 from Korea to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country, you, 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 James Mansfield. Today, the big picture takes you behind the scenes of the greatest feat of military construction since the end of World War II, a race against time and weather to build a giant air base in the Arctic. This is a story of Operation Blue Jay. Greenland, mighty island in the far north, land of rugged mountains and everlasting cold, locked against the rest of the world by the frozen sea. Hidden behind these icy ramparts lies one of the great military secrets of our time, Operation Blue Jay. Here, where temperature has dropped to 50 below zero and winds rise to 150 miles an hour gale force, where bright sun is abruptly succeeded by dense fog or blinding snow, American ingenuity and daring have built a new outpost in this country's defense, a giant air base on the top of the world. Now, at last, the story can be told. Blue Jay goes back to December 1950 when communist aggression was in full flood. It was on the offensive in Indochina. It was threatening the United Nations Army in Korea. And President Truman had proclaimed a national emergency. In Washington, a secret meeting took place in the office of the chief of engineers, Lieutenant General Lewis A. Pick, then a major general. Present were Brigadier, now Major General Knold, Deputy Chief of Engineers and some of the foremost construction experts in the country, Peter Kuitt, veteran builder of large dams and airfields. S.J. Groves, one of the builders of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey turnpikes. Joe Green, airfield construction expert. General Pick got right down to business. I ask you gentlemen to come down here today to discuss a project which we have to build, to ask you to help the Corps of Engineers with this difficult job in the far north. This job lies about 900 miles north of the Arctic Circle, far beyond any of the shipping lands. I understand that it may be possible to get boats into the area during a short season, probably from four to six weeks in the middle of the summer. This job must be built by the first of November. If that can be done, the construction industry and the Corps of Engineers will have broken the iced waste of the far north. The job was to build a giant air base for our largest long range bombers high on the northwest coast of Greenland at a tiny settlement called Thule. Built with the permission of the Danish government, the base would push our defense line 2000 miles to the north. Blue Jay's strategic location was ideal, but its construction in four short months seemed impossible. The impossible, however, was just a challenge to American resourcefulness. Industry and the armed forces joined hands to put across Blue Jay on time. Industry developed new designs that would stand up to the severe strain imposed by the Arctic winter, like these Clements panels used for refrigerator walls, now adapted to buildings and hangers. Made of fireproof insulation, sandwiched between aluminum-covered plywood, this prefabricated building material was light, strong, and 100% reusable. More than 300,000 Clements panels were used at Blue Jay. Lumber, still the basic building material. Over 11 million board feet would be needed for housing and storage. Steel for these unique hangar trusses braced to withstand the hurricane blast of polar blizzard. Steel for the water distillation plants and giant fuel tanks. Each tank required 200 tons. Everything had to meet the rigid specifications set down by the Corps of Engineers, whose inspectors checked every item of production and supply. Since Thule had no port facilities, unloading docks were improvised from eight old LSTs. These rusting hawks, neglected after World War II, were cleaned and patched up. Their superstructures were chopped off at deck level to provide a smooth, unobstructed dock surface. Now called dumb barges, they would be towed to Thule and anchored there as permanent piers. Throughout the spring of 1951, a tidal wave of equipment rolled toward the Great Army base at Norfolk, Virginia, the prime staging area for Blue Jay. A quarter million tons of cargo moved into Norfolk without a hitch thanks to the teamwork between the Army's Transportation Corps and the American Association of Railroads. At the same time, 2,000 miles away at Rosemont, Minnesota, another procurement campaign was underway. It's objective, men. Here in the upper Midwest was to be found the greatest pool of labor experienced in cold weather construction. Rigorous performance tests eliminated all but the highest skilled applicants. New equipment was tested along with the workers' ability to handle it. Exhaustive work trials made sure that every man was thoroughly familiar with the job he had to do. Before leaving for the North, each man was given thorough instruction in Arctic survival. He learned the use of cold weather gear. And he was taught every trick of preventing accidents. An advance party of these men were sent to Thule to prepare the job site for the main body due to arrive by ship at the end of June. Sites for hangers and barracks, roads and quarries were staked out by the deputy district engineer for the Northeast District, Colonel Morton Solomon and his staff. Temporary shelter was quickly put up. The Atwell Hut, for example, a complete building shipped as a single package. Simplicity of construction made the Atwell Hut ideal for the speedy erection of temporary living and eating quarters, administration building and hospital. Soil experts board for samples into Thule's frozen terrain to determine the nature of the ground. They found that everywhere below the top layer, a few scat feet under the surface, lay a bed of fossil ice and eternally frozen earth. A technique was developed to make this so-called permafrost support Blue Jays' many heavy buildings. The beach itself, meanwhile, was cleared of ice that would hamper the unloading. Dynamite was used to blast it into the bay. Back at Norfolk, supply yards were jammed with material by early May. Shovels. Bulldozers. Graders. Rock crusher. Asphalt plant. Trackscavators. All were put aboard ship. Rolling stock and other heavy equipment was firmly braced and lashed. Trucks were waterproofed for the sea voyage to protect them against corrosion. Trucks rolled aboard by the score, loaded with fuel and other vital cargo so that they could dash ashore as soon as the ships arrived at Thule. Along went 3,500 men of the engineer's signal and transportation corps and other military specialists. Plus the bulk of civilian workmen. On June 6, 1951, the great armada steamed out of Norfolk and headed north. 