit to Antarctica 231, 230 Law, Phillip 10, 18, 21, 73, 106, 173, 275 achievements & honours 275–6 air transport for scientists (1967) 285–6 ANARE Club 298 ANARE symposium 174 ANCA committee 256–7 Antarctic agenda under attack 131 appointments to AD, Acting OIC 67–9, 71 Director 92 Senior Scientific Officer 13–14 areas for exploration 132 as administrator 216 closure of Heard Island Station 102, 134, 146 Davis Station 175–6 European visit 99–100 falls when climbing 234 ‘hit & run’ exploration 232, 236 last ANARE expedition 274, 276–8 leadership skills 18, 72 negotiates charter of ship 105 on Australia’s presence in Antarctica 308 on Excutive Planning Committee 211 on selection of expeditioners 217 opposes AD’s move to Hobart 298, 317

581

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

personal relationships &: behaviour of expeditioners 453–4 Capt. Petersen 111–12, 116, 124–5, 146 Charles Kevin 77 DEA bureaucrats 212–3 expeditioners 216 officers & crew 117 staff 216–7 photographs Wilkes Land coast 149 plans for Australian ship 80–1, 102 psychological screening 217–8, 221 resignation from Antarctic Division 278 salvage of Nella Dan 384 scientific programs 134, 169, 262 development of 75–6, 259–60 & International Geophysical Year 177 Prince Charles Mountains expedition 167 research directions 267, 271–2, 274 sea sickness 47, 71 sealing operations 91–2 MI industry (1959) 193 sexual issues 227–8 267, 271–2, 274 uniform 214–15 Wilkes Station equipment 191 takeover options 190 (1953–54) voyage departure 106 funds for 107 Horseshoe Harbour landing 111, 113–14 Kerguelen loading of fuel and Weasel 108 Mawson Station naming 119, 119 scientific progams 107, 121–2 Vestfold Hills 125–6, 127

582

(1954–55) voyage manhauling sledge 143 Mt Henderson ascent 145, 146 Law Base 146, 387, 388, 391, 392, 441 Chinese activities 389 Russian activities 388 Law Dome 258 bedrock 346n glaciology program 345–6 (1970s) 471 ice core drilling 472 Law Islands 258 Law Plateau 258 Law Promontory 258 Lawrence, Joe 204 Lawrence, Tom 293 Antarctic affairs 287 naming of Casey 290 on biological scientists 291 on staff structure of Antarctic Division 291–2 Lawson, Peter 88 Lawton, Kieran 495 Leckie, Flt Lt Douglas 106, 107, 109, 112, 114, 127 Antarctic flight 148 & Auster aircraft 116 risky take-off 126 flies to PCM depot 158 & hypoxia 154–5 in Oates Land 231, 234 landing, West Bay 328 photograph run over Vestfold Hills 126–7 removes ice from Kista Dan 129 traumatic flight 156–7 Leckie Range 163 Ledingham, Dr Jean 307, 354, 446 Ledingham, Rod 307, 446 Edgeworth David Base 387 investigation of Mawson’s Hut 354–5 MI earthquake 335 Ledovsky, Andrei 182, 184 Lewis Island 244 library 215 Lichen Island 143

camp on sea ice 143 lichens 143, 341 Lied, Nils 87–9 assists in birth of huskies 152 Davis Station 176 on the virtues of huskies 249 Vestfold Hills 177 Light Detection & Ranging (LIDAR) 486 Lighter Amphibious Resupply Cargo (LARC) 338, 358 Lighthouse Service, crew for new ship 284 Little Challenger Glacier 95 livestock on MI 337 Loades, Don 289 Loewe, Dr Fritz 266 logos & emblems 73, 373, 373 Lonergan, Jack 316–17 Long, Capt. Thomas 24 Long Beach 331 Lorten Island 143 Lovering, John 478-9 LST 3501 see HMALST 3501 Luders, David 220 Lugg, Dr Des 74, 294 activities at Antarctic Division 210 on harassment in stations 466 on medical research 506 on shortage of doctors 304 Lusitania Bay 51, 86–7 earthquake 335 field hut 334–5 Lyons, David 367, 396, 397 Nella Dan salvage attempt 385 on CRAMRA 409 Macey, Louis E (Lem) 38, 112, 213, 294 ANARE Club 299 floating pontoons 90, 92 makes a seal deterrent 36 on leadership success 449 plays a practical joke 61 & radio aerials 53 (1953–54) expedition 106, 111, 123

I MacKenzie, ‘Jock’ 152 MacKenzie, K.N. 5 Mackenzie, Rod 289, 347 Macklan, Guy 354 Macklin, Eric 146, 283, 291 Macpherson, Hope 229, 230 Macquarie Island 17, 40–1, 41 (map) biological research 18, 261, 262–3, 264 declared a wildlife sanctuary 41, 193 evacuation of injured biologist 351–2 field work 334–9 first women expeditioners 229–30 first women to winter 304–7 geology & natural history 40, 41 laboratories destroyed by fire (1959) 193–4 livestock 337–8 meteorological station 11 naming of 40–1 & New Zealand 133 observatory studies 14 ozone measurements 178 resupplied by Kista Dan 105 Station established 42 storm moves fuel dump 197–8 upper atmospheric physics research 264 voyage of MV Tottan 92 (1947–48) expedition, field work 59–60 first operational year 52–66 landing of expeditioners 42–3 members 42 (1950) party marooned 84 tensions & illness 84–9 Macquarie Ridge complex 40 Mac.Robertson Land 2, 104, 132, 157 origin of name 257 site for proposed station 103, 104 MacRobertsons, suppliers to

1947–48 expedition 17, 118 Maddocks, Bea 377 Madrid Protocol 416–20 & huskies in Antarctica 418, 420 ratification 418n Magga Dan MS 236 carries helicopters (1960) 242 Nel Law on board 231 pilots loose ship (1959) 235 survey of AAT coastline 245 Wilkes Station party 189 Maggs, Tom 422, 465, 466 Maggs Peak 236 magnetic field observations 49, 125 from Kista Dan (1956) 150 Magnetic Island 125, 189 mail, first airmail to MI 66 long wait, for Davis party (1959) 189 Major, Gersh 42, 46, 65 Mallory, Rod 269 Manefield, Tim 261 Manning, Graeme 319, 320, 347–8, 363 Manning, John 349 manuals 340 field 334 operations 93, 214, 369 personal 214 Marchant, Harvey 488 effects of UV on phytoplankton 488 makes bookcases 320 on biota & climate change 487–8 on microbiology 508–9 Marchant, Ian 369, 370–3, 386 Marconi transceiver 36 Marine Plain 499 marine pollution & Madrid Protocol 417 markers for ice movement 323 marriage 302 first couple to marry in Antarctica 468

