In 1956, traveling the world wasn’t an easy option for the average person. So, when 17-year-old Civil Air Patrol Cadet Robert Barger III was chosen to accompany the Air Force on a South Pole expedition, it became the adventure of a lifetime -- one for which he’s finally received recognition.
Over the weekend, Civil Air Patrol Brig. Gen. Ed Phelka, CAP’s national vice commander, presented the Antarctic Service Medal to now-82-year-old Barger in South Bend, Indiana. The medal was created in 1960 to recognize explorative and scientific achievements; however, it was only recently brought to the attention of the Air Force that Barger was retroactively eligible for it.
"Dr. Barger was a true CAP pioneer," Phelka said, while presenting the 82-year-old with the medal and a CAP challenge coin. "To be entrusted with an array of responsibilities on the other side of the world? Unprecedented."
The Civil Air Patrol is an Air Force auxiliary organization that has helped with search-and-rescue operations and homeland protection since World War II. Barger had always wanted to fly, so he joined CAP at 13. He worked hard, graduating high school early, working a part-time job to finance his flying hobby and even taking part in a CAP exchange to Denmark. Those achievements could be why he was chosen from a large pool of CAP cadets to be part of Operation Deep Freeze II, a joint Navy, Air Force and civilian scientific expedition tasked with airlifting supplies over the polar ice cap to set up a base at the South Pole.
Barger’s role: to be the assistant photographer for an 80-man aviation unit from the 18th Air Force. He was quickly trained in still photography and short movie-making.
Once he arrived at the bottom of the world, he described his many adventures to newspapers of the day. Some of the more fascinating tidbits are detailed here.
A Once-In-A-Lifetime Expedition
Barger’s journey to the South Pole began Oct. 3, 1956. After leaving his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, he hopped on one of the mission’s eight C-124 Globemaster II cargo planes at Donaldson Air Force Base in Greenville, South Carolina. The small fleet then flew to New Zealand, making several pit stops along the way. Finally, on Oct. 25, they landed at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, a U.S. advance base that Barger would call home for the next four months. It was a balmy -65 degrees Fahrenheit and 24 hours of sun. Welcome to an Antarctic summer!
Soon, the team set to work. Barger took photos on the first Air Force flight over the South Pole, a five-hour trek from McMurdo. He helped the crews drop supplies that Navy Seabees would eventually use to build the base. He also checked the weather and marveled at the navigators’ use of celestial navigation. Because every direction from the South Pole is north, compasses aren’t useful. Instead, an instrument called a sextant uses the sun, moon, stars and planets to finalize their position among the vast white stretches of rough ice. It’s a practice that’s still used by Antarctic navigators today.
Barger later told one newspaper that they actually had to fly "up" to reach their target. The South Pole is on a plateau 10,000 feet above sea level, so he said they had to fly several thousand feet higher to avoid high, snow-packed mountains.
Barger flew over the pole five times during his Antarctic adventure, even watching from above while the mission’s commander, Navy Adm. George Dufek, stepped from a transport plane into -50 degree weather to plant the U.S. flag. He was also on the mission that marked the first pole-to-pole communication by successfully contacting Alaska.
Life Below
Living at the bottom of the world was an adventure in itself. Barger, who turned 18 on the trip, told the Greenville News that the biggest lesson he learned was patience. He said the long, bright winter days and nights gave him polar insomnia, but staying busy kept him happy.
Barger said his accommodations at the recently built McMurdo were comfortable and well-sheltered. He wrote in an essay that they lived in huts heated by oil stoves, and they slept in bunk beds that were hot on top and cold on bottom. Otherwise, the food was good, they watched a nightly movie, and there was even a church to attend!
However, it was crowded. A lot of scientists and observers passed through McMurdo on their way to other stations, so there were about 200 people in a space made for 80. Barger said there was even a Russian scientist there, which was big news because of the Cold War.
Favorite Adventures
Barger's time wasn’t all spent on official duties. He met a few famed explorers, including Sir Edmund Hillary, and he befriended a few seals and penguins along the way.
One of his favorite adventures, however, was volunteering to test a new watertight wetsuit. He and three others hopped into 29-degree water near McMurdo so scientists could take their temperatures with radio thermometers. Barger only lasted 10 minutes in the frigid waters, but he blamed his short stint on a leak in the suit that made his foot go numb.
He also enjoyed a trip to "Little America," a tiny town created a few hundred miles inland that required taking an ice-breaking ship and a helicopter to get there. Barger said the town was covered in snow except for the building’s chimneys, so tunnels connected them.
"Walking through them from one building to another was like walking inside a large ice cave," Barger explained in a journal entry.
On Jan. 23, 1957, Barger stood by as the South Pole station was commissioned at McMurdo because the pole itself was too treacherous for a large group of dignitaries. When he returned home, he visited the White House to present President Dwight D. Eisenhower with a pony-sized horseshoe that he found near the South Pole. The relic was from a 1910 expedition by British Explorer Robert Scott.
A Pious Life
After four months in Antarctica, Barger came home to take his exams for the Air Force Academy. Instead of serving in the military, though, he entered the seminary and became a Catholic priest. According to his wife, Josephine, Barger served for 10 years in the Diocese of Peoria before requesting and receiving his laicization papers from Pope Paul VI. The documents gave him permission to return to life as a layperson so he could marry Josephine, which he did in 1976.
Barger eventually got his doctorate and worked in several professorial roles teaching and researching history, philosophy and theology. He finished his academic career as an adjunct assistant professor at Notre Dame University, near where the couple still lives.
Barger recently donated his Antarctic journal, as well as photographs and artifacts from the excursion to the Col. Louisa S. Morse Center for CAP History in Washington.
Barger, who has suffered some medical issues in his later years, thanked Phelka through his wife for the medal during Saturday’s brief presentation. He then gave the brigadier general a formal salute, completely unprompted.
Once in service, always in service!