[Granville-Hough] 2 Jun 2009 - Thule Wabbit
Trustees for Granville W. Hough
gwhough-trust at oakapple.net
Fri Jun 2 05:53:03 PDT 2017
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:33:49 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Thule Wabbit - 2 June 2009
I never intended to use material from others, but I did run across this
little story from former Air Force Capt. Ronald Fellner, Lakeland, FL,
(page 14, ôMilitary Officer,ö June 2009). It is the sort of thing which
happened at Thule, Greenland, which we pronounced as ôToo-lee,ö with
accent on the Too. Granpa.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Thule Wabbit
[In the 1950s at Thule Air Base, Greenland,] a baby arctic hare was
apparently rejected by his mother and found by members of some unità
He was named Wesley Worthington Wabbit. He would race around the halls
of [the nursesÆ] quarters, following them like any dutiful mascot or
petà One day, while following one of his friends, he didnÆt make it
through the large freezer-type door we had in our quarters as it closed.
His hindquarters were pinched severely [and] his rear end was paralyzedà
The veterinarian was called upon to design a little cart to carry
WesleyÆs rear end while he motivated it with his front legsà It worked
like a charm, and Wesley ran around it it like a NASCAR rookie.
Wesleyàwas a masterful ambassador for that cold, empty land. [It was the
only home he knew.]
Comment: I will just say that the mother wabbit was probably seeking
some vegetables in the garbage dump and encountered an arctic fox who
was just as hungry as she was.
Radar Alert
On page 76 of the same magazine, is another story headed by: ôThis Air
Force sergeant and his colleague prepare for the worst when radar
indicates something in the water off the coast of Greenland is moving
toward shore.ö This story is from retired Lt Col Ivan L. McKinney, who
lives in Louisiana.
Due to the worrisome environment caused by a combination of the Cold War
and the Korean War, from 1951-52, I found myself, an Air Force sergeant,
posted just a few hundred miles from the North Pole of Thule Air Base,
Greenland. My job was to use ground controlled approached (GCA) radar to
give landing instructions to friendly aircraft as they flew into the air
base.
Thule Air Base is situated at almost 80 degrees north latitude, and
there is total darkness 24 hours a day in the winter. I was one of only
two supervisor GCA radar operators.
One early winter evening at about 8 pm, I was off duty in the icebox
barracks, and my colleague sent for me, saying I was needed immediately
at the GCA radar unit.
When I arrived at the unit, he was red-faced, breathing heavily, and
scared to death. ôLook here on the final approach scopes,ö he said, ôI
believe that this blip [radar return] is a Russian submarine. TheyÆre
going to land a force and kill us all!ö
I looked at the scopes and, sure enough, saw the blip slowly moving
toward shore. We quickly sounded the alert to the air base group
commander. He arrived and looked at the moving blip and directed civil
engineering and the air police to put a big light on a truck, proceed to
the shore area and try to determine what or who was almost ready to come
ashore.
We had a more recent model GCA unit that had not been cleared for
aircraft landing duties yet, but it had sharper radar. My colleague
started it up,, and we saw three or four blips moving toward the shore.
He started yelling that he didnÆt want to die in Greenland with only a
month to go [of his enlistment or of his tour in Thule.]
The air police truck arrived on the beach, and the light was aimed just
off shoreùon a school of whales feeding at the garbage dump and blowing
water straight in the air. Everyone involved was just glad the whales
werenÆt Russians.
Comments: There are several comments I could make about this story, but
then its author could be just as critical of my stories. We did indeed
dump garbage off shore on the ice when it became strong enough to
support a garbage truck. I doubt, however, that any whale could have
broken through that ice to get at it. Perhaps before my time in 61/62,
the Air Force took garbage out by barge or boat during the summer. At
the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the days and nights were each 12
hours long, then they changed quite rapidly. The autumnal equinox ended
the shipping season, and the ships hurried away so they would not be
captured by the ice for the winter. So for such an event, as reported on
an early winter evening, it would have to be before the ice was solid.
I never heard anyone mention whales off shore, but orcas go everywhere,
and garbage dropped in shallow water will lie frozen until the tide and
storms sweep it away. The whales could have been feasting on garbage
from previous years. Then there is the problem of GCA radar detecting
objects under water. I personally never saw it demonstrated.
More information about the Granville-Hough
mailing list