The Life on Thule and Sonderstrom in the period from 1960 to 1963.

  When you are visiting different "sites" about "Old-timers" on Thule and Sonderstrom, is it strikingly how few of all those Danes who worked for RCA/BMEWS and DAC on the bases in the period between 1960-63, who was to be found.

   Probably it's because , we didn't have that fine IT-network like Steffen Winther's "Thuleforum", "Thule-bageren" and "Frostboksen", just to mention a few, what they can offer now a days. A matter of fact: The personal computer was hardly invented and indeed not as common-owned as today. As a result of thorough examination of the different homepages, I've only found 8-10 persons from the time I was there.

  It's a pity, for here we are talking about, with all respect to the later newcomers, the real "Veterans" from the period with the cold war and a time-span more than 45 years back. The cohesiveness, as the group are now a days like the get-together on Hviid's wine bar, what we didn't managed to establish. It is of course our own fault. I had in 2003 the pleasure to be at Hviid's wine bar the 12. of December at 12,00, just to se if there were some old-timers deom my period of time, but there were none, and no one who I was talking with knew anybody from my period of time at Thule.

  I was only a child when I 1^st heard about Northwest Greenland and Thule, because I had a nice old uncle who literally pushed stories down my throat around Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen adventures in the cold north. When I was at vacation at my aunt and uncle's house, the day's always end's with that my uncle read a couple of paragraphs from one of his exciting books before I went to bed, and he promised me, that when I could read, and was big enough to understand and worship the fine books, it would be mine. I still have them today, and they are still exited reading.

  I'm born in 1935, apprenticed as a mechanics in 1954 and when I finished my soldier career in 1957, I just need to travel, I would much rather travel around the world. For a starter I hitchhiked a little around in Europe, I ran out of money, 500 Kroner, in Genoa and was so lucky to be hired on a Swedish freighter which was on its way to USA and later on: a roundtrip in the Mediterranean area. After an eventful roundtrip on 6 to 7 month I was signing off in Napoli med 1000 kroner in my pocket, so I took the train to Copenhagen and was home in the beginning of 1958.

  I was feed up making vehicles and got a job as flight mechanics in SAS, in the department who took care of departing and arrival flights for the overseas destinations. Even though that it was not myself traveling it taste a little of it, and in that period I learn the small yellow "Herman Nelson" gasoline driven heaters to know, we will return to those heaters later. But in the beginning of spring 1959, my sole leather; began to scratch again!

  I spend some time in Tropicana-Bar in Copenhagen and one of the guys which was a clerk in royal Greenlandic trade (KGH) told me one night, that he recently has delivered an advertisement to the main newspapers, about job on Thule in Greenland. The advertisement would be in the paper on the forthcoming Tuesday. It was about working for the American company RCA, which were building a very huge radar installation at Thule air base and they were looking for people, mechanics, workers, cooks, janitors, and chauffeurs.

   They were talking about 1 year contracts which could be lengthen, free board and lodging and a salary for mechanics at 36.000 Danish kroner pr. year, no tax, free travel, both ways, and possibilities for vacation in USA, if you stayed the entire contract period. My pal suggests that we applied for a job there, and try our fortune I the cold north.

  A year without ladies, I guess I could do that! It sounds exiting, and before the newspaper hit the street, our plan was to meet up at the KGH office and apply to one of the vacant jobs. My pal knew an entrance so we could come in directly to the person in charge of the personnel.

  I was still living home with my mother and when I told her our plans men she was that lucky she have heard a lot about drinking and debauchery between the Danish workers and the Greenlandic girls but I calm her down with the words that there was around 10,000 men and there were no women on the Base area it self. And at least she knows where I was…

  I knew where Thule were and about Knud Rasmussen's sledding's and the descriptions about the life at the settlement next to the Dundas-Mountain and remembered the old books from my uncle in Nyborg and now saw a chance to get up there and make some money and on that account became an experience richer, but we were well aware that it would be a kind of a different cup of Tea. There is no need to describe how it was, being up there, because you've all know how Thule air base looks, but what we found out before actually getting there sounds like:

  Thule air base: big American airbase in the Thule-district in NV-Greenland near the old Thule, the low temperatures and from time to time storms where the wind speed exceed 200 knots caused, the expenses to build the base cost more than 220 mill. $.

