OK, here's a Sondy Tale for "filler." ;<)
FLYING WITH DANISH AIR FORCE
By Wilton Strickland
Sometime during the summer of 1978, I flew three days with a Danish Air
Force C-130H crew out of Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, where I was
Director of Engineering. During the morning of the first day, the crew flew
iceberg and fishing patrol off Greenland's east coast, where they caught a
whale poacher with a whale pulled partly up into a factory ship. The crew
took photos with a hand-held 35mm SLR and reported the poaching ship to the
Danish government to collect appropriate fines as necessary.
We also sighted and reported the positions of many icebergs. Of special
interest to me was what at first appeared to be large splotches of laundry
bluing spattered on them. It was really the interesting refraction and
diffusion of sunlight in the ice to show the aqua blue coloring.
That afternoon, we landed at US Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland.
Iceland has no military of its own; they have an agreement with the United
States and NATO for defense. Units of the US Navy, Air Force and Coast
Guard were stationed there in '78 for defense of Iceland and the surrounding
area. In the O'Club that night, USAF and Navy air crewmen were holding a
formal dinner in a room adjoining ours. After dinner, they came out and
asked us to join them. As the evening progressed, I began to notice a
significant number of mighty fine-looking, young blonde women joining the
party. I made a comment to one of the American officers, "I thought the
Icelandic government discourages such fraternization." His answer, "Yes,
but nobody told the girls." I soon left the party and went to my room in
the bachelor officer quarters (BOQ) nearby. Couple of hours later, I was
awakened by giggling and squealing women in the hallway outside my room and
in rooms nearby. The partiers finally quietened enough that I was able to
get a few hours sleep, anyway.
The next morning, a US Navy bus picked us up after breakfast and was taking
us out to the airplane when a blue light on an Icelandic police car began
flashing behind us. The policeman came aboard and asked the young Navy
driver why he had his rotating flashing light on top of the bus on. Driver
replied, "Oh, I just forgot to turn it off." While talking to the driver,
the policeman bent down close to the driver's face and took a sniff. (I had
noticed when we got aboard that the driver looked a bit "scruffy" and,
maybe, a bit hung-over.) The policeman immediately arrested the driver for
DUI and removed him from the bus. I was seated on the front row and asked
the policeman if he were getting us another driver. He replied, "Yes, I'll
call; another driver will be here in a few minutes. (Not only did Icelandic
police have free access to the base, Icelandic civilians also had
unrestricted access to most of the base.)
We proceeded to a Danish weather and radio station about half way up the
Greenland east coast called Mestersvig, a former mining community (an
abandoned lead mine, Nyhavn, is directly north of there). They had a feast
(Danish cold table) laid out for us - a table filled with many types of
delicious cold cuts - herring, char, salmon, shrimp, cheeses, open
sandwiches, pork, ham, sausages, pastries, etc. - a very impressive layout.
(Take a look at Mestersvig Lufthavn, Greenland, on Google Earth; go in close
and click on the little photo icons to view several interesting photos
around the area. The camouflaged Danish C-130H is sitting on the ramp in
one of the photos.)
After lunch, the pilot's wife, teenage son, a couple of other Danes and I
walked out to a dog kennel nearby and played with (petted) several cute
little sledge dog puppies.
When we left Mestersvig early that afternoon, we had several members of the
Greenland Government aboard with us and flew them to Narsarsuaq (6000' x 148'
concrete runway), an airfield in southern Greenland that was built by the US
Army Air Corps in 1941/42 as a refueling base for ferrying American aircraft
to Europe and was known then as Bluie West One. It had a peak population
during the war of about 4000 American troops. More than 10,000 aircraft
were ferried through the airbase from US to Europe and North Africa during
WW II. Immediately northeast of the airfield, the Americans had also built
a 250-bed military hospital, of which, only foundations, chimneys and
plumbing pipes were visible during my visit. All of the wood was gone -
made its way across the fjørd I noticed later.
