The following program is dedicated to all of
those who served down on the ice of Antarctica
and the CBs who built the bases. Live from the
Veterans Radio Studios and the Ave Maria Network
in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is Veterans Radio.
And now, here's your host for today's program,
former CB, Gary Lilley. And good morning out
there around the world. Welcome to Veterans Radio.
We've got a great program lined up today. It's
going to be funny. It's going to be interesting.
I've already learned so many things I didn't
know about. Operation Deep Freeze down on the
ice shelf of Antarctica. Ooh, close skies. And
Antarctica, is that a continent of all ice? Does
it actually have ground under it? It's got volcanoes
under it. Yes, not under it, sticking up. Active
volcanoes. Okay. Yeah, there was dirt down there.
I want to know all about Antarctica. I know nothing.
Bob Gould. Right here is Bob Gould. Yes, here
we are. 101st Airborne. 101 and to all my brothers
and sisters out there, my military brothers and
sisters. Welcome to Veterans Radio. And over
there in the control booth, we've got Matt running
things, keeping them running smoothly. Matt Doerr,
good morning. Good morning. And sitting right
next to you is Kai. Good morning, Kai. Morning,
everybody. It's nice to be here. It's good to
have you here, Kai. Fun listening to you this
morning, practicing your announcements on the
air. Oh, he's doing great. He is. He is. I like
the heck out of him. Hit him on the shoulder,
push him out of the way. And you know why I'm
not afraid of pushing you out of the way, Kai?
You wouldn't hit an old man, would you? He's
not answering. No. We have a lot of fun with
those guys. They're really good guys, Matt and
Kive. What a blessing. Bob, we've got this program
lined up. We're going to have Bill George and
Dale Cockrell. There were two CBs wintered over
on the ice down in I think it was 67. I'll find
out for sure. And right now though, you've gone
through something that I just... We want to get
the message out, and it has to do with your health.
Oy, oy, okay. I'll make this very quick. I have
a debilitating serious illness that has to do
with a lot of pain, etc. And I was in the VA
system, and the VA system is wonderful, wonderful
healthcare, but it's protocol, yes, by the numbers.
And for the last six months, they weren't misdiagnosing.
They were missing the treatment modality because
I still had tremendous pain, etc. The point I'm
making is that I went out and did the research
myself. And it was one sentence that I found
in the research looking on the internet. You
bought a book. I bought a book. I bought a book
from the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association, studied
it, and I found that sentence. And I am now on
the road to recovery because I did something
about it. through my own dentist and it's made
a significant difference. The point I want to
make is that I went out and did the research.
So, folks, when you're dealing with the VA, don't
be afraid to ask questions. When you're dealing
with any medical situation, because we have a
member of our Vietnam Veterans of America chapter
310, Don, about four years ago was given 18 months
to live and he was sick looking. And he didn't
accept that. He said, I'm going to find out if
there's anything I can do. He researched it,
found different things he could do to change
his lifestyle, got rid of all the fillings in
his teeth, the mercury fillings, made other changes
in his life. It's been four years. He's healthier
looking than I've ever seen him. Don't just listen
to the doctors. I'm not saying anything bad about
the doctors. Do your own research. and get involved.
And ask questions. Absolutely. I actually had
the guy sit down. Oh yeah. He was a big time
board certified neurologist and he's standing
up looking down. I mean, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Have a seat. Eyeball to eyeball. Yeah, this man's
not military obviously. Eyeball to eyeball. Yeah,
good for you. And speaking of eyeballs, I see
life in your eyes that hasn't been there for
a long time. Okay, we got something really good
coming up. And from Veterans Radio to all of
you troops coming home, welcome home. And we're
back on Veterans Radio and for those of you who
are looking for the webcast due to technical
difficulties, we don't have it today. Had all
sorts of great photographs and the Navy artists
that documented the building of Little America.
What a shame we can't show them to you folks,
but boy did I have fun looking them up. Little
America, Operation Deep Freeze. And our guest
today will be talking about wintering over on
Operation Deep Freeze. We have Bill George on
the line and Dale Cockrell, two CBs. And I just
want to say to you first, Bill, good morning
and welcome to Veterans Radio. Good morning,
Gary. Good morning. And Dale Cockrell, good morning
to you too. Glad to be here. Well, I'm glad to
have you here. I've known Bill for a number of
years and heard his stories about Being over
on the ice, I haven't met you, Dale, but I'm
interested in hearing your stories. A lot of
them are dramatic and a lot of them are the hard
work that CBs do. I know that from my own experience,
but also a lot of them are very, very funny.
