Circa 1964
We, the "Puckered Penguins" of Air Development Squadron Six (VX-6), were a proud lot who believed that we never got the credit we so richly deserved for spearheading the U.S. Navy’s assault into the frozen wastes of Antarctica. There we were: living in Spartan conditions on the “Ice," making those long, boring, and sometimes hazardous flights into the interior of the continent. Our grievance was directed at the Air Force who supported us by providing logistics flights from Christchurch, New Zealand to McMurdo Base, Antarctica on a weekly basis. When not involved in this endeavor, their flight crews were enjoying the wonderful hospitality from the people of Christchurch. To say we were a bit envious of our fellow airmen would be an understatement. We did all the hard work, and they got all the glory, which was continuously expounded upon by their overzealous public affairs organization.
The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) was responsible for providing an Air Force logistics squadron to support "Operation Deep Freeze." Each year this assignment was rotated to a different MATS squadron. One would imagine such rotation was done not only to share the benefits of a desirable deployment to New Zealand but also to share the experience of flying on the fringes of the Antarctic continent. Whatever the reason, these squadrons were well equipped, having the most modern air navigation equipment for their aircraft at that time (e.g., inertial navigation systems) and state of the art arctic clothing for their personnel. In contrast, the Navy relied on the sextant for navigation in their LC-130F Hercules, C-121J Super Constellations and C-47/C-117 Gooney Birds, and surplus Army winter clothing (left over from the Korean War was our collective opinion) for protection against the elements. The roots for a friendly but very competitive service rivalry were firmly in place.
During this particular "Operation Deep Freeze," the assigned MATS squadron arrived in Christchurch just as VX-6 was winding down its operations between Christchurch and the "Ice," having completed the necessary movement of personnel and supplies to support commencement of flight operations from McMurdo into the interior of Antarctica. As was the custom in previous years, the Navy offered to put experienced navigators on the MATS planes for their first flights to McMurdo. Normally, this offer was responded to in the affirmative but not by this squadron. The powers-to-be declined the Navy’s offer, stating that they had spent the previous months conducting training flights in the Arctic. Because all of their flight crews were polar qualified, Navy assistance was not required. Having been an observer to those proceedings, it was my impression the response from the Air Force was delivered in rather a haughty manner.
After departure from Christchurch, the typical route of flight to McMurdo Base included over-flying Dunedin (before heading over water), direct Campbell Island [about 400 nautical miles (NM) south of Dunedin] and then direct to McMurdo. This route covered approximately 2150 NM, depending upon wind conditions and navigation error. Due to rapidly converging meridians and large magnetic variations in the south polar region, grid navigation was the method and the gyrocompass was the navigation instrument so as not to be affected by the Earth’s rotation. Gyro precession and the Coriolis effect in southern latitudes also had to be taken into consideration.
On its first day of flight operations to the "Ice," this particular MATS squadron scheduled two C-130's to launch in the evening, 15 minutes apart. This not only provided mutual support for the two aircraft but also allowed celestial navigation as a backup to the planes' inertial navigation systems. Everything went off like clockwork, with the planes taking off on time at a 15 minute interval. At Dunedin, they checked in with "Deep Freeze Control" and proceeded outbound to Campbell Island where they would obtain their last geographic fix as they flew the remaining 1700 miles to the "Ice." Unfortunately, neither plane ever reached Campbell Island. Instead, they became hopelessly lost. After flying square search patterns in hopes of finding the island using air to ground radar with no success, they finally contacted Deep Freeze Control, admitted they had a problem and advised they were aborting their flights to Antarctica. They requested assistance in returning to New Zealand, informing the controller they were attempting to acquire a radio bearing for a steer back to land but were unable to pick up any radio station emitting a signal. This was not unusual, as the few radio stations on New Zealand’s South Island in those times were all shut down in the early evening. Deep Freeze Control was able to take care of this problem in a hurry. They contacted the mayor of Invercargill (southernmost town in New Zealand), advised him of the situation and requested that the radio station commence transmitting a signal. The mayor woke up the manager of the station who obligingly went to the studio and commenced transmitting. Bingo! The two C-130's picked up automatic direction finder (ADF) steers and proceeded inbound to Invercargill, thence to Christchurch. Interestingly enough, the manager of the station transmitted a continual recording of "Show Me The Way To Go Home" until the planes were safely over land.
A post mortem of the flight revealed that the two crews had not reset their gyro compasses for flying in the Southern Hemisphere. Also, their celestial navigation was of no help because they were unable to identify the stars in the Southern Hemisphere. All of their flight training in the Artic region was for naught.
Obviously, the Navy could not allow this incident to go by unnoticed. A huge banner was placed at the entrance to the Officers’ club in Christchurch advising the Air Force of:
THREE WAYS TO THE "ICE"
Follow A Navy Connie,
Follow A Navy Herc, or
Hire A Navy Navigator
Needless to say, this was one time the “Puckered Penguins” were delighted that they were not getting the publicity. One final note: It was my understanding that the two wayward crews were on the next available MATS flight back to the States.
© 2006 by Maurice H. Unger