N D E X

first married couple to winter on MI 307 first married couple to winter on Continent 434 Law’s opinion on 220 Marriner, Alan 203 Marshall, George C. 179 Martin, Alan 42, 43, 44 Martin, Prof. Leslie 13–4, 17, 265 Maudheim base 99 Mawson, Sir Douglas 3, 5, 6, 11, 46, 134, 175 & ANARE 10, 76, 174 & ANCA 256 Antarctic plans 132-3 areas for exploration 132 BANZARE expeditions 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 death of 6, 186 postwar activities 10 power generator failure 204–5 Proclamation Island 1, 6 proposed new ship 81 retirement 186 revisits MI 41 sites for Antarctic station 103 survey of HI 25 (1911–14) expedition 132 Mawson, Lady Paquita & the Mawson Institute 273 receives tapioca from MI 44 Mawson (Station) 6, 9, 100 (map) commissioning ceremony 118–19, 119 cosmic ray laboratory 339–41, 341 dunny explosion 305, 305 extent of mapping (1975) 301 first wintering party 123 preparations (1954) 134–5 glaciological research 266 mother station for radio communications 170

583

T

H E

S I L E N C E

plumbing 315 powerhouse fire 196–7, 197 Red Shed 315 removal of huskies 418–20 rogue iceberg 356-9, 359 science building 313 scientific & exploration programs (1955) 146–7 transmitter building 313 unloading stores (1954) 118, 118 women doctors 445 see also buildings, huts Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research 186, 271–2, 273 activities & funding 273 Mawsonotrema eudyptala 59 McAulay, Prof. ‘Lester’ 265 McCarthy, Jim 77 McCarthy, Ted 49, 50 McCue, Clarence (Clarrie) 318 achievements & retirement 318 air flight to Casey 350 appointed Director 316–17 death of 318 management capabilities 365 on resignation of staff 319–20 McDermott, Dr Robyn 445 McDonald Islands 19 first landing 329–30 proclamation ceremony 35 McDonald, Mynwe (Mrs Mac) 92, 225–6 McIntyre, Sergt Hedley 204, 207 McIntyre, Sir Lawrence 284–5, 287 McKinnon, Graeme 327 McLeod, Ian 243, 267 McMurdo Station 285, 302, 379n, 486, first wintering women 447 flights to Casey 348–9

584

C A L L I N G

McWhinnie, Dr Mary Alice 447n, 489 meat, fresh (MI) 55 medical problems see appendectomy; dental fillings; health problems medical research 505-6, 506 immunology 507 medical tests (1947–48) expedition 19 Melbourne harbour regulations 90 Melick, Peter 395 Mellor, Malcolm 266 Menkshikov, Mikhail 184 Menzies, Rt Hon Robert Gordon 272 Menzies Government 421 Mercury (newspaper) plans for sealing industry 192, 193, 195 Meredith, N. 155 Mertz Glacier 49 meteorological observations 10–11 Meteorological Service 10 see also Bureau of Meteorology meteorological stations proposed for Antarctica 11, 17, 102 meteorologists 11, 499 Heard & Macquarie Islands 57 meteorology 121 Michelmore, Peter 271 microbiology 341, 508–9 midwinter celebrations 201, 219–20, 219, 453 Migot, André 106, 108–9, 119 Mikkelsen, Klarius 126 Millard, Dr Bob 352 Milne, Jim 422 Milton, Peter 412 mineral resources 260, 408 & CRAMRA 408–15 in the Prince Charles Mountains 245, 408 mining in Antarctica 408, 416–7 see also Madrid Protocol

Minnesota, home for huskies 420–1 Mirny Station 176, 199, 237 glaciological research 472 submarine pens 238 (1956) visited by Law 149, 170–1, 173 (1984) visited by Icebird 370–3 Mitterand, President 411 modus vivendi proposal 179, 180 Molodezhnaya Station 302, 353, 395, 441 Moncur, Rex 383, 432 achievements 432–3 Acting Director, Antarctic Division 399, 403, 407 appointed Director, Antarctic Division 408, 433 funding cuts (1993) 431, 423–5 (1996–97) 436–7 Madrid Protocol negotiations 416 negotiations over new ship 397-9 on Antarctic science 509 on harassment of women 464 on huskies in Antarctica 418-9, 420 on sex ratios in stations 467 rebuilding program 390 Monkhouse, W. 42 Moodie, Colin 68, 69, 268 Moonie, Patrick 257 Moore, Geoff 426 Moore Pyramid 328 Morgan, Frank 116, 117, 118, 129 Morgan, Jim 222 Morgan, Vin 472 Morris, Alan 412 Morrison, Bill 297–8, 317–8 Morse code 366, 170, 224 Morse radiogram 224 mosses 341 motor cars 25, 26 motor cycles 25, 32, 305

I on Heard Island 20 ‘quads’ & safety helmets 461 used to find Dakota 240–1 Mottershead, Geoff 42, 46 Moyes, Capt. Morton 443 Mt Cresswell 328, 329 Mt Gorton 236 Mt Hamilton 40 Mt Henderson 136, 145, 146 Mt Hotham 17, 18 Mt King base camp 353 Mt McClintock 249n Mt Menzies 249 Mt Meredith 240 Mt Olson 59 Muller, Prof. Konrad 5–7 Mulligan, Mary 224, 465 Mulligan, Richard 450, 451 Munro, John 194 murders 224 Murphy, Mick 240 Murray, Durno 341 Murray Monoliths 122 Murray-Smith, Stephen 377, 448 Myers, Paul 463 myxomatosis 336 names, huskies 159 procedures for naming 256 Nanok S MS 368, 443, 315–16, 316 Napier Mountains 153, 156, 246, 247 National Mapping 267 National Materials Handling Bureau 365, 367 National Radiation Advisory Committee 183 National Research Council 9 Naval Board, court martial of engineer 83 navigation 252–3 Nella Dan MS 343, 378, 384 Amery Ice Shelf field work 318 attempted salvage 376–7 beset in ice 281, 376–80 hurricane, Mawson 274–8 living conditions 374 & rebuilding program 315

resupply voyage 274 Sandefjord Bay 324 scuttling of 386 voyage to Commonwealth Bay 356 wrecking & sinking of 382–7 Neptune aircraft 205, 205 New Zealand 4 medical research 505 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 territorial claims 179 Newman, Alan 223 Nicholson, Bob 289 Nickols, Alan 324, 324 Nielsen, Kim 377 night watches 195 Ninnis Glacier Tongue 50 Noble, Venessa 467 Nodwell vehicle 324, 326 Norrie, Sir Willoughby 46 Norris, David 203, 204 Norsel 99 North Mountain 335 Norway, & claims to Amery Ice Shelf 132 negotiations over MV Tottan 89 planned stations (1957) 170 radio communication 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 stations 170 territorial claims 179 whaling 4 Norwegian British Swedish Antarctic Expedition 83, 99 Novaya Zemlya Effect 153–4 Novolazarevskaya (Station) 78n nuclear issues & the Antarctic Treaty 182–4 nuclear waste, storage in ice 183 Nuggets 335 Numbat Island 257 Nye, Harvey 202 Nye Mountains 153 Oates Land 2, 192

