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| USS Burton Island |
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| Shellback iniation Subpoena requesting my presence at the initiation ceremony  |
"For about four days now the Shellbacks have been saving the garbage from chow so that we Pollywogs would have something nauseating to wallow through. Last night the Pollywogs had a meeting and heaved the whole mess over the side. The Shellbacks did not like this so they have stiffened their penalties for the court of Neptunus Rex tomorrow.”
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| Roaring Forties |
“For the past week it has been getting increasingly colder. We saw snow yesterday and expect to see icebergs tomorrow. We will be glad to get into the ice. For three days now our ship has been going through very rough water. We have rolled up to 42 degrees. I was quite sick Thursday and Friday but yesterday and today I have become much more seaworthy.”
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| Going through ice field |
7:00 AM. At midnight on Christmas eve I took some pictures of my buddies and I out on the foc'sle in our shirtsleeves. The sun was high and warm. The air temperature was just about 32, but it was not too cold for about 10 minutes of standing around out of doors. Yesterday afternoon we started heading into some big ice on our way to the Shackleton ice Shelf. The Edisto was up ahead of us and I got some very good shots of her going through the heavy ice. We were stopped several times and had to back down and ram the ice several times in order to get through. We passed a great many seals but no penguins or whales were sighted.”
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| Helicopter returns |
“One expedition did not make out so well. We nearly had a very bad casulty. Mr. Dawley, our exec. a pilot and a radioman were in the big helicopter when they took off about 6:00 Thursday night. I was in CiC before and during the flight, so I noticed that when they made the radio check, the plane's receiver and transmitter seemed a little weak. We held radar and radio contact for the first 125 miles: after that we could not follow them on the radar due to the helicopter being so small and so close to the ice shelf. At about 6:45 we could no longer hear them on the radio so we kept sending messages to return to the ship. Fifteen minutes later we had to consider them lost, and began to prepare for a search if necessary. In order to give them the approximate position of the ship we shot star shells from our five-inch gun. We radioed to them that the shells were being fired 225 degrees from the ship and were exploding at seven miles. We could not hear them on any radio, we kept transmitting and firing star shells every five minutes. Now we also started firing 40-mm smoke tracer shells to give a bettter indication of the ship's position. Two hours went by and still no word from them-----”
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| Byrd's East Base |
“Today is Friday: on Wednesday night our two ships had entered Marguerite Bay and had come to a point just outside the bay or fjord near which the American and British camps were located. --- When I looked out Thursday morning our ship was already under way and had come into the bay and was breaking its way toward a ship fast in the ice about three miles off. We could see figures out on the ice and in a few minutes one of them was up beside the ship on his skis sayng “Hello” to everybody in general.---Our ship had cut its way to within 75 yards of the other ship 'The Port of Beaumont”. By the time we stopped several of the inhabitants were down to greet us. They nearly all had bushy beards and a couple had hair that came down to their neck.”
