ICN newsletter

Vol. 53, No 1

(Whole No. 268)

January - March 2008

See page 4 for a revelation about this Byrd II cancellation.

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ICE CAP NEWS

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

ICE CAP NEWS

Vol. 53, No. 1 Whole No. 268 Jan.-March 2008

American Society of Polar Philatelists Unit 31, American Philatelic Society ISSN 0019-1051

SOCIETY OFFICERS - 2007-2008

EDITOR:

Alan Warren Box 39, Exton, PA 19341-0039 e-mail: alanwar@att.net

ASSOC. EDITOR: Hal Vogel, 19 Neptune Lane, Willingboro, NJ 08046-1312

COLUMNISTS Geoffrey Barber, Peter Barretta, Jr., Francois Bergez, Siegfried Nicklas, Steve Pendleton, Bernd Lukas, Robert Stark, Hal Vogel

SOCIETY DUES Dues payments should be sent to the Treasurer. Membership applications can be obtained from the Secretary or from the website: www.polarphilatelists.org

PRESIDENT:

Chris Jenner 540 Spruce Tree Dr. Cary IL 60013-3140 email: cjenner00@yahoo.com VICE-PRESIDENT: Gary Pierson 12852 Eagle Dr. Burlington, WA 98233-3813 email: wn7ekz@yahoo.com SECRETARY: Alan Warren Box 39, Exton, PA 19341-0039 email: alanwar@att.net TREASURER Ned Harris P.M.B. 303 120 S. Houghton, Ste. 138 Tucson, AZ 85748-2155 email: nedharris@cox.net PAST PRESIDENT: J. Edgar Williams Box 1179 Carrboro, NC 27510-3179 email: Edwms8@aol.com

BOARD OF DIRECTORS ICE CAP NEWS sent to the U.S. and Canada-----------$22.00 ICE CAP NEWS sent via airlift service elsewhere----- $30.00 Send manuscripts, letters to the editor, etc. to the Editor.

Sample copies ($3.00), and changes of address to be directed to the Secretary.

Opinions expressed herein by the writers are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by the American Society of Polar Philatelists or ICN. ICE CAP NEWS is designed, typeset and printed by Rancho Park Publishing in Chapel Hill, NC – www.ranchopark.com.

ICE CAP NEWS is published quarterly by the American Society of Polar Philatelists, Box 39, Exton, PA 19341-0039 Postmaster: Send address changes to the American Society of Polar Philatelists, Box 39, Exton PA 19341-0039 © Copyright 2008 by the American Society of Polar Philatelists. Permission to reprint must be obtained from the Editor.

Ed. Note: Readers are reminded when using original information and material from Ice Cap News to please give credit BOTH to the publication (Ice Cap News) AND the author of bylined material.

Chris Jenner (Chairman), Ned Harris, Herb Harvis, Richard Julian, Gary Pierson, Hal Vogel, Alan Warren, J. Edgar Williams .

DEPARTMENTS RAPID NOTIFICATION SERVICE: Frank Faustino, 824 Fourth Ave., Bristol, PA 19007 INFORMATION & HISTORIAN: Hal Vogel, 19 Neptune Lane, Willingboro, NJ 08046 AUCTION MANAGERS: Auction Chairman - Acquisitions: Richard Julian, 2964 Harford Circle, York, PA 17404-8463 email: rajulian@comcast.net Auction Chairman - Sales: Chris Jenner, 540 Spruce Tree Dr., Cary, IL, 60013. email: cjenner00@yahoo.com BACK ISSUE SALES: George A. Benner, 600 E. Sanger St., Philadelphia, PA 19120 WEB MASTER: Gary Pierson, 12852 Eagle Dr. , Burlington WA 98233-3813 ASPP WEB SITE: http://www.polarphilatelists.org email: wn7ekz@yahoo.com PUBLIC RELATIONS: J. Edgar Williams, P.O. Box 1179, Carrboro, NC 27510-3179

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ICE CAP NEWS

Page 3

President’s Message

ASPP Auction 92

Happy Spring to our members in the northern hemisphere (although here in Chicago you can’t really tell it’s Spring, with temperatures still around freezing and snow still on the ground). And Happy Autumn to our southern hemisphere members.

I am a big advocate of education. To me, education ranks up with essential needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. An educated populace is needed for there to be a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.

Taking advantage of the resources ASPP provides can be extremely educational. 50 years of Ice Cap News contains an enormous treasure trove of knowledge. Our web site, and other material published by our members constitutes a large body of research and history.

The educational value from ASPP goes beyond knowledge of mail to and from the Polar Regions. Reading through Ice Cap News articles and other publications from our members is instructional in the methodology of research and writing. This methodology can be applied well beyond polar philately. By critically viewing members’ exhibits, one can also learn presentation skills, which may be used in other areas.

To help spread the knowledge ASPP has amassed, please consider donating an ASPP membership to your local library. Just $22 ($30 overseas) will make a year’s worth of Ice Cap News available to thousands of library patrons, and just may hook the library to continue receiving information on this fascinating topic.

On another subject, Hal Vogel recently reminded me that in the past there used to be significant ASPP chapter activity. Is any of that continuing? Does anyone have interest in starting (or re-starting) a local ASPP chapter? Please contact the secretary with any news of chapter activity or interest in starting a local ASPP chapter.

Finally, I invite all members to join us at our 2008 convention, to be held September 5 – 7 at the Philadelphia National Stamp Exhibition in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The show location is unchanged from last year. Travel information, including information about the show hotel rate, can be found at http://home.att.net/%7Epnse/webdoc3.htm. A number of members displayed some great exhibits in Denver last summer. I also invite members to consider exhibiting their material at the Philadelphia show.

Catalogs for the 92nd ASPP mail auction are included with this issue of ICN for members who have bid in recent auctions. A copy of the catalog is available on the web at http://www.chrisjenner.org/ASPP/asppauc92.htm.

To receive a hard copy, please contact the president or secretary - contact information is inside the front cover.

Auction 92 contains a nice variety in 256 lots. On the Arctic side, there are 22 US lots, 23 Spitsbergen lots, and material from Canada, China, Germany, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. In Antarctic, there are 128 US lots ranging from 1930 to 2007, 8 Russian lots, 11 TAAF lots, and material from Argentina, Brazil, BAT, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Falklands, India, Japan, New Zealand / Ross, South Africa, South Georgia, and Ukraine.

Don’t miss some great opportunities to build your collection.

Enjoy our hobby!

Chris

Table of Contents [OLD TOC] Articles B.U.T.

4

Editorial, Vol. 1 No. 1 Page 1 - ICN 1956 First Operation Deep Freeze Czech Polar News The “Maud” Expedition of 1918-1925 Part 6

9 10 18 19

50th Anniversary Concurrence

Anti-Whaling Protsters Set to Sail man Dane Vaughn Dies at 100 Dear Doctor Cards Redux Bare Postal Cupboard Polar Awards and Honors Canada Protects its Arctic Areas Italian Ship for Arctic Oasis

Columns President’s Message Polar Philately - Here and There From the Mailbox Editor’s Ice Floe Membership Report

26

8

26 Nor-

27 30 30 30 31

3 26 28 31 32

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ICE CAP NEWS

2008

NOTE: “B.U.T.” is intended to provide snippets of additional information, or extracts of pertinent, existing facts about expeditions and their postal history that may cause us to muse, or be amused, by some unusual element of polar history/philately.

Little America II Post Office had a branch. The sub-post office of the 1933-35 Second Byrd Antarctic Operation (Byrd II) was operated from aboard one of its two main support vessels (Bear of Oakland), including while it was docked and wintering at Dunedin, New Zealand (1934-35).

It had its own, distinctive postmarker as an undeclared branch post office.1 B U T — now we discover that the branch post office did not really have one Little America II postmarker. It had two! Even more enlightening is that identification of this second branch postal marker also helps further demystify one of the more puzzling of Byrd II’s cancellation devices.

The official Little America II Post Office employed a number of distinctively different official cancellation devices during its two seasons of Antarctic operation. There were impressions from several types of semi-automatic, hand-cranked machine devices (ex. figs. 1 & 1a). Even more types of hand cancellers were employed. The various types of hand cancellers could be grouped broadly into three major categories by the length of their killer bars: They had either short, medium or long killers (ex. figs. 2-2b). Each of these major types also had subtypes.

Most (but not all) of those with the shortest killers had their cancelling or killer bar lengths measuring 7/8” (22

Figure 1

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

mm).2 This applied to those used either of the two seasons.

The other differentiation concerned the killers’ placement next to the hand canceller’s dial. They either were straight edge (ex. fig. 2) or rounded (ex. fig. 3).3 A hand canceller with straight edge killers had them flush left in the space adjacent to the date dial.4 Those with rounded killers had their left edge in a semicircle along the right side of the dial. The semicircular arrangement was made by the top and bottom bars being equally close to the dial, while the two, matching length inner bars were inset from the top and bottom bars. This gave an illusion of the killers being semicircular.

One of the most elusive of the short killer, rounded hand cancellers is the so-called “Heinmuller” type (fig. 5).5 It got its name by association. Members of the Byrd II Study Group often were seeing it used on mail associated with

Figure 1a

prominent aerophilatelist John P.V. Heinmuller.

The (USA) National Postal Museum website quotes from Heinmuller’s 23 July 1960 obituary in Stamps Magazine, describing him as having been President of Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company and chief timer of record flight attempts for the National Aeronautical Association. He befriended many of the famous aviators of his time and developed a phenomenal aerophilatelic collection begun in 1909 while a student in Switzerland.

Being an ardent philatelist and friend of Richard E. Byrd, he naturally also was the recipient of a number of types of Byrd II mail. The expedition’s official (set of five different) flight covers were his inspiration (fig. 6). They also became his inventory as he merchandised them shortly after the expedition’s return under the Katonah Stamp Co. trade name.

The 1934-dated “Heinmuller” type Byrd II hand cancellation (fig. 5) can be confused with the 1934 type of the “branch” or “postcard” style Little America II Post Office hand cancellation (fig. 3).6 B U T — it is easily distinguished. Both the “postcard” or “branch” variety and the “Heinmuller” type are of the short, rounded

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ICE CAP NEWS

killers variety. They also share a gap similarity. Each has a space or gap between the day (“30”) and year (“1934”) numerals.7 BUT— a slight size difference and several dots make all the difference.