First off, Bill, tell us what is Operation Deep
Freeze? Operation Deep Freeze was an agreement.
I believe I started with an international agreement
in 1957. where the certain amount of communities,
national communities, agreed to have saved the
continent of Antarctica for scientific research.
And the reason that we were there for the United
States was basically the CBs were there to support
the civilian scientists in their scientific research.
And so we took care of the issues of providing
them with transportation, roads, anything they
would need in the way of food, shelter, water,
that type of thing. Big operation. The main base
that Dale and I were located at was McMurdo.
And McMurdo was the main supply base for the
continent. And so in the summer months, which
ran from October till about the 1st of March,
our population there was probably somewhere between
1 ,200 and 1 ,300 people. Go ahead. But after
the last plane left in March, then our population
dropped to about 180. So that sort of gives you
an idea of where we were at and the size of our
operation. Dale, what was the difference in the
populations, the summer population of 1200 to
the winter population of 180? For the summer
population, you never really got to know anyone
other than the people you worked directly with.
In the winter, You got to know everybody and
through that experience, some long lasting friendships
have been developed or were developed at that
time. As a matter of fact, you guys are on a
reunion right now of Operation Deep Freeze people
or was it just for your year? It's just for the
Winter Over 6970 group. We wouldn't turn anybody
away if they wanted to come and join us, but
it's primarily for the Winter Over group that
we were with. As a matter of fact, I understand
you guys ran into somebody on the street who
was just a real fan of Operation Deep Freeze,
and when he met you guys, you invited him over
to sit and socialize. Did he show up? As a matter
of fact, last night I was not here, but he did.
I heard from some of my other friends that were
here he got himself into our hotel and he come
up and I guess he introduced him to a couple
of people and he was just infatuated with Antarctic
so you know eager guy wanted to talk to people
who had been there and he had not been there
he was just a guy that liked to read about it
it was it was funny he he would be a primary
guy who would volunteer to go there he was just
interested in the place that's good thing to
know all about it We've all met those kinds of
people and they're really fun to be around. The
difference in the thousand population though,
were those all scientists, the people that went
home? No, not necessarily. Some of them were
what we call summer support. They were attached
to the Antarctic sport activity summer support
group and they would come down for the summer
season only and they would make multiple trips
south. Whereas the people who wintered over,
we were in Detachment Alpha, which was designated
for winter over, and we were there for the year.
After the year was up, we would either get orders
for another duty station or get out, whichever
the case might have been. What's the purpose?
Now, this is military ground or military base,
but it's not for military use, is that right?
That's correct. Okay, Dale, right. What do they
study down there? What are they trying to learn?
Do you have any idea, Dale? The year that we
were there, the big news was they had a place
they were researching called Dry Valleys. I think
Dry Valleys was maybe about 50 miles away from
McMurdo. They ran the helicopters out there quite
a bit. scientists would go out there. The unique
thing about it was it was a section of Antarctica
that had very little snow or ice. The climate
in Antarctica is often described as a desert
climate because there's so little actual precipitation
that falls out of the sky. In fact, they've made
comments that they get less precipitation a year
than some of the major deserts in the world.
The snow that's there, when the wind picks up,
sometimes in excess of 100 miles an hour, then
it picks up the snow off the plane and blows
it. So there's Dry Valley was a place where they
could actually get right down to soil and rock.
And I think that the year that we were there,
we were there in 69 and 70. And the year we were
there, they found fossils of tropical plants.
And so they knew that it had It had determined
that at one time the area of Antarctica probably
was tropical and either because of continental
drift or if the earth had shifted poles, something
had happened that changed, obviously, changed
the climate. Bill, when you got orders for Antarctica,
was this something you volunteered for or the
military said, hey, guess where you're going?