N D E X

exploration of 233–5, 236 gravity readings 236 oceanography 267, 425, 484, 484 research in the Southern Ocean 484–5, 487 see also BIOMASS Odile, Sister Mary 447n O’Donnell, Lt-Gen L. 440 Oeser, Oscar 217–18 officers-in-charge see station leaders oil drilling 408–9 one-celled organism 489 Onley, Les ‘Wacky’ 203, 204 Onus, Lin 377 Oom, Cmdr Karl 11, 20, 46, 47, 50 ordered to Melbourne 48 outranks Lt Cmdr Dixon 51 Operation Highjump 9, 103, 104, 140 optical illusions 153–4 Orchard, Bob 395 O’Rourke, John 101 Osborn, Nigel 352 Overseas Telecommunication Commission 224 Owens, Col George 218, 224 ozone measurements 178, 335 P&O Polar, consortium 398 construction & launch of Aurora Australis 404, 404 ‘letter of intent’ 397–8 negotiations over new ship 397–8 ship naming competition 399 packhorses 18 see also horses Pardoe, Dr Russell 223–4 Parer, David 328, 341, 394 Antarctic Man 505 Antarctic Summer 342 Antarctic Winter 342 wildlife films 342, 342, 344 Park, Cyril 86 Parker, Bob 463 Parker, Dr Des 290–1, 291,

585

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

292, 293, 352 Parsons, N. R. (Nod) 146, 264 parties, changeover 274, 276 & alcohol 448 midwinter 201, 219–20, 219 records (gramophone) for 20 Russian hospitality 237–8, 371–2 shipwreck, near Davis (1959) 188 Wilkes 200 Patterson, Diana 457–60, 460 Peacock, Andrew 413 Peak, Cmdr Peter 81 Pedersen, Bill 123 Pedersen, Capt H. Moller 235, 236 Pedersen, Capt Vilhelm 239 penguins 60 Adélie 110, 496–7, 501, 502, 502 being weighed 494 egg 54 eggs for omelettes 56 emperor 140, 342, 344 for oil 41 foraging ecology 493–4, 497 gentoo 60 killed by earthquake 335 king 330, 426, 429 macaroni 429 meat 55 on Heard Island 260 on Macquarie Island 40, 41 reaction to oil on sea 187 rookeries 140, 243, 342 & tourism 501, 502, 502 Perriman, Alan 96 Perseverance Bluff 335 personal relationships, advice on 214 altercation over sealer’s grave 57–8 between Douglas Mawson & Capt Davis 6 between Green & Vrana (HI 1992) 426–30 between Phillip Law & Capt. Petersen

586

111–12, 116, 124–5, 146 clique formation 218 during Lambert Traverse 483–4 Heard & Macquarie islands 57 in ‘troglodyte lair’ 326 international, Wilkes Station 200 Mawson (Station, 1954) 135 personal problems 225 personality problems 218 pressure & scrutiny of 446–7 see also behaviour; sexual relationships; homosexuality Petersen, Capt. Hans Christian 105, 247 aerial reconnaissance 109, 116 holds ice floes together 145 pulls Thala Dan off rock 188–9 relations with Law 111–12, 116, 124–5, 146 relief voyage to Mawson (1954–55) 142, 145 talks to Richard Casey 131, 131 petrels 56, 60, 336, 337 Antarctic 108 giant 336 snow 60 Petrov affair 170, 184, 238 Phaeocystis 487–8 Phillips, Dave 446 Phillips, Miss 211 photography, changing plates 160–1 copyright of films 93 of AAT (1946–47) 9 of Heard Island 30 training for expeditioners 93 see also cameras piano 54, 79 but no pianist 55 Pickering, R. 155 Pilatus Porter aircraft 328

‘pissaphone’ 305 plankton, for penguins 110 phytoplankton 342, 477, 508–9 Platcha 257–8 see also Redfearn, Harry Plimpsoll, Sir James 133, 212 Antarctic Division review 286 naming of Casey Station 290 Pocock, Ted 411 Point Cook 65 Poland, krill studies (1977) 308 Polar Atmospherics 266n Polar Bird MV 435n Polar Front 470 see also Antarctic Convergence Polar Medals 163, 276, 283 see also Appendix II Polar Schiffahrts-Consulting GmbH 398 Pole of Inaccessibility 170 pontoons 31, 44 inflatable 90, 91, 92 pornography 463 Port Phillip (passenger steamer), rescue bid to Heard Island 78 Porthos Range 161 Post, Adele 460 post office, Heard Island 35 posters, girlie 446, 460–1, 463 postmark, Heard Island 19 Postmaster General, & Heard Island postmarks 19 Powell, Alan 192, 194–5 Powell, Darry 475, 476 prayer book 96 pregnancy 451 Prescott, John 18 press interviews curtailed by DEA 130–1 Price, Gina 455 Prince Charles 320 Prince Charles Mountains (PCM) 141, 149 , 176, 205 exploration of 147, 154 extent of mapping (1975) 301

I iron ore 408 seismic soundings 267 (1956–57 expedition) 158–64 party members 158 (1961) excursion with dog team 249 (1969–74) field work 327–9 (1996–97) field program 437 ‘Princess Anne Mountains’ 153 Princess Elizabeth Land 17, 124, 178–9 prions 339 privacy, & building design 319 & communications 225–6 for expeditioners 54 for wintering parties 135 in sleeping quarters 346–7 Proclamation Island 1, 6, 103 ‘Project Blizzard’ 356 Progress Station 501 Prydz Bay 103, 175 psychological screening 15, 206, 217–18, 450 Public Accounts Committee see Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts Pyramimonas 489 ‘quad’ vehicles 461 Qantas 285 quarantine regulations, & huskies 279 & Macquarie Island 339 Queen Elizabeth II 117, 130 Queen Maud Land 442 Quilty, Patrick 317, 350–1, 470 Acting Director, Antarctic Division 350 finds fossils 499 on Antarctic science 481, 567 on ASAC 478 on reconnaissance science 225 on team science 462

US–Australian air transport agreement 350–6 RAAF see Royal Australian Air Force rabbits, Macquarie Island 53, 330 Radio Australia 226 radio broadcasts from HI 36 radio communications codes 225 from Wilkes Station 192 network for IGY 170 useless on Heard Island 330 radio masts, erection of 36–7, 53, 146 radio operators 57 selection of 224 radio transmissions 224 radio transmitters to track seals 497, 498 radioactive waste disposal 183, 260 see also nuclear issues Radok, Uwe 266, 470, 471 Radok Lake 328 Rae, Senator Peter 298 Raney, Dr Michele 447n Ratcliffe, Francis 262 Rathgeber, Dr Henry 13, 17 Rayner, Jack 133 Read, Peter 461 Rec, Dr Otto 87–8, 88 records (gramophone) for parties 20, 215 recreation 215, 135 canoeing 219 swimming 229, 220 see also entertainment recreation hut 240n Red River 335 Redfearn, Harry (Platcha) 257–8 Reece, Premier Eric 193, 195 Reid, Dr John 309–10, 318–19 Repstat 269–70, 289, 312, 281 budget 270 building of 288–9 naming of 289–90 tunnel 290 Repstat Design Group 269–70 research projects &

