Madison County Democrat

Report Antarctica Expedition Met
With Baseball-Minded Penguin

Washington—Flights beyond
the South Pole, fireworks on a
summer New Year's Eve, and a
penguin that umpired a ball game
such were among highlights of
Operation Deepfreeze, 1956.

They are reported by two Na-
tional Geographic Society staff
members who sailed to Antarctica
with Rear Admiral Richard E.
Byrd, and who now are home a-
gain from the bottom of the world.

Staff writer Andrew H. Brown
of Wood Acres, Maryland, and
photographer John E. Fletcher of
Arlington, Virginia, both are vet-
eran high-latitude travelers. Ad-
miral Byrd himself serves on the
Board of Trustees of the National
Geographic Society.

The two Geographic representa-
tives accompanied the United
States Antarctic expedition aboard
the icebreakers U.S.S. Glacier and
U.S.S. Edisto. They saw and took
part in the establishment of sup-
port and scientific bases for the
forthcoming International Geo-
physical Year of 1957-58.

For Admiral Byrd, it was the
fifth visit to the 6,000,000-square-
mile Antarctic continent, less than
half of which has been explored or
even seen. From McMurdo Sound
to Kainan Bay, where Little Amer-
ica V was set up, the ships of Op-
eration Deepfreeze plied back and
forth along the Ross Ice Shelf and
beyond, surveying new coastlines
and probing for possible landing
points.

On one of Deepfreeze's air sur-
veys across the high central pla-
teau, Mr. Fletcher reached well
beyond the South Pole into the
area of the "pole of inaccessibili-
ty," the unmapped heartland of
Antarctica. There his party discov-
ered higher levels than ever before
found—a vast plain of snow and
ice as much as 14,500 feet above
the sea.

Mr. Brown was aboard the Glac-
ier as it crashed through 12-foot
sea ice to open a channel in Mc-
Murdo Sound. By snow tractor and
helicopter he visited Little Amer-
ica I, and the airfield laid out at
Hut Point, so named for the camp
built there almost half a century
before by South Pole explorer
Robert F. Scott.

On New Year's Eve, thousands
of miles from home, the men of
Deepfreeze celebrated with an im-
promptu fireworks display above
the ice of Kainan Bay, even though
at midnight the summer sun was
still up. Naval pyrotechnics furn-
ished smoke-trailing skyrockets.

As base-building went on, the ex-
pedition became fast friends with
the penguins—the real resident-
owners of Antarctica.

"One particularly friendly and
inquisitive fellow," Mr. Brown re-
lates, "decided one day to join a
softball game on the smooth ice
alongside the Glacier.

"He soon found the most ad-
vantageous spot possible to watch
the game—immediately behind the
pitcher. There he stood, waving his
flippers and craning his neck, act-
ing exactly as if he were calling
balls and strikes in a big-league
game.

"Finally one batter hit a skid-
ding ground ball across the infield
and dashed for first base. Where-
upon our white-shirted 'umpire'
waddled just as fast to see what
the play would be at the bag."