The “Heinmuller” type’s lettering is of a slightly smaller size than that in the “branch” hand cancellation. Its font difference, however, can be difficult to assess, especially without a side-by-side comparison with a known “branch” type hand cancellation. This makes the other distinguishing point more important. Make that two points.

There is a point or stop after “America” along the top rim of the “Heinmuller” cancel (left in fig. 8). The same occurs after “Antarctica” along the lower rim. There are no stops, points or periods in the “postcard” cancel (right in fig.

8). Be careful. There also are stops in straight edge killer bar hand cancellations and there is a type of rounded killers hand cancellation with no gap between the day and the year.

However, in this case we only are comparing 1934 yeardated hand cancellations with rounded killers and a date gap.

A clear difference also exists where the lowest killer bar approaches the dial. In the other (“branch”) 1934 rounded killers with gap hand canceller, the lowest killer approaches the dial adjacent to the “C” in “Antarctica.” The “Heinmuller” type has its lowest bar meet the dial at the “A” in “Antarctica.” The lower bar placement can be a double check feature, since the two dots or stops in the “Heinmuller” type should be enough for quick identification.

So the “Heinmuller” type 1934 cancellation can be dis-

Figure 2a

Figure 2

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tinguished. B U T — placing its use had been more challenging. Until now.

Examples of “Heinmuller” type cancellations from Byrd II are scarce. This also applies to those impressions from 1935 (ex. fig. 7). Usages in 1934, however, are far more elusive. This was one reason its “legitimacy” as a bona fide postal marking from the Little America II Post Office had been controversial. There never was a question that it had existed. Neither was there ever any doubt that its use was connected to the postal operations of Byrd II. B U T — previously the 1934 version of this cancellation only had been seen in two problematic instances: Once as an administrative receipt stamp in relation to Byrd II Cover Bureau subscription mail operations and another time on unaddressed mail (fig. 5). Then, in what might have been its third known appearance, it was noticed on a cover segment, along with possible enclosures, associated with one of the relieved expedition members (figs. 9-1,2,3).

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Figure 2b

ICE CAP NEWS

Byron Gay was one of four expedition members whom Byrd records in his narrative as having “resigned.”8 The other three resignations in 1933-34 were Thomas C.T. Buckley, S.D. Pierce and the hastily replaced expedition medical doctor, G. O. Shirey, M.D.9 These names, especially Dr. Shirey’s, become important in helping demystify and relegitimize the “Heinmuller” strike.

The next two sightings would solidify this understanding. The first occurred over five years ago with the sale of the “Skowron” Byrd II collection. Two “Heinmuller” examples were there. One was an addition to a postcard that already had another type cancellation. Unfortunately, the other elements of this card greatly complicated an understanding of its postal history. The other example clearly was more significant for better comprehending exactly where and how the “Heinmuller” cancellation had been employed on Byrd II.

Figure 3

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

Figure 9a bears a most definite “Heinmuller” 30 January 1934 cancellation on Byrd II official stationery.10 Sender was the replaced Doctor Shirey. Somebody (the recipient?) added further particulars about his brief service on Byrd II. Figures 9-1,2,3 and 9a already are suggesting that the “Heinmuller” strike was not just an administrative receipt marker or office datestamp employed by Byrd II Cover Bureau Manager Donald G. Shook. There is clear evidence that it indeed was used to cancel bona fide mail on Byrd II. BUT— without the next (latest) sighting, it might even have been misconstrued as a cancellation used at Little America II. It probably was never used AT Little America II. Where it WAS used, is even more revealing.

An eBay Internet auction site seller offered two pieces of Bear crew member (Leland Barter) mail on 20 September 2000. Their low scan resolution makes them unsuitable

Figure 4

January - March 2008

Figure 5

ICE CAP NEWS

for reproduction here. B U T — the cancellations clearly were identifiable in their views. One of the two postings from Chief Engineer Leland L. Barter to a friend bore what we now know to have been the “branch” cancellation’s 30 January 1934 impression.

Although stating “Little America” along its upper rim, it remained aboard Bear for use of its crew, at least until they returned to Antarctica in 1935 to retrieve the expedition’s shore party. This was another nice substantiation of the “postcard” cancellation’s use as a “branch” cancellation aboard Bear of Oakland.

BUT— it was the cancellation on Barter’s other mail that even was more emphatic in its revelation.

It bore another style of 1934 short, rounded killers cancellation. This one also stated “Little America” along its upper rim and had a gap in its date circle.

BUT— its lowest killer bar was not located the same as in the impression on the other Leland mailing.

This second item had a cancellation whose lowest killer bar was adjacent to the “A” in “Antarctica.”

Barely visible also seemed to be a stop or dot (period) after “America” along the upper rim of the date circle. The image lacked sufficient detail to determine if the lower period also was present nor was it evident whether the lettering was slightly smaller than that seen in the “branch” version of this hand cancellation group.

Of course, we do not need to establish that there were two stops or periods in this cancellation nor Figure 6 that the font was a bit smallish. The

Page 7

lowest killer bar placement confirms this cancellation on the other offered Leland mail as clearly different. It was a “Heinmuller.”

This strongly suggests at least that the 1934 version of the “Heinmuller” Byrd II hand cancellation was used in the same context as the “branch” or “postcard” hand cancellation that it closely resembles. That usage environment would have been aboard Bear of Oakland at the so-called “branch” Little America II Post Office. The discovery in 2000 of a “Heinmuller” striking Leland crew mail further substantiates that a “Heinmuller” was used at the “branch” post office. It especially is noteworthy when reexamining figures 9-1,2,3 and 9a.

There previously had been an assumption that those two “resigned” senders (Byron Gay and Dr. Shirey) had left their mail at Little America II before being sent back to New Zealand aboard one of the departing support ships in early 1934. Made sense. B U T — now it makes more sense to view their mail postings a little differently.

It is not clear which ship took back Shirey and Gay. Assuming it was Bear, it could mean that their last mail dispatch while still with the expedition had not occurred at Little America II before they boarded their transit back to New Zealand.

This has some credulity. One can assume that the four resigners may have left under a bit of a cloud. We know Dr. Shirey (reportedly suspected of being an alcoholic), really

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ICE CAP NEWS

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

Figure 7

was relieved for cause. He was allowed a gentleman’s exist with an accepted “resignation” (for health reasons).11 Since not much was said officially about the reasons for the other three departures, it might be conjectured that they too may have had less than savory overtones. Hence, they may not have wanted to ask for any favors (e.g., “Please see to my mail”) as they left their former comrades on the ice.

They also may not have wanted to leave any of their mail back at the shore station for a more obvious reason.

Expedition ships then leaving Antarctica were taking back the last mail from Little America II until the following year.

Those leaving early would be arriving home before the mail they would have posted ashore.

This would not have been the case if they deposited mail at their (returning) ship’s “branch” post office. Their ship’s mailbag had more assurance of having its contents adequately delivered either before or as they were returning from whence they had come.

It also would not have been subjected to any base command censorship or “accidental” loss. This could have been conjured by some of those leaving under suspicious circumstances.

Bear‘s captain had at least one officially issued expedition cancellation device at his disposal. 3 August 1934 correspondence in the Byrd Center archives, Ohio State University, reveals that expedition agent John McNeil in New York City and Shook at the expedition Cover Bureau in Washington, DC, communicated about the US Post

Figure 8

Figure 9-2

Office’s incessant demand to have returned the stamper given for the use of Captain English. It eventually was returned.12 B U T —

Figure 9a

probably not just one. The cancellation device(s?) was to be returned to the USPOD through Bureau Manager Shook. There is evidence that at least one piece of Shook office paper work was given an administrative receipt stamp using a “Heinmuller” device. Presumably it saw some mundane date stamping between the time it eventually was received from English and later turned back to the US Post Office Department.

Figure 9-3

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ICE CAP NEWS

It is not unusual for remote post offices to have back up cancellation devices. We see this often at Antarctic post offices, where it would be especially difficult to be able to quickly replace a lost or broken device.

This would have applied to the “branch” post office aboard Bear of Oakland during Byrd II. The original intent of giving Captain English an expedition canceller was to enable him to service many of the expedition’s postcards that he dutifully cacheted and signed while en route to Antarctica. If something happened to this canceller (the socalled “branch” or “postcard” canceller), it surely would have been a problem to quickly obtain an official replacement.

It made sense to give Captain English a canceller for all those postcards he had to service. Likewise, it would have been equally sensible to have given him two. One for his primary use. That would have been the one now identified as the “branch” or “postcard” cancellation device seen on many of the expedition’s official postcards (of a 17-card set). B U T — also one as a backup, in the event anything happened to number one. That backup cancellation device now seems to have been the “Heinmuller” — that now can be more readily distinguished as the backup cancellation device of the Little America II “branch” post office.

Figure 9-1

ENDNOTES 1. First disclosure and explanation of this “second” Byrd II post office can be found in Hal Vogel, “B.U.T.,” Ice Cap News (Jan-Mar 1994), 4-8.

2. Hand cancellation impressions also exist (at least in 1934) without killers (just the dial) and with a controversial straight edge killer bar length of 5/8”.

3. Figure 3 is cancelled aboard Bear of Oakland with its Little America II “branch” cancellation (a cancellation also found on many of the expedition’s postcards serviced by Captain English). It is personal mail from first season Bear crew member Jacques D’Albert, who writes his name in the upper left. His signature in the return address makes this piece of polar postal history also an amender of polar history. Just about the only mention of this obscure crew mem-

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ber is on a first season crew list in the appendix of Byrd’s expedition narrative, Discovery — where his name is misspelled as “J.D. Albert.”

4. One exception was the so-called “New Zealand subscription” mail cancellation, where the bottom killer is noticeably shifted right (ex. fig. 4).

5. Naming of some of the types of Little America II Post Office cancellers derives from findings of the presently inactive Byrd II Study Group that regularly exchanged information via mail and at meetings from the late 1970s into the early 1990s.

6. More coverage of the “Heinmuller” cancellation can be found in Hal Vogel, “B.U.T.,” Ice Cap News (July-September 1999), 52-55.

7. Second season mail cancelled with the “Heinmuller” style device (fig. 7) does not have the gap in its impression. It does not appear that the “postcard” or “branch” style cancellation had any of its innards changed in 1935, if used on mail posted through the “branch” post office in 1935.