N D E X

international participation 469–70 see also International Geophysical Year Rhodes, Wing Cmdr Angie 467, 468 Richardson, Senator Graham 401, 407 & CRAMRA 410, 413, 414 new ship for ANARE 396, 398 Richmond (NSW), refurbishment of Auster 116, 117 Riddle, Martin 500, 501, 510 Rieber Shipping 396 Rieussant, Brian 289 Riordan, W.J.F. 22 risks, Auster take-off 126 extension of notifiable flights 153 finding aircraft landing spots 158 flying in winter 154–5 Lewis Island climbing escapade 234 of Antarctic life 93–6 of nuclear explosions 183 Roaring Forties 26 Roberts, Brian 122 Robertson, Claire 377 Robertson, Graham 493 Robertson, Sir Macpherson 257 Robinson, Hartley 198, 199, 200, 201 death of 202 grave 203 Robinson, Shelagh 226, 303, 303, 420, 444 Rocard, Michel 410–12 rock samples from Lichen Island 143 Rofe, Bryan 294 achievements 294 appointed Director, Antarctic Division 292–3 biology program 341 death of 291, 292 Heard Island 329 Rogers Head 29 Rogozov, Dr L.I. 78n

587

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Roi Baudoin Station 170 Ross Sea oil deposits 408 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Antarctic flight (1955–56) 155 Antarctic Flight for Mawson (1956) 148 Antarctic flying programs 239–41 Christchurch to McMurdo 349, 350 flights disbanded (1961) 241 Hospital 208 & JATO units for Catalina take off 65 photographic reconnaissance 9 provides staff for Austers 106–7 radio operators 11 reconstruction of Auster aircraft 120 wireless school 19 Royal Australian Navy 78, 282 rescue sick doctor 79–80 Royal Melbourne Dental Hospital 221 Royal Melbourne Hospital 87, 93 Royal Society of Tasmania 3 Royal Society of Victoria 3 (1956) symposium 174 (1992) symposium 276 Royal Victoria Aero Club 149 royal visit, takes precedence over Kista Dan arrival 130 Ruker, Rick 247, 248–9 Rumdoodle see under airfields Rusling, Capt. Roger 385–6 Russell, Don 411 Russell, Joan 460–3, 462 Russell, John 106, 111, 123, 141 Russia, finfish harvesting 474 stations 169 see also Mirny; Molodezhnaya; USSR Russian Antarctic Expedition 440

588

Russian Antarctic Program 430–1 Russians, geologists 471 give medical aid 199–200, 223, 223, 441 in Larsemann Hills 388 rescue Nella Dan from ice 379 Rutland, Prof Roye 424 Rutter, ‘Baz’ 240 Saddle Point 94 safety helmets 461 sailing vessels see under ships SANAE Station 395 Sandefjord Bay 324 Sandercock, Jim 207 Mawson powerhouse fire 196 rescues Hedley McIntyre 204 unscheduled ‘flight’ 207–9 Sandy Bay 335, 338 Sanifem 454 Sansom, Dr Julian ‘Sam’ 324, 324 satellite technology, & glacier movement 323 in Antarctica 392–5 survey equipment 472 Sayers, Jack 367, 425 on allegations of AD mismanagement 425, 430 on direct flights to Antarctica 440 on girlie posters 461–2 on LARCs 440 on tourism as a revenue source 503 & SCALOP 477 visits Russia 430–1 Scholes, Arthur 19, 21, 22, 38 sends unofficial messages 36 writes on bad weather, HI 28–9 Schulz, Guenther 369, 369, 398, 430 visit to Mirny 370, 372 Schwartz, Georges 106, 111, 123 Scientific Committee on

Antarctic Research (SCAR) 301, 308–9, 469, 470 scientific programs, ANARE achievements summarised 511–12 BIOMASS 309, 474, 489 direction & funding concerns 267–8, 272, 274 glaciology, Law Dome 345 & international participation 469–70 (1950s) to be developed 260 (1970s) new directions 308 (1980s) funds for science programs 391 (1990s) 425 budget cuts 431 (1994, 1995) Lambert traverses 481–2 see also Antarctic programs; biological research; cosmic ray research; geology; glaciology; International Geophysical Year; oceanography; Southern Ocean; upper atmosphere physics scintillometer 128 Scoresby Bay 154 Scott, Alistair 440 Scott, Capt. R.F. 3, 75 Scott Mountains 153 Scott Polar Research Institute 122, 471, 472 Scoble, Charlie 42, 44–5, 51, 53 death of 63-5 on ding parties 54 grave 65 Scroble, Marjorie 64–5 Scullin, J.H. 4–5 Scullin Monolith 103, 122–4, 137 field trip (1954) 136–9, 136 sea birds 470

I banding mutton birds 262 on Heard Island 60 McDonald Islands 330 research programs 230 see also albatross; birds; penguins; petrels; shearwaters; skuas Sea Fisheries Act & seals 195 sea ice see ice sea leopard, shot during field work 60 see also under seals sea-level changes 487 sea sickness 25, 47, 71 sealer’s grave, excavation of 57–8 sealing 473–4 by Norwegians (HI) 91–2 on Heard Island 24, 25 on Macquarie 40–1 industry plans (1959) 192–3, 194–5 & public pressure 193, 194–5 seals 470 crabeater 376, 378, 497 conservation of 474 elephant 24–5, 36, 47, 60, 265, 497–8, 498 liver for meat 55 Macquarie Island 334, 338–9, 338 research on physiology 363–4 fur (HI) 330 Heard Island study 426, 429, 429 killed by earthquake 335 leopard 44, 60 meat for, huskies 122, expeditioners 135 removal of appendixes 79 & Sea Fisheries Act 195 Weddell attacked by huskies 248–9 undergoes brain surgery 223 Seaton, John 148, 154, 155–6, 165–6 Seaver, Ray 106, 110, 112, 129 Seavers, Jim 249 seismic soundings 267

Senbergs, Jan 377 Serventy, Dr 262 sewage disposal, Law Hut 305 plumbing at Mawson 315 sexual discrimination 455 sexual harassment 462, 466 sexual issues 227–8, 461 sexual relationships men coping without women 227–8, 445–6 see also homosexuality Shackleton, Ernest 3 Shaw, Peter 127, 144, 145, 146 shearwaters 337 see also mutton birds sheep, birth of first lamb on MI 53 housed in Tottan’s bridge 90 Macquarie Island 53, 55, 105, 338 Sheers, Robert 311 Shevlin, James 441 Ship Building Bounty Act 397 Shipp, Eric 85 shipping & aviation options, (1960s) 282–5 (1980s) 379–80, 431, 433–4 (1993) 433–6 ships, bridge houses sheep 90 captains see Appendix III chartering 80–1, 89, 101, 281–2, 396, 430–1 cost of ships 81, 89, 292, 398 expeditioners’ access to bridge 27 Law’s view on Australian crews 101 name competition 399 new ship proposals 282, 387, 398 & tendering negotiations 100, 102, 282, 310, 395–9 one-ship option (1993) 420, 422–4 Akademik Federov 430 Aurora 4 Bahia Pariaso 412 Commandant Charcot 85–6