82 ships carrying a cargo valued at 125 million dollars. On cold voyage lay ahead. A voyage that would become increasingly hazardous as the thin-skinned ships penetrated the vast ice fields that surrounded Blue Jays like a belt of frozen fortifications hundreds of miles in depth. Danger loomed in the form of icebergs the size of dreadnoughts. Pack ice like floating mine fields that opened reluctantly in front and closed silently behind. The sea became a floor of ice from horizon to horizon. The convoy halted, held fast in the ice pack. For days the ships struggled to free themselves from their frozen trap. Not only was the time schedule disrupted but the ships and the men aboard them were endangered by the ice that squeezed them in a giant vice. It was only through the stubborn efforts of the Coast Guard icebreakers that the convoy was finally liberated. Pressing down with their heavy jawed bows the icebreakers battered at the tremendous ice flows four and five feet thick. Hacking, crushing, grinding away, the icebreakers smashed a trail for the convoy to follow. Helicopters soared aloft on reconnaissance scouting far ahead for signs of open water. Slowly, day by day, mile by mile the ships crept forward. Until on July 9th the fleet finally steamed into North Star Bay at Thule. A voyage that would normally have been made in about two weeks had taken more than twice that long. At least two precious weeks had been lost from the brief construction season. This lost time had to be made up somehow. The ships had hardly anchored off Thule when control headquarters aboard the command ship Monrovia raced into high gear to get the convoy unloaded. Soldiers of the army's engineer and transportation corps went to work in around the clock stevedoring operation. Cargo from the freighters was swung by a raft manned by over 1,000 seamen. Unloading equipment had long been prepared for split second action, everything from a giant floating crane to swarms of amphibious ducks that skimmed back and forth across the water dodging the crushing ice. Two battalions of ducks were in constant use. A great deal of the credit for the speedy unloading belongs to these highly efficient seagoing freight cars. They quickly built up a vast stockpile of fuel and oil for Blue Jays hundreds of machines. At the water's edge, the Navy's beachmaster control avoided traffic jams and delays by setting up a smooth traffic pattern to regulate the movement of supplies as they poured ashore. In a matter of hours, the frigid waters of Thule Harbor were transformed into a great port crowded with Navy landing craft transferring cargo from ship to shore in a steady, unceasing rhythm of unloading. Unloading went on through rain squalls and wind. Over 153,000 long tons of cargo were eventually delivered on the beach. Work crews 4,000 strong were ferried to land from their temporary homes aboard five personnel carriers. They operated in two shifts 60% in the first or day shift 40% in the second shift. As the heavy earth-moving equipment lumbered off the LSTs, men and machines went right to work in bad weather as well as good 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Directions as quarries were mined with high explosives. Then dug for rock and earth fill needed at the construction sites for airstrip, roads, fuel tanks, hangars, barracks, and other buildings. First objective was the giant airstrip with its main runway, aprons and taxiways. To level it off along all its tremendous length it had to be cut down in some areas and build up in others sometimes as much as 40 feet. Hereupon layer of fill was dumped upon the runway smoothed down and packed tight by 100-tonne compaction machines. Batteries of rock crushers poured out mountains of broken stone. This was hauled to the runway and spread evenly upon the ground. Hot liquid asphalt was sprayed upon the stones to bind them together. A layer of fine gravel followed which was brushed to smooth it down. Then rolled to compress the several layers into a solid mass. The nearly completed airstrip received one of its first tests from two key visitors on August 8th. General Hoit Vandenberg, chief of the Air Force who had come to check construction progress with General Lewis Pick, chief of engineers. Only two-and-a-half months were left to work in but the generals found construction moving swiftly on all fronts. In some cases even breaking records. The fuel tanks, for example. An earth pad of gravel or rock fill that would not be affected by frost was laid down for each tank and sprayed with oil to bind it. A floor of steel plate followed. Then the walls. These iron workers were specialists who had put up similar tanks everywhere throughout the world. The vast fuel receptacles were nicknamed POL tanks. An abbreviation of their contents petroleum, oil, lubricant. Specialists did not stand by between assignments. They helped others. Since welders helped guide the steel plate into position making sure it was lined up properly. Then took up the torch. Work went on into the twilight hours of the midnight sun which during the Arctic summer never set below the horizon. Rigging the pipeline that ran to the tankers more than a mile away was a construction feat in itself. A suspension rig was built to carry it across a 50-foot chasm. The pipeline lunged across ditches and ravines sometimes quivering in mid-air until it reached the bay where like a water snake it swam out to the tanker and reared its head alongside. Construction of all kinds was booming. The icy ground under each building was first insulated by an earth pad. The foundations for the airplane hangers were strengthened by setting piles into the ground along the edges of each pad to provide a firm base for the hanger frame