 The latest weapons, coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier, stands ready on the alert all over the world to defend this country. View the American people against aggression. This is the Big Picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Sergeant Stuart Queen. This is Arctic clothing and equipment that will be worn by paratroopers for the northernmost parachute drop of a tactical unit. From Fort Bragg, North Carolina, men of the 2nd Battalion 504 Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division will travel by air to a point well inside the Arctic Circle, Tule Greenland. To cover the activities of this battalion combat team, we will accompany them to bring you on today's Big Picture, Exercise Arctic Night. The proud word hits you the moment you arrive, airborne. You see it in the signs that dot Fort Bragg, and on the uniform worn by a rugged breed of soldier whose motto is Anywhere, any place, any time. But when the announcement came that a battalion combat team from the 82nd Airborne Division would be airlifted to Greenland from Fort Bragg, even to a paratrooper, this was something special. A tactical jump and maneuver in the frozen Arctic. Only 900 miles from the North Pole. Weeks before the departure, Arctic clothing was issued to each man, and if a trooper needed help in adjusting a ski strap, well there was always an understanding buddy to lend a hand. The specially issued clothing added up to a full wardrobe designed by army scientists and technicians for sub-zero temperatures. As departure time neared, frequent inspections were made to ensure that each soldier had every item and knew how to maintain it. A big enemy up north is frostbite. That's why Arctic mittens practically become part of your skin. You just seldom take them off. And this kind won't slow up a trigger finger either. From head to toe, from pile caps and fur-lined hoods to bare-paw snowshoes, the paratroopers have to close for the move toward the North Pole. The 10-man Arctic tent is also thoroughly inspected. It's been set up properly, strictly according to the manual. And how about the Yukon stove? Chimney, door, valve, rubber tubing? Everything is checked. Everything has to work right. If not, well the Greenland weather can be mighty mean. But outfitting the men for Arctic night was only a small part of the preparations. Especially in the frozen North, as the saying goes, clothes don't make the map. Training does. Training is the payoff. Classes were given in survival techniques. How do you stay alive when the temperature plummets down way below zero? How do you stay alive and fight? That was the question on everybody's mind. In case you all don't know it, North Carolina is not exactly ski country. But that doesn't stop a paratrooper from learning how to be mobile on ice and snow. A straw-covered parade field serves as a beginner ski slope. Many of the men have never put on skis before. The date of departure draws closer. Training activities are stepped up. The sun is warm in Carolina, but the men are learning how to live with cold as they drill again and again in setting up tents. And installing the stoves which will keep those tents, if not as warm as toast, at least bearable. And the troops of the 82nd Airborne ask for no more. Exercise Arctic night is to be climaxed by a mass parachute jump. Loaders and packers have a lot of work. There's nothing simple or casual about packing a shoot. It takes care and it takes time. Since airdrops represent the only method of bringing in supplies quickly to an Arctic combat unit, many cargo shoots have to be made ready, along with those which will guide the troopers themselves safely down to earth. Finally, after two months of extensive cold weather training at Fort Bragg, the unit was ready. On Saturday of the last weekend before the move, the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne and other high-ranking officers inspected to the Arctic-suited man. Free possible precaution had been taken to make certain each man and his equipment was ready for the big test. Whether chaplain or cook, rifleman or rigger, each man was raring to go. With colors flying, the officers and enlisted men of the 504 Airborne Infantry Regiment met the standards of the inspecting party. A pass in review. As a band beat out the stirring March music, the men selected for exercise Arctic night paraded past the reviewing stand. A colorful climax to weeks of hard preparation. Now, rehearsals were over. Ahead of them was the real thing, but there was still a last Sunday at Fort Bragg. Men like battalion sergeant major W.J. Lewis took their families to church services as usual. Sergeant Lewis has served with the 82nd Airborne since March 1945 and up to the time of Arctic night had made over 151 jumps. At church services, he sees a lot of his buddies. On duty or off, airborne soldiers tend to stick together. As they leave the church on the final Sunday before the big move, sergeant Lewis and the other men are wished good luck and Godspeed. The morning of departure day. At Pope Air Force Base near Fort Bragg, the Arctic gear is loaded into the giant C-124 globe masters that will air carry the men toward the North Pole. Skilled Air Force mechanics final check the planes. The success of Arctic night will depend on full cooperation between the Army and the Air Force. In the briefing room, pilots receive