N D E X

Discovery 2, 4, 5 Discovery II 85 East Wind 281 Exxon Valdez 412 Gallieni 329, 331 Gotland II 369 Ji Ji 389 Kabarli 89 Kapitan Khlebnikov 503 Kildalkey 25, 28 Lady Franklin MV 377, 356 Lady Lorraine 383, 384, 385 Lady May, (barge) 290 Magnet 24 Mikhail Somov 379 Ob 208 Oriental 24 Patanela (schooner) 193, 194 Perseverance 40 Perthshire 79 River Fitzroy SS 86–7, 87 St Austel Bay 81 Southern Cross 3 see also: Aurora Australis; Icebird; HMALST 3501; HMAS Australia; HMAS Hobart; Kista Dan; Magga Dan; Nanok S; Nella Dan; Thalla Dan; Tottan, Wyatt Earp Shore Base (Norway) 170 ‘Siberia’ 150 SIBEX I & II 489 see also BIOMASS Simpson, Ken ‘Cagey’ 337 Simpson, Rod 375 Siple, Paul 2 skuas 55, 56, 334 sledges, ‘Nanson’ 158 see also dog teams; toboggans sleeping bags for photography 160–1 Slip, Green 426 slots see crevasses ‘slushy roster’ 214, 293 Smethurst, Neville 344–5 Smith, Dick 433–4 Smith, Geoff 270 Smith, George 12–13, 13, 16, 92, 93

589

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

ingenuity in finding supplies 74–5 Smith, Flt Lt Mal (Smithy) 30, 31 Smith, Warwick 436–7 smoking 211 Sno-cats see tractors Sno-Traveller 343 Snowtrac 325, 326 Somov, Mikhail 171–3, 237 songs 117, 160, 375 Sorensen, Capt. Arne 379, 382 Sørsdal Glacier 388 Soucek, Dr Frank 205–6 South Africa see Union of South Africa South Geomagnetic Pole 254 South Magnetic Pole 132, 254 South Pole 168, 170, 475 South West Bay 58 South-West Pacific Regional Commission 11 Southern Ocean living organisms & climate 487–8 monitoring food consumption 492–8 ‘Southern Reconnaissance’ 140–2 Southwell, Colin 497 Soviet Antarctic Expeditions 472 Soviet Union see Russia; USSR space research, IGY 177–8 Special Committee on Antarctic Research see Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research spectrophotometer (ozone) 178 destroyed by fire 194 Speedy, Leigh 18, 42, 264 Spender, Percy 1–2 Spit Bay 28, 29, 72, 428, 429 Spratt, Roy 290 Stallman, Suzanne 312 Standing Committee on Antarctic Logistics & Operations (SCALOP) 477 Starr, Jack 87–8, 88, 86

590

station leaders (Officers-inCharge), advice to 21 conflict resolution training 465 first woman 459, 460 mob-rule decision-making 462 role of 449 selection of 450 station managers 392 stations, closing option (1993) 431, 434 discussion of sites 103 duties 203 establishment & maintenance plans 100 establishment of permanent stations 81 IGY stations 172 international planned stations (1957) 170 living dangers 93–4 ordering of supplies 93 rebuilding program (1970s) 311–16 see also Casey; Davis; Mawson; McMurdo; Mirny; Molodezhnaya; Novolazarevskaya; Progress; Roi Baudoin; Syowa; Wilkes; Zhongshan Stefansson Bay 359 survey of 154 Stephens, Sarah 307 Stephenson, Dr Jon 174 Stinear, Bruce 123, 253 flight to Mawson 176 on Station regulations 214 proclamation canister, Vestfold Hills 177 Scullin Monolith field trip (1954) 136–9 Southern Reconnaissance (1954–55) 141–2 1953–54 expedition 106 Stinear Island 257 Stinear Lake 257

Stinear Mount 257 Stinear Nunataks 141, 257 STOL (Twin Otter) aircraft 302, 349, 433 Stooke, Laurie 39–40, 42, 43–4, 51 stores, loading & unloading 93 pilfering of 21 see also supplies Storer, William (Bill) 106, 123, 135–6 strain grids 323, 326 stress, on Heard Island 60–1 on Macquarie (1950 party) 85 see also behaviour; personal relationships; tensions Streten, Neil 437 Styles, Don 189, 199, 246, 270, 281, 283 achievements & honours 283, 301 airfield, Vestfold Hills 301–2 appointment in Antarctic Division 281, 284–5, 287, 292, 293 retirement 301 sub-Antarctic program (1949) 76 submarine pens at Mirny 238 Sulzberger, Phil 285 Summers, Dr Robert 135 buries fresh meat 134 on 1953–54 expedition 106, 123 performs appendectomies 134 Southern Reconnaissance (1954–55) 141–2 Sundberg, G. 148 supplies, airdrop 255 deep frozen for 30 years 158 ordering & buying 92 purchasing of 74–5 see also stores surgical instruments 85 surveying 146 in unknown territory 159 & Syd Kirkby 162–3

I survival training 93 see also training Swan, Warrant Officer Peter 30 Swan, Robert 103 swimming, midwinter 219, 220 Syowa (station) 170, 302, 395, 486 Taiwan, krill studies (1977) 308 Tame, Norm 47, 49 Tancred, Capt G. D. 256 Tange, Arthur 190, 201, 212 Tasmania, & Antarctic research organisations 479 Australian Maritime College 320 centre for scientific excellence 297 see also Kingston Headquarters Tasmania, Antarctic & SubAntarctic forum 509–10 Tasmanian Fauna Board 193, 195 Tasmanian Government & MI 41 Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery 377 Tasmanian National Parks & Wild Life Dept 337 Taylor, Bill 85, 86, 261 Taylor Glacier 201, 203 Taylor Rookery 140 Tegart, Greg 364, 365 telex 395 temperatures at Vostok 254 tensions, caused by personality problems 218 Mawson 222 on Macquarie Island (1950) 85 see also behaviour; personality problems; stress tents 331 for meteorological work (MI) 121 polar pyramid 454

territorial claims 3–4, 19, 178–80, 259 freezing of national claims 181, 184 suggestion for joint sovereignty 179 Terry, Jocelyn 226 Teyssier, Paul 95 Thala Dan MS 208, 484 carries women expeditioners 229–30 impaled on rock 187–9 marooned in pack ice (1967) 281 & rebuilding program 315 rescues injured biologist 352 re-supplies Mawson (1959) 192 Thatcher, Margaret 415 ‘The Burma Road’ 32, 34 Thelander, Dr Hugh 329–30 Theosophical Building 210 Thompson, Dick 86, 90, 92, 105, 111, 213, 234, 244 backs Phillip Law over budget 213 examines Wilkes Station equipment 191 practice climb 234 prevents Phillip Law from landing 123–4 relief voyage to Mawson (1954–55) 142 Thompson, John 101 Thomson, David 350 Thomson, Robert 253, 349 Tickner, Robert 392 Tingey, Bob 328–9 toboggans 122 OMC motor 324 skidoos 343, 459 toilets, dunny explosion 305, 305 Law Hut 258 not available for women 303–4 unisex 454 urinals 458 (1947–48) expedition 17 Tolstikov, Dr 237