   Thule air Base was a very important air base in the middle of the western radar net system, BMEWS which were build as protection against unwanted intercontinental rockets. The Base is equipped with 2 runways of 3,00 km, 7 avenues, 19 streets, a 376 m. Globecom radio tower, telecommunications center and different workshops its build as a modern city with power plans, hospital, tennis courts, swimming pools, cinemas' and a number of other modern facilities.

  Not far from Thule lies Dundas: a Danish-American Weather and radio station, founded in 1932 in NV-Greenland on the south coast of the Wolfstenholme Fjord; on the place was old Thule, whose inhabitants was moved 160 km north To the settlement Qânâq (Qaanaaq) on the north side of the Inglefield Bay.

   Build in 1951-53 of the USA's Air Force in agreement of a treaty of 1951 between USA and Danmark. There are still houses from the old settlement Thule, founded by Knud Rasmussen, amongst other; his own house which is a museum today, and also a memorial stone.

  Before the departure they need to run a comprehensive medical certificate, despite that Thule has the necessary hospital facilities' they would not have a bunch of half-slack people up there when we talk about a 12 hours workday, it was not for weaklings and people which have a drinking problem. It also takes a strong mentality to outstand the long and cold arctic winter, without sun or daylight in 2-3 month.
At that time it was a kind of "being cool" to work at Greenland. Cryolite quarry in Ivigtut was for the harsh contractor types, hard labor, much money and a harsh life.

   The constructions craftsmen in the settlements along the coastal regions, who erect houses ant other new-fangled facilities', lived closer to the native population, so many unlike acquaintances' were made when the Greenlandic girls meet the fresh young craftsmen who suddenly brought present day into their little insulated world.

   There was time for "happy-Hour". Many founded their prosperity after their work period at Greenland; other drank them selves into sickness and stuff worser than alcohol.

  BThe Bases were still driven by the Americans as bases for the US Air Force and the big American firms of contractors who have build the bases. When I arrived in 1959 there were between 8000-9000 and more troops were coming, in several forms for quartering, from arctic tents with space for 10-12 men, to 3 story buildings with all modern facilities'.

   Many of the service functions were read to be taken over by Danish workers and it gave people many job on a completely other level than usual and the money were tax-free.Radio Corporation of America or RCA, who I worked for, was in charge of a big part of production, erection and running of most of the electronics behind the whole BMEWS System. Other building contractors were doing the roads, blast of the bedrock, and again others who demands a lot of machines and manpower.

  The 12. of August 1959 was everything ready for departure. I have quitted my job and my mother gave a little goodbye party for some of the closest family, and at 23.00 I stood together with 14 other young guys in Kastrup airport waiting to depart against Sonderstrom and further on to Thule.

   Now a new chapter was open in my young life. Where were we going? How would it be? What about the winter? and The long night and getting polar nuts... Thousands of questions, and Worst of all; the whole thing was very exiting!!

  So when formalities' was finished we got a room in one of the 6 newly erected 3 stores, buildings equipped with all modern conveniences; like TV-room, game room, washing machines, drying machines, good bath facilities and 3 men's dorm with wardrobe, Beds, tables, chair's and space for up to 2-300 men.

   Everything was so new that we got to go down to big containers outside, getting the bed linen, woolen blankets, towels, arctic clothing with fur inside the parka coat hut, warm boots and furred mittens. Later the same day I was introduced to our new chief and workplace. The transportation chief was Francis McKay. And the workshop chief was Max Guillette. The shop was a cold garage building (S-103) near Pittufik Avenue where there were a couple of offices in one of the ends of the garage.

  Our fleet consists of 11 American school busses which run shuttle between the main base and "J-site" where the big radar screens was being erected on a massive high altitude plateau above Wolfstenholme fjord. We had some station wagons and small amount of different Contractor materiel.

   Our jobs were to make different service jobs and preliminary maintenances. Bigger job need to be done at a big Air Force repair shop down-town. The personnel were reached to a number of 12-15 chauffeurs and co-workers in the beginning I was the only mechanics.

  I was equipped with a tool-box which must have cost a fortune. It was my tool-box if I took good care of it. "You better get the shop equipped with what's needed. You can pick up materials there and there. The winter is closing up on us, so you better start now, ask if there's anything you will like to know.

   We start at 7 AM, and stop at 7 PM, or continue until the job is done. What were you doing before you came here at Thule? do you understanding English?. There is a 1 hour break from 12 AM to 1 PM and coffee breaks when they fit into the picture. You see, It shall be alright, welcome to you, let us ride a trip and I'll show you the base and nearby's". Just around that was the reception I got on the first day at the shop. What a challenge, now it was time for the business to start here on "tulle".

