INTEL FILE

The marginal ice zone (MIZ) is that area near the solid ice cover where the ice breaks up and drifts away from or back to the ice cap depending on the wind. The MIZ is a dangerous place for ships. When the wind blows off the ice, the broken ice drifts to sea often accompanied by "sea smoke," caused by evaporation fog formed when very cold air drifts across relatively warmer water. When the wind shifted back toward the ice cap, the ice would drift back against the shelf.

If a wind shift was detected while the "tail" or towed array was "wet" and the ship was next to the MIZ, an immediate course change to seaward was required. I'm fogged in, looking at pieces of ice as big as a school bus. I'm towing a mile-long array behind me. It takes nearly a half hour just to turn 90-degrees using very small rudder increments, so I can head towards open water and recover the tail."

To prepare for Arctic operations, Fry says the McCloy crew balanced the heating, ventilation and air condition system so it was as good as new. "The HVAC worked so well that inside it was 69 beautiful degrees, and outside it was minus 14 or 20."

McCloy was notorious for having a bad ride, but when top heavy with ice accumulation, the ride was much worse. Fry's crew had a regular routine to go topside and break off the heavy ice. "Before we left homeport, we went to every Little League in the Tidewater area to ask for their broken bats," Fry recalls. "We had a big supply of bats and wooden mallets by the time we arrived up north. We divided the topside spaces into six zones, each with a team assigned. The teams, and all topside watchstanders, had immersion suits and a climber safety device. We rigged heavy weather lifelines so crewmembers could attach themselves to the lifelines while chipping away ice accumulation. We would never have more than one team topside at any given time. No one was allowed outside the skin of the ship without the OODs knowledge and permission. We maintained a status board on the bridge, so we knew what zones needed attention, and exactly who was topside at any given time."

Sometimes the Ice Accumulation Details could finish their zone in a half hour or so. "Sometimes they were out there a lot longer," says Fry.

The seawater injection temperature was 22-deg (F), and covered sea chests and intakes in the main spaces with ice. "The ocean next to the MIZ was like a slurpee," Fry says. In the normally hot main spaces, the boiler technicians and machinist's mates needed foul-weather jackets.

As for avoiding the worst of the winds and seas, Fry says they relied on Optimum Ship Track Routing (OTSR). "IfOTSR predicted bad weather and told me to get to safety, I never waited around to see if they were right."

Fry recalls taking rolls on McCloy up to 62-deg when the task group ignored OTSR's recommended routing to the east of Iceland and ran into a storm in the Denmark Straits between Iceland and Greenland.

McCloy used special lubricants for all the topside rotating machinery and radar sumps that wouldn't solidify in the cold. Instead of salt, they carried urea pellets for ice melting.