Here's the tale of the trip onto the icecap that I took in lieu of a meeting
with the Prince of Wales.
DYE-3
By Wilton Strickland
I visited DYE-3, one of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line RADAR sites on
the Greenland ice cap one Sunday in mid-to-late summer of '78 aboard a NY
Air National Guard ski-equipped C-130. (The four RADAR sites in Greenland
get their names from the site at Cape Dyer, Canada, (DYE-MAIN) across Davis
Strait from the west coast of Greenland - the Greenland sites taking the
names in sequence from west to east - DYE-1 on the west coast, DYE-2 and 3
on the ice cap and DYE-4 off the east coast on the island of Kulusuk.) As
we arrived, the sun was shining brightly, and temperature was about 55°F to
60°F with one of the clearest blue skies I've ever seen - much like the
Michigan Upper Peninsula on a clear, cool and cloudless day, but, in this
case, I could see "forever" in all directions out across the horizon, a line
formed by bright blue above and brilliant white below. I felt amazed to be
standing on a block of ice that, if it were to melt, all of the world's
oceans would rise by 23 feet. Though I was at an elevation of 8600 feet,
the thickness of the ice there could be as much as 10,000 feet. The ice is
so heavy, that the land supporting it is depressed significantly below sea
level on most of the island. Immediately underfoot was a thin, maybe ½
inch-thick, slush, not very wet - somewhat like snow cream.
Though elevation at the site stays relatively constant, snow accumulates in
the area at about 2½ to 3 feet per year. As it accumulates, more ice is
squeezed down-slope to the coastlines and melts or breaks off the outer,
lower edges of glaciers to become icebergs, keeping the elevation up on the
icecap itself fairly constant. To keep the RADAR site from eventually
being buried by the snow accumulation, though, additional column sections,
each about 20 feet long, were added as needed inside each of the eight
column tower "rooms" so that the entire site could be jacked up and kept
level by a hydraulic jacking system. Built in 1960, by 1977, the building
had been lifted about 60 feet, and the column depth beneath the ice surface
was over 100 feet, and the columns were being seriously and adversely
affected by differential settlement, horizontal forces deep within the ice,
etc. That summer, Danish Arctic Contractors (DAC) moved the 3270-ton site
210 feet to the west and set it up on new footings and columns. All of the
machinery, structural materials, etc., were flown to the site by NY Air
National Guard C-130's.
Danish engineers at the site to finish details of moving the site the
previous summer invited me to have lunch with them. They had their separate
quarters, dining hall, etc., set up in temporary buildings, tents, etc., on
the ice near the RADAR site. After lunch, I saw a small yellow tent on the
ice in the distance and asked my host, "What is that?" "Oh, that's a
National Science Foundation (NSF) site; they're drilling ice cores," he
responded. "May we go out there?" I asked "Sure," he answered, "let's take
this Snow-Cat/car" - a Bombardier track-driven vehicle with an enclosed
cabin; I got into the front passenger seat and off we went as he steered by
manipulating two levers to control power to the tracks. 'Don't know how far
it was out to the tent; 'hard for me to judge under those conditions of
clear blue sky and white, featureless, flat expanse of ice - maybe a couple
of miles. The two men there briefly explained the operation. They were
looking for evidence of changes in Earth's climate, etc., stored in the ice,
layer by layer, over thousands of years. They eventually bored (and
recovered cores) to bedrock - a depth of about 7,000 feet at this spot. I
think NSF is still doing work there, or nearby, but the RADAR site closed in
'91/'92. En route back to the RADAR site, I very much enjoyed driving the
Snow-Cat myself.
When we got back to the RADAR site, my host gave me a tour around under it
and off to the side to a covered man-hole going down into the ice. Sticking
up out of the ice a couple of feet was a corrugated, galvanized steel
pipe/tube about 3 or 4 feet in diameter with a hinged top on it. My host
opened the top, and I peered straight down into the vertical pipe for at
least 30 to 40 feet. Attached to one side of the inside of the pipe was a
ladder leading downward into a large chamber at the bottom of it. The host
asked if I'd like to go down and see the fuel storage facility. I was
feeling brave (or foolish) enough to say yes, and he led the way down the
ladder. At the bottom of the ladder, we emerged into a huge cavern enclosed
inside a Quonset-hut-like, heavy, corrugated, galvanized steel structure
buried in the ice and covering several large Diesel fuel bladders. After a
few minutes walking around inside the huge cavern discussing pumps, valves,
etc. we climbed gingerly back up the long tube and emerged at the top of the
tall ladder into bright sun again.