(Check Narsarsuaq, Greenland, on Google Earth; again, go in close and click
on the little photo icons to view several interesting photos around the
area. Note several trees in some of the photos. Directly west across the
fjørd from Narsarsuaq is the village of Qassiarsuk; several nice close-up
photos in this area are available for viewing, also, by clicking on the
little photo icons. Note the sheep farms, hay, etc. in the fields south of
the village.)
That afternoon, a Danish weatherman invited me to accompany him on a small
open, outboard motor boat 2½ miles across the fjørd to the Viking village of
Brahttahlid, now known as Qassiarsuk (another spelling Qagssirssuk). En
route across the fjørd, we studied a couple of the numerous icebergs up
close, maybe too close - they can suddenly flip over in the water as ice
below the surface melts away making them top-heavy. The Viking, Eric the
Red, settled here in the late tenth century after he was banished from
Iceland for murder. The Vikings built the first Christian Church in the
Americas here before the year 1000; I stood inside a replica of the church
built on the original foundation. That and several other Viking building
foundations nearby are well-preserved and are clearly visible; I walked
amongst them in the lush, dark green grass of Greenland's short summer.
Eric's son, Leif Ericson, departed this village in the year 1000 to discover
America (Newfoundland/Vinland).
I immediately recognized the siding on the small Greenlander houses in the
village as "German" siding typical of American WW II buildings. The siding
had obviously come from the dismantled American hospital buildings just
northeast of the airfield across the fjørd.
I was surprised to see so much lush green grass all around, in stark
contrast to the dark red rock and gravel of Kulusuk and Mestersvig; I also
observed several small spruce trees about 6 to 8 feet tall growing in the
area. (There are lots of low bushes, shrubbery and scruffy grasses around
Sondrestrom, but no trees and not the lush, thick grass like that at
Qassiarsuk.) I was much more surprised, though, to see a heavy
tractor-mounted, two-bottom plow (maybe a little bigger than this one
http://www.everythingattachments.com/King-Kutter-Two-Bottom-Plow-p/kk-two-bottom-plow.htm )
sitting on a pallet outside the Royal Greenland Trade Department
(government-run) Store awaiting pickup by a local farmer. It was amazing to
see such a plow in Greenland, but there it was; I laid my hands on it. I
was also pleasantly surprised to learn that there are several sheep farmers
in the area. On Google Earth, now, one can easily see lots of grass/hay
growing for sheep in several sizable fields at farms just south of
Qassiarsuk. Bales and rows of drying hay and a farmer on a tractor working
in a field are also easily visible.
A couple of the Danish air crewmen told me during the afternoon at
Narsarsuaq that "we" were having a party after dinner. After the dinner
tables were cleared, a small band came in and started playing, and the Danes
brought out more beer and Aquavit, both of which they enthusiastically
consumed. I continued to sip on my Pepsi. Soon several very young (18 to
20 years, or so) and pretty Greenlander women (girls) came in. All of them
were a nice-looking mix of what appeared to be European and a bit of
Oriental (Inuit) ancestry. ('Sounds a bit racist, maybe, but I'm merely
trying to let the reader know that the Inuit have intermarried and interbred
so much with people of European ancestry for so long that the number of
Greenlanders with European ancestry is very significant and seems to be
growing rapidly as the number with Inuit-only ancestry decreases; they don't
like to be called ESKIMOS, either - they like to call themselves
Greenlanders.) The Danish men and several of the girls greatly enjoyed
dancing; three of the girls gathered around me with "that look" in their
eyes (as if they were more interesting in broadening their gene pool), but
they all asked in very good, British-accented English about America and
American "stuff," and I tried my best to answer their questions without
embellishment. They had all graduated from high school in Denmark. I could
tell, too, that each one was trying to become my "favorite." I soon left
the party, though, and returned to my room ALONE, but a very small part of
me felt a little bit bad for disappointing all of them. ;<)
We returned to Sondrestrom the next morning with my honor and integrity
still in tact.
Wilton
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