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An archive of the diarist's intermittent two-year deployment in Williams Field, Antarctica for Operation Deep Freeze. Lutz records his time in "The Ice" battling the elements, problem-solving, and undertaking the arduous work of digging and activating the camp after its winter hiatus. Included is a letter dated 1971 from Lutz's colleague describing the Pegasus crash and the crew's survival. Williams Field served as the airfield for McMurdo Station, the southernmost port in Antarctica, where Lutz was tasked with digging out and maintaining the camp. Operation Deep Freeze, which began in 1955, is the code name for a series of US missions to the continent to support international collaborative research. Reflecting on his experience, Lutz recounts that "Antarctica, like most military assignments, was a combination of tedium, hardship, military bureaucracy, and a never ending [sic] battle with the elements and lousy equipment" (p. 20). James J. Lutz (b. 1943), a naval officer from Seattle, attended navy officer candidate school before being assigned to Antarctic Support Activities (ASA) at the Navy Construction Battalion Center, Danville, Rhode Island. Reporting for duty as an Ensign in late April 1968, Lutz spent months preparing for deployment before arriving in Antarctica in September 1968 at the age of 24. Lutz writes: "I stepped off an airplane onto the Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. It was bitter cold and barely light and I was dressed like a man from the moon" (p. 4). Originally intended as an informal reference guide for his successor, the logbook became deeply personal for Lutz, who later admitted, "when I finally left The Ice for good, I couldn't bear to part with it" (p. 22). The logbook itself features several diagrams which Lutz sketched as references. Lutz collated his accounts from his diary and the logbook into The Ice Ensign, a self-published work released in 2012. Taped to the front pastedown of the logbook is a typewritten quotation from Captain R. F. Scott: "It seems a fundamental expression of civilised human sentiment that men who come to such places as this should leave what comfort they can to welcome those who follow". Following his Antarctic service, Lutz was posted in 1971 to Barrow, Alaska, where he served at the Navy Arctic Research Lab. Much of his diary documents the winter months between his Antarctic assignments, as well as entries recounting his time in Alaska. While stationed there, he received a handwritten letter from his former Williams Field colleague, S. A. Casselle, dated 1971, which described the "Pegasus" crash on 8 October 1970. The incident involved a Lockheed C-121J Constellation that ran low on fuel during a storm and was forced to make an emergency landing near McMurdo Station. All 80 passengers survived but were stranded for 13 hours in the ice and "only survived by burning the seats in the Rodwell and staying huddled together" (p. 4). A rescue team was dispatched, but after becoming lost en route, they did not reach the crash site until 11:30 p.m. Today, the wreckage of the Pegasus is somewhat visible near McMurdo Station: "Most of the aircraft remains under thick layers of snow and ice, but visitors often dig it out for photographs or inscribe their names on its frozen exterior" (Moreno Aguiari). Casselle closed his letter with a note of gratitude to Lutz, writing "I'm glad I had the benefit of your experience, it made things a lot easier. I'm glad it's over!" (p. 7). Moreno Aguiari, "Frozen in Time: The Enduring Legacy of the C-121 Lockheed Constellation 'Pegasus' Crash in Antarctica", Vintage Aviation News, 14 November 2025, accessible online. Together 4 items: octavo notebook, pp. 70; quarto notebook, pp. 154; letter, pp. 7, with original envelope; quarto vol., with several in-text colour photographic illustrations. Original red boards, front cover lettered in gilt. Original green cloth, spine ruled in black, front cover lettered in black, paper labels of "Will.
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