By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2013 – A hulking Military Sealift
Command-chartered tanker ship is expected to begin offloading millions
of gallons of fuel in Antarctica today as part of the Defense
Department’s Operation Deep Freeze mission, which supplies the National
Science Foundation at one of the world’s most remote scientific
outposts.
Military
Sealift Command-chartered container ship MV Ocean Giant, prepares to
leave Port Hueneme, Calif., with nearly 7 million pounds of supplies,
vehicles and electronic equipment and parts, Jan. 17, 2013. The ship is
slated to begin offloading at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, as part of
Operation Deep Freeze’s support to the National Science Foundation. U.S.
Navy photo
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. |
|
MT Maersk Peary, which left Europe in December, is scheduled to
begin discharging more than 6 million gallons of diesel and jet fuel and
gasoline at McMurdo Station, Sarah Burford, a Military Sealift Command
spokeswoman, told American Forces Press Service.
A container ship
that left California in January, MV Ocean Giant, then will deliver
nearly 7 million pounds of frozen and dry food, building supplies,
vehicles, electronic equipment and parts, and other supplies. Sailors
from Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 1 are preparing to work around the
clock for eight days to offload the supplies at a 500-foot-long ice pier
that juts into the Antarctic Ocean, Burford said.
The deliveries
represent 100 percent of the fuel and about 80 percent of the supplies
the researchers and support personnel in Antarctica will need to survive
and work over the course of a year, she said.
Air Mobility
Command augments this support, airlifting passengers, perishable goods
and time-sensitive materials in and out of Antarctica, and between sites
within the continent, explained Air Force Col. Howard McArthur, U.S.
Transportation Command’s West Division operations chief.
For this
year’s Operation Deep Freeze mission, C-17 Globemaster III and
ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules aircraft began air support missions in the
fall.
The air and surface deliveries, conducted by Transcom in
support of U.S. Pacific Command, are part of a historic Defense
Department mission in one of the world’s coldest, windiest, highest and
most inhospitable environments.
Operation Deep Freeze has been
supporting the National Science Foundation, which manages the U.S.
Antarctic Program, for almost 60 years. It’s an extension of a mission
the Navy started almost 200 years ago. In 1839, Navy Capt. Charles
Wilkes led the first U.S. naval expedition into Antarctic waters. Navy
Adm. Richard E. Byrd followed in his footsteps, establishing naval
outposts on the Antarctic coast in 1929, and later that year, he made
the first flight over the South Pole.
In 1946, Byrd organized the
Navy’s Operation Highjump, which included more than 4,000 people and
numerous ships and other craft operating in the Ross Sea.
In 1955, the Navy conducted the first Operation Deep Freeze.
Today, Joint Task Force Support Forces Antarctica, led by Pacific Air
Forces at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, brings together
active, reserve and National Guard assets from the Air Force, Navy, Army
and Coast Guard, as well as Defense Department civilians. This year’s
task force includes C-17 support from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.;
LC-130 support from the New York Air National Guard; sealift support
from the Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command; engineering and
aviation services from Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and
cargo handling from the Navy.
Together, this team provides the
aircraft, shops and logistical expertise needed to support research in
what may well be the most isolated and challenging part of the globe,
officials said. They coordinate strategic intertheater airlift, tactical
deep field support, aeromedical evacuation support, search and rescue
response, sealift, seaport access, bulk fuel supply, port cargo handling
and transportation requirements.
Last year alone, they delivered
more than 3,250 passengers, 10,000 short tons of cargo and 5 million
gallons of fuel in support of the National Science Foundation, Transcom
officials reported.
Although the mission takes place during the
Antarctic summer, harsh and unpredictable weather has always been a
challenge, McArthur said. Ships typically must arrive between January
and March, and require an icebreaker to cut a channel through a thick
ice shelf for them to reach McMurdo Station.
Surprisingly, bitter cold isn’t always the biggest operational hurdle.
“During the past couple of years, the warmer temperatures have actually
been more of a challenge than the cooler temperatures,” McArthur said.
It made the ice pier too unstable to support dry cargo operations last
year, requiring soldiers from the 331st Transportation Company to build a
floating dock. This year, volcanic dirt that blew onto the ice runway
during a December storm absorbed solar energy, causing extensive snow
melt, McArthur said.
“But they are working around that and
providing the support that is needed,” he said, calling it an example of
Transcom’s commitment to deliver for its customers -- in this case,
interagency partners at the National Science Foundation.
“Whether
it is in the Antarctic or some other location in the world, we stand
ready to provide flexible support … and ensure that the mission is
executed,” he said.
Demanding, unpredictable conditions require
planning and teamwork, said Tom Broad, the team lead for Military
Sealift Command Pacific’s sealift pre-positioning and special missions.
“We can’t always know what will happen,” Broad said. “Because of this,
we really have to function as a team, not just within the Navy, but with
all the other organizations who participate in this mission, to ensure
that we get the critical cargo onto the ice, and on time, to support the
people who live and work there.”
That’s what makes Operation
Deep Freeze so important to the U.S. Antarctic Program, said Army Capt.
Sylvester Moore, commander of Military Sealift Command Pacific.
“Without this resupply mission, all operations in Antarctica would end,
and the scientific community would lose the opportunity to conduct
research and study not only the continent of Antarctica, but its impact
on our global climate,” he said.
(Sarah Burford of Military Sealift Command contributed to this article.)
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