and doors. The piles were reinforced by filling in with dirt that would eventually freeze into a solid mass. Culvert pipe was laid across each pad. Cold air circulating through it would carry off the heat seeping through the hanger floor and prevent it from weakening the frozen foundation. The secret of Arctic construction was to make use of the everlasting permafrost not work against it. The exposed pipe was buried in dry fill. Concrete was poured for the floor followed by an insulating layer of 4-inch slabs of foam glass. Additional insurance that hanger heat would not melt the frozen earth below. These slabs were covered by a second layer of concrete which was given a finished surface and cured under tarpaulins with hot air blowers to keep it from freezing. Ironworkers assembled the hanger trusses. The bad weather merely a challenge to the pitching and catching skill of the riveting teams. Wall frames and hanger trusses were raised into position. When the building shell was completed, the towering hanger doors were added. Each one weighed 230 tons. Each ponderous section had to be firmly fitted in its tracks. This was the encouraging sight that greeted an inspection party headed by Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter when he visited Blue Jay on August 30th. Less than two months were left, but building was ahead of schedule. Dozens of barracks had sprouted from Thule's frozen soil. Each had a foundation of timber raised above a pad of earth. The floors of all living quarters were stuffed with insulation and covered with plywood. Clements panels were the standard building material for all barracks, warehouses, and mess hall. Joints between the panels were sealed against the cold with a caulking agent known as Mastic. As each panel went into position, it was secured to the wooden building frame with lag screws. As soon as these buildings were completed, workers moved in from their quarters aboard the ships, which then left for home. These comfortable structures would later be used by troops. The modern mess hall, like the barracks, was put to instant use by the hard-working construction crews. While one shift was being served breakfast, the second shift on the other side of the mess hall was eating its evening meal. This careful planning for the personal needs of the men was reflected in everything from recreational facilities to church services. This close attention to morale paid off in the fantastic speed of construction. Work crews raced against the waning light and the increasing cold, hurrying to meet the deadline now only a few weeks away. Three distillation plants and their storage tanks to brew drinking water from the Salt Sea popped up magically. Along with vehicle storage buildings, salvage building, crash wagon station. On October 1st, with about 20 days left to go, Blue Jay was host to Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay, chief of the Strategic Air Command. Briefed by Colonel Clarence Renshaw, Northeast District Engineer, he carefully studied the base. The final touches were put on the airstrip. A top coat of asphalt was laid down. The control tower rose to the sky. Electric light cables were paid out and the runway lights were planted in the ground. The long arctic night was closing in. Warning shadows deepened on the frigid peaks that surrounded Blue Jay. The waters of Thule Harbor disappeared as ice choked the bay. Snow and sleet storms lashed the job site. The arctic winter had arrived, but the deadline had been met. The greatest engineering operation ever undertaken in the far north had been rushed to successful completion. At the first break in the winter weather, the work crews checked out for home, filled with the intense satisfaction that comes of a job well done. They had defied some of the worst climate and working conditions in the world to set an unbelievable record. In 104 days, they had built a giant runway capable of serving our heaviest bombers. Blue Jay was operational. It is almost a year later now. And Blue Jay has had the benefit of another construction season to bring it up to top fighting trim. Blue Jay will be kept ready for action as long as the threat that drove us to build it exists. We cannot read the minds of those dark and shadowy figures who've brewed on war and conquest, but perhaps the thought of this colossal air base has caused them to falter in their plans for aggression. Perhaps they have read a different kind of warning in the miracle of Blue Jay, the warning that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, impossible to American resourcefulness, hard work, and plain guts. That there is no problem or enemy, nature or man made, that this country cannot defeat in its stern resolve to protect its freedom. Blue Jay is a great example of what this country can do when the chips are down. It should be an inspiration to all Americans, our friends, and allies. Now speaking from Washington, here is the Chief of the Army Engineers, Major General Samuel D. Sturgis Jr. The picture that you have just witnessed, Operation Blue Jay, is typical of the construction tasks being performed throughout the world today by the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army and the construction industry of the United States. In this day and age, this country must be prepared immediately to defend itself. Fortunately, we have a unique arrangement in our system, whereby the civil works of the country are constructed in every state in the Union by an organization in being known as the Civil Works of the Corps of Engineers. It was this organization that stepped into the gap in the construction of the Thule Air Base and plan and directed the remarkable achievement that you have just witnessed. In fact, the Corps of Engineers, your Corps of Army Engineers, stands ready in the future to meet crises just as it has in the past, both in peace and war for the development and for the security of our nation. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the Army at home and overseas, produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center, presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of the Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.