You both have different stories there. You know,
I'll tell you with me, my company commander,
we were getting out of boot camp and we were,
what you would call, we were volunteers. But
when there were 32 of us out at Gulfport and
they told us that they said, you know, we're
going to have a little guessing game here. We're
going to let you guess where you're going. And
they said, all we're going to hint to you is
you're going south. And this was during the Vietnam
thing. We're all perking up because we thought
we were going somewhere down close to the equator,
you know? And so each time we would guess a base
that was south, he'd say, further south. And
finally somebody asked, was it Australia? And
he said, no. And at the time, with me being a
young kid, I didn't think there was anything
south of Australia. I thought Australia was about
the bottom of the world. I found out that wasn't
the case. That's a long way south of Australia,
isn't it? Yeah. It gets colder and colder. Now,
Bill, how did they ship you there? By ship or
by airplane? You know, we went by airplane. The
ASA is called Antarctic Support Activity. They
flew, I believe it was six C -130 Hercules and
they had two troop transform planes that were
the old TWA constellations, I think the number
was the C121. And so from Davisville, Rhode Island
to the ice, I flew one of the constellations
and it was 52 hours flying time. Sometimes we'd
look out the window and we'd swear the geese
were flying faster than us. Was that the super
constellation, the double -decker plane? No,
there wasn't a double becker, but they referred
to it as the constellation and had the triple
tails on the end of it. Everybody knew what they
were. Oh, yes, yes, yes. They were a very reliable
plane. Right. But as technology moved on, they
got slower and slower. I've interviewed guys
that were the listening posts that they would
fly off of China and fly off of the Soviet Union
and such and listen in on their transmissions
in those super constellations. I was stunned
when I heard that they were 32 hour flights and
all that, but you're saying it was a 52 hour
flight? Well, you know, actually what it was
was 52 hours flying time. We would hop. We hopped
across the United States, then we hopped to Hawaii,
then from Hawaii we went to New Zealand which
was about a 24 hour run but they would stop in
the American Samoas to refuel. Total flying time
was 52 hours. Oh heck, I got you beat. That took
us three days to get to Vietnam in this old four
-engine C -118 that leaks more oil than a well
could produce in a day. You learn how big the
ocean is when you're in a plane like that, don't
you? That's the truth. There's nothing to do.
Everybody had books. They were reading books
because you just sit there and the engines were
just thrown on and there was nothing to see.
Who was I talking to just now, Bill or Dale?
That was Bill. Okay. You guys sound a lot alike.
Bill, when you looked down at the ocean, did
you start seeing ice down there at some point?
Well, when I was flying from New Zealand into
McMurda, I was in the Hercules and there was
no window, so I presumed that if you were looking
out a window, you would... eventually saw ice.
I think I slept most of the way, I'm not sure.
They've got airstrips down there on Antarctica.
Did you guys either of you work on the airstrip?
That was one of my primary jobs. The sea ice
was to go out and measure the density of it and
the thickness of it so we could determine if
it was still safe. What's the biggest plane that
they can bring in on that airstrip on the ice?
C5s have been in there. How big are they? Big.
It's the largest airplane in our inventory, ours
being the US. I am not sure the tonnage of it,
but they are mammoth. Literally, you can stand
up in the engines, right? Oh yeah. They're big
enough that they can take an M1 Abrams tank and
still have room left over. And this airstrip
is pure ice. Right. Pure ice. Well, yes and no.
If you get out on the Ross Ice Shelf, there's
covered with snow. But there's one on the sea
ice. Gary, let me elaborate a little bit on that.
I worked out at the airstrip during the summer
when it was operational. And we had a blue ice
runway, which was on annual ice. And we had a
skiway, which was on glacial ice. And the Hurks
used the skiway. and the wheeled airplanes used
the annual ice. And we had to stop using the
blue ice runway, I think around the 1st of December
was it there? Yeah, around the 1st of December.
Right around, because the ice would get down
too thin. And Dale might know this, there was
a certain thickness specification when it got
under that thickness, they stopped landing the
planes on the blue ice runway. And then we would
only use the ski ways, which was for the herp.
