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OPERATION NANOOK II
U.S. NAVY
ARCTIC EXPEDITION
15 JULY - 25 SEPTEMBER 1947
INTRODUCTION
In the early summer of 1947 I had been discharged from the Naval Reserve following my participation as Oceanographer and Staff Scientific Liaison Officer on Operation HIGHJUMP to the Antarctic. Following the Operation, I had been assigned to the Navy Hydrographic Office in Washington and only managed to escape when the Naval Reserve ran out of money for operating expenses, and I refused to apply for transfer to the Regular Navy. This got me back to Woods Hole, but there was a question as to what to do next. Almost immediately, I got a call from Hydro asking me if I wanted to go along as a civilian oceanographer on an operation to the Canadian Arctic which was due to leave in about a month and a half.
Being at loose ends and not being entirely sure that my job at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was all that secure, I decided that this was as good a way as any of staying on somebody's payroll, so I said I would do it. The deal was a little bit like the Antarctic operation I had just come off, except that the operation would be materially shorter - they estimated I would be gone only six to eight weeks - and the work would consist of making BT lowerings whenever feasible and making detailed ice observations whenever we were in or near the ice. There would be no hydrographic stations or bottom samples.
The Hydrographic Office was to supply the BT gear, some of which I would get from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution stock room to be charged to Hydro. There wasn't much time to get things together, and I remember one of the road blocks I hit right away. I went to the Stock Room to try to draw some BT wire. It turned out that they only had one roll of the regular 3/32" stainless steel aircraft cable, and they said that they couldn't give it to me without permission from Jeff Allen who was sort of the general factotum in those days. I went to Jeff and explained my problem. He sat at his desk looking very sober and serious and said, "Well, if we were to let you have that last roll, then when the next person needs a roll of BT wire, we won't have any." This sort of took me back a little. The logic was so pure and unassailable that it was very hard to argue with, and I went off scratching my head and muttering to myself. I ran into the Director, Columbus Iselin, in the hall and explained my needs and quoted Jeff Allen's remarks. Columbus gave sort of a sad sigh and a weary smile and told me to go ahead and take the wire, and he would speak to Jeff.
I took a couple of trips to Boston to check out the ship. She was the USS Edisto, a Wind Class Icebreaker very similar to the Northwind that I'd gone south on. The Captain and officers seemed very pleasant and cooperative. Actually, at this point I was technically still in the Navy, being on terminal leave but my involvement in this operation was as a civilian. The chief advantage of being still connected with the service was that I was able to get in and out of the Boston Navy Yard without the usual rigmarole simply by showing my Navy I.D. card to the Marine guard at the gate.
