Chapter 4-The AADCP

AADCP Stands for “Army Air Defense Command Post”. It was in this unit that I spent the major part of my year in Thule. The AADCP was responsible, as the name implies, for control of defense of the airbase in case of attack from the air. All you need to do is realize the hostility of the location-rocky, icy, cold-does not lend itself to land invasion. So, the logical conclusion is to defend it from the air. Thats why we had 90mm guns that ultimately gave way to missiles. Thats why there were so many radar units. Thats why the Air Force always scrambled two interceptors to investigate “unknown” inbound aircraft.

How about ground defenses? Of course the Army would naturally have its sand bags. Its Machine gun nests. Its concertina wire. And we did. Whenever there was a world crisis, we would go on full alert. Although I don't remember what it was, there was at least one such crisis while I was at Thule. I remember that we all wore steel helmets and carried weapons.. That we added more sandbags to our defenses. That we manned the machine gun nests. That it was below zero outside. That moist skin would stick to steel helmets and weapons. That we were not-repeat not-issued ammunition for our weapons. In reality, I don't know if there was ammunition available were we to really need it. It retrospect, it was probably wise of our commander not to issue ammunition. Can you imagine how many of us would have shot ourselves in the foot?

Anyway, we stayed on alert for what seemed to be an eternity, especially to those who guarded our perimeter. One of the guys named Mike was amused by having an empty rifle. He said, “If I get in trouble out there on the perimeter, I can always club them with my empty rifle.” We called him “Big Mike” because he was a hard rock miner from Nevada. Nevada....reminds me of desert which usually means heat which means Big Mike was qualified for Arctic duty just like I was.

We were up on a mountain and the view was spectacular. On one side of the mountain was the valley where to airbase lay. On the other side of the mountain was a fiord that was fed by a glacier. This glacier was the source of some magnificent icebergs. From the top of our mountain, we couldn't see the face of the glacier. But when an iceberg was about to break off, a sound similar to the rumble of distant thunder could be heard.. When someone heard it, they would alert everyone interested. Men would grab their cameras and run over the ridge of our mountain to get a view of the iceberg. Lots of pictures. New icebergs were green and blue and didn't turn white until they had been exposed to the elements for a while.

On day a huge iceberg broke off and began floating out into the bay. It was so large that it ran aground in the middle of the bay and stayed there for nearly a month. To get an idea of how large it was, supply ships bringing cargo would go behind it to get into position to dock. They would totally disappear for ten to fifteen minutes as they passed it. One day the tide was high enough for the iceberg to start to move again and it started its long trip south toward the Atlantic. It took another month for the iceberg to travel down the coast and out of sight. It is possible that this iceberg could still be afloat somewhere. Maybe.

Back to the AADCP. I mentioned that the buildings were different. Well, they were refrigerators in reverse. Made out of multi-ply aluminum-magnesium allow. The windows were triple-pane so as not to frost over. The doors were thick and heavy and there were two of them to create an airlock so that you didn't expose expose the interior of the building directly to the cold outside. All of the buildings were up on blocks to keep the “permafrost” under them frozen. Otherwise the buildings would sink. Buildings that were set directly on the ground would eventually melt the permafrost and because of their weight begin to sink into the spongy earth. Therm was evidence of this on the main base. Some of the buildings built five years previous sitting on the ground had sunk from three to five feet.

Beside being up on blocks, all of the buildings had a series on cables and anchors across the top to keep them on the ground. The wind could come up suddenly, reach speeds over one hundred miles per hour and last for days or even weeks at a time. They were called “wind phases”. If my memory is correct, wind phase one is up to thirty five miles per hour in which you could travel in vehicles and on foot in pairs. Wind phase two was from thirty five to seventy five miles per hour. It restricted pedestrian travel to at least two using a “buddy strap”. A “buddy strap” is a long leather strip we all carried in our parkas. I f you needed to go outside to travel from building to building, then you must travel in pairs with each of you holding onto the buddy strap. Wind phases one and two had restricted vehicle travel. During wind phase three (over seventy five miles per hour) was posted nobody traveled except in extreme emergencies.

