ANTARCTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION—RONNE 389 
The contrast between the weather at our departure and that on our 
return after more than 8% hours of flight was striking. Once again I 
was deeply aware of the respect one must always hold for the sudden 
dangers mercilessly lurking behind the white veil that wraps this vast 
continent. 
EVACUATION AND RETURN OF EXPEDITION 
During the first week of January 1948, the three planes were dis- 
mantled and loaded aboard the ship from the bay ice. This 4-foot- 
thick ice, which had been used extensively as the runway for the 
planes, was already beginning to show signs of deterioration as a result 
of the summer thaw. Day by day it slowly rotted and weakened. 
In February strong winds with swells from the northwest broke up 
some of the ice, but on February 11, 4 miles of solid ice still separated 
the ship from the open water. 
It had been my original plan to remain at the base until the middle 
of March, at which time I anticipated that the ice would have cleared 
from the Bay sufficiently to permit our return without hindrance. 
However, on February 12 I was informed by radio that the two Navy 
ice breakers then operating in Antarctic waters would visit our base. 
By the time they arrived, on February 19, our ship, which for some 
time had been surrounded by open water was again frozen in. AI- 
though winds had been blowing almost continuously for more than a 
week, the freezing temperatures led me to believe that the cold weather 
of an early fall had already overtaken the summer thaw. I remem- 
bered only too well that in 1941 this same bay ice was not gone by 
March 22 and we were forced to evacuate the base by two hazardous 
airplane flights. The risk of having to remain another year in the 
Antarctic, if the bay ice did not go out, was too great. 
I accordingly decided to utilize the excellent opportunity offered 
by the presence of the ice breakers and to follow in their wake to the 
open sea. In this connection it is interesting to note that on April 
9, 1948, I received a communication from the Governor of the Falk- 
land Islands that stated: 
Sea ice in Marguerite Bay broke up February 28, but navigation only became 
possible March 18. Sea freezing periodically maximum thickness one inch. Two 
hundred yards strip old ice still fast between Roman figure four and Neny Island. 
Therefore, had I remained it would have been possible to have 
completed a full year of observations in the Antarctic, and to have 
returned without assistance, but this could not have been foreseen at 
the time of the ice breakers’ visit. 
With no difficulty whatever, they broke through to our ship. We 
spent all that day and the following one hurriedly completing the 
loading of our equipment. One of the vessels, the U. S. S. Edisto, 
went ahead to clear a wide path. The second ice breaker, the U.S. 8. 
