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By
Peter Rejcek
Its membership includes a scientist who first visited
Antarctica nearly 60 years ago and officials from the
National Science Foundation.
The Old Antarctic Explorer’s Association is possibly
the largest organization of its kind dedicated to preserving
the collective memory of Antarctica, a club of kindred
spirits fascinated with life on the Ice.
It doesn’t matter whether one worked on the seventh
continent in the military or as a civilian, served a single
season or 20.
The OAEA wants you.
“The association was founded to keep alive the memory
and share the experience of those personnel, both military
and civilians of all nations, who served or are serving
in support of Antarctic research,” writes OAEA President
John West on the group’s Web site. “Membership
in the association is open to all that have shared the
‘Antarctic Experience.’”
Billy-Ace Penguin Baker perhaps does as much as anyone
to keep those experiences burning bright. Baker is a retired
Navy radioman who between 1962 and 1980 spent four winters
and 15 summers in Antarctica as part of Operation Deep
Freeze, the Navy mission to support research on the Ice
from 1955 to 1999. At age 70, Baker is still intensely
involved in all things Antarctic, wearing several hats
in the OAEA, including historian and editor of the association’s
official newsletter, The Explorer’s Gazette.
“It takes a sort of special kind of individual to
go down to Antarctica, even when you get drafted into
the program like I did, but I kept going back,” said
Baker from his home in Pensacola, Fla.
“Most people really had a good time down there, so
it’s the camaraderie and things like that,”
he said when asked to explain the draw of remaining connected
to the Antarctic so many years later.
The OAEA undeniably has its roots in the U.S. Navy, which
has long been associated with Antarctic exploration and
research. As early as 1839, Capt. Charles Wilkes led the
first U.S. Naval expedition into Antarctic waters. In
1929, Adm. Richard E. Byrd established a naval base at
Little America I, led an expedition to explore further
inland and conducted the first flight over the South Pole.
He led two subsequent, smaller expeditions before the
beginning of World War II.
The Navy assumed a permanent sort of stewardship over
the continent in 1955 as it prepared to support the International
Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957. It continued in that role
until 1999, when the mission for the U.S. Antarctic Program
was turned over primarily to the U.S. Air Force, U.S.
Air National Guard and private contractors.
Thanks to the Internet, people who wanted to stay connected
formed an e-mail group the same year Operation Deep Freeze
was decommissioned. The group grew into a loosely formed
organization that called itself the Old Antarctic Explorer’s
Association, according to the OAEA Web site. Eventually,
it took steps to elect a board of directors, to draw up
by-laws and to become incorporated as a non-profit corporation
in the state of Florida.
Today, the OAEA has about 1,100 to 1,200 members, according
to Baker, with a couple of hundred members just in the
Gulf region, primarily around Pensacola. Its roster includes
Bill Sladen, a noted ornithologist who first visited the
Antarctic in the 1940s. A few National Science Foundation
(NSF) officials like Dave Bresnahan and Jerry Marty, who
have spent more than their fair share of time here, are
also life members.
Writer and historian Dian Olson Belanger, who just published
a book on the IGY and Operation Deep Freeze, also signed
up. (See the Oct. 29, 2006, issue.)
Belanger was one of the speakers at the biannual OAEA
reunion and symposium in Rhode Island last August. The
New England Chapter of the OAEA – which includes
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island and Vermont – hosted the event.
In a previous interview, Belanger said she spoke to the
members about why she believed the events of 50 years
ago still matter today. “I think people need to know
about how they got to where they are now,” she said.
An unofficial historian of the South Pole and Ice veteran,
Bill Spindler first journeyed to Antarctica in 1972 as
a junior Navy Seabee officer assigned to winter, but budget
constraints cut his deployment short. The brief stint
hooked him, however, and he ended up returning several
times as a civilian, including a winter at the South Pole
in 2005.
“The Ice is a neat place, with lots of interesting
stuff going on, some great people, and a unique social
environment. ... I’d go back if I could,” he
wrote via e-mail. “And off the Ice, I’ve met
many great folks thanks to the OAEA who share my sentiments
about the place.”
The OAEA can also call itself an international organization,
with a handful of members from England, Australia and
New Zealand, including another writer, Kiwi Noel Gillespie,
who penned a history book about the Navy pilots who flew
countless missions in the 44 years of Operation Deep Freeze.
Gillespie’s book, “Courage Sacrifice Devotion”
pays homage to the men who flew in conditions he called
more hazardous than they are today thanks to the advances
in aviation technology. “The bond formed between
men in Antarctica proved beyond all else that each one
depended on his mates,” Gillespie wrote via e-mail
when asked to speculate on the relationships that have
survived over the years.
Baker’s involvement in Antarctica extends beyond
friendship with fellow OAEs. Like Gillespie, he has a
keen interest in the continent’s history. His personal
Antarctic library numbers about 2,000 books, he said,
and he often fields queries from people trying to reconnect
with old friends or learn more about the service of deceased
family members.
“I have a room that’s wall-to-wall books about
Antarctica,” Baker noted.
Annual and lifetime memberships are open to anyone who
has spent time in the Antarctic, whether on the continent,
surrounding islands or aboard the various vessels that
have crisscrossed the Southern Ocean. The OAEA has recently
added Antarctic tourists to its list of people eligible
for full membership. An associate membership is also available
for those who have no direct Antarctic experience but
merely an interest in the Ice.
The OAEA holds meetings like the one in Rhode Island every
two years, alternating years with another Ice-related
organization, the Antarctic Deep Freeze Association (ADFA),
which existed prior to the OAEA and originally consisted
mostly of the Navy Seabees from Operation Deep Freeze
I and II. Baker is vice chairman with the ADFA.
“I think somewhere down the line we’ll just
merge into one outfit,” he said.
“Tell your friends to join,” Baker added before
hanging up the phone. “We need more members.”
For more information about the Old Antarctic Explorer’s
Association, visit its Web site at www.oaea.net. Membership
applications are available online.
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