Seabees, Welders, communicators and
the Egyptians..... Seabees, Welders, communicators and
the Egyptians.....
This is a tale of the early days on the Ice. Total lack of
communications, clarification of same, and total "can-do" spirit of
the guys in the squadron.
This occurred one day out of Little America - 5 while a tractor party was still
plodding their way, cutting the road to New Byrd Station. They would
designate their distances with bamboo stakes and a red flag. This was not
only to keep track of their mileage, but to give them something to see should
they have to backtrack. The positions of the tractor party were given as
Mile such-and-such on the trail.
One day, in the galley at Little A-5, Lcdr. Harvey Speed was sitting at the
table drinking coffee with his crew. Someone from Ops came in and said
someone would have to go out on the trail "to pick up the welder.
They're at mile such-and-such." ( As I recall, they were 60-70 miles
away. )
Harvey said, "My plane is up; we'll go get 'em" after which he and his
crew readied their aircraft and departed. They found the trail party, made
an open snow landing alongside, Harvey got out and said, "Where's the
welder?" The leader of the trail party ( I think a Seabee first class
) said, "Right over here, Sir" and pointed to a 3,000 lb. broken arc
welder....not a person. This presented a small problem as they had no forklift
or any heavy equipment on the trail party except D-9 cats and a few wanagan
huts.
They got their collective heads together and proceeded to mimic the Egyptians
building the pyramids except they used snow instead of sand. They packed
and packed and packed snow and made a ramp about 15-18 feet long going up to the
cargo compartment door on the old R4-D. After much drudgery, huffing and
puffing, pulling and pushing they managed ....with the use of a makeshift block
and tackle,......to get "the welder" up the ramp and onto the aft deck
of the R4-D at which time they found out they could not get it all the way up or
move it anywhere.....and they couldn't get the cargo door closed. So,
being the ingenious people that they were, they secured the welder to the deck
and threw a line around the cargo ring on the starboard side of the aircraft,
ran it across and onto the cargo door to keep it from flapping.
This completed, they did a rough weight and balance and found that
they were so far aft that they were not supposed to fly. But the R4-D is
kind of like the bumblebee and the bumblebee didn't have a pilot like Harvey
Speed.
Harvey managed to milk the plane into the air after a LONG takeoff
run with an awful lot of forward tab to get the tail up. He managed to
stagger back to Little A-5 and landed uneventfully. He then proceeded into
Ops ( rather steaming under the collar ) and asked them if they knew the name of
"the welder". They said they had no idea and asked , "Did
you get him?" To which Harvey said, "All 3,000 damn pounds of
him! Now, YOU can get him off the airplane.....but please don't break the
plane, I'm going to need it tomorrow."
Harvey was once asked on the Ice what he was going to do when he
got back to ChCh to which he's reputed to have said," If I get out of here
with my hat, ass, and overcoat, I'll be lucky!" Fantastic
pilot......incredible man.
More about Harvey from 'Penguins Have Square Eyes' by Pat Trese.
Buz