8. Richard E. Byrd, Discovery (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1935), 393.

9. For more postal and historical details about the replacement of Dr. Shirey, see Hal Vogel, “B.U.T.,” Ice Cap News, (July-September 1996), 100-02.

10. The date line in all Little America II Post Office hand cancellation devices was changeable. However, no change was made once each was set for a specific day/month in a specific year (either 30 or 31 JAN in 1934 and 30 JAN in 1935). Not all devices are known used with both year dates. Only one of the two types of machine cancellers had a date change (30 to 31 January 1934).

11. Paul A. Carter, Little America, Town at the End of the World (N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1979), 173.

12. Correspondence, Shook to McNeil, 3 August 1934, Byrd Archives, Byrd Center, Ohio State University, Box 32, File 1397.

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ICE CAP NEWS

101 Years Since the First Airship Ascent in the Arctic

By Siegfried Nicklas (The Wellman Chicago Record-Herald Expedition in 1907 and the Lerner Photogrammetrie Expedition to Spitsbergen in 1907.)

Late in June, 1907 the American Arctic explorer and aeronaut Walter Wellman with the ship Fridtjof reached Virgo harbor once again on the coast of the Danes Island in northwest Spitsbergen. Officially his enterprise had the name “The Wellman Chicago Record-Herald Polar Expedition.” Wellman had spent the spring in France improving the gondola of his airship America. A young engineer named Melvin Vaniman had advised and supported him.

Indeed, the year before, their hangar on the shore of the Virgo harbor had survived widely intact the arctic winter 1906-07. Nevertheless, in a violent storm at the beginning of July 1907, it was severely damaged. After four weeks of work it stood once again. The execrable weather that ruled over the entire month of August 1907, prevented more activities and ascent attempts (1,2,3).

Camp Wellman received the first visit in summer 1907 on the 7th of July from a compatriot. The American John Longyear, co-owner of the coal mine of the Arctic Coal Company at Advent Bay, after the sudden death of his partner John Munroe in the summer, 1907, looked solely after the progress of the coal mining in the ice fjord.

With the steamboat Munroe bought by the company, he started from Tromsö to Spitsbergen at the end of June. After the first inspection of his mine at Advent Bay, he visited his compatriot Wellman at Virgo Bay (4).

The first Wellman mail in 1907 was taken by Longyear with the Munroe on its return journey. He delivered it to the Advent Bay post office on the July 10th for transport to Norway.

Since the summer, 1906 a post office was again opened at Advent Bay. It was subordinated to the post office of Tromsö. The official mail boats were the tourist ships of the Bergenske-and Nordenfjeldske Dampskibselskab. Arne J. Bay (5) provides a list of the mail delivered from Advent Bay in the year 1906. Here we also find documented mail from Wellman’s Station in 1906, with 496 mail pieces recorded.

Between the 31st of July and the 2nd of August Camp Wellman was visited by the tourist ship Thalia of the Bade Spitsbergen trip in 1907. The son of Captain Wilhelm Bade, Axel Bade, had chartered a ship from the Austrian Lloyd for the 1907 Spitsbergen trip. Thalia had in 1907 also a ship postmark aboard. There are postcards with the ship post-

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

mark THALIA/OE.LLOYD 31.07.07 and there is mail carried by Thalia with the postmarks HAMMERFEST 5 VIII or 8 VIII. 07. On this mail one sometimes finds the signatures of Walter Wellman and/or Melvin Vaniman as well as notes of the tourists about visits to Camp Wellmann

Figure 1

(6). Often one finds on these postcards also the two line cachet CAMP WELLMAN DANE’S ISLAND SPITZBERGEN which was used at the Wellman camp.

Fig. 1 shows a postcard with two vignettes, Bade cachet MAGDALENENBAI and postmark HAMMERFEST 06.08.07 with the date Virgohafen 1. 08. 07 and text: “We lie here in snow and fog at the Wellman Station.” Between the middle and the end of July, Wellman was visited by the Lerner Photogrammetrie Expedition. For this expedition Theodor Lerner had chartered the small Norwegian steamboat Express from Tromsö with its captain Ohlsen. His companions, both officers, were Count Poninski and von Bock, as well as the aeronaut Dr. H. Elias.

Lerner had persuaded his financier, the Berlin firm of August Scherl Verlag, with the story that he wanted to try out the new Zeiss Phototheodolit for a topographic survey of the area around Danes Island. This became known to the army command and the publishing company August Scherl Verlag (1). The publishing firm was even ready to finance the addition of Dr. Elias who was well known in the aeronaut field.

Dr. Elias intended to make balloon and fixed ascents at Virgo Bay. He carried out his plan successfully and gained the trust of Wellman. However, secretly the airship enterprise of Wellman interested him in particular. Von Bock, in an article about the enterprise, describes the observation of the Wellman ascent as well as the photogrammetric works as tasks of the Lerner Expedition, to the north coast of Spitsbergen (7).

Lerner, as a journalist above all, was thinking about reporting the airship activities of Wellman. He had already

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ICE CAP NEWS

offered himself to Wellman the year before as an assistant.

After arrival at Virgo harbor he explained that he was ready to bring mail to the next post office at Advent Bay with the Express. Mail that Wellman wanted to have was there. Lerner returned from there with mail for Wellman at his balloon station on Danes Island. To him this was of course important because he wanted to send his own news to the editorial staff in Berlin via the Advent Bay post office.

Dr. H. Elias had come with the Thalia on the 1st of August to Virgo Bay (10 p. 431). During the return journey to Danes Island, Lerner had contact with the expedition of the Prince of Monaco, there with his steam yacht Prinzess of Alice in the Cross Bay. Lerner also met the German scientist and meteorologist Dr. Hergesell, who was a member of the expedition of the Prince of Monaco.

After return from Advent Bay, Lerner and his people established a small tent camp on the edge of Wellman’s station. Dr. Elias stayed here while Lerner, von Bock and Poninski dealt with the planned topographic surveys. In the notebook No. 39, 1907, pp. 1702-03 of the magazine Die Woche, we find nine photos of the Wellman Expedition.

There also is a photo in front of the tent of the members of the Lerner Expedition together with members of the Wellman Expedition. See Fig. 2 (13).

Figure 2

Walter Wellman, after his failure in 1906 in the America, started with big promises for 1907 to Spitsbergen. He began to succumb more and more to pressure due to failures. He could not face his financier, the publisher of the newspaper The Chicago Record-Herald, once more without having undertaken at least the attempt of an ascent.

Only on the 2nd of September, 1907 did wind conditions permit making an airship ascent attempt. In the afternoon at 4 o’clock, all preparations were finished and America was driven out of the hangar. The airship was loaded with a sledge, a boat, provisions for ten months, 40 gallons of water, and 1200 gallons of gasoline. Wellman, Vaniman and Riesenberg boarded the airship. The steamboat Express helped the start by slowly dragging the America to

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Smeerenburg Bay. “After a one-hour towed journey I allowed cutting the connecting cable and America climbed up and directed its course northward,” describes Wellman his ascent of 1907 in his book The Aerial Age (8). For the first time in the history of zeppelin aviation, an airship floated over the Polar sea.

If we follow here the recollections of Theodor Lerner (9), the ascent presents itself only as a short test run planned

by Wellman. Express had major difficulties to keep the airship in the towrope without capsizing. According to Lerner’s words, it was the American Roseman (Wellman had taken him as a film reporter) who solved on his own the towed rope problem.

A precise description of the first ascent is also given by Dr. Elias in an article in the Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen (10). He states that after merely 1 hour 48 minutes: “Command rope loose. Balloon free! Three cheers for Wellman.” After half an hour it started to snow and gusts of wind drove the airship towards the coastal mountains. Vaniman, who had supervised the engines, found out that her strength could not control the airship’s steering in a certain direction. Besides, one found out that the compass did not function any more. The unmaneuverable airship threatened to smash into the mountains. With increasing wind and snowfall, Wellman decided to land.

In the snow flurry one recognised the surface of a glacier. Wellman stopped the engine and Vaniman opened the valve to let the gas stream out. After the impact on the surface of the Foul Glacier, 15 km northeast of the Virgo Bay, Vaniman destroyed, with the help of a knife fastened to a rope, the airship cover. Some hours later the crew of America was discovered by Lerner and the people on Express. They were rescued and brought back to the station.

Later the airship was dismantled and fetched back to the station by Wellman’s ship Fridjof. Soon afterwards Wellman travelled back to Norway with his ship.

The seven photos in the magazine Die Woche of 1907 (13) are from the flight of the America or from the recovery

by Lerner and Express. Fig. 3 shows the America before the hangar.

Figure 3

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After a one-hour towed journey, half an hour of free engine flight and three quarters of an hour of uncontrolled drifting, the first airship journey in the Arctic, about the distance of 15 miles in consideration of the gigantic expenditure, had found a modest however happy end. Walter Wellman found the attempt successful in every regard and was convinced of the fact that America can go to the Pole in normal summer weather (2 pp. 80-81).

According to the information of Lerner (9 p. 117), von Bock and Poninski returned to Norway with a Norwegian seal catcher, together with major Hersey of the Wellman group. (From where is not noted!) Lerrner writes that he and Elias stayed in Virgo Bay because he wanted to go by Express to visit the Norwegian Johansen in West Spitsbergen. He had agreed to spend the winter together with him at the Wellman Station, to carry out more photogrammetric investigations in the spring and to guard the station. Elias was brought by Express to Advent Bay. Information about how he returned to Europe is recorded neither by Lerner nor by Elias (10).

Dr. Elias is the only author who leaves a good impression of Wellman. As an aeronaut he observes and analyzes the whole airship enterprise most exactly. He comes to the conclusion that essentially the steering system failed and the engine was too weak (10 p. 436).

Figure 4 “... I found men who burnt to complete her task under installation of her health and her life. The enterprise is serious, now this is certain and there is no reason to make it ridiculous as it happens partly” (9 p. 422).

