 A family reunited after six months' separation, six months of loneliness and waiting, six months when the boy grown twice as tall, six months away from the new baby. The men are Navy flyers, the place is Rhode Island, the time is early spring, soon it will be summer. But for these men it will be a second summer, a season of picnics and baseball, barbecues and beaches. Behind them are a summer and a mission that belong to another world, Antarctica, the other world, the other summer. For the flyers the mission began here, at a place called McMurdo, 10,000 miles from home and 850 miles from the bottom of the world. A flight to the south pole. The plane is a Hercules that can carry its own weight. It's for propellers driven by powerful jet engines. This flight and all others help support the activities of the National Science Foundation. Its purpose is to deliver supplies to the research station at the south pole. Necessities for a scientific outpost wholly dependent on the outside world. Food, fuel, scientific instruments, mail from home, a plane, a place, a job. Flight is much the same everywhere on earth, but here aviation requires special skills. There are few reference points on the blank surface. The human eye cannot be trusted. The pilot relies on instruments to judge his height above the ice, the distance to a mountain. The navigator is led by the position of the sun and lines on a chart. The crew is proficient in Antarctic flight. The plane is well equipped for this special task. The pilots are veterans who have flown in war and now bring their years of experience to the peaceful challenge at the bottom of the world. The sun is constant. It is summer in Antarctica, the six month day. Morning spans October. Christmas comes at noon. The men call it the season from September to March, six months away from grass and trees, wives and children. Half a year of flying from one white point to another white point. The continent below is covered by a sea of ice thousands of feet thick. There are islands in the sea, chains of mountains two miles high. Rivers of ice flow from these mountains, monstrous glaciers, the greatest on earth, forever inching northward to the oceans. There they break off into huge slabs, great and ancient tables of ice doomed to drift aimlessly with the currents until they dissolve into the sea in which they were born millions of years ago. Here nine tenths of the world's ice gleams in splendor and temperatures plunged to more than 100 degrees below zero. The weather is the worst on earth. Storms born in the interior roar full grown at hurricane strength to the coast. Men caught by these furious have perished a short distance from safety. Markered by a continent. Vowell Amundsen, the first man to stand at the South Pole, told a young U.S. Navy commander, the airplane alone can triumph in Antarctica. In 1928 that young officer Richard E. Byrd set out to prove the great Norwegian's prophecy when he led the first large American expedition to the Antarctic. Byrd intended an important role for the airplane. His Ford Trimotor named the Floyd Bennett was one of the largest and most proven planes of its day. From the beginning it was a struggle. The party labored to bring its fragile machine to shelter and safety. The elements were a constant threat but the men protected the Floyd Bennett as best they could and the plane survived. In November 1929 the Floyd Bennett was readied for flight. From the base camp at Little America Byrd planned to fly over the South Pole. He intended to photomap his route with a specially adapted aerial camera. After months of arduous preparation and planning he was ready for the most significant test of the airplane in Antarctica. On November 29th Byrd took off from the comparative security of Little America. The anxious party at the base camp followed his progress by radio. The plane performed correctly. Everything went well. In the cramped interior spirits were high. Success was imminent. It was an historic moment. The Floyd Bennett at 90 degrees south. The South Pole. Byrd dropped the United States flag at the exact spot. It was an ambition achieved and a dream realized. The pole flight was a success. The future of aviation in the Antarctic was assured and in the history of exploration there was another entry. His exploit marked the beginning of great progress in Antarctica and signaled the end of the long and tortuous treks of the dawn teams. It meant the end of a dramatic and heroic era. Man and his hardy animals pitted against the great white continent. Man had wings to lift him above the white mass. The airplane would set Antarctica in perspective. In the 1930s Byrd returned to the white continent with other aircraft. But it was apparent that the airplane was far from secure. During these years several airplanes were battered and wrecked as Antarctica resisted intrusion. The pole flight was a breakthrough. But by no means a conquest. A year after World War II the United States launched its greatest assault on the continent. Operation high jump. From an aircraft carrier the USS Philippine Sea airplanes were flown into the continent for the first time. The war had accelerated the advance of aviation. Better equipment and more sophisticated machines were available. The task force brought many types of aircraft and some proved more suitable than others. It was soon apparent that ski-equipped land-based aircraft were best for the mission on the ice. The primary objective of high jump was to photomap a large portion of the continent. Under the supervision of Admiral Byrd the operation proved highly successful. After an interim of seven years America returned to the Antarctic with operation deep freeze and a lexicon of new aircraft were employed. Cruising ranges had increased and the task of photomapping the vast interior progressed. Aircraft that could take off in a short distance flew into areas previously denied the airplane. Larger planes capable of greater loads transported equipment for new bases. Scheduled flights of personnel, supplies and mail to Antarctica became a reality. In 1956 the K. Sera Sera was the first plane to land at the South Pole. Rear Admiral George Dufek had demonstrated that a station could be maintained at the South Pole supported solely by airplane. It was another advance for Antarctic aviation but the struggle was far from over. The airplane had not subdued the continent and Antarctica extracted a terrible price in men and planes. In the first dozen years of operation deep freeze 22 flyers died in crashes. The effort and sacrifice of naval aviators and the early pioneers smoothed the way for