Over the Ice Cap

The sun was shining low in the north and the weather (10DEG F.) was balmy for Antarctica when Britain's Dr. Vivian E. Fuchs and his band of tractor-borne scientists paraded into Scott Station on the Ross Sea. The New Zealanders manning the station greeted them with a brass band: a trombone, washboards and garbage-can lids. Sled dogs howled a mournful welcome, and Americans from the nearby headquarters of Operation Deep Freeze presented a cake iced with the flags of Britain and New Zealand. Said bearded "Bunny" Fuchs: "We did what we set out to do." What he and his men had done was to cross hostile Antarctica, a 2,100-mile struggle through the world's worst terrain and weather, and complete the last great land journey left to the earth's explorers.

On Nov. 24, Fuchs and eleven men driving Sno-Cats and Weasels left Shackleton Station on the Weddell Sea south of South America. The 900-mile trip through unknown territory to the air-supplied U.S. base at the South Pole was a stubborn battle against blizzards and crevasses. Fuchs reached the Pole three weeks late, got a solemn warning from New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary, who had come up from Scott Station after laying down supply depots. Hillary warned that the season was already too late, and that Fuchs had better fly out while flying was possible.

Carbon Monoxide. Laconic, methodical Scientist Fuchs. not impressed, set out in a howling blizzard for the coast 1,200 miles away. His Sno-Cats ran like sewing machines. The scientists made their elaborate observations--the purpose of the expedition--and everything seemed to be going line when Seismologist Geoffrey Pratt suddenly collapsed. His face was bright pink with carbon monoxide poisoning from the exhaust of the Sno-Cat that he had been driving. Fuchs radioed for help and Rear Admiral George J. Dufek, U.S. Antarctic leader at McMurdo Sound, sent two Navy Neptunes with oxygen and British Physiologist Griffiths Pugh, an expert on carbon monoxide poisoning. The weather made landing impossible, but the oxygen cylinders were dropped, and Dr. Pugh gave detailed instructions by radio. Soon the sick man was better, but even while he was still sick the Sno-Cats moved on.

Crevasses. Just short of Depot 700, the nearest of the supply stations that Hillary had set up, the vehicles ran into a maze of crevasses. Two of the Sno-Cats, seriously damaged, had to be repaired in cold so bitter that the men's fingers stuck to metal. Beyond the crevasses the going got better, and the expedition reached Depot 700 on Feb. 7. where Hillary joined it by airplane.

Now the expedition's troubles were almost over. Hillary had covered the route before, and had marked a safe passage through most of the crevasses.

The weather turned bad again, but the caravan wound without disaster down a glacier on the edge of the ice cap. The Sno-Cats crossed the last crevasses in a swirling blizzard, and reached fairly level ice. The buildings of Scott Station loomed ahead on the white horizon, with their promise of hot baths and letters from home. When the first congratulations were over. Dr. Fuchs admitted that he had made one miscalculation. He had estimated in advance that he would need 100 days to cross Antarctica; he had made it in 99.

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