The Harvesters — Part 1

In 1969, Argentina’s Antarctic policy hovered between routine administration and logistical neglect. To the General Staff in Buenos Aires, the Argentine Antarctic Sector was little more than an abstraction, attended to solely during the Summer Campaign.

Each December, the icebreaker General San Martín sailed south to relieve the crews, deliver provisions and fuel, and return before the ice closed the Weddell Sea once again in April.

For the remaining eight months, the White Continent was left in absolute isolation. If a scientist suffered appendicitis in July, or a base caught fire in August, the official response was simple: endure or die. Winter permitted no rescues.

Foreign powers operated according to a different philosophy.

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain had understood that sovereignty in Antarctica was no longer defended by planting flags in the ice, but by maintaining the ability to project air power throughout the year.

The construction of permanent runways had become the new geopolitical frontier. Whoever succeeded in breaking the winter isolation and landing an aircraft on conventional wheels would control strategic access to the continent.

Against this backdrop of institutional paralysis, Olezza began to make the bureaucrats behind their desks in the capital increasingly uncomfortable.

In the middle of that year, twenty-one members of the Argentine Air Force assembled at Teniente Matienzo Base, located on Larsen Nunatak.

There, winter greeted them with a storm that buried the installations and forced the men to remain confined indoors.

The Corrugated-Iron Bunker

Teniente Matienzo Base, Argentine Air Force — 64°58′S, 60°04′W — 29 August 1969, 6.00 p.m.

Winter offered no respite on the nunatak. Outside the base, a white-out gale blew at ninety knots, scouring the corrugated-iron walls with a constant metallic shriek.

Inside, the main block lay in semi-darkness, broken only by the glow of a field stove that coughed out thick, oily smoke whenever the gusts outside blocked the chimney.

Olezza stood with the sleeves of his heavy shirt rolled up and his eyes reddened by confinement, his fists planted firmly upon a nautical chart of the Weddell Sea.

Opposite him, Lieutenant Oscar José Pose Ortiz de Rozas, commander of the base — a seasoned officer, sparing with words and possessed of natural authority — smoked in silence. His gaze rested upon the exact point where his superior’s finger repeatedly struck the chart: a small, elongated shape called Seymour Island.

‘Look at this, Pose,’ Olezza said, breaking the silence. ‘The bureaucracy in Buenos Aires suffers from winter blindness. To them, maintaining bases down here means leaving a group of men locked away, counting the days until they can return home. But look at this position.’

Vice-Commodore Mario Luis Olezza was a pilot of uncompromising character who combined the audacity of a military aviator with a long-term geopolitical vision. He refused to accept the doctrine of static sovereignty.

He spent hours examining the Air Force’s historical archives, searching for reports that administrative neglect had buried inside grey metal filing cabinets.

Pose adjusted the cuffs of his woollen jumper and leaned over the map.

‘I know the report Vice-Commodore Marambio left on record, sir. He was perfectly clear: the Seymour plateau lies in the direction of the prevailing winds. The same storms that bury us here sweep Seymour clean. The wind does the work of a broom. Snow does not accumulate; the crust of mud remains exposed. But seeing it from an Avro Lincoln is one thing. Standing on it is quite another.’

Olezza produced a worn folder bound with frayed cord and bearing the signature of Vice-Commodore Gustavo Argentino Marambio.

It contained the notes from Operation Enlace of 1952 and the subsequent technical reports. Before his tragic death, Marambio had left behind a remarkably prescient aviation testament after obsessively studying the island.

Olezza exhaled cigarette smoke towards the beams of the ceiling.

‘In Buenos Aires, they buried these papers because they consider the idea of operating wheeled aircraft on permafrost to be the fantasy of obsessive pilots.’

‘The engineers argue that constructing a runway there would require a fleet of deep-draught ships to transport heavy machinery, as well as cranes capable of lifting the equipment up the island’s steep cliffs, which plunge two hundred metres towards the frozen sea. Since the Air Force possesses neither those resources nor the budget to hire them, their verdict is final: Marambio’s dream is impracticable.’

‘And how do you expect us to move thousands of tonnes of stone to level nine hundred metres of runway without a single bulldozer, sir?’ Pose asked, folding his arms.

‘On our backs, Pose. With nothing but our backs and our arms,’ Olezza replied, fixing him with a steady gaze.