Also of special interest outside the huge building towering above us was the
snow collection system for "making" the site's domestic water. A large area
for about 300 feet out to one side of the building was marked off as
restricted from entry - a couple of long cables were suspended above this
area and attached to the surface ice at the outer end and attached at the
upper end high on the side of the building. These cables plus a large steel
bucket attached to them constituted a dragline assembly for collecting snow
that was then melted for domestic use in the facility.
Finally, it was time to tour the main building - the RADAR site itself. At
the time, the first floor of the site was about 30 feet above the ice
surface with a set of long, open, precarious-looking steps leading up to the
entryway. I continued to appear very brave and up the stairs we went. The
leader of the crew of about 20 Danes and Americans met me in the entry hall
and began a detailed tour of the entire complex, including bedrooms,
lounges, gym, kitchen, dining room, power generation room, electronic
equipment rooms, monitoring and control consoles, antenna domes, support
column towers - everywhere - covering all floors for quite some time.
Meanwhile, during this time, the American crew leader had been called away
on his walkie-talkie, and his Danish assistant continued the tour with me.
The Dane became quite impressed by the Strategic Air Command (SAC) patch on
the front of the flight jacket I was wearing. He recognized it and asked
why I was wearing a SAC patch. I told him I had flown B-52's for many years
before going to a civil engineering job - as a civil engineer, I seldom need
a flight jacket, and I just had not removed the patch. He admired the patch
so much, I offered it to 'im as a gift. We paused right there in a
door/hatch way up high overlooking the snow collection area, and he took out
his knife and removed the patch from my jacket as I remarked, "Just, please,
don't cut the jacket."
The Dane also told me a little personal story of an incident he witnessed
during WW II: One day in 1945 near the end of the war, when he was 10 years
old, he heard the sounds of German hobnail boots as an infantry unit marched
in his direction. Just as he took a position in his front yard to watch the
column pass, a British Army sergeant major and a driver in a JEEP pulled up
and stopped just short of a small bridge over a canal near his home. The
sergeant major got out of the JEEP and stood in the middle of the road with
this hands on his hips waiting for the German column to arrive at the
bridge. A German colonel on a horse was leading the column of troops. The
colonel approached the sergeant major and stopped on the bridge. Sergeant
major said to the colonel, "I hereby take your surrender and that of all of
your troops. Dismount from the 'orse, and, as you cross the bridge, 'ave
all of your men deposit all of their weapons in a pile 'ere beside the
road." The colonel hesitated and said, "But I'll not surrender to an
enlisted man; I will surrender to a commissioned officer only. Please have
a commissioned officer come to take my surrender." The sergeant major
snatched his .45 caliber automatic pistol from its holster and promptly shot
the horse between the eyes, saying, "I said, 'get off the bloody 'orse and
place your weapons 'ere on the bloody ground!" The colonel and his troops
complied and proceeded on their way with the sergeant major in charge.
Just as the tour of the RADAR site was winding down in mid-to-late
afternoon, the American crew leader found us and informed me that the C-130
was having some maintenance problems back at Sondrestrom and would not be
returning that day. "They'll be back in the morning; you'll be spending the
night with us." The Danish assistant took me to a "housing clerk," who
showed me to a bedroom, showers, etc., and asked me to meet the crew in the
dining room at 1800 for dinner. An interesting thing to me about the
bedroom was that the window overlooking the vastness of the icecap had an
inner pane of glass about 3 feet inward from the outer pane; this not only
indicates a "super insulated" window but it also indicates that the outer
walls of the structure were 3 feet thick. I met the crew at the appointed
time for dinner and thoroughly enjoyed the jovial atmosphere and a near
feast. After dinner, we watched a movie on a TV in the lounge and carried
on a bunch of great conversation. Meanwhile, my Danish engineer host from
that morning came in and asked me if I'd like to play some electronic games
(Nintendo, I think, or something like that). We quickly began to enjoy it
immensely and played until 1:00 AM. 'Had a fantastic breakfast the next
morning with the site crew and left for the return to Sondy at about 1100.
The site was abandoned by the Air Force in 1991/'92, and, because the
support columns, jacking, etc., are not properly maintained, along with the
necessary jacking, it is slowly being inundated by the accumulating snow,
likely to emerge in a glacier or an iceberg someday in the far, far distant
future as historical artifacts and debris.
For additional info about the ice cap RADAR sites, DYE-3 and its twin,
DYE-2, check the following links:
www.crrel.usace.army.mil/library/crrelreports/CR98_03.pdf
http://www.lswilson.ca/dye3pics.htm
http://www.lswilson.ca/dye2pics.htm
http://www.lswilson.ca/dye2visitjul03.htm
Wilton
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