So if you can picture this, McMurdo sat on a
volcanic island, which was volcanic rock. But
where it sat, there was a glacier met with the
sea. So you had three entities there. You had
annual ice that went out most years. You had
the glacier ice that slowly moved toward the
annual ice. And then you had land which was where
McMurdo was built. And this whole thing, the
airstrip, which was Williams Field, was approximately
five miles out on the glacier away from McMurdo,
if you can picture that. And the roads that we
had sort of formed a large circle. You'd come
out of McMurdo, you'd come out to Williams Field,
and there'd be the skiway. And then you'd come
to the Blue Ice, the annual ice runway, and the
road would take you back to McMurdo. So if you
can picture that type of situation. So the planes
that came in, they weren't strictly on skis.
They were wheeled aircraft, were they? Yes, they
were wheeled. C -130s were ski -equipped. The
Super Connies, they were wheel -equipped. They
had 141s that came in, brought supplies in. They
were wheeled. And all of them landed on ice.
All of them landed on ice. It had to be smoother
than a hockey rink. It could get rough. So they
sent good pilots out there. Towards the end of
the summer season, the sea ice started developing
ridges in it. The density of it started deteriorating
and it got to where it was not supposed to land.
When it started losing its thickness, they stopped
using it. How thick would that be, Dale? The
thickest I ever measured was about 13 feet, and
toward the end of the use, it was down to about
5 feet. It had a lot of air pockets in it, so
it was deteriorating, both in thickness and in
density. Bill, that brings up a point. In the
early days, there were some accidents. How were
those airstrips named? Well, Williams Field was
named after an equipment operator by the name
of Carl Williams and Carl Williams lost his life.
They were offloading a ship. The ship had come
in and they were offloading on the ice and Carl
Williams ran a dozer, a caterpillar dozer. Usually
they had 20 tons sled capacity. They could handle
20 tons. Kyle Williams, unfortunately, they had
a fault in the ice at one place, and they had
done some work on it with putting wood bridges
in to sort of spread out the weight. But in his
particular case, he had crossed this bridge,
and his dozer had gone across it okay, but the
sled he was pulling when he hit the snow bridge
broke through and then pulled him in backwards.
The situation, I don't know if it's changed any
now, but then it's hard to imagine with water
that cold, it was pretty much, if you went into
the water, there was no saving. People have asked,
you know, could maybe have forgotten this guy
or whatever, but Perales, the water was so cold
that Perales would sit in almost instantly. So
if you hit that sea water, you know, for any
reason, whatever you went in, and in his case,
being inside that dozer, you know, it happened
so quick, And those things were so heavy that
he was gone. As soon as they went in, that was
it, he was gone. This is remarkable because when
I was a kid, they would show news clips before
movies. And I remember seeing a news clip about
building Little America, which was what the early
camps were named. And they showed that news clip
of him busting through the ice and going, I remember
that as a kid. They wouldn't show that today
but I'll always remember seeing that. Our motto
when we were there on Sundays was a day off for
us and a lot of times the New Zealanders would
come by our base with their dog floods and they'd
be on their way going out to visit something
out on the glacial or something and they'd invite
us to go along with them and our motto always
was down there, we really don't want an airstrip.
named after us. So we would decline their offers.
These guys, they would go anywhere out there
without a second thought and most of the American
guys, you know, they were pretty conservative
about going anywhere. New Zealanders are crazy.
I mean they're crazy. We've all heard the stories
about New Zealanders. They're crazy in combat
and they're crazy and things like that. They're
wild men. I'll tell you the crew that we had
down there, they were Like I say, they were hardy
guys and they wouldn't give a thought about taking
off out on a glacier with dog sleds. They'd be
gone and, you know, they'd come to our camp and
stop and talk and that. But, you know, like I
say, we usually, we'd be blind. We'd step close
to home. You know, when I said they're crazy,
I say that lovingly. I say it admiringly. These
guys are something else. Like early mountain
men here. Now, they had dog sleds. So, how do
they feed those dogs? Well, you know, it's a
funny situation down there. We had, in the international
agreement, the continent of Antarctica is weapons
free and they would have annual inspections.