N D E X

Tonkin, Grigory 182 toothpaste as grinding paste 63 Tottan, MV 89–90, 91 Tottenham store 19, 20 expeditioners help 74–5 huts 16 tourism 502–3 Antarctic flights 501, 503 & penguins 501, 502, 502 as a revenue source 503 ship-based 501–3 tractor train travel 256 tractors 93 Caterpillar 108, 196 Ferguson 155 ice-grousers 249–50 on Vostok Traverse 254–5 rescued from crevasse 251–2 rescues Beaver 208-9 runaway kills expeditioner 202 slotted 251 Sno-cat 174 Trail, Dave 249 training, education on EEO issues 464 & education for postgraduate students 479 for expeditioners 93 of station leaders 450, 465 untrained scientists (IGY) 177 1947–48 expedition 19 Trans-Antarctic Expedition 151 Transantarctic Mountains 499 Tranter, David 309 Treshnikov 238 trucks see DUKWs Tryne Peninsula 512 T-shirts 383, 440 Tula Mountains 156 Turner, Pip 467 Twigg, Doug 326, 393 Twin Otters see under STOL Udovikoff, Dr Serge 77–8 Union of South Africa, signs Antarctic Treaty 181 unions see Administrative &

591

T

H E

S I L E N C E

C A L L I N G

Clerical Officers Association United Kingdom, medical research 505 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 see also Great Britain United States, & Antarctic claims 2, 9–10, 178, 179 Antarctic Expedition (1957) 174 & glaciology program 471 & NAVSAT 471 Operation Highjump 9, 103, 104, 140 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 & United Nations trusteeship 179 University of Melbourne 13, 93 University of Tasmania 293, 479 upper atmospheric physics 260, 267 & LIDAR 486 uranium deposits 9 urination, in a blizzard 454–5 into a rain guage 62–3 US State Department, takeover options for Wilkes Station 190–1 USSR, All-Union Geographical Society 179–80 & glaciology program 471 nuclear issues & the AT 183–4 participation in IGY 180 planned stations (1957) 170 signs Antarctic Treaty 181 strained relations with Australia (1954) 171 & territorial claims 178 see also Russia UV radiation 488 Vahsel Glacier 330 Valette, Y. 42 Van Allen, James A. 168 Van Allen radiation zones 177–8

592

Vanderford Glacier 242 vegetables grown hydroponically 46 vegetation on Macquarie Island 261 vehicles, Soviet Kharkouchanka 460 see also barge caravans; bulldozers; DUKWs; LARCs; motor cycle; motor car; trucks; tractors; Willys Jeep Vercoe, Flt Engr 65, 66 Vestfold Hills 103, 124, 125–7, 171 (map) airstrip 380 Brookes Hut 343, 343 Davis Station 174–5, 343 exploration (1955) 142 raising of Australian flag 127 study of Lakes 342 visit by VIPs 412 Victor, Paul-Emile 99 Victoria Barracks see Albert Park Barracks Victorian Mental Hygiene Dept 199 Vincennes Bay 174, 188, 189, 281 Vinson Massif 249n von Bellingshausen, Capt. T. see Bellingshausen, Capt. von T. von Drygalski, Prof 24 Vostok 253, 472 Vostok Traverse 253–6 party members 253 Vought-Sikorsky Kingfisher float plane 47, 50 voyages, leaders & captains see Appendix III Vrana, Attila 341, 426–8 Walkabout magazine 177 Walkabout Rocks 177 Walker, Don 253, 256, 345 Walker, Stephen 377 Wallace, Seaman W. 49, 50 Waller, Keith 133, 169 Walrus amphibian aircraft 30, 31 lays an egg 30–1

wreck of 34–5, 35 Walsh, Ross 472 Wantenaar, Gert 445 Warn, Patti 297 wasps, European 339 waste management & disposal 417, 501, 504 see also sewage disposal water systems in Antarctica 470 Watt, Alan 77 Watts, Paul 292 Watts Construction Division Ltd 319 Wayman, Peter 78, 79 Weasels 99–100, 106, 108, 147, 253 break through ice 112, 117, 117, 137 burnt out (1954) 140 on field excursions 136–8, 141 lost on sea ice 139 on Vostok Traverse 254, 255 Prince Charles Mountains 159 runaway Beaver rescue 208–9 slotted 250, 250 weather, automatic stations 174, 244 clouds 62 collecting data HI 61-2 rain guage filled with urine 62-3 see also hurricanes; winds weather forecasting 102, 421 weather observers 57, 135 weather reports 61 Webb, Brett 399 Webb, Eric 355 Webb, Peter 499 Webb, Rowan 341 Webster, Senator James 299, 305, 349 Antarctic initiatives 310 & the relocation of Antarctic Division 299–304 Weddell Sea 104, 408 wekas 41, 336–7 eat concrete 337

I Weller, Gunter 260 Wendin, Anitra 467, 468 Wentworth, Bill 376 Wesfarmers see Westralian Farmers Transport Ltd Wessing, Annie 467 West Bay 328 West Germany krill studies 308 Western Australian Government offers & withdraws ship 89 Western Coastal Journey 140 Westralian Farmers Transport Ltd 100, 101, 105, 396 negotiate with Norway for ship 89 whales 470 whaling industry 3, 4, 5, 9, 24–5 licences 4 to finance Antarctic programs 7 see also Australian Whaling Commission Wharf Point 91 Whistler recorder 194 White, Catherine 467 White, Sir Frederick 76, 133, 284, 296 APAC Report 344 review of Antarctic science 307, 308 White, Osmar 238 Whiting, John 246 Whitlam, Gough 295 Whitlam Government 299, 300 Whitlaw, John 368, 370–1 ‘whizzers’ 225 Widdows, Ian 192 Wienecke, Barbara 493, 495–6, 495 Wilcock, A.A. 256

Wilkes, Lt Charles 153, 178, 289 Wilkes Land 149, 188 glaciological research 471–2 Wilkes (Station) 188, 201–2, 268-9, 268 equipment maintenance & repair 198 establishment of 189 exploration inland 252 radio room 203 takeover options 190–2 see also Repstat Wilkes Hard Times 269 Wilkins, Sir Hubert 46–7, 106, 126, 177 Wilkniss, Peter 402, 476 Williams, Dick 342 Williams, Dudley C.L. 282 Williams John ‘Snow’ 192, 198, 199 Williams, Dr Lynn 446, 447 Williams, Warwick 445, 447 Williamstown 48 Wills-Johnson, Graham 144 Willys Jeep 343 Wilson, John 326 Windmill Islands 174 winds in Antarctica 470 katabatic 151, 207 see also hurricanes Windsor, John 85-6 ‘Windy City’ 31, 33 Wireless Hill 42 Wirraway aircraft 148 Wombat building 313 women, dog handling 459 first to visit Australian station 229, 230 first wintering scientists 447n, 455 first wintering doctors 443–4, in Antarctica 229–31, 302, 443–68

N D E X

first station leaders 457, 458 in wintering communities (pre 1992) 447 lone, attitudes of 452–3 on selection committees 455–6 resistance to, by all-male stations 443–6 ‘tradies’ 467 urination in blizzards 454–5 Women’s Weekly 229 World Data Centres 178 World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) 484–5 Wriedt, Senator Ken 310 Wyatt Earp 10, 17, 20, 47, 47, 48 as an ice-breaker 49 commissioning of 46 cost of refurbishment 11 early history 46 leaves for Antarctica 47–8 ordered back to Melbourne 48 record speed 50 replacement needed 67 sails to Commonwealth Bay 49 X-Y-Z reporting system 450 Year of International Geophysical Cooperation 178 York, K. 38 Young, Neal 472 Young, Peter 79 Zhongshan Station 389, 459 zones Auroral 103 200 nautical-mile-zone 310