From Lerner’s Photogrammetrie-Expedition there is a postcard presumably written by count Poninski to the following address:. To the Kgl. Oberlt. Im 2 GRgt commanded to the Great General staff Mr. von Stülpnagel Hochwohlgeboren NW 40 Berlin Alexander Ufer 6. The text of the card reads: “My Aegir! Everything is okay, only the connections disturbed by ice. Around Spitsbergen a thick ice belt. Till present only we and a fishing boat come through this. Wellmann is of good cheer. Ascent not before 10th August on Lerner’s telegram to General Anzeiger. We made a (photogrammetric) survey of Liefde Bay (in the north of Spitsbergen).

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“Any telegrams directed for further transportation to Consul Aagaard in Tromsoe, reach me if they are up to the 10th August at the latest 13th August in Tromsoe, where our expedition ship Express drives to give a report about the Wellmann ascent (if one occurs ??) (Running time Danes Island - Tromsoe 3 days) Give address also for all cases to Zitzewitz. Up to now shot seal and 3 reindeers. Little time for hunting. We are very busy to do something here, because with?? N Oland?? the survey is bad because of ice. Many greetings??

“Heartly greeting! Here there is none quelque temps.

Bock.”

The postcard bears a Norwegian 10-øre stamp and the postmark BELL SOUND with the date 26 VII 07. In addition, there is a blue vignette— shield with polar bear stamped with an oval cachet, SPITZBERGEN HVALHEIM 26th July, 1907 (Figs. 4 and 5.).

The postmark BELL SOUND was in use only in the summer 1907, during the tourist season in the Bell Sound. There was a whaling station as well as a house in which also the post office was settled. The owner was the Norwegian entrepreneur and consul John H. Giaever. Arne J. Bay (5 p.52) shows the Circular No. 33 of the Royal Norwegian Government from the 7th June, 1907, in which it is established, that during the tourist season 1907 under the management of the Tromsö post office, a post office with the name BELL SOUND was opened. The tourist ships of the Bergenske-and Nordenfjeldske Dampskibselskabs take over the transport of mail.

The blue vignette and the cachet were associated by Adams/Totten/Williams (11 p. 23) with Giaever. In view of the extreme rarity of the blue vignette (polar bear on shield), the cachet HVALHEIM, the postmark BELL SOUND and also the seldom seen picture postcard up to now, it is difficult to find the originator of the vignette, cachet and picture postcard. The cachet HVALHEIM is known with date 21.

Jul 1905 (11) and see also ICN Vol. 14 No. 6 (1969), p 69.

Arne J. Bay (5 p. 54) states as the earliest used date of the postmark BELL SOUND 16.08.07 with no other usage dates (12). How the postcard in July, 1907 received the cachet and the vignette, until now could not be investigated exactly. It is unlikely that Express had gone at the end of July up to Bell Sound, which is situated more to the south.

Rather it is supposed that the mail was handed over to

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another ship at a meeting.

It is also possible that the rare picture postcard “Reindeershooting at Coalbay” was bought quite early before the journey of Express with the already stuck vignette in North Norway, at the Bell Sound, or at any other place, or has been exchanged and was written later and then passed on by mail.

(1) P.J. Capelotti, “The Wellman Polar Airship Expeditions at Virgohamna, Dansköya, Svalbard,” Norsk Polarinstitutt Oslo 1997, Meddelelser No. 145, pp. 16-19.

(2) P.J. Capelotti, By Airship to the North Pole, New Brunswick, New Jersey and London 1999, pp. 74-82.

(3) John Duggan, Airships in the Arctic, Ickenham 2006, pp.

16-19.

(4) Nathan Haskell Dole, America in Spitsbergen, Boston 1922, p. 326 ff.

(5) Arne J. Bay, Svalbardfilatelien, Oslo 1979, p. 20.

(6) Uwe Rüppel, Kapitän Wilhelm Bades Touristikfahrten nach Norwegen, Spitzbergen und ins europäische Nordmeer in polarphilatelistischer Hinsicht, PolarpostSammlerverein Bielefeld 2001, p.

155-164.

(7) F.-K. von Bock, „Versuch photogrammetrischer KüsteFigure 5 naufnahmen gelegentlich einer Spitzbergen-Expedition im Sommer 1907,“ Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1908, pp. 598-603.

(8) Walter Wellman, The Aerial Age, New York 1911. Here cited after the extract in Clive Holland, Farthest North Endurance and Adventure in the Quest for the North Pole, London 1994. pp 185-86.

(9) Theodor Lerner, Polarfahrer, Im Banne der Arktis, Herausgegeben v. F. Berger, Zürich 2005, pp. 101-117.

(10) H. Elias, „Die Expedition Wellman 1907“ in Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Luftschiffahrt, Jahrgang 1907, pp. 422-39.

(11) P. Adams, A. Totten, P. Williams, Spitzbergen Cruise Mail 1890-1914, Scandinavia Philatelic Society, London 2006.

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12) One may not mistake the postmark “BELL SOUND” for three similar double circle stamps (cachets?): one without exact date from the year 1908 with the inscription “BELLSUND,” a second with date 1906 in the middle with inscription BELLSUND, and a third with 1908 in the middle with the inscription BELL SOUND. Up to now it is not clear whether these stamps BELLSUND and BELL SOUND, the first without date also was seen used for marking Norwegian stamps on postcards and letters, were postmarks or cachets. In my view they are cachets (in some cases used as postmarks).

(13) T. Lerner, „Wellmans Ballonaufstieg auf der Däneninsel,“ Die Woche, 1907, Heft 39, pp. 1702-03.

A short article by Th. Seelmann with nine not previously shown photos of Th. Seelmann with the title „Wellmans Ascent Station on Spitsbergen“ (Wellmans Aufstiegstation auf Spitzbergen) is in: Bibliothek der Unterhaltung und des Wissens, 1907, Vol. 6, pp 84-97, Berlin 1907.

In the exhibit “Arctic – Antarctic” (19.12.97 - 19.04.98) in Bonn, Germany, there was on view a so-called “Kaiserpanorama” (Imperial Panorama). This was a stereoscopic device for twelve viewers.

Three series of stereo glass slides of 36 pictures were shown with it. The third series had the title “From Hammerfest to Spitsbergen to the Wellman Expedition” (Von Hammerfest nach Spitzbergen zur Wellman-Expedition). These pictures came from members of the Lerner- Photogrammetrie-Expedition. In 1998, the lender was the Stereoscopic Picture Rental Company Kaiserpanorama Berlin, Prof. E. Senf.

In 1976 Robert Schoendorf wrote a good 4-page article about Wellman and his activity in the arctic in Ice Cap News, “The airship America and the first Airship stamp,” ICN Vol 21 (1976) whole No. 118 pp. 132-135. The same Vol. 21 shows a card from Wellman’s 1906 expedition on page 43.

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ICE CAP NEWS J19 \Some of my Favorite Covers

By John Young

A pair of covers from USS Staten Island came into my collection many years ago. They were addressed to cover collector, Helen Van Dykeman, Seattle, WA, and were franked with six cents postage (double the first class rate). One wonders if she didn’t want them returned, via airmail!

What is interesting about the covers? Well, they’re both machine canceled with the first day of postal service at Little America, Antarctica on 1 May 1956. Mrs. Van Dykeman was neither a member of the newly formed American Society of Polar Philatelists nor the Universal Ship Cancellation Society. Somehow she learned that USS Staten Island was deployed with Task Force 43 and sent requests for covers.

One cover (fig. 1) contains its filler card with a typed message from the ship’s mail clerk informing the collector that her other covers will be canceled when the icebreaker reaches its campsite, along the Weddell Sea Coast. This icebreaker and USS Wyandot were assigned to build Ellsworth IGY Station.

The message on the filler card reads: U.S.S. STATEN ISLAND South of Antarctic Circle 20 December 1956 Dear Mrs. Van Dykeman Crossed Antarctic Circle this date. Ice 10-14 feet thick, some penguins though not many. Temperature is the low 30’s & high 20’s. Cold and raw wind. Will cancel several other envelopes when we reach the campsite.

L.A. Rose, YN Navy Mail Clerk

in the dial. No back-dating there!

Postscript: Staten Island was the first “Wind” class icebreaker (WPG 278) that was built for the Coast Guard (original name USS Northwind), but was loaned to the Soviet Union under lend-lease. Served in Russian Navy as Severini Veter from February 1944 until December 1951.

Figure 1

Upon return to the Navy, she was renamed Staten Island (AGB 5) to avoid confusion with the USCGC Northwind (WAG 282) in April 1952. After operating as a Navy icebreaker, Staten Island was returned to the Coast Guard in February 1966, after the Navy abandoned icebreaking duties. She was decommissioned in May 1974.

Mail clerk, Yeoman 3/c Lisle A. Rose (later a college professor at University of Illinois) wrote several books on naval history, including Assault on Eternity. This book details Admiral Byrd’s exploration of Antarctica during Operation Highjump, 1946-47.

Anyone having other covers addressed to Mrs. Helen Van Dykeman, Seattle WA kindly sent copies to the author.

My email RKHOOLIGAN@aol.com or snail mail John Young, 146 North Lincoln Street, Pearl River NY 109651709.

The mail clerk serviced her covers with ship’s postmark (type 2 cancel) blocking its killer bars with a piece of paper and replacing the missing bars with clear strike of the ship’s Deep Freeze II cachet. The humorous cachet depicts a penguin beckoning a polar bear into the water. It’s used again on the icebreaker’s next visit to the frozen continent with changed wording, Deep Freeze IV.

Both cover and filler have the same date, December 20, 1956.

Rose used the ship’s cancel more as a cachet rather than postmarks. A second cover (fig.2) bears the cachet and partial cancel, dated 11 FEB 1957. That’s opening day at Ellsworth IGY Station.

Both covers were deposited and machine canceled at Little America. Looks like mail clerks at Little America didn’t change the date

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Figure 2

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Page 15

Belgium is Back A Belgian Antarctic station, opened during the IGY, closed after less than ten years of singular, and finally joint (Dutch), operation. King Baudouin Base in Queen Maud Land had a post office that operated until 9 February 1967.

Figure 1 is cancelled with a last day strike from one of

Figure 3

Figure 1

its(then) two, slightly different base cancellers.

Following its base’s closure, Belgian Antarctic interests were served by individual and group scientific activities as guests at other national stations. Figure 2 is cancelled at South Africa’s SANAE Station, 17 February 1968, a season after the Belgian base’s termination. The SL cachet reads, “SUMMER 1968 / COMBINED / S. AFRICA.BELGIAN /

within JARE 28’s program at its inland satellite station, Asuka. These guest assignments continued into the 21st Century.