They'd have a committee come to the ice and visit
all these stations to make sure that nobody had
weapons at these stations. However, the New Zealanders
were allotted 130 -06 and they would shoot seals
at the pressure ridges for dog food. They feed
the seal meat to their dog. They always told
us that most of the Americans, if we went anywhere
on the ice, we always had snowmobiles. The New
Zealanders always used the sled dogs. They would
say to us, if you ever get out there on the ice
and you get pinned down, these dogs, they can
provide heat for us. And there's a lot of things
a dog can provide. All right, we're on a break
right now. We'll be back right after this announcement.
Kerry, on board the USS San Diego on January
21st, 1915, began to take half -hourly readings
of the steam pressure at every boiler. He had
read the steam and air pressure on number two
boiler and was just stepping through the electric
watertight door into number one fire room when
the boilers in number two fire room exploded.
Carey stopped and held open the doors, which
were being closed electrically from the bridge
and yelled to the men in No. 2 Fire Room to escape,
three of them dead. Carey's action undoubtedly
saved the lives of these men. He held the doors
probably a minute with the escaping steam from
the ruptured boilers around him. His example
of coolness did much to keep the men in No. 1
Fire Room at their post, calling fires although
five boilers in their immediate vicinity had
exploded. and boilers number one and three apparently
had no water in them and were likely to explode
any instant. Kerry directed the men in this fire
room into the bunker, for they well knew the
danger of these two boilers exploding. The Medal
of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
Some of us old timers might recognize that old
Spike Jones song has something to do with the
Navy. I don't know why I had to put that in there
because we're talking about the South. We're
talking about Antarctica, and we're talking to
Bill George and Dale Cockrell, both CVs down
there. I was supposed to make an announcement.
Matt, are you in there? Somebody told me to make
an announcement right now. Did they? No? Okay.
Maybe that was last time. ADD, folks. That's
me on the hoof. What were we talking about? Bill,
finish up that story about the New Zealanders
with the sled dogs. They keep them warm if they're
caught out there on the ice. Anything else? That's
what they told us. They said that the dogs provide
a number of issues if they really got pinned
down. Sometimes these storms would roll in within
an hour or less. You'd be pinned down. get in
what we call the whiteout situation where if
you literally held your hand in front of your
face, you couldn't see it. So when you got into
those positions, the best thing to do would be
to hunker down and hold off until, you know,
the wind blew itself out for whatever time it
took. So if they were out there on the ice somewhere
and they got pinned down, they always had their
dogs with them and they could provide a number
of issues to keep them alive. One of them being
heat. I guess on second thought, let's not go
into the other issues. I figured I'd hold off
on that one. Good deal. You know what though,
I was doing a lot of research last night about
Operation Deep Freeze and I remember Little America
was the first camp that was built there down
in the 1930s and then there was Little America
2, 3, 4 and 5 and such that were built after
the war. When I got to Vietnam, we set up tents
and a dried up rice paddy and started building
the camp for the rest of the battalion that was
going to be coming in 30 days. I hadn't thought
about this, but those camps that you guys lived
in were built out on the ice and they just didn't
magically appear. There was a whole bunch of
CBs that got there and set up tents on the ice
and started building. the first permanent camp.
Could you guys imagine doing that? Now that was
back in the 1950s and I guess back in the 1930s,
setting up and building permanent buildings on
top of ice. What do you think they encountered,
Bill, when they were doing that? What would the
conditions have been like? Tell us about the
weather, the hottest, the coldest, the winds.
I'll tell you, this was something. The air base,
Williams Field, we would shut it down in March.
And then, in the end of August, right around
September 1st, we would have to go out there
and reopen. And so this place had been shut down
for several months. And you get out there. And
the snowpack had buried. We lived in quants of
huts that we had assembled. And they were basically
floors. the arches and then we would cover the
arches with a thick insulated blanket and you
know you'd get out there and the first thing
everybody did was we all worked in the buddy
system in pairs because we'd be working in temperatures
usually at least around 25 to 30 below out there
so maximum temperature. You're saying this is
the beginning of summer? Right. 25 to 30 below.
Okay, all you other people out there, quit complaining
about the cold. Go ahead. So anyways, you know,
we just worked in the body system. I was going
to say our maximum temperature at McMurdo the
year that we were there, I think we were somewhere
in the mid 50s below zero in the wintertime and
the summertime, the warmest temperature we got
was in the mid 50s. but on the other end of the
scale above zero. So we were minus zero in the
winter and plus zero in the summer. And I'll
tell you, when it got to 50 degrees and you're
on the glacier, it creates about 10 or 12 inches
of slush on top of the glacier. And so to walk
anywhere, you can't imagine how hard it is. It's
like slogging through mud. Wow. It's hard to
go anywhere. You know what I'm saying? Sure.
