Eating Penguin

Goal

Illustrate the life of Antarctic sailors aboard the USCGC WAGB-4 Glacier in the 70s through the events of a difficult summer in 1975 and some comparisons with the Endurance expedition exactly 60 years earlier.

Outline

• The General San Martin is trapped in the Weddell Sea.
  • In the Antarctic, summer is December, January, and February.
• The Antarctic is the coldest, iciest, stormiest, and driest place on earth; the Weddell Sea is the coldest, stormiest, and driest place in the Antarctic.
• In the Antarctic summer of 1915, Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance became trapped in the Weddell Sea.
• 60 years later, the Argentine icebreaker ARA General San Martin (Q4) has become became trapped in the same waters.
• The U. S. Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) WAGB-4 Glacier may be able to help.
  • The Glacier is nearby supporting the International Weddell Sea Oceanographic Expedition of 1975.
  • The Glacier was the free world’s largest, most powerful icebreaker when it was built in 1955 and it was the flagship of Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd during his final trip to the Antarctic in the summer of 1956.
  • The Glacier has a reinforced, double hull with a 1-5/8 inch steel, outer hull.
  • It is 8915-tons, 310 feet, and 21,000 horsepower.
  • It can break ice up to 20 feet thick and 4 feet thick at 3 knots.
  • It is a seasoned warrior of 19 Antarctic summers and has played a key role in establishing and supplying US bases in the Antarctic.
  • It carries two helicopters with a 400-mile range and is the first ice breaker to be painted red so it can be seen from the air.
• The Glacier attempts a rescue.
  • There was no help for the Endurance, but the Glacier has a good chance of breaking the General San Martin free.
  • The helicopters find a likely route and the Glacier begins breaking a path.
  • The ice thickens and the Glacier resorts to “back and ram” tactics.
  • The ice is too thick and hard; it damages the Glacier.
  • Divers survey the damage; 2 of the 3 blades on the starboard shaft been sheared off.
  • The sea ice closes in and the helicopters report there is no way out.
• Preparations for an Antarctic winter.
  • Ernest Shackleton prepared to winter over on February 24th, 1915; Captain Gillett and the Captain of the General San Martin prepare to winter over on March 1, 1975.
  • The Antarctic in 1975 is not as isolated as it was in 1915.
  • The USCGC Burton Island, 12 miles away in safe open waters sends extra supplies for the winter by helicopter.
  • A skeleton crew is chosen and the rest of the crew is sent home: by helicopter to a small scientific station, by Argentine Air Force to a desert airbase, and then to Buenos Aires.
  • Those who make it to Buenos Aires are treated as heroes.
  • One sailor and all of the luggage are stranded in the desert.
  • A handful of sailors are trapped at the scientific station because of blizzards; they eat all of the station’s food (a year’s supply) in a week, then have to subsist on penguin.
  • The entire crew of the Endurance had winter over
• An escape after all.
• An improvement in the weather opens a lead in the sea ice.
• The Glacier and the General San Martin make it to open waters.
• The scientists continue home on commercial airlines. The sailors are all recalled.
• The Glacier limps home to Long Beach, California,
• The crew of the Endurance lived aboard her many months, then had to drag their lifeboats across the sea ice, then sail through cold stormy sea to get out of the Antarctic.
• The Endurance never left the Weddell Sea.

Treatment

From a satellite’s height, we zoom in on a map of the Antarctic continent and the Weddell Sea while the narrator recites the Antarctic’s superlatives and explains that southern summer occurs during the north’s winter, December, January, and February.

Continuing to zoom in, we catch glimpses through blowing snow of a ghostly ship with broken masts and torn sails surrounded by ice as the narrator briefly mentions Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance were trapped in the Weddell Sea in the summer of 1915. Then the weather clears and we see the Argentine icebreaker ARA General San Martin (Q4) trapped in the same waters in the summer of 1975.

As we “fly” low over the General San Martin, the narrator explains that there was no chance of a rescue for the Endurance. But, fortunately for the General San Martin, the US Coast Guard Cutter Glacier is nearby supporting the International Weddell Sea Oceanographic Expedition of 1975. We realize we are seeing the General San Martin from one of the Glacier’s helicopters as the narrator explains it has come to scout the area and take the Argentine icebreaker’s Captain back to the Glacier.