Figure 4, from what probably is the first season of Belgium’s new national Antarctic base, Princess Elisabeth Station, brings the Belgian Antarctic program full circle. The new base is in the same region as had been King Baudouin Base. he BELARE (Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition) mail was spray cancelled when its party passed through Cape Town, South Africa, 30 December 2007. The autograph is that of an expedition member.

Figure 4

Arturo Prat to Reopen Figure 2

EXPEDITION.” There then was almost a two decade lapse in a regular Belgian Antarctic scientific presence until resumption of Belgian guest appearances in 1986-87. Figure 3, cancelled at Japan’s Showa Base, 17 December “61”(=1986), also indicates that the Belgians were conducting their research

Closed five years ago by a funding squeeze, the Chilean Antarctic research station, Arturo Prat, on Greenwich Island, South Shetlands, is scheduled to reopen. According to a Santiago (Chile) News 26 October 2007 article, reported in the January 2008 issue of The Polar Times (American Polar Society), the reopened base is scheduled to remain operational for another 20 years. Presumably it will be in operation for the 2008-09 season.

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ICE CAP NEWS

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

Great Britain/Isle of Man 1221-1226 28p, 31p, 55p, 75p, 90p, 117p Int’l Polar Year 8/20/07 1227 Sheet of 4, 50p, 75p Int’l Polar Year/North Canada 8/20/07 Greenland 498 501

New Polar Stamps

by Frank R. Michel [Ed. Note: We are delighted to have this new column by Frank Michel, author of the book Stamps of the Polar Worlds. He will advise ASPP members of recently issued stamps that have a Polar theme. The stamps are listed alphabetically by country with Scott® catalog numbers.]

Argentina 2441 Brazil 3010 Egypt 2000

4p Int’l Polar Year

Issue Date 6/02/07

90c-Horiz strip of 3, #a-c Int’l Polar Year

3/13/07

150p Melting ice, horiz.

World Environment Day

6/6/05

Falkland Islands 934 60p Sheet of 4, #a-d.

25th. Anniv. Of Falklands War

937-940 941

10p, 20p, 25p, L2 Scouting Cent.

60p Princess Diana

French Southern (TAAF) 388 54c Sheet of 5, #a-e.

Indian Ocean Islands 389 90c Path of Sun/Dumont d’Urville Base

5/25/07

7/23/07 8/31/07 5/10/07 2/21/07

Malaysia 1128-1130

3k Sled dogs 5/21/07 6.50k Greenland landscape 10/01/07

30c, 50c, $1 Set of 3 South Pole Exped.

12/28/06

Maldive Islands 2938 12r Sheet of 6, #a-f Int’l Polar Year /Penguins 2939 25r Souvenir Sheet

5/01/07 5/01/07

75c Sheet of 6, #a-f Int’l Polar Year/Penguins $3.50 Souvenir Sheet

8/07/07 8/07/07

Micronesia 748 749

New Zealand/Ross Dependency L99 50c Man & airplane 11/07/07 L100 $1 Man & sled 11/07/07 L101 $1.50 Sled dogs 11/07/07 L102 $2 tractor 11/07/07 L103 $2.50 HMNZS Endeavour 11/07/07 a. Souvenir Sheet #L102-L103 11/07/07 Norway 1500 Sheet of 2, a.10.50k, b.13k Int’l Polar Year 2/21/07 South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands 354-358 25p, 50p, 60p, 85p, L1.05 Set of 5, Scouting Cent.

Tristan Da Cunha 809 15p Scout Marr & book “Into/Frozen South” 810 20p The Quest frozen in.

As of 3/13/08

10/15/07 7/09/07 7/09/07

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25 Years Ago it Ended [Ed. Note: This short piece should have appeared in the July-December ICN to explain the two cover ilustrations on the front cover of that issue. The two illustrations are shown here again.]

The Falkland Islands War concluded 14 June 1982.

Armed conflict began 2 April with an invasion by Argentina of the Falklands. That was followed a day later with the taking of South Georgia.

After internationally-assisted negotiations failed, Great Britain began a long movement of over 100 ships with combat aircraft and ground troops to the Falklands. First they regained South Georgia on 25 April, from where they launched on 21 May an amphibious assault, leading to a retaking of the Falklands. Argentines removed 20 June from their South Sandwich Islands station in last “hostile” act of war.

As with all wars, there was a harsh toll assessment.

About 1000 from both sides lost their lives. Combined, they lost a total of 140 aircraft and had 25 vessels sunk, captured or badly damaged.

The Falkland Islands War pieces shown here are poignant memorials to this conflict’s end. The (top) registered mail to an Argentine soldier in the headquarters of the Engineer Group, “Islas Malvinas” (Falkland Islands) was posted at Buenos Aires on the war’s very last day (14 June 1982). Beneath it (lower cover) is mail bearing a special London, UK, cancellation on the day the British invasion fleet returned to celebrate its victory (12 October 1982).

Polar in Linn’s Three “polar” items appeared in the 7 January 2008 issue of Linn’s Stamp News :

1. Its “Collector’s Forum” column showed a beautiful, multi-colored stamp from Russia’s Novaya Zemlya. Unfortunately, the 1-ruble stamp picturing an ornate sailing ship is bogus. As Linn’s correctly states, Novaya Zemlya, in the Russian Arctic, is not a stamp-issuing entity.

2. In an article about a stamp-issuing entity, it was reported that the recently appearing USA Northern Lights (IPY) domestic rate (41 cents) pair was in limited supply.

According to this article, no more of the Northern Light

stamps are available from the Post Office. They sold out in two months. It further was mentioned that the Post Officesold Northern Lights first day covers also would be exhausted by the end of 2007. The international rate version of the Northern Lights issue still is available, but apparently only by mail order.

3. The Smithsonian National Postal Museum (Washington, DC) was scheduled to have a series of presentations in January, 2008. The last presentation on 29 January would feature polar mail. The one-hour formal presentation at the museum beginning at 12:30 is entitled, “Postal History is Cool: The Polar Post Curator Talk.” It goes on to describe that two of the assistant curators will “hold a mail call from the North Pole to Little America...to explore postal operations at the ends of the earth.”

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ICE CAP NEWS

Polar Icepicks American Icebreakers Revisited

By John Young I first wrote about the American icebreakers when requested by Stan Honeyman to submit articles to Linn’s Stamp News for their special edition (6/2/80) on naval covers. Its theme was covers posted aboard “Wind” class icebreakers documenting American polar postal history. To my surprise, the article on this phase of polar philately appeared on the front page of the newspaper’s Section II. What an honor for this rookie who had only joined the USCS & ASPP just two years before!

A few years later (July 1985), I started writing my “Polar Icepick” column for Ice Cap News. The column ran several years (1985-93) where I wrote about most of the “Wind” class icebreakers, their histories and covers posted aboard these 10 million dollar icepicks. That was their original cost. Recently I have been asked by our editor (Alan Warren) to write the icebreaker column again. Well, I’ve accepted his offer and wish to share with the membership my “nickel knowledge” on cancels & cachets on polar covers.

When I first wrote the article, both cutters Polar Star and Polar Sea had made their maiden voyages to Antarctica during DF ’78 & DF ’79. We all may recognize that the hobby of Polar Philately includes collecting of mail or philatelic covers from shore stations or ships deployed with naval task forces. We have been sending Navy and Coast Guard icebreakers to cut channels through the ice for tankers and cargo ships that have been re-supplying bases in the Arctic and Antarctica.

Here is some trivia from my first article. The American icebreaker (Wind class) was developed to fill the need of our defenses of Greenland. The Germans had attempted to build weather stations in the Arctic as an aide to strike against allied shipping along the northern convoy route.

There was a need for a ship that could break through the frozen ice fields. The Coast Guard built the four “Wind” class (269-foot icebreakers) that were launched in San Pedro CA. The “Wind” class icebreakers, including Glacier had some armament (single or twin 5”/38 mounts) but were

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

removed because of limitations within the Antarctic Treaty.

A similar icebreaker Mackinaw (WAG 83) was built for use on the Great Lakes (1944). The design was a flattened “Wind” that was 290-feet long with a beam of 74 feet to keep her in the lakes. “Big Mac” served on the lakes until 2006. She was replaced by a second Mackinaw (WLBB 30).

Before the war ended, we loaded Northwind (WAG 278), Southwind (WAG 280) and Westwind (WAG 281) to the Soviet Union. They were renamed Severini Veter, Kapitan Belusov, and Severini Polius respectively while serving in the Russian Navy (1944-51). Only Eastwind (WAG 279) crashed through the Arctic icepack until replacements were built by the Navy and Coast Guard.

A second Northwind (WAG 282) went to the Coast Guard, while the Navy named their new icebreaker after islands. Burton Island (AG 88) made her maiden voyage to Antarctica during Operation Highjump, while Edisto (AG 89) went north to build the “Alert” weather station. Northwind was to operate with Task Force 68 for a whole year, becoming the sixth ship in history to forge through the Kane Basin (Nanook) and the first modern icebreaker to break a channel through the Ross Sea to Little America.

These historic cruises were documented on covers mailed by the crew or from philatelic requests sent to the ships by cover collectors. “Highjump” covers are sought by many polar specialists. Try putting together an exhibit of covers from the 13 ships that participated on Admiral Byrd’s massive attack on the frozen continent (1946-47).

The following austral season saw the Navy’s ice-breakers Burton Island and Edisto participate in Operation Windmill. Task Force 39 operation was named because of its usage of the helicopter. Only one icebreaker, Edisto, documented the cruise with a special ship’s postmark (cancel). It had specific locations in killer bars SOUTH/ POLE/ 19471948 and LITTLE/AMERICA/ 1947-48.

Fig. 1 Fancy cancel used aboard Edisto during Operation Windmill.

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ICE CAP NEWS

Fig .2 Regular ship’s type 2n cancel.

A closer examination of fancy cancel reveals thinner bars than their regular type 2 (n) cancel. This suggests that the cancels (fig. 1-2) were donated to Edisto, probably by John Gill. He was giving ship cancels in the Boston area during this period (1945-47).