Yeah. What about the sun? I mean, there couldn't
have been clouds down there if there was no precipitation,
is that correct? There would be clouds, but they
were usually not the precipitate and produce
type of clouds, but there would be clouds. Chance
of sunburn? Oh, sunburn was a very prevalent
thing. I have to tell you, my family accused
me of not being in Antarctica because I had such
a nice tan. They just took photos of my face
from working outdoors all the time. We had a
real nice tan on the face, but the sun down there
is so piercing. I think I was talking to you
yesterday about the fact that when we had our
roads set up, one of the issues we had with roads
was keeping anything that was dark off the road
surface because the sun was so intense there
that anything dark would heat up and melt down
through the surface of our roads. Our road surfaces
were basically frozen ice. So if you happen to
get a piece of mud or stone, the sun would bake
this thing and it would melt down through that
surface and then it would create a pot hole.
in the road because we were out there maintaining
these roads all the time for service. There were
gravel lines. What were you telling me about
the wind bill when the wind would blow? Well,
I said that, you know, things you don't think
about is in the wintertime when we were there
we had winds in excess of 100 miles an hour and
if you were out watching some of this stuff one
of the things that would strike you as odd is
watching gravel blow down the road. When we were
at McMurdo on this volcanic island, you'd see
stones rolling by. That's when you know the wind
is really howling. You just never see that. I
was looking at the historical temperatures and
the coldest ever reported was 86 below zero Fahrenheit.
And coupled with 100 mile an hour wind, what
do you suppose the wind chill factor would be,
Dale? Probably around 180 to 200 below. That's
cold. You can basically drop it a degree per
mile an hour. Oh, really? Okay. In the most proximity
of it, yeah. Bill, what were you saying about
a cup of water if you threw it up in the air?
Yeah, I said anything where you... got into temperatures
that were colder than minus 20 or 22. You could
literally go outside and throw a cup of water
in the air. And before the water would hit the
ground, it would be ice -crisp. So I mean, when
you're there and you're new and you're early,
you're almost like a tourist. You want to see
all this stuff once. But how many times can you
throw a cup of water in the air? You do it once,
you see it. When it's 20 or 25 below, you don't
stay out there very long. By the same token,
you know what? During the winter, there were
times when the temperatures would warm up to
maybe 10 above. Usually, that meant that a storm
was coming. If we got into the warmer temperatures,
That meant something was brewing, you know. But
at 10 above, we would be outside in what we called
a waffle iron. That would be just our thermal
tops, our long sleeve underwear. And we'd be
outside playing football without jackets at 10
above. So, you know, we were acclimated to it,
you know. And 10 above, to us, felt quite warm.
Did you see any wildlife while you were down
there? Dale, you answer that one, okay? Well,
we had a population of emperor penguins, deli
penguins, leopard seals, waddail seals, and schuagulls.
They were all pretty much an everyday occurrence
to see those, particularly during the summer
season. You didn't see the penguins that much.
after dark. It would be kind of hard to see them,
aren't they black? If they were facing you they
would just look like more ice. I've got a photograph
someplace if I can find it in my archives of
an ice floe going out. There was probably 15
or 20 Adélie penguins that looked like a little
chorus going out to sea. That was after the ice
break. Now the leopard seals, they're the big
They're the big ones. They're the ones that love
to prey on penguins. You wouldn't want to get
too close to them, I imagine. No, no. The Waddell
seals, they were just massive. Very slow moving.