those who followed. Today the flight to the South Pole is almost routine. Rickety racked to the pole and back the crew calls it. Now the plane crosses in minutes a glacier that took dog teams a month to traverse. The crew is secure from the cold wrapped in a pressurized cocoon while the plane cruises free of turbulence miles above the surface. Below them now the great polar plateau thousands of square miles barren flat and white broken only by the wind pole station is only a few miles away. Our pole GCA this is maybe three seventy five miles out at this time. Flight level 280 inbound on the heading of 352 requesting descent over. Maintaining mode one one thousand. I understand one one thousand confirm the altimeter setting please. The station that straddles the axis of the earth was built on the surface but through the years has been drifted over. Only a few emergency shelters access tunnels and aerials betray its existence. So you do zero fuel elevation ninety one eighth. I understand feeling your the weight of the ice is gradually crushing the station. Soon it must be rebuilt perhaps to be drifted over and crushed again maintain one grill to check a nose geek. 3 2 0 will remain here only a few minutes just long enough to unload its cargo. Engines must be kept running lubricants might freeze in moments if not kept circulating. The purpose of this flight is realized support of science United States Antarctic Research Program of the National Science Foundation. Here is one of the greatest natural laboratories in the world frozen in time unchanged for two million years. Scientists work in this suspended environment looking leisurely into the past searching for clues that may help shape the future. The atmosphere here is the thinnest and clearest on earth. Radios pick up exceptionally strong signals from outer space. Glaciologists, geologists, meteorologists, probe and study. Special attention is given to weather in the belief that the entire world may be affected by weather that originates here. Four Hercules aircraft support the scientific program that ranges over a continent almost twice the size of the United States. The squadron lords more than a thousand hours a month in the seasonal rush to supply the stations and transport the science parties to wherever they need to go often into areas where no man has ever been. The squadron can transport a completely equipped field party including food, shelter, instruments and enough supplies to maintain the party for weeks. Like the early pioneers they will be alone against the continent until their work here is complete. Then the airplane that brought life into this area will return to take it back to civilization. For the crew of this Hercules it is time to depart from South Pole Station. For them the day's work is nearly done. They are going back to McMurdo, back to another fight point. A little faster flight. Do we have all the back load currently secured? We're ready for takeoff. Cargo all tight down, set off for takeoff, sir. We're on here. Flaps are up. Hydraulic pressures and quantities. Check. Quantity checks, sir. Altimeter, set left and right. 310, estimated McMurdo 1013. Now the plane does the work. The flight crew keeps watch. The monotonous drone of engines is tiring. The brilliant scenery has become dull and repetitious to them. They describe such flights as hours and hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror. Well, I'll be glad to get back in a hot meal under my belt in a cold beer and let the B crew take this link for a while. They look forward to a McMurdo, a change from the routine of flying. When they arrive they will rest, but the airplane will not. The B crew prepares to take over. This is the second shift, facing 18 hours or more of constant sun, thousands of miles crossing and recrossing uncharted stretches of the interior. Soon they will leave behind the meager comforts of McMurdo, the largest station in Antarctica. It is a frontier town on the edge of the last frontier. To the crews it is simply the hill. Borders are simple. Recreation is limited. Time off is pursued relentlessly. Anything to make it pass quickly. Remembering the other life, 10,000 miles away. The flyers admit that conditions are good under the circumstances, better than during the early days of deep breeze. Still they say, an hour in the air is an hour off the ice. The airfield, Williams Field, is a short distance from McMurdo. Scratched from solid ice 40 feet above the waters of the Ross Sea, Williams is gradually going to see a part of the ice shelf on which it rests. In the unending daylight, operations continue round the clock, for this is truly a race with the sun. It is the culmination of Admiral Bird's dream. I am hopeful that Antarctica, in its symbolic robe of white, will shine forth as a continent of peace. As nations working together there in the cause of science, set an example of international cooperation. Explorer, scientist, dog team and airplane. All have combined to open Antarctica and its secrets. But while we may uncover Antarctica, the continent cannot be tamed. We got a weather report from McMurdo. The ceiling is now 300 feet. Visibility has dropped to three-quarters of a mile. The wind is still out northwest picking up with gust of 30 and blowing snow has commenced. The continent rains supreme and its weather is a mighty symbol of authority and cannot control the weather here. He tracks it from outer space, measures, analyzes, diagrams and computes it. Still the violent temper of Antarctica rises without warning. Wind scoop loose snow from the mountains and hurl it at the coast. A great white cape spreads across the sky, sweeping away all definition. When storms are detected, flights can be canceled. But when the storms build unexpectedly, sometimes the plane is caught aloft. Now the flight becomes more than routine. This is what the fliers have trained for. All the hours of practice are here given the crucial test. Now the price paid in earlier days by less fortunate aviators is repaid to some degree. And so the flight is over. Their mission for the day is done. For this crew it is the end of a working day. Soon it will be the end of another season. Now it is time for the second summer. A summer of gentle showers instead of blizzards, of bathing suits instead of parkers. When the sun returns in the Antarctic, the squadron will return. The white continent will be unchanged. Flight will always be hazardous there. No matter what machines may come, the greatest defense against the dangers will be, as it has been, the skill, experience and courage of the Navy Flyer. Thank you for watching.