Book Description

Report of Air Force personnel from the Eighteenth (18th) Air Force who were tasked to accompany, participate and observe with Task Force Forty-Three (TF-43) during Operation Deep Freeze I. Phase I was programmed to operate in the Antarctic areas of McMurdo Sound and Little America V from December 1955 to March 1956 with a wintering-over party remaining to construct base camps at McMurdo Sound, the Air Operating Facility (AIROPFAC) and Little America. Two of the nine Air Force personnel in the survey were to over-winter with the construction crews. The cumulative effort would prepare for Deep Freeze II (October 1956 to March 1957) to locate, construct and occupy the South Polar Station as required for scientists participating in the International Geophysical Year (IGY) from March 1957 to January 1959. The Eighteenth Air Force was tasked to provide air drop equipment, packers and riggers to airdrop 485 tons of equipment at the selected site for the construction of the Polar Station.