Backing up to my days at the gun battery, I experienced my first wind phase warning. It came during the noon meal. Suddenly the intercom blared, “Attention in the area. Thule Air Base is now in a Wind Phase One condition.” I was eating with a friend, Elton Mayden, also from Texas. We had met in basic training in Arkansas. He had been in Thule for several months when I got there. Suddenly he started eating faster. “Whats the hurry?”, I asked. “We need to get over to the barracks. These winds can last for weeks.”, Elton responded. “But there's food here in the mess hall” I said. Replied Elton, “Yes, but there are beds in the barracks and we have food there, too.”

We left the mess hall. If you remember, I was still learning to walk on ice. With the wind bowing and the snow flying, I stepped down from the bottom step of the mess hall entrance. I slipped and landed on my rump. The wind skidded me along for several feet until I plowed into a snow bank. I was disoriented and as I looked out through my parka hood, all I could see in all directions was blowing snow. I was frightened for a brief moment when suddenly a void in the snow blew by. I was only about five feet from the mess hall wall. What a relief. I crawled over to the wall and made my way back into the mess hall. Another group was leaving the mess hall for the barracks so I grabbed the buddy strap between two of them and made it to the barracks. Elton was just inside the door and relieved when I showed up. So was I.

That storm lasted for ten days. I learned a lot about living in Thule during that storm. One lesson was the water situation. When a wind phase blows up, water use is restricted to drinking and shaving. No showers. No clothes washing. If the storm lasted long enough even shaving was disallowed. Of course all of us had half gallon or gallon can in our rooms. We could always fill it with snow and melt it over our heat vent. We could always shave with it if necessary. Ever take a bath with a half gallon of water?

I mentioned that there was food in the barracks. It was “C Rations”. Each package contained a canned “entree”, some form of bread or cracker, some form of dessert and a pack of cigarettes. A life of luxury at last. Most of the “C Rations” were package during World War II. Can you imagine finding a pack of “Lucky Strike Green”? Had I known what I know now, I would have saved a pack. There were “Old Gold” and “Chesterfield” and many other brands that have long since disappeared. The entrees included spaghetti and meat balls, beans and weenies, a variety of potatoes and “whatever”. Of course we had coffee and milk and so forth so it wasn't that bad except that it was boring.

The reasoning for the water rationing was simple. There were no water and sewer pipelines. Water was trucked in and waste was trucked out.If your water tank emptied or your waste tank filled, you were out of luck until the wind phase ended and the trucks could roll again.. The system was efficient in its own right. “Grey” water from sinks, showers and washing machines was routed into a flush tank for use in flushing toilets into the waste tank. Although water was plentiful, this economy of water usage was good.

Showering was different. Maybe you Navy guys did it the same way aboard ship. First you wet down and turn off the water. Then you soap up all over, The you turn the water back on and rinse off. Takes maybe a gallon or two, if that much. As an aside, the first thing I did back in the States was “shower for an hour”. Poetic. But, taking a lesson from this experience, couldn't we save a lot of water and subsequent waste water if we all showered that way. No politics intended.

The toilets were something else. You didn't just push a handle to flush. First you open a valve with a long handle that stood behind the toilet. Next you step on a foot peddle. Next, a handle to the right of the toilet was used to pump water into the toilet bowl in one direction and to suck out the waste with the stroke in the other direction. One stroke was slow and the other was fast. I don't remember which was which but if you didn't know which when you used the toilet, you would blow the waste up at you. It happened to all of us at least once. Sort of your “baptism to Thule”. In fact, the base news paper had a four panel comic strip called “Muckaluck Joe.” In one issue, Joe witnessed someone improperly using the toilet with the resultant back blast. Joe said, “New here aren't you?”. That pretty well sums it up.

Another significance of this water system was the truck drivers, The importance of maintaining full water tanks and empty waste tanks, especially in remote sites like ours, lends itself to an underground “favor” system. Sort of a “Me first” bribe system. In other words, the truckers were offered “goods” to fill or empty the tanks first at a given location as you never knew when a wind phase would blow in. Only place in the world where a garbage man is treated like a king. More on that later.