In the early 1950s, the Russian government returned the three Coast Guard icebreakers loaned during World War II. Westwind (WAGB 281) was returned to the Coast Guard, while the Navy retained control of Southwind and Northwind. They were renamed Atka (AGB 3) and Staten Island (AGB 5), respectively. The Navy built a newer, bigger icebreaker, Glacier (AGB 4). Together with Eastwind and Northwind II, they helped break the channels for the MSTS ships that built DEWLINE stations in the Canadian Arctic during the 1950s.

Navy Task Force 5 ships went north the Alaskan waters (1954-58), while Task Force 6 ships continued operating in Greenland waters into the mid-1970s. Since 1994, Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers have been performing the annual break-in of Thule, Greenland (known as Operation Goose Pacer). Ned Harris and I wrote a “Data Sheet” on American

Fig .3 Printed cachet, posted aboard first day in Antarctica, signed by icebreaker’s skipper, Commander Jacobson.

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Fig .4 “Disney” cachet (Task Force 43), posted aboard Glacier on leap year during Deep Freeze I (1955-56).

Polar Operations (surface) that is available. It contains a listing of MSTS ships that traveled to both polar regions.

A single icebreaker, Atka, was deployed to Antarctica to search for sites for American bases in Operation Deep Freeze. Mail including philatelic covers was brought back by the icebreaker with printed and stamped cachets (fig.3) documenting her 1954 voyage to Antarctica. Since the 1955-56 seasons, we have been sending three or four icebreakers to perform the annual break-in to our main base, McMurdo Station, in Antarctica. It was only during the 1990s that either Polar Star or Polar Sea made the trip.

South Pole Station is resupplied by flights from Christchurch, New Zealand.

Walt Disney Productions designed the original Task Force 43 cachet that signified teamwork (aviator, mariner and Seabee) in Antarctica. A smaller, similar cachet with the wording UNITED STATES NAVY/ SEAPOWER SUPPORTS/ SCIENCE was used by most of the ships and stations until the mid-1970s. Task Force 43 was renumbered to Task Force 199 after Deep Freeze ’74.

It should be noted that someone aboard Eastwind

Fig .5 Deep Freeze ‘71 cachet, posted aboard Burton Island on 5 JAN 1971.

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Fig .6 Deep Freeze ‘71 cachet, posted aboard Westwind on 2 MAR 1971. The same cachet was used for DF 67, but date (19 & 67) was removed from ribbon on either side of the crest.

removed the two-line wording on its cachet. The guess is that he had something against the Navy. The even smaller version of the task force cachet was used aboard the cutter until its decommissioning in December 1968. Eastwind made eight voyages to Antarctica (1959-67), including the first world cruise by an icebreaker in 1961. She served on the Greenland patrol with her sister-ship, Southwind before being loaned to Russia during World War II. Collecting polar covers from icebreakers can become quite interesting, and you see them in most dealer boxes at local shows. You should be informed that collectors were limited to specific numbers of covers, per collector. Starting with DF III (1957-58), a limit of three covers per ship and one cover per station was stipulated. The next season collectors marked their covers, either South Pole or Byrd Station. The Navy transferred all her icebreakers to the Coast Guard during fiscal years 1965-66.

By the DF’67, Staten Island limited the requests to two covers per collector. Coast Guard icebreakers placed a limit

Fig .7 One of two cachets used aboard Northwind during Deep Freeze ’77.

Volume 53, No. 1 Whole No.268

Fig .8 This cover made two trips to Antarctica, first aboard Eastwind, canceled while en route to the frozen continent (1966). It next traveled aboard Polar Star during Deep Freeze ’97.

of one cover during DF ’68. While reading a copy of the Coast Guard’s publication The Reservist, I saw a notice calling for individuals to send for philatelic covers from cutters deployed to Antarctica for Deep Freeze ’71. I sent a selfaddressed, stamped envelope (SASE) with the proper first class postage (six cents) to each icebreaker— Staten Island, Burton Island, and Westwind.

The three covers came back separately, posted aboard the icebreakers while they operated in Antarctica. They sported stamped official ship cachets that were designed from cutter’s jacket patches. While there was a limitation on the amount of covers sent to the ship, the mail clerk aboard Staten Island, Don Morisch, reported servicing over 12,000 covers during DF ’71. Morisch, an ASPP member (#951) used a variety of cachets on each piece of mail. A special oval cachet documents an attempted circumnavigation of

Fig. 9 One of the original covers machine canceled at Little America Station made its second voyage to Antarctica aboard Polar Star during Deep Freeze ‘98. A great way to get cachets on uncacheted material!

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ICE CAP NEWS

the Antarctic continent during its Antarctic Treaty inspection cruise (fig.4).

We can only thank those 1950s naval covers collector for having an interest in collecting naval cancels. While these covers weren’t canceled aboard the battleships at Tokyo Bay, they have been to seas and bays that battleships and destroyers could not transit. They were aboard ships that visited both Thule, Greenland (APO 23) and Point Barrow AK, in the Arctic Ocean. These covers transited the Ross, Weddell and Amundson Seas before entering the mail system that brought them back to collectors in the states.

Since the article was first written, Northwind and Westwind have joined her sister-ships in the scrap yards, and Glacier is waiting to become a museum ship. Their Galley fires doused and smoking lamps out for decades, but one can find a cover from one of these icebreakers. Here’s a listing of each icebreaker’s years of active service: No.

Name

First Day

Last Day

278

NORTHWIND (CG 96) SEVERINI VETER (Russian Navy) NORTHWIND (AGB 5) STATEN ISLAND (AGB 5) STATEN ISLAND (WAGB 278)

15 FEB 1944

26 FEB 1944

SOUTHWIND (CG 98) KAPITAN BELUSOV (Russian Navy) ATKA (AGB 3) ATKA (WAGB 280) SOUTHWIND (WAGB 280)

15 JUL 1944

279 280

281

282

283

284

EASTWIND (CG 97)

31 JAN 1952 15 APR 1952 20 SEP 1966 1 JUN 1944

1 OCT 1950 20 OCT 1966 18 JAN 1967

WESTWIND (CG 99) 18 SEP 1944 SEVERINI POLIUS (Russian Navy) WESTWIND (AGB 6) 1 FEB 1952 WESTWIND (WAGB 281) 22 SEP 1952 13 AUG 1974

NORTHWIND

AG 88 BURTON ISLAND Reclassified (AGB 1) BURTON ISLAND (WAGB 283) AG 89 EDISTO Reclassified (AGB 2) EDISTO (WAGB 284)

GLACIER (AGB 4) GLACIER (WAGB 4)

19 DEC 1951 1 FEB 1966

23 MAR 1945

15 APR 1950 20 OCT 1966

31 MAY 1974

21 FEB 1945 19 DEC 1951 13 MAR 1952 1 OCT 1971 29 FEB 1989

20 MAR 1947 JAN 1949 20 OCT 1965

——— 20 OCT 1965 15 NOV 1974

POLAR STAR (WAGB 10) 17 JAN 1976

23 FEB 1978

active

HEALY (WAGB 20)

21 AUG 2000

active

When the Navy transferred her icebreakers (AGBs) to the Coast Guard, Staten Island and Atka got their original hull numbers (W278 & W280). Atka’s crew voted to take its old name, Southwind, in January 1967. Westwind had the shortest naval career (AGB 6) on the voyage from Bremerhaven, Germany to the Boston Navy Yard. It should be noted that CG 96-99 were originally the Coast Guard building numbers given the cutters, prior to World War II. The U.S. Navy transferred all military support operations to the Air Force (1999), with civilian operations going to Raytheon Polar Services. The Air Force now operate the post offices at McMurdo (APO AP 96599) and South Pole Station (APO AP 96598). The United States Antarctic Program, under the National Science Foundation, is in charge of scientific missions. In fact, this year they negotiated with Sweden (Oden) to provide an icebreaker to perform the annual break-into McMurdo Station. This is the first time in Deep Freeze history that an American icebreaker has not been deployed in Antarctica.

13 DEC 1968

18 OCT 1973 20 JAN 1989

27 MAY 1955 30 JUN 1966

POLAR SEA (WAGB 11)

15 NOV 1974

28 JUL 1945 18 JUN 1975

28 DEC 1946 1 MAR 1949 15 DEC 1966

Page 21

——— 15 DEC 1966 9 MAY 1978

30 JUN 1966 JUN 1987 reserve

Airship to Measure Arctic Ice Cap According to a report by Marc Reisch in the October 22 issue of Chemical & Engineering News published by the American Chemical Society, French explorer Jean-Louis Etienne will head a team to make scientific measurements in a special airship to determine the effects of global warming on the Polar ice cap.

Several manufacturing firms will help sponsor the event. The airship was unveiled at the Marseille Provence Airport in France and will be used during March and April 2008 for the research project. Air Liquide will supply the helium to take the dirigible aloft. W. L. Gore & Associates made the special fabrics and polymers used in the extreme weather clothing. French petrochemical firm Total is also a sponsor.

The scientists will use a laser altimeter and electromagnetic probe developed by the Alfred Wegener Institute of Germany. Other sponsors include several French scientific institutions as well as the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization.

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ICE CAP NEWS

Amory H. Waite 1902-1985

By Aubrey Halpern [Ed Note: This is the last manuscript received from the late Aubrey Halpern, a long term member of ASPP.]

Recently I acquired some photos produced of Amory “Bud” Waite (fig 1 is signed 1934, and figures 2-4a are dated or signed 1935). Some of them have a printed cachet on the back with his name and address, stating that he presented illustrated lectures (fig 1a).

I have looked at various sources to find out more about him and this is what I have pulled together. Amory was born in Boston and lived in Oceanport, New Jersey. In 1929 he was chosen to install special electrical equipment aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lexington and tested it during a long cruise to the Orient.

In 1933 Waite joined the Byrd II Antarctic Expedition as the Chief Radio Officer on the ship Bear of Oakland, where he helped rewire a lot of the ship’s electronics. One day he was repairing a Citroen tractor starter motor when Byrd took notice of him. The leader wanted someone who was good at fixing things during the winter months at the base, and so Waite became one of the overwintering party, where he helped with sending and receiving radio messages.

In January 1934 Waite and pilot Harold June made their first successful tractor trip 50 miles inland. The next summer he undertook a trip of 815 miles to the Eastern Plateau.

