Evening star., 1960-10-19
BY WILLIAM HINES
star Science Writer


has served as q major In two
armies Is putting finishing
touches on plans for an 500
mile dash across an uncharted
portion Of the Antarctic ice
cap.
Mai. Antero Havola Of the
Army Transportation Corps
and II other men win set out
about December to map a
safe overland" route from
Byrd Station to the South pole.
The word "safe" is used in
q relative sense, and "over-
land" is hardly the right term.
No one knows where crevaSses
may lie-cracks in the ice cap
big enough to swallow the
largest machine. And except
for "nunataks," the barren,
stony peaks Of mountains, there
is only ice thousands Of feet
deep along the route-no land
at all.
CrevaSses Big Peril
1t will be Mai. Havola's Job
and that Of his crew-to
avoid crevasses and figurative-
ly to build q highway from 80
degrees south, 100 west, to the
point at 80 south where all
longitude lines converge, He
will do it by setting out some
$500 bamboo poles, each 10
feet long and as thick as a
mans thumb. at intervals of
precisely one-quarter of a mile.
This is the only way high
ways can be built at the bottom
OF the world. The materials
used for thoroughfares in tenn
perate regions simply do not
work In a country where the
mean annual temperatures
range from 20 to IS degrees
below zero.
The Byrd-Pole Traverse, as
Maj. Havola's expedition is Of
flclally known, is part of Op-
Grafton Deep Freeze-6l, the
Navy-supported scientific pro-
gram In the polar continent. It
is Just now getting under way
with the onset Of the southern
hemisphere spring.
Maj. Havola describes the
traverse as a fourfold mission.
To Deliver 3 Tractors
Its primary purpose, he says,
is to deliver three huge low
ground-pressure tractors to the
Pole for use in building a new
and larger station there. If we
didn't have to deliver these
machines we wouldn't be max
ing the trip at ALL" he explains.
The tractors, known as D-S
models, have to be transported
overland because no available
airplanes can carry them. They
weigh 81 tons each. Despite
their great weight, the trac-
tors can cross snow in which
q man on foot would bog down
hopeleSSly. Their 54-inch-wide
tracks give them a ground pres
sure of only 4 pounds per
square inch.
The tractors reached the
polar ice originally by ship to
Little America. in the 1866
summer (winter to Americans) j..
Last year, when Little America
was closed, the machines were
driven to Byrd Station.
This was no exploration, I"
Maj. Havola says. "The 66O-
miles was over a well marked
trail"
1t. Col. Merle Dawson COM
manded the latter-day wagon
train from Little America to
Byrd. He was Maj. Havola s
immediate predecessor as over
snow trail expert for Navy Task
Force 43, the Antarctic SUD-
port force.
Will Mark Trail
Second Of the four missions
OF the forthcoming traverse.
Maj. Havola says, is to mark
the trail. It will not be a
straight highway. he knows,
because q crevasse area will re-
quire a dog-leg. Exactly what
the route will turn out to be
no one knows. That Is another
popularity Of Antarctic high
way building.
The third part of the Job
will fall to Army Chief War
rant Oficer George Fowler of
Santa Rosa. Calf. A navigator,
he will establish from ground
surveys the location Of geo.
graphic features like nunataks
that have been spotted from
the air. This is a necessary part
OF mapping the largely un-
charted Antarctic continent.
The fourth mission is en-
tirely scientific-a part of the
United States Antarctic Re-
search Project sponsored by
the National Science Founda-
ton. Gravitational and snow
studies will be made by scien-
fists, with the result that the
world will have not only an
over-ice map Of the route from
Byrd to the Pole, but also a
profile Of the bedrock thou
sands of feet below and an
idea Of the nature of the ice
everything it.
Milestone Technique
Each five miles along the
trail will be marked by two
bamboo poles instead of one,
and each ten miles by three
poles. At each of these mile
stones" one Of these poles will
be notched slightly at the
ground" level Of the Ice when
the pole Is planted, and
notched again at a point four
feet up the pole. This will al
low later passersby to record
the accumulation of snow over
the years.
Maj. Havola believes his