‘That is why we formed this group: so that it would not depend upon technology we do not possess. Twenty-one men, each one selected personally. If we wait for the official paperwork, the British or the Chileans will put a wheel on that plateau before we do. Geopolitics does not wait. Whoever controls Seymour will hold the key to permanent, year-round access to Antarctica.’

Olezza had submitted the project to his superiors under the title Operation Marambio.

The initial response had been systematic rejection on the grounds of ‘insufficient technical and financial feasibility’.

But Olezza was not a man who accepted no for an answer.

He decided to bypass the usual channels and pursue a strategy of accomplished fact. If there was no machinery, the runway would be built with the one resource the Air Force possessed in abundance: hardened men imbued with the spirit of the pioneers.

He secured the minimum political approval necessary to conduct an exploratory mission and began assembling, in the strictest operational secrecy, the contingent that would enter history as the Sovereignty Patrol.

Recruitment was not conducted through official bulletins or open calls for volunteers. Olezza travelled personally to different units throughout the country, searching for specific types of men in workshops and hangars.

He was not looking for parade-ground heroes, but for non-commissioned mechanics, radio telegraphists and tradesmen who understood how metal behaved under extreme cold and possessed the psychological resilience to withstand complete isolation.

They were men accustomed to solving problems with wire, improvisation and ingenuity whenever official spare parts failed to arrive.

Responsibility for organising the ground party fell to Lieutenant Pose Ortiz de Rozas himself and Lieutenant Mario Víctor Licciardello, who would assume direct operational command in the field.

Among the non-commissioned officers, the technical heart of the patrol was Master Non-Commissioned Officer Mario Rogelio Ranieri, a veteran of previous campaigns who understood the secrets of radial engines better than anyone.

The list of twenty-one men was completed by sixteen non-commissioned officers and one civilian whose role would prove crucial: meteorologist Alberto Omar Amistadi, who could interpret the subtle fluctuations of mercury barometers and anticipate the brief windows of clear weather before the storm closed its trap.

The door of the block flew open, admitting a blast of freezing air and Non-Commissioned Officer Ranieri, whose hands bore the scars of old frostbite burns suffered while tightening bolts in the open.

The meteorologist followed behind him, rubbing his arms to restore some warmth.

‘The barometer is rising, sir,’ Amistadi announced, brushing the snow from his parka. ‘If the pressure holds, we will have a visibility window over the strait tomorrow. Brief, but clear.’

Olezza nodded and looked at Pose.

‘There is your opportunity. Licciardello, Luján and Velázquez already have the sledges prepared. Ranieri, what is the condition of the engines?’

‘The fuel for the Primus heaters is being rationed down to the last gram, sir,’ Ranieri replied with the gravity of a veteran. ‘And the tools have already been packed. Pointed pickaxes, broad shovels and soft-iron crowbars. If the permafrost is as hard as granite, we shall wear out more wooden handles than sticks of dynamite, but the lads will not buckle.’

Pose looked at his men.

They were rugged tradesmen who would not break when the canvas of an Alberta tent was the only thing separating them from a storm at thirty degrees below zero.

Once deposited on the summit of Seymour Island, they would be entirely alone. If magnetic fading silenced the high-frequency radio, nobody on the mainland would know whether they were still alive.

The only way off the island would be to finish the runway with their own hands.

For two months, Pose subjected the group to a brutal programme of endurance training.

They practised erecting Alberta-type field tents in hurricane-force winds, rationed fuel and learnt to transport heavy loads across powder snow using improvised sledges.

They knew that if a worker injured himself with a tool, no medical evacuation would be possible.

The Historic List of the Twenty-One Men

Senior commanders and personnel responsible for coordinating and carrying out the operation

Vice-Commodore Mario Luis Olezza
Originator, promoter and commander of Operation Marambio.
Lieutenant Oscar José Pose Ortiz de Rozas
Commander of Matienzo Army/Air Force Base, field commander of the patrol and pilot of the historic first landing on the plateau.
Lieutenant Mario Víctor Licciardello
Operational officer on the plateau and commander of Camp Beta.
Master Non-Commissioned Officer Mario Rogelio Ranieri
Technical officer of the patrol.
Corporal First Class Juan Carlos Luján
Operational member.
Corporal First Class Ramón Alberto Velázquez
Operational member.
Alberto Omar Amistadi
Civilian meteorologist of the Argentine Air Force.