last-minute information on flight conditions. Our operations portion of the briefing will now here. We have Captain Bergen and Group Navigator to cover our routes. Captain Bergen. Gentlemen, I'm Captain Bergen. I'm going to give you the navigation phase of this mission. We'll depart Pope, go direct to Royal. Airways to Gordonsville, Selling Group, Albany, Modulate, and Goose. Total distance is 1,415 miles. Flying time will be approximately seven and a half hours. Your alternate for Goose will be Ernest Harman Air Force Base in New Pond. The next language of your journey will be from Goose to Tuley by way of Holstenburg Beacon. Total distance is 1,480 miles. Procter of flying time will be seven and a half to eight hours. Your alternate for Tuley will be Resolute, distance 405 miles, or Soundestrom, a distance of 660 miles. Your primary checkpoint between Goose and Tuley will be Holstenburg Beacon and Alpha Intersection, 150 miles out of Tuley. Gentlemen, the next portion of the briefing will be given by Captain Goulart who will give you the weather. Departing full, the ceilings will be one to two thousand feet. We'll encounter a little lower ceilings in this region here and the ceilings will be one to two thousand feet the rest of the way. The terminals, Goose, will be 3,000 broken, 10 miles. Wind, 250 at 20 with gusts to 30. Temporarily there will be 3,000 broken and two miles in blowing snow. The tops of the clouds and vicinity of Goose will be 4,000 except intermittently 8,000 in scattered regions around Goose. Harman, the ultimate, 2,000 broken, 6 miles. Wind, 270 at 20 with gusts to 35. They will be intermittently 1,500 overcast, one mile in snow chargers and blowing snow. The tops generally 6,000 except 9,000, 10,000 in snow chargers. If there are no questions, turn the briefing back to Colonel for other questions. On Tuesday morning, the last of the Arctic gear was loaded into 13 C-124 Globemasters. Then the second battalion boarded the planes along with attached units of the 82nd Airborne Division Pathfinders, Medics, Engineers and Parachute Maintenance personnel. Last aboard were we of the Big Picture Camera crew to film this combined army and Air Force exercise. First of its kind. Loading hatches swing shut. The first leg of the journey to Goose Bay Labrador is about to begin. Hope Air Force Base resounds with the thunderous engine noises of the Globemasters. And then, one after another, every half hour, the powerful four engine planes roar down the runway and arch into the skies as those left behind wish they could be Airborne 2. It takes approximately 8 hours of flying time from Port Bragg to Goose Bay Labrador and the planes plow through the clouds at a steady clip. Right on schedule, the planes nose down on the strip at Goose Air Base. At Goose, there is a 12-hour rest stop. The Air Force will serve hot food to the air weary troopers. While mechanics service and refuel the giant aircraft. The leg of the journey to Dooley Air Base. 17 hours in the air from Port Bragg. A long, long time. Every man has his own way of passing. In front, some see what the pilot sees and the time and the miles move past. Some just sit and watch the world go by until he gets closer and closer. Yes, 17 hours in the air is a long, long time but sooner or later, the pilot edges the huge plane down from the skies and the 3,500-mile journey from Bragg to Dooley is over. Close to a sign specially made for the occasion the Glove Masters roll to a stop. In a smooth, fast-moving operation, the planes are unloaded. Plies and equipment are passed out to waiting trucks and the men loose the kinks in their legs as they come off the plane. It's good to be on land again. Instead of the rugged bleak place the troopers expected, they found Dooley, an air base in Danish territory to be a well-set-up installation with fine facilities. It didn't take the troopers long to get organized and to explore these facilities. And it didn't take them long to learn there were sliding ponds all over the place. But there wasn't much time for idle games. The battalion combat team plunged into intensive training for arctic night, skiing instruction again, but this time the real thing. Within a matter of days every trooper could handle himself like a veteran. In the shadows of the North Pole, skiing is no mere sport, but an efficient, practical method of rapid transportation. Soon afterwards the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne moved into the arctic wasteland several miles from Dooley. Here they were to take part in a 30-hour training phase, a preview of exercise arctic night. The big-picture camera crew, Lieutenant Jack Armstrong, Specialist Charles Kyle and Private Don Wolf followed right along. The mission of the infantrymen is to close with and destroy the enemy. He must be able to survive in the arctic and fight under sub-zero conditions. All this is learned by training, by doing, and the troopers did. The temperature was 28 degrees below zero in the bifwack, and the men put their Fort Bragg training to good use, putting up shelter tents in a hurry. Once the hexagonal tent was up, the Yukon stove was deftly put together, and before long the tent was a haven of warmth in a cold, cold world. But tents and stoves may not be available in actual combat. That's why the troopers learned how to take shelter in frigid ice caves and spent the night in self-built igloos. With axes, saws, and chisels, they attacked the hard-crusted snow. The idea was to dig snow caves as deep as the tallest man who was to occupy it. It was hard work. After chiseling a sleeping shell for each man on the sides of the cave, ice blocks were used for above-surface protection. It was not only hard work, now and then a hard fall. By early twilight, the last of the snow caves was finished. A chill wind blasted the hillside as the men of the second battalion for the night. Temperature? 