Gary, one of the things you had to be careful
about the leopard seals is if you were anywhere
that you were on what would be considered a little
bit thin ice. Because a lot of times leopard
seals hunted by shadows. If they saw shadows
moving, you know, through the ice, these leopard
seals would come shooting through the ice like
a missile, thinking it's a penguin. So, you know,
we were always cautious about thin ice was bad
enough to be on, but also it was another factor
with the seals. You didn't want to be somewhere
where one of these leopard seals would mistake
you for a penguin, you know. Do you ever see
any Oh boy, a minute and ten seconds left on
this, but so real quick, you ever see any killer
whales down there either of you? No, I never
saw one. I was in the service of the guy that
was going down to Antarctica. He was a CB and
their ship developed a crack in the keel during
the night. It was pretty rough weather and they
thought that was pretty bad as you could well
imagine. And when the light came, they found
out it was a lot worse than they imagined because
the scientists said they couldn't explain it,
but it was like a migration of killer whales.
And as far as you could see, in either direction
were killer whales that were swimming in the
same direction as the ship. So it was going to
be bad enough if the ship went down in that kind
of weather, but when you're surrounded by thousands
of killer whales, it sort of takes the confidence
away from you. The bilge pumps are working. No
atheist in a voxel. I imagine there was no atheist
in the ship that day. We're coming up on a break.
We're talking to two former CBs that spent the
weekend, that spent the year on the ice of Antarctica
at Operation Deep Freeze, Bill George and Dale
Cockrell back in 1969. We'll be back right after
these messages. It's been a long, long time.
I think that was Glenn Miller, I'm not real sure,
but for you guys down on the ice, when you were
down there with nothing but a bunch of guys,
it had to seem like a long, long time since you'd
seen the last female, and indeed it was. Bill,
what was I going to say? Oh, I put on the flyer
a little bit of a teaser about swimming on the
glacier in Antarctica. That was your story tell
us about tell us about how it was that you guys
went swimming on the glacier Well, we we had
a device down there that we made our we made
our water with and the water what we did was
we had vehicles with scoops on the front of them
that would Scoop snow and we had a it was like
a fairly large Stainless steel box called the
snow melter and we would melt the snow for our
water So this is how we supplied our galley and
our drinking water from the snowmine. And what
we did was at the end of the year, after the
base, all the BXC -6, we called them Airedale,
had left and we were closing down Williams Field
for the winter, we were a small skeleton crew
there. So we filled the snowmelter up and fired
this baby up and when we got the the water up
warm enough in the snowmelter there's a couple
of us all went swimming in the snowmelt. This
box was probably about I would guess about five
foot by five foot and maybe about five foot deep
you know. That was our swimming pool. Sort of
like a hot tub and I imagine the guys that were
drinking that water in the spring didn't know
what you guys had done. No Gary, we drained it.
We were in the process. We were draining this
out. Oh sure, I'm sure you did. We wouldn't do
that to those Airedales, you know that. By the
way, for the non -Navy people, Airedales are
the Navy guys that work on airplanes. And the
deck people were black shoes and those that worked
down below decks were Snipes. Snipes had red
stripes, Airedale's had green stripes, black
shoes had white stripes, and C .B.'s had blue
stripes until you hit Petty Officer, right? Do
I remember it correctly? That's right. We had
nicknames for everybody at our GCA tower. We
called them Tower Flowers. the guys in public
works that worked at the airstrip we were strip
rats and so you know we we had nicknames guys
that lived in McMurdo we call that town so we
call them town clowns so you know nicknames for
everybody that was the service that's the military
right right then each individual usually had
a nickname that they go by well we had that in
our squad and you know the politically correct
people that would gasp at some of the names we
had for each other in our squad was just typical
of any GIs back in those days. That's right.
I won't go over on the air, but they were politically
incorrect. That was the good old days. You know,
Dale has always been well known. His nickname
on the ice, he was Beef. Dale is a big guy. I
would say he's a big six -footer. He was always
Beef. That's what we call them, and a lot of
guys probably didn't know his last name was Cockrell.
And there's a lot of the guys we wintered with,
if I call them I have to tell them this is beef.
They don't know me by day all day. We had a guy
in our squad called Fat Willie. Fat Willie had
about an inch of skin that you could grab around
his side, and that was fat. What about shaving?
How hard was it to shave down there in that cold?