When Byrd became ill because of fumes from the heater while at Bolling Advance Base, three men—Thomas Poulter, Pete Demas, and Bud Waite tried three times to reach him before finally succeeding after a 72-hour journey of 123 miles in a tractor through the winter night.

In 1937 Waite was recognized with a special Byrd Congressional Medal from Governor Hoffman at Trenton, New Jersey. He missed out on the Byrd III Antarctic Expedition because Byrd asked him to present a lecture tour series to a number of schools at the time. During World War II, Waite was an engineer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps Research and Development Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, NJ. He accompanied the American forces when they invaded France and helped set up a newly developed multi-channel FM radio relay system that kept General Eisenhower in

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touch with his commanders in the battlefield. For this service Waite was awarded the Bronze Star.

In 1947 Bud Waite took part in the Operation HighJump expedition as an observer for the Army Signal Corps, and helped dig out the Snow Cruiser (fig. 5) which was buried at the end of BAE III. The cruiser was full of uncancelled covers. He was asked to guard Scott’s Hut from pilferers but was conned by a few New Zealanders who took some of the artifacts. Waite produced his own cachet, made from linoleum, with crossed flags and penguins, sometimes bearing the letters S.C.E.L. (Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories) (figs. 6-10).

Bud spent 32 years, engaged in 22 trips to the Arctic and Antarctic, many times as a radio research engineer see QSL cards figs. 11-12). In 1958 he designed the Radio Ice Depth Measuring system (based on radio echo sounding) – a much improved system over previous methods.

During his visits to the Polar Regions, Bud Waite designed a number of cachets for collectors. He retired in 1965 but his name lives on in the Antarctic. There is a Cape Waite at 73° S, 103° W, and the group of Waite Islands about 100 miles northwest of Cape Waite.

The author is indebted to articles written by Bud Waite in the 1970s issues of Ice Cap News and to various websites.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1a

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ICE CAP NEWS

Fig. 2 Fig. 4a

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

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ICE CAP NEWS

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Fig. 7

Fig. 11

Fig. 8

Fig. 12

Fig. 9

Member Ads Grandfather’s Collection: Beautiful polar covers, mostly older, all with cachets, 7 hand colored/drawn cachets with each order. Nice covers! 35 covers $110. Victor Schwez, 10519 Casanes Ave., Downey CA 90241.

U.S. Drifting Stations: Looking for covers from these as well as submarine arctic missions. Am able to buy large collections of same. Franco Giardini, Via Avigliana 72, 10096 Leumann (TO), Italy; franco.giardini@libero.it.

Fig. 10

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ICE CAP NEWS

Page 25

COVERS GALLERY

Fig. 1 – TAAF cover with autograph of the captain of the Cap Horn I

Fig. 2 – Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

Fig. 3 – IPY cover from McMurdo Station

Fig. 4 – International Student Expedition to King George Island

Fig. 5 – Shirase paquebot cover

Fig. 6 – Experimental Scott South Pole Station

Airdrop

at

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ICE CAP NEWS

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COVERS GALLERY

Fig. 7 – EPONTA 2007 research at Terre Ad_lie

Fig. 8 – Neumayer Station

Fig. 9 – Princess Elisabeth Station

Fig. 10 – 50th Anniversary of MS Nordstjernen

Covers Gallery Credits

Fig. 11 – Carl Koldewey, leader of the first two German North Pole Expeditions 1868-1870

Mark Boekstein Eddy De Busschere Frank Faustino Rolf Kardel Manuel Gallego Lorenzo Joachim Neis Siegfried Nicklas Klaus Arne Pedersen Elgin Sink

January - March 2008

ICE CAP NEWS

Page 27

Polar News from Italy Alberto Marenga’s Polar News (issue 1-2008) international polar newsletter, of the Polar Research and Documentation Center, Rome, has a number of news pieces in its first issue of 2008 that have a pertinence to polar philatelists: South Korea is conducting a site survey to determine where to build its second Antarctic station by 2011. It will be inland, nearer to the South Pole, according to South Korean sources. Presently there are 47 stations in Antarctica. Thirty are on the continent.

When South Korea opens its second, it will be the tenth country to manage more than one Antarctic station.

Argentina required more than one vessel to replace its icebreaker Irizar, which still has not been repaired after its disastrous April 2007 fire, to resupply its Antarctic stations during 2007/08. The major fill-in was chartered from Far Eastern Shipping — Russia’s Vasily Golovnin. It was assisted by smaller vessels from China and Brazil.

While Irizar is being repaired, another icebreaker is being built. The new one has been ordered by the Baltic state of Estonia. Aker Arctic Technology, Helsinki, Finland, will construct the new breaker that is supposed to be capable of breaking ice more threefeet thick at a speed of 3 knots. The Director General of Estonia’s Maritime Administration states this is the first step toward implementing the national icebreaking development plan.

Previously reported was a French initiative to conduct high Arctic ice thickness research using a specially built airship. The massive airship, the size of a Boeing 737, was due to depart Paris 1 March and to have reached the North Pole March 25-26. Now that is in question. During the winter, the Russian-built airship was torn from its mooring by a high wind, sending it crashing into a house. Its damage must have been extensive, since a spokesperson expressed pessimism when asked if it was a total loss.

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ICE CAP NEWS

Postcards of Antarctic Expeditions: A Catalogue 1898-1958 by Margery Wharton.

362 pages, 6 ? by 9 ? inches, case bound, published by the author, East Sussex, United Kingdom, 2007. ISBN 0-9533074-0-9, available from the author for approximately $60, 18 Millfield Rise, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex TN40 1QY, United Kingdom.

This is the author’s second edition of her book first published in 1998. The new edition revises and updates the earlier one and is in slightly larger format as well as containing nearly 100 more pages. The catalog is for reference only and does not include value or scarcity data.

These picture post cards were issued to promote and celebrate many important expeditions to Antarctica from the end of the 19th century up to the end of the International Geophysical Year 1958. More recent cards and modern reprints of older ones are not included. The cards are listed chronologically by expedition and assigned catalog reference numbers using a letter for the expedition followed by a number for each distinct post card.

The first entry is that for the cards pertaining to the Belgica expedition of 1897-1899 led by Adrien Victor de Gerlache. Each card is illustrated and the description includes any caption printed on the card followed by an English translation if the original is in a foreign language.

Several sets of cards exist for the Belgica expedition and the publishers are identified along with a useful description such as undivided back for the address side. Five different sets of cards are shown along with a number of privately issued cards.

The same treatment is used to describe post cards of the remaining expeditions of Drygalski, Nordenskjöld, Scott, Charcot, Shackleton, Amundsen, Shirase, Mawson, Byrd, Ellsworth, Hillary and many others. Each expedition’s cards are introduced with a short summary of the purpose of the venture and its dates. The expeditions are grouped in three categories: continental exploration 1893-

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1918, the whaling period and early air exploration 19191942, and establishment of permanent stations and their scientific activity through the IGY 1943-1958.

Although author Wharton owns many of the cards shown, she has relied on copies and scans from others to fill in some gaps. The beauty of the catalog is not only the black and white illustrations (the way many of the cards were issued), but also the brief section of color reproductions included in a supplement near the end of the book.

As mentioned, the Belgica cards are identified with the letter A and the listing proceeds to W for the 1947 Chilean Antarctic expedition. At the end of this main listing are several groups of cards that commemorate more than one expedition. Handy reference tools at the end of the book are an alphabetical listing of captions, and lists of surnames and ships with cross references. A bibliography concludes this wonderfully illustrated catalog of cards that record famous expedition to the White Continent. Now that picture post cards are sanctioned for exhibiting at national shows in the United States, this catalog will be important for collectors of such material.

Alan Warren

Century of Progress Byrd II Postcards The second edition of Margery Wharton’s Antarctic postcard catalog, reviewed in this issue of ICN, reminds us about another Byrd II anomaly. When it comes to Byrd II postcards, it is a story that borrows a chapter from Byrd I (1928-30). Of course, the so-called “English” postcards are one example of the use of Byrd I images on Byrd II postcards. There also is another that is not as obvious.

Byrd employed various venues for Byrd II fundsraising.

One such occasion was the (closed in the winter) 1933-34

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ICE CAP NEWS

Chicago World’s Fair.

The Byrd expeditions had an exhibit there. Its main feature was City of New York fresh from Byrd I. Visitors also got the opportunity to subscribe for a Byrd II philatelic souvenir. Byrd II’s philatelic subscription service is an immense subject to be covered later in much more space. Suffice to say that subscriptions acquired from visitors to the Byrd I-subject display at the Chicago World’s Fair represented an important Byrd II subscription cover sales effort.

There were others who also took advantage of the popular Byrd Expeditions exhibit by publishing pertinent picture and photo postcards. An assortment of Byrd I ship’s

views (some fanciful) were the general highlight of all the variously offered cards. Margery Wharton shows many of them on pages 276-79 of her latest catalog.

No doubt space limited the number of Byrd II-subject (displaying a Byrd I ship) Century of Progress postcards that could be shown in the Wharton catalog. Here are another four that can be added to those already included in that book.

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Grönland – Insel der Arktis (Greenland – Island of the Arctic) by Gerhard Müller.

5? x 8? inches, 150 pages, softbound, in German, with brief English introduction.

Published by Forschungsgemeinschaft Nordische Staaten, price including postage to US (in Euros): 14.00 (printed matter surface rate), or 19.00 (airmail letter), or 21.00 (registered airmail letter), from the secretary Roland Daebel, Stolzenhagener Weg 4, D16515 Oranienburg, Germany, e-mail: info@nordische-staaten.de. Payment via PayPal (for details, contact secretary).

The book is a presentation of Gerhard Müller’s former exhibit of Greenland postal history which reaped, among other distinctions, five gold medals at important international events. Its purpose is to preserve a complete record of what must have been one of the more important Greenland postal history collections of our time by making black-andwhite images of its unique material accessible for philatelic research after the collection was sold in 2006 and subsequently dissolved by an auction house.

The exquisite material reflects and documents, by way of postal items, many aspects of Greenland‘s historical development, from early colonial times (remarkable prephilatelic letters from 1784 and 1824, respectively), exploration (expedition mail), the disruptions of WWII (censored mail, devious postal routes), to the early post-war period with its beginnings of a modern postal service. It features a wide range of unique postal arrangements and modes of postal transport peculiar to Greenland, such as mail by dogsled and kayak, and illustrates the difficulties imposed on mail distribution by the country’s geography and climate.