35 degrees below zero. The next morning the troopers came out, none the worse for wear. The only heat in the caves had been furnished by candles or small burners and body heat. The bivouac was over. Tents were taken down. It took a longer time than it fought brang. Work goes slowly and below zero temperatures where fatigue sets in very quickly. The men broke camp and reassembled for the forced march back to Tule. Skellon skis really paid off now. Putting their gear, communication equipment, burners and sleds into acuos, the heavy-duty snow sleds, the troopers started back. Each man carried his own weapon along with a rucksack containing his sleeping bag and spare clothing. Although several acuos were towed by army snow weasels, most of the sleds were pushed across the polar terrain to Tule by hard-breathing troopers working in teams. It was a test of endurance, but still just a preliminary for the big one to come after a brief weekend rest at Tule. Civilized living again. On Sunday, there were religious services in a chapel pleasing to the eye and restful to the spirit. Sure, some stubborn troopers ate ice cream, but most of them would just as soon think of other things for a while like a cowboy chase on TV. A jam session. Or maybe a letter home. Using the magic of radio communication, some troopers even phoned home. The weekend was over. Early the next morning, the gear for the jump was stowed aboard the waiting globe masters. Exercise Arctic night had come. Arctic night was designed to provide training under actual Arctic conditions. Commanders and key staff officers were briefed by the maneuver directors in a joint Air Force Army meeting at Tule. Now, final arrangements were confirmed for the troop movement. Fighter support, drop interval, resupply, combat intelligence, and every other foreseeable factor. Not far away, another briefing. The pathfinders who lead the way into the drop zone are given final instructions. Plans for assembling and recovering equipment on the ground are firmed up. The briefing over, each man goes aboard with his own gear. The time is 5 a.m. Dawn was still breaking as the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division dropped on to an iced over bay near Tule. In the largest tactical drop ever made this far north. Less than 900 miles from the north pole. The pathfinders were the first to land. And minutes later, when the main wave of globe masters arrived over the drop zone, the 40 degree below air was full of silk, fruities, and very few minor injuries. Once on the ground, on the ice that is, the troopers quickly recovered their parachuted supplies. It's only the beginning. They move into an attack against a simulated enemy base X. All the training at Fort Bragg, all the two weeks of rugged duty at Tule, pays off for the man as the miles of freezing polar surface move past under their feet. Not always are they on their feet. Sometimes they hit the ice as the simulated enemy fires back. Equipment is put through a rough test. Observers make note of the effect of the extreme cold on the troopers' weapons. Some guns work sluggishly at first. Priceless experience was gained in learning how to adjust weapons to weather. As the paratroopers moved forward to capture enemy base X. By twilight, breath on their faces frozen into a fine spray, the exercise was over. And the troopers marched virally back into Tule. They replaced the wonderful feeling of leaving the cold to enter a heated barracks again. After cleaning their weapons and restoring the shine to their mess gear, the troopers relaxed with a magazine, a pillow, or just to compare blasters. And the showers did a thriving business too. A little bit cold, but nice. The next day, Sergeant Lewis with his buddies of Arctic night received the traditional blue-nose certificate for Arctic service from Lieutenant General Glen O'Barkas, Commander-in-Chief, United States Northeast Command. And a detailed critique, a review of the important lessons of Arctic night before the globe masters went aloft again for the trip back to Bragg. Yes, that proud trooper motto anywhere, any place, any time, had proven itself. No wonder morale was as high as the plains, hitting them south toward home. Arctic night made military history when paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne hit the silk only 900 miles from the North Pole. The first tactical jump inside the Arctic Circle. Now this is Sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to be with us again next week for another look at your army in action on the Big Picture. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the Army at home and overseas. Produced by the Army Pictorial Center presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station. You, too, can be an important part of the Big Picture. You can proudly serve for the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.