Again from the helicopter’s point of view, we fly over the sea ice as the narrator explains that though the sea looks solid and fixed, it’s constantly heaving, shifting, and drifting upon the sea beneath it, driven by the winds and the ocean currents. The Glacier becomes visible in the distance. As the helicopter draws nearer, the narrator explains that the 8915-ton, 310-feet, 21,000-horsepower ship breaks ice up to 20 feet thick, 4 feet thick at 3 knots.

We see pictures of various bases and scientific stations as the narrator explains that the Glacier has spent 19 summers in the Antarctic establishing and maintaining bases, and providing support for scientists and international treaty inspections. The helicopter lands on the Glacier’s flight deck and we see Captain Gillette greeting the Argentine Captain. Then we see officers from both ships meeting in the Glacier’s ward room, discussing plans for the rescue attempt.

Later, we see the Glacier making its way through the ice, with chunks of ice flying away from the impact of the bow, and floating chunks of ice closing in behind the ship as it passes. The narrator explains how the ship breaks ice with its weight. The bottom of the ship is shaped like the bottom half of a football, curved and smooth. This design is less than perfect for the open ocean (imagine the ship rocking and rolling violently in an ocean storm), but it’s perfect for breaking ice.

For ice up to 6 feet thick, the ship maintains a slow, steady speed through the sea ice. Occasionally, the bow lifts out of the water when the ice resists, but the tremendous weight of the ship prevails and the ice is either pushed aside or smashed beneath the hull. When the ice becomes as much as 20 feet thick, the Glacier resorts to a “back and ram” strategy; it slowly backs up through the ice that it has broken, and then rams the unbroken ice at full speed, sliding up on the ice, and then either shattering the ice beneath its hull or sliding backwards off the ice to try again.

The narrator explains that the Glacier was making slow progress, when disaster struck. As we see pictures of the scientists and of divers surveying the ship's propellers, the narrator explains that later, a scientist from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who was aboard the Glacier, would later tell a San Diego Union reporter, “There was a kind of clanking sound and then the ship started to vibrate abnormally. Divers were sent down and they confirmed what everyone feared had happened. That cut our power by nearly half.” Another Scripps scientist tells the San Diego Union, “After the prop broke, it took nearly eight hours to turn the ship around. Then, when we started trying to break out toward a lead (a crack in the sea ice), it just took a tremendously long time to make any progress.”

The narrator explains, that the Glacier doesn’t make it to open water. Just like Shackleton on February 24, 1915, the Captains of the Glacier and the General San Martin reluctantly begin preparations on March 1, 1975 to spend the winter.

We see pictures of stations, bases, ship, and aircraft as the narrator explains that a lot has changed in 60 years. There are permanent bases on the Antarctic continent. Many ships are exploring the coastlines. Aircraft can carry people and supplies for great distances.

Through maps and pictures, we follow the Exodus to a small scientific station within reach by helicopter (where a handful of sailors are stranded in a snowstorm, eat up year’s rations, and have to eat penguin to survive), to a desert air base in Argentina by cargo plane (where a single sailor is stranded for a week with everyone else’s luggage), to Buenos Aires and a hero’s welcome (with bands, parades, free suites in the finest hotels, and new clothes), to the US by commercial flights.

Juxtaposed with the exodus, we see the skeleton crew adjusting to the routine of a long, dark winter. A dump is established on the ice several hundred yards from the ship. The ballast tanks are filled so that as the icy cradle shifts, the ship can stay upright. Food and water is inventoried. Gear that won’t be needed is securely tied.

Then, one night, there is a deep rumbling in the ice. “He’s having a chuckle at our expense,” the sailors say. In the morning light, the helicopters report that the ice has shifted, there’s open water. Both the General and Big Red get free of the ice.

All but the scientists are recalled to the ship and the Glacier limps home. We see the Glacier sailing away. Looking back we see the ghost of the Endurance still trapped in the Weddell Sea. We see the sailors on the Glacier at lunch in a warm ship, cheerily laughing at the sea stories they have to tell from their experience juxtaposed with the crew of the Endurance dragding their lifeboats across the ice, camping in tents on the ice, and the sea in open lifeboats

Less than a month after preparing to spend the winter in the Weddell Sea, the wounded Glacier was picking up the rest of her crew from Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost tip of South America; in September 1916, after 18 months of struggle and hardship, the crew of the Endurance finally arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile, not far from Ushuaia.