Due emphasis is given to the American presence in Greenland, with mail from pioneering flights (Byrd, Lindbergh, MacGregor), research activities (Ice Island T-3), and a special chapter devoted to fieldpost to/from US bases during and after WWII, with a number of rarities. Altogether, following an introduction, 143 exhibition pages are presented, all written up succinctly (to comply with exhibition rules) but adequately to bring home the significance and special aspects of each item presented.

Rolf Dörnbach Germany

[Ed. Note: Through the courtesy of the author and also the editor of The Posthorn, published by the Scandinavian Collectors Club, this review will appear in both publications.]

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ICE CAP NEWS

Polar Philately

Here and There

[Note: Copies of many of these articles can be obtained from the American Philatelic Research Library, 100 Match Factory Place, Bellefonte PA 16823-1367.]

Co-authors Garry Toth, Don Hillger, and Bob Kochtubajda review the International Polar Years in an article in the January-February issue of Topical Time, published by the American Topical Association. They describe the first four IPYs and use stamps from several countries to illustrate their points.

Although it is not postal history, it IS polar history in the article by Emily Wichman in the magazine Archive: A Journal of Undergraduate History, vol. 4, May 2001, pp 24-40, published by the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The article is titled “Two Routes to the Arctic: Under the Ice with the Nautilus and Through the Air with the Graf Zeppelin” and provides background as well as details on the submarine and the airship attempts to reach the North Pole in 1931. Thanks to ASPP member Mike Vining for calling attention to this item.

Rolf Scharning discusses the Maud expedition mail in the March issue of Scandinavian Contact published by the Scandinavia Philatelic Society of Great Britain. He mentions the fund-raising souvenir post cards as well as crew mail for Amundsen’s expeditions in the early 1920s. In the same issue, Peter Hellberg furnishes the second part of his series on Greenland’s first air mail, continuing the story about the 1932 Franck Expedition and the Rockwell Kent semi-official label.

Rolf Dörnbach writes about Station Nord in northeastern Greenland in the February issue of The Posthorn, published by the Scandinavian Collectors Club (USA). It was established in 1952-1953 as a weather station and for emergency landing by United States Air Force craft normally stationed at Thule Base in northwestern Greenland. He describes the operation of the Nord Station and shows examples of mail sent from there.

Geir Sør-Reime authors a continuing series on island communities in Mekeel’s & Stamps Magazine. In the March 14 issue he describes Bear Island that lies south of Svalbard

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and belongs to Norway. It was discovered in 1596 by William Barents. It has been used as a whaling station, weather station, and for coal mining. Bjørnøya, as it is known, had a postal marking from 1918 to 1925. The postal agency opened again in 1972. In the late 1960s, postal historian Bradley Arch of New Jersey created some Cinderella labels for Bear Island.

John Youle provides an historic glimpse of the tourist ship MS Explorer that sank in the Branfield Strait last November, in the March issue of Polar Post. The vessel was known as the MS Lindblad Explorer from 1970 to 1985, then as the MS Society Explorer 1985 to 1992, and finally the MS Explorer until its demise in 2007. He shows a number of photos of the ship and some commemorative covers.

In the same issue, Gordon Buchan furnishes the first part in a series on the 1907-1909 British Antarctic Expedition with emphasis on the post cards and postal history related to it.

Nick Halewood reviews the 1954 set of Queen Elizabeth definitive stamps of Tristan da Cunha in the April issue of Gibbons Stamp Monthly. He provides a brief history of this island group and describes the different designs found on each value of the set.

Steve Pendleton reminisces about the MV Explorer, the Antarctica tourist ship that sunk November 23, 2007 in the South Shetlands, in the January 21 issue of Linn’s Stamp News. The famed “Little Red Ship” is shown in a photograph along with several covers bearing cachets and postmarks marking its many cruises.

Alan Warren

Walter A. Jellum ASPP member Walter Jellum of California, passed away last July after a long illness. He is survived by his wife, Joanie. His interest was in Norway and Svalbard, deriving from his Norwegian genealogy roots. The Jellums traveled extensively in Norway and elsewhere, including at least one extended trip to Svalbard.

Walt’s collecting interests included the coins and paper money of Norway and the scrip from Svalbard, and he provided many pages of illustrations and text to websites and journals dealing with these specialized subjects. His collections included items that were not represented in the museum collections in Norway.

Walt was also a longtime member of the Scandinavian Collectors Club.

Paul Nelson

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ICE CAP NEWS

Page 31 Polar News from Polar News

ASPP member Phil Schreiber points out that cancels can be obtained for a number of Hurtigruten cruise ships that ply the waters along Norway. Vessels include the Nordstjernen, Nordkapp, Polarlys, Lofoten, Nordnorge, and others. His comments were reported in the January-February issue of Seaposter, published by the Maritime Postmark Society. Requests along with appropriate Norwegian stamps or international reply coupons should be sent to Posten Norge AS, Harstad Postkontor, Postboks 1, 9481 Harstad, Norway.

I am indebted to member Bill Stahl who helped with editing of a few items for this issue of ICN. We welcome a new columnist, Frank R. Michel, who will report to readers the latest stamps issued around the world that have a Polar theme or subject. Michel is author of the book Stamps of the Polar Worlds that was reviewed in the last issue of ICN. We also welcome back a former columnist and prominent ASPP member John Young who will once again report on the United States Coast Guard’s activities in the Polar Regions with his “Polar Icepicks” entry.

Special thanks are due to Manuel Gallego Lorenzo of Spain for his information on Spanish and Argentinian Polar related activities.

Member Eddy De Busschere is secretary of the Belgian Polar Exploration Society. He can arrange for serviced covers from Belgian and Dutch Antarctic teams. Write to him for details at Kriekenstraat 5, 8310 Assebroek, Belgium.

Alan Warren

Alberto Marenga’s Polar News (issue 11-2007) presents the following items of interest.

1. A combined British-USA team will be conducting a 2,000 km ground survey to determine ice depth over the North Pole. Sponsors are Cambridge University and the US Navy’s oceanography school. Among the members are explorers (presumably British) Pen Hadow and Ann Daniels. Also commenting was Cambridge’s Joao Rodrigues. Their project began in February 2008.

2. Fire-damaged Antarctic support vessel Almirante Irizar has required Argentina to cobble together a number of replacements for its 2007-08 season. Among those are two small, “vintage” patrol vessels, Suboficial Castillo and Canal de Beagle. They departed early in the season from Buenos Aires for Ushuaia from where they will be conducting their voyages in support of Argentine Antarctic operations.

Also recruited to help resupply ten Argentina Antarctic stations is a small international fleet of well known polar support vessels. Among these are Russia’s Golovnin, China’s Xue Long and Ary Rongel of Brazil. The Russian vessel will have the Marambiomission. The two Argentine replacement vessels are much smaller than the ship they are replacing.

3. China (PRC) is continuing with plans to prepare for establishment of its third Antarctic station. During 2007-08 it will conduct a site survey for the new inland station to be located at Dome “A.” 4. This was the last season for Japan’s third Antarctic support ship.Icebreaker Shirase will be replaced in a little over a year by New Shirase. It will not be ready in time for the 2008-09 season, so Japan will be chartering an Australian vessel for next year.

5. Japan continues its Antarctic whaling research operations with a fleet of six ships that departed Shimonoseki Port, Yamagushi Prefecture in late 2007. Mother ship is the 8,044-ton Nisshin Maru. The fleet expected to take 850 minke and 50 each fin and humpback whales. Meat from the “researched” whales is sold to the public.

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MEMBERSHIP REPORT for 1st Quarter 2008 (Numbers in parentheses are collecting interest codes.)

#3603 John E. Durant, 32 Maple St., Box 373, West Newbury MA 01985-0473 #3604 Paul Petersen, 38 Buttonwood Dr., East Brunswick NJ 08816-4402 (1) #3605 Nancy Godfrey, 7550 Buckingham Pl. #16, Fairview PA 16415-2464 New Members

Change of Address

#1403 Fritz Konau, Plantagenweg 1, 23869 Elmenhorst, Germany #2674 James D. West, 4942 Atlantic VW, Saint Augustine FL 32080-7138 #3450 William J. Spindler, 511 Hiscock St., Ann Arbor MI 48103-3181 Reinstated #3460 John E. Noyes, 13258 Edina Way, Poway CA 92064-1203 (3, 26) Resigned #592 Arne Lindgren, Sweden #2047 Manuel Cruz-Rodriguez, Canary Islands, Spain #2254 Serge Delsaux, France #3476 Warren Smith, Idaho #3522 Paul B. Ostergaard, Pennsylvania Deceased #1708 John Perrino, Jr., Florida #3544 Walt Jellum, California Total current members: 281 The following have contributed generously to ASPP, which is very much appreciated: Mark Bacon, John Beirne, Norman Cherkis, Keith Clements, Charles Corbin, Frank Faustino, Herman Grackin, Robert Holly, Robert Jernigan, Michael Kahsar, Thomas Kudzma, Paul Larsen, Manuel Gallego Lorenzo, Gary Pierson, Robert Rawlins, Keith Reccius, Julius Rockwell, Louise Rome, Richard Steinig, Bernard Tondl, Jack Treutle, James West, Billy Williams, John Zsitvay

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NOTE: Please send address changes promptly to the Secretary. Misaddressed copies of the journal mailed to United States addresses are disposed of by the postal service, and the new address is sent at a cost of 75-cents. A replacement copy of ICN must then be sent by first class mail. Help ASPP save money by reporting address changes as soon as possible.

Alan Warren, Secretary ICE CAP NEWS Volumes 1 through 39 Complete on one CD-ROM Compiled by Dr. Ross Marshall Member Price $85 Nonmembers $105 From ASPP Treasurer Ned Harris P. M. B. 303 120 S. Houghton, Ste 138 Tucson AZ 85748-2155 USA

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Schmitt Investors Ltd.

Member: USCS, ASDA, APS, PTS (London), CSDA (Canada) Since 1953

International Postal History Specialists Since 1953 P.O. Box 387-ICN • Northport NY 11768 USA Phone: (631) 261-6600 (24 hours) Fax: (631) 261-7744 • E-Mail: fred@fredschmitt.com