In the southern Ross Sea the ship remained in open water until 

 southeast of Franklin Island, where some ice v/as entered at O5OO on 

 20 December at 76o30«S, l69°35'E. The main concentration of the 

 offshore pack ice was entered one hour later. The ice here was two 

 feet thick and seven to eight-tenths concentration. Ice had moved in 

 from the north but some open water remained until north of Cape Royds 

 where refrozen pack was met. Heading west, within McMurdo Sound, 

 open water was soon regained. Some broken and refrozen pack occurred 

 at the edge of the fast ice, which was in the same position as it had 

 been in early November (Figs. 23 A and B) , More ice moved in on the 

 afternoon of the 20th, packing itself around the NESPELEN; assistance 

 from the GLACIER was required to free her. 



Breaking into the fast ice in KcMurdo Sound began on 21 December 

 and proceeded along somewhat different lines than those employed in 

 Operation DEEP FREEZE I. The previous year, a long, more or less 

 straight channel was broken out to within four miles of Hut Point. 

 The ice in the channel almost immediately froze solid and required 

 re-breaking every time a ship moved. As a result, the cargo ships 

 were never taken down the channel. This year, however, after driving 

 a wide channel due south, the ship cut back at a 60-degree angle toward 

 the northwest, tlius cutting the outline of a large "V" with the v/ide 

 end toward the north. More channels were then cut farther south and 

 to the west and several cross lines were made through the fast ice to 

 break the wedges into smaller sectors. Several days of caLm weather 

 followed completion of these channels, but finally on 28 December, the 

 long awaited southerly wind came and by 1500 was blov;ing 30 knots from 

 l/j.O'-'T. This soon cleared an open channel 200 yards wide from a point 

 about eight miles north of Hut Point to the edge of the fast ice and 

 took out most of the wedge-shaped sectors of fast ice. The cargo ships 

 then came down the channel to offload. 



Meanwhile, the ATKA weighed anchor for Little America V early on 

 27 December 1956, Consolidated sea ice with many rafted floes was 

 encountered in the vicinity of Beaufort Island (Fig. 24). The ice 

 appeared as a long tongue extending northward fromRoss Island to 

 Beaufort Island, thence northward to the limit of visibility. The 

 sea was so congested that the forward progress of the ATKA was delayed 

 for almost two hours on the afternoon of the 27th. East of l68°40''w, 

 ice-free water was reached and the track remained ice free to the 

 destination, which was reached early on 29 December. Kainan Bay 

 was covered by fast ice attached to the ice barrier, but because it 

 was disintegrating rapidly, it had practically disappeared by 1 Jan- 

 uary 1957. 



Upon the retiirn journey from Little America V to McMiordo Sound, 

 the ATKA found little sea ice to impede its progress in' the lead along 

 the Ross Ice Shelf. The consolidated ice encountered on the outbound 



44 