593

▲

KING PENGUINS AT LUSITANIA BAY , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (P HADDOCK)

▲

G REY - HEADED ALBATROSS AT P ETREL P EAK , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (C BAARS ) LIGHT- MANTLED SOOTY ALBATROSS CHICK, MACQUARIE ISLAND . (O ERTOK)

AND

▲

▲

W INSTON LAGOON S PIT, HEARD ISLAND, FROM MACARONI PENGUIN COLONY. (K GREEN )

▲

R OCKHOPPER

PENGUIN,

MACQUARIE ISLAND. (C BAARS )

▲

BLACK- BROWED ALBATROSS CHICK, MACQUARIE ISLAND. (C BAARS )

▲ R OYAL PENGUINS AND OLD DIGESTERS AT

THE NUGGETS , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (AAD ARCHIVES ) ▲

F UR SEAL AT MACQUARIE ISLAND. (T EVERETT )

▲

KING PENGUINS WITH CHICKS , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (C BAARS )

▲

E LEPHANT SEAL ‘WEANER ’ PUP , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (K BELL)

▲

R OYAL PENGUINS AT BAUER BAY , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (G J OHNSTONE)

▲

G ENTOO PENGUIN AND CHICKS NEAR E AGLE C AVE , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (G J OHNSTONE)

▲

E LEPHANT SEAL

AND ROYAL PENGUINS

, MACQUARIE ISLAND. (C BAARS )

COMPETING FOR BEACH SPACE

▲

LEOPARD

SEAL ,

MACQUARIE ISLAND. (C BAARS )

▲

S TILBOCARPA POLARIS — MACQUARIE ISLAND CABBAGE . (M PRICE ) KELP

IN B UCKLES

BAY , MACQUARIE ISLAND. (J B ENNETT)

▲

▲

THE ISTHMUS AND A MODERN ANARE STATION AT THE NORTHERN END OF MACQUARIE ISLAND. THE MORE SHELTERED WATERS OF B UCKLES B AY ARE TO THE LEFT. HASSELBOROUGH BAY ON THE WESTERN SIDE GETS THE FULL FURY OF THE PREVAILING WESTERLIES

.

(J HÖSEL ) ▲

ICEBERGS

AND FLOES IN LOW

DAVIS S TATION. (T BOWDEN)

LIGHT NEAR

▲

R EMINDERS OF A GRIM PAST — BOILING- DOWN VATS USED BY EARLY SEALERS ON

HEARD ISLAND. (G J OHNSTONE)

MALE EMPEROR

▲

PENGUINS HUDDLINGFOR

COLLECTIVE WARMTH IN SUB - ZERO

AUSTER R OOKERY . (K S HERIDAN)

TEMPERATURES AT

▲

▲

W ANDERING ALBATROSSES PERFORMING A COURTSHIP DISPLAY AT C AROLINE C OVE , MACQUARIE ISLAND. THE MALE, WHICH HAS LIGHTER PLUMAGE, IS ON THE RIGHT. (M CRAVEN ) THE NUMBER OF ALBATROSSES

DROWNED

ON LONG LINES SET FOR TUNA BY FISHING FLEETS AROUND THE WORLD IS THREATENING THE SURVIVAL OF THE SPECIES

(COURTESY G R OBERTSON )

.

A DOG TEAM IN FRONT OF MT KIRKBY , P RINCE C HARLES MOUNTAINS, 1956–57. (W B

EWSHER )

▲ AERIAL PLANKTON NETS ON MAGGA D AN , DECEMBER 1960. (COURTESY ISOBEL BENNETT)

▲

A LONGITUDINALSECTION OF AN ICE CORE SHOWING ICE CRYSTALS UNDER POLARISED LIGHT.

(D CHEESEMAN )

▲

A NODWELL OVER - SNOW

A BRISK

BREEZE AT

VEHICLE RETURNING TO C ASEY

DOVERS BASE

IN THE P RINCE

S TATION, 1972. (D L UDERS )

C HARLES MOUNTAINS, 1989. (R L EDINGHAM)

▲

NEL LAW , THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN WOMAN TO VISIT ANTARCTICA, PAINTING IN FRONT OF MAGGA D AN C HICK ISLAND, 1961. (P L AW ) ▲

▲

A RARE

SIGHT

— MAGGA D AN

AND

THALA D AN

IN MAWSON

AT

HARBOUR , F EBRUARY 1961. (P L AW )

▲

A B ELL HELICOPTER LANDING ON LEWIS ISLAND TO ASSIST WITH REPAIRING THE AUTOMATICWEATHER STATION, 1962. (J F IELD)

▲

HMAS W YATT E ARP BEING REFITTED IN DRY DOCK AT P ORT ADELAIDE, 1947. S HE WAS THE ONLY SHIP IN AUSTRALIA DEEMED CAPABLE OF REACHING ANTARCTICA. (P LAW )

▲

HEARD ISLAND S TATION, 1952 — RARE GLIMPSE OF B IG B EN. (P LAW )

AND A

▲

NELLA D AN AT THE ICE EDGE NEAR DAVIS S TATION WITH AN OBLIGINGLY PHOTOGENIC EMPEROR PENGUIN, 1974. (R BROOKES )

▲

E MPEROR

PENGUIN AND CHICK,

A USTER R OOKERY . (G ROBERTSON )

▲

S NOW PETRELS

NESTING IN A ROCK CREVICE .

(M PRICE ) ▲

ADÉLIE PENGUINS AT G ARDNER ISLAND, NEAR DAVIS S TATION, GOING FISHING. (M HESSE )

▲

P HAEOCYSTIS

ANTARCTICA IS ONE OF THE MOST ABUNDANT

OF THE SINGLE - CELLED PHYTOPLANKTON SPECIES WHICH FORM THE BASIS OF THE ANTARCTIC FOOD CHAINS.

(COURTESY H MARCHANT)

▲

ICESCAPE NEAR DAVIS . (R EASTHER )

▲

R ALPH ‘NODDY ’ FLETCHER TAKING A MIDWINTER DIP AT C ASEY S TATION IN 1976 — AIR TEMPERATURE MINUS 6 DEGREES C ELSIUS . (W BREEZE )

A TRACK

CARVED BY ICEBIRD THROUGH NEW ICE.

(J K ELLY )

MAWSON ’S HUT, BUILT IN ‘THE HOME OF THE BLIZZARD’ IN 1912 IS GRADUALLY BEING ▲

DESTROYED BY THE FIERCE KATABATIC WINDS .

(T PETRY )

▲

MAWSON ’S HUT AT C OMMONWEALTH BAY IS

A

FASCINATING TIME CAPSULE BUT ITS INTERIOR IS RARELY SEEN . IN

1978

AN

ANARE

PARTY

ENTERED THE HUT TO ASSESS ITS CONDITION.

DR MAWSON ’S

ROOM IS ONLY PARTLY ICED UP, WITH OBJECTS STILL VISIBLE ON THE SHELVES .