I haven't shaved since I got left there. Dale,
did you shave it all down there? Every photograph
I've seen of people down on the ice, they all
have beards. Pretty much. There might have been
a few that shaved, but pretty much everybody
grew beards. That was just, it was a common thing
for being in Antarctica, like I say. Maybe a
small percentage didn't, but pretty much. One
of the things I was going to tell you about,
I was going to mention to you, I think they tried
to keep our spirits up with different things
going on during the year. We had four months
of total darkness there where we never saw the
sun. So we would have celebrations like we had
a celebration for the sundown party and we had
a celebration for the midwinter party and we
had a celebration for the sunup party. You know
that was the year that the Beatles came out with
their Abbey Road album and one of the cuts on
it was Here Comes the Sun and that was our anthem
down there. You know we were waiting for that
sun. That was one of the items we really looked
forward to was if you haven't seen the sun in
four months. You know, you want to see what that
ball of fire looks like. Oh my, you know what,
we were trying to figure out what kind of bump
music, that's where you come back on. Like that?
Are you guys doing that accent? Did you guys
do that on purpose or did the computer do it?
Thank you, computer. Right on time. The bump
music. I couldn't come up with anything. I did
think, oh, the weather outside is frightful.
The next sentence would have been, since they've
had women in the military and don't ask, don't
tell is gone. The next sentence could have fit
in there, but I thought, well, that's not politically
incorrect, so I won't even talk about it. But
here comes the sun would have been a great one
to have. It nailed exactly what we were in. That
old song, it was about us. That was it. It described
it to a chief. And the anthem for Vietnam vets
is, we've got to get out of this place. Here's
to all the reunions too. Alright, I'm going to
turn this just kind of like free fire. Bill,
tell us something that I didn't ask that you
think should have been covered. Well, you know,
you've got to think about our communication at
that time. The only communication that we had
with the states was by ham radio. So, every time
when we spoke to home, we ran what they call
phone patches. You know, you could talk one at
a time, either the person in Antarctic to talk
or the person at home talk. So, and in between
when you finished your talking, you would say
over. And so, my mother... God rest her soul.
She was like an Edith Bunker. That's the best
way to describe her. I loved her dearly. I had
to listen to directions. So every time I called
home, I would tell the ham operator, this is
a first time call. And they would explain to
my mother, Mrs. George, I'm going to have your
son. He's going to come on the line there. And
he's going to talk to you. And then he's going
to say over. And the phone's going to go blank.
And they said, you talk to him. He'll be able
to hear you. You talk for a while and when you're
done talking you say over again and then he'll
talk. And so then, you know, they put me on and
I'd say, hi mom, how you doing? I'm doing great.
You know, the temperature's been this or that.
I did this and that and then I'd go over. And
then my mother would go, Bill? Bill, are you
there? And inevitably, you know, the hand operator
would break in, this is George. He's there. He
can hear you. Just talk. You know, every time
it was the same thing, you know. People who aren't
used to phone patches, you know what I mean?
Yes, they have in Vietnam, but most of us didn't
bother with it because it would patch all over
the world before it got home. The same thing
that you're talking about. Exactly. Dale, how
about you? What little thing sticks out in your
mind that nobody would ever think about that
happened down there? Anything? Yeah, I remember
the 4th of July celebration where the Kiwis tried
to avenge the Queen and they were going to steal
our flag and somebody stole the Queen's picture.
And the glass on it, as Bill reminded me, got
broken and caused almost an international incident.
But it was all in good fun. broken glass. Real
quick, did you guys have to have psychological
testing before you went down there? I heard that
was for people that were going to win her over.
Yes. And did you pass? Evidently. You know Gary,
we had one individual that stood out in my mind.
We went to Washington D .C. for our screening.
So they'd have us all standing in the hallway
waiting to speak to these psychologists. They
called the gentleman's name and he came up there
and he was holding a portable TV. He asked them,
he said, can I bring my TV in with me? They said
to him, do you always carry this TV? The guy
said, well yeah, I usually have it with me. He
went in the room and that was the last we saw
of him. He never made it to Antarctica. They
figured he was a little too attached to the TV
there. You have to wonder if some of these people
did it on purpose. Dale Cockrell, Bill George,
former CBs who spent the winter, well who spent
a year on the ice in Antarctica, thank you so
much for being with us. We're out of time as
usual and for you guys to welcome home. Folks,
tune in next week. We're going to have another
fascinating program. Hopefully we'll have as
much fun as today, a lot of laughs with the two
former CBs. And until then, you are dismissed.
you