  We visited the different places I would get in touch with, I was introduced to the different ways to work on, and I was very impressed over the size the operation was. The impression race into my head from all angles, everything was new.

  The arctic year has to counter points; the pitch-dark and bitterly cold winter, which last from the 22nd October to the 22nd of February where the sun is so low under the horizon that the darkness is total, only the stars shining and the moon when it shined, not that often. The temperatures was extreme low, - 40 grader Celsius was not seldom. Nearly everything was stunned of the cold. It's bitterly cold to work outside, and therefore avoided if possible.

  The arctic year has to counter points; the pitch-dark and bitterly cold winter, which last from the 22nd October to the 22nd of February where the sun is so low under the horizon that the darkness is total, only the stars shining and the moon when it shined, not that often.

   The temperatures was extreme low, - 40 grader Celsius was not seldom. Nearly everything was stunned of the cold. It's bitterly cold to work outside, and therefore avoided if possible.
Vehicles and motors must run all the time. Or else they would deep-freeze. During the night it was a necessity to have electrical heaters in the motor, in the water, and under the battery The engines used pure antifreeze liquid, no thinning. Thin oil becomes as stiff as cold tar

  Arctic storms with velocity up to 350 kilometer/hour rush over the country, ripping everything loose rearrange the snow dunes. The wilderness of the weather are arranged in Phases and to stay outside in a Phase-3 condition could be fatal if the rules were broken, while indescribably amounts of snow are falling over the base for several days.

   It's also a very beautiful and fascinating time. The black canopy is filled with twinkling stars in the deep- frozen night. Every now and then aurora borealis, northern lights was scattered over the canopy in a silent lightshow, which could cover the whole horizon with all the colors as in a rainbow for hours, for then in a split-second leaving everything black.

  When the moon was full, and toss its pale light against the snow, and everything got a ice -blue gleam of extreme deep-freeze. Only they who were well-secured against the colds ice-cold embrace dare themselves out into the ice-cold night. Even the smallest glitch could cost them their lives.

   And then suddenly, last in February, comes the sun back to some of the most northern hemispheres on earth and everybody expresses that it was the whole thing worth; the people at the P. Mountain saw it first.
Now we are on our path to lighter and milder winds, green slopes full of small good hearted arctic flowers which shall fulfill their life cycles' in a short hectic summer, with the light shining all 24 hours a day. The snow is melting, the thaw is setting in and everything is pouring water, the temperatures were rising and the lands scenery was awake.

  The ice which has bound the fjords and made long sledging possible, breaks up, first in enormous floe which are driving in the direction of the Arctic Ocean in beat with the oceans pulse, later on in smaller fragments and finally at last: the open blue ocean which again is ready to receive huge amount of slow drifting iceberg's released from the eternal calving glaciers in the bottom of the Wolstenholme fjord.

   And now the high arctic summer with its sun-beam bombardment and temperatures up around 14 to 17 degree Celsius. Then the land smiles, spring goes waiting on the summer, and autumn goes, waiting on the long cold, and pitch dark winter the land is wild, harsh and violently. Thule is in a creek between two low mountain ridges, open to the sea and to the icecap.

  "J-site" is located on a plateau ca. 10-12 kilometers from the base. The locations were the rocket launches should be, were taking place and they were scattered around the base. Every antenna was the same size as an international measured soccer-field vertically mounted, antenna, there were 4 of them, supported by a couple of meters tick steel-legs. Between each antenna there was a couple of roofed transport corridors, where the crew should be shuttled in small wagons in long set of carriages. In the event of a phase-3 many people sleep, eat in several canines strategic placed, and survive there for a long period.

   Thousands of technicians worked there and with the time the BMEWS facility would be a vital link in a network of stations from Fylingsdales, North Yorkshire, England, to Clear, Alaska which should secure the western hemispheres against sneak rocket attack from the east. As you know; we are in the middle of the cold war. The different BMEWS sites were linked together via the DYE stations scattered down the length of Greenland, over island, and Faroe Islands and finally got into satellite from the Azores to USA

  The base was defended by 4 NIKE/Hercules batteries, the air force had a number F-102 jets to their disposal, an also 90mm, and 75mm anti air canons were scattered around the base area. The Americans had a lot of things going on they were established a couple of research stations deep under the inland ice