(R LEDINGHAM)

▲

F IVE MEN OCCUPIED THIS S PIT BAY , HEARD ISLAND, IN 1992. A LL FIELD CAMP AT

THE FIELD HUTS WERE REMOVED AT THE END OF THE YEAR .

(AAD ARCHIVES )

▲

W INTERING CAMP

AT

S PIT BAY , HEARD ISLAND. A

PLUME OF SMOKE FROM THE ACTIVE VOLCANO B IG

CAN BE SEEN CLEARLY .

A SAD

AND EXPENSIVE SIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 1988–89 SEASON .

▲

S QUIRREL HELICOPTERS

BEN

(K GREEN )

THE REMAINS OF THREE DESTROYED WHEN CARGO LASHINGS FAILED IN THE HOLD OF ICEBIRD IN HEAVY SEAS JUST SOUTH OF TASMANIA. (P G REET )

▲

MORNING SOLAR ICE CRYSTALS

PILLAR OVER

LAW DOME.

SUSPENDED IN THE

ATMOSPHERE SCATTER LIGHT FROM THE SUN TO FORM THIS SUPERB ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENON.

(R BUTLER) ▲

MEDICAL OFFICER LLOYD F LETCHER AT THE FOOT OF ICE CLIFFS NEAR

MAWSON S TATION, 1980. (S YD KIRKBY )

W HERE ARE THEY GOING, AND WHY ? ADÉLIE PENGUINS ON THE MARCH IN FRONT OF A GROUNDED ICEBERG NEAR DAVIS S TATION. (D CALDER)

▲

▲

E UPHASIA

SUPERBA

(KRILL) IS

THE WORLD’S

MOST ABUNDANT CRUSTACEAN AND FORMS THE STAPLE DIET OF MANY SEALS , WHALES , FISH , SQUID, PENGUINS AND OTHER SEABIRDS

(S NICHOL) ▲

W EDDELL SEAL AND PUP , LONG F JORD , VESTFOLD HILLS. (D CALDER)

.

▲

AERIAL VIEW, NORTHERN P RINCE C HARLES MOUNTAINS. (M CORRY )

▲

F ROZEN

, V ESTFOLD HILLS. (D CALDER)

LAKE SURFACE

▲

THE WATER IS SO CLEAR IT LOOKS LIKE AIR. ANITRA W ENDIN AND P AUL BUTLER DIVING INSIDE AN ICE CAVE IN C HAOS G LACIER NEAR DAVIS S TATION IN THE SUMMER OF 1990–91. S HORTLY AFTER THEY EMERGED FROM THE WATER THE CAVE COLLAPSED . (M LUDGATE)

J AN S ENBERGS ’ MAWSON , PAINTED IN 1987, RESEMBLES A GIANT ▲

CRAB WITH AN INDUSTRIAL CARAPACE PRECARIOUSLY CLINGING TO THE COASTAL EDGE OF THE

ANTARCTIC ICECAP . ▲

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING ANTARCTICA. V OYAGE II WAS PAINTED BY J AN

AT

S ENBERGS

FOLLOWING HIS

VOYAGE SOUTH AS A GUEST ARTIST ON THE

ANTARCTIC DIVISION’S HUMANITIES BERTHS P ROGRAM IN 1987.

G LACIOLOGICALTRAVERSE VEHICLES FROM C ASEY S TATION PAUSE BRIEFLY AT THE ANTARCTIC C IRCLE IN 1993. I N SUB - ZERO TEMPERATURES THE WEAK , LOW SUNLIGHT IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO MELT THE ICE ON THE REAR OF THE DISTINCTIVELY SHAPED R OYAL MELBOURNE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (RMIT) FIELD CARAVAN . (D MONSELESAN )

▲

MORNING LIGHT AT MACEY ISLAND, NEAR AUSTER R OOKERY , MAC . R OBERTSON LAND. (K S HERIDAN)

▲

▲

LOOSE

SNOW GATHERED BY THE WIND IS

BLOWN AROUND TO FORM SNOW BALLS ON THE

MAWSON S TATION. (K S HERIDAN)

SEA ICE NEAR

▲

DR LOUISE HOLLIDAY, THE FIRST ANARE WOMAN TO WINTER ON THE CONTINENT, EXPLORING ICE CLIFFS BEHIND THE V ESTFOLD HILLS, 1981. (COURTESY LOUISE HOLLIDAY)

▲ DURING THE LAMBERT TRAVERSES OF 1994–95, AN ACCUMULATIONMEASUREMENT CANE IS CHECKED EVERY 2 KILOMETRES. E VERY 30 KILOMETRES AN ICE MOVEMENT

STATION WITH A MEASURING POLE ALLOWS THE GLACIER SPEED AND FLOW TO BE MEASURED TO THE NEAREST MILLIMETRE.

(D CALDER) ▲

MEASURING

THE HEIGHT OF SNOW

ACCUMULATIONIN A BLIZZARD DURING A SURVEY OF THE LAMBERT

(M CRAVEN )

BASIN.

▲

A BRILLIANTAURORA OVER DAVIS S TATION, 1980. (P MURRELL) ▲

THE ULTIMATEWHITE NEWLYWEDS IN FRONT OF AN ICE CAVE NEAR DAVIS S TATION, 1994. F ROM LEFT: MICHAEL C ARR (S TATION LEADER ), KERRIE S WADDLING (BRIDESMAID ), DENISE J ONES (BRIDE), COLIN BLOBEL (GROOM), HELEN C OOLEY (‘BEST WOMAN’). (GARY W ATSON, COURTESY C B LOBEL) WEDDING.

▲

E MPEROR PENGUINS IN FRONT OF AURORA AUSTRALIS . (P G REET ) IN THE SPRING

OF

1994 AURORA

▲

AUSTRALIS BROKE INTO THE FAST ICE NEAR DAVIS S TATION TO CARRY OUT THE FIRST MAJOR RESUPPLY OF AN

ANARE P REVIOUSLY

STATION OVER SEA ICE. BARGES HAD BEEN USED IN

OPEN WATER LATER IN THE SEASON .

(D CALDER)

▲

DAVIS S TATION — OLD AND NEW . (MIKE R EID)

▲

TWIN- ENGINED S76

HELICOPTERS BEGAN FLYING BETWEEN

ANARE STATIONS (D C ALDER)

IN 1994.

▲

THE NEW C ASEY S TATION, 1994. (K BELL)

▲

A B ELL HELICOPTER EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN COAST OF OATES LAND, 1962. (AAD ARCHIVES ) ▲

TWIN- ENGINED S76 HELICOPTERS RESUPPLYING MACQUARIE ISLAND FROM AURORA AUSTRALIS , 1994. (P W OOD)

▲

AURORA AUSTRALIS

IN THE SEA ICE NEAR DAVIS WITH AN AURORA APPROPRIATELY OVERHEAD .

(IAN ALLISON) F RAGMENTED

FAST ICE, GROUNDED ICEBERGS AND A DISTANT A URORA

(COURTESY R E ASTHER )

AUSTRALIS IN P RYDZ BAY .

▲

The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947-97

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Nazi Bases in Antarctica

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The calling

Song in the Silence

The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947-97

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica

Nazi Bases in Antarctica

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The Calling

The calling

Song in the Silence

Recommend Documents