Churchill Chills

In the far north, army officers figure that for every degree the temperature drops below zero, a soldier's effectiveness goes down about 2%. Near 50 below, all his energy is used just to stay alive. But if the Western Hemisphere ever has to defend itself against an attack launched over the Pole, Western man must learn (as his enemy will presumably have learned) how to survive in Arctic weather, and still have energy left to fight. How to acquire that skill is the problem before the Joint U.S.Canadian Cold Weather Testing Station at Churchill.

Although Churchill is 550 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and its temperature rarely drops lower than 40DEG below zero F., it is an ideal spot for pitting men and machines against the cold. Located where the tree line meets Hudson Bay, it offers both timberland and tundra. And what it lacks in low temperatures is more than made up by its high winds.

The Meaning of Wind. Back in Ottawa last week from his first inspection at Churchill, Defense Minister Brooke Claxton told how the 850 military men (500 Canadian, 350 U.S.) were meeting the challenge of cold.

It's the "wind chill," Claxton had learned, as much as the cold, that gets men down in the north. On a scale worked out by Dr. Paul Siple (Eagle Scout of the Byrd 1928 expedition), flesh freezes at a wind chill of 1,400. This may be at 20 above zero, if there is a 20-mile wind, or 40 below with a one-mile wind. Last winter, survivors told Claxton, Churchill's wind chill was greater than 1,400 most of the time, and once hit 2,370.

Soldiers in the north must be armored against wind chill. For centuries, Eskimos have conquered cold with caribou skins, but there aren't enough caribou to uniform an army. White men have tried piling on layers of clothing, which keep out cold but keep in sweat--and if the sweat freezes, so does the man. Churchill's commanding officer, Lieut. Colonel A. James Tedlie, showed Claxton the New Look for Arctic infantrymen.

The experimental uniforms, of which 150 have been tested, work on the "vapor barrier principle." A netlike string vest is worn next to the skin. Over it are parkas of mohair and rubberized nylon, with drawstrings to regulate the air flow. Thus clad, white men can stand a wind chill of 1,400 as well as an Eskimo.

No Problem of Cold. Ex-Gunner Claxton also inspected artillery pieces which had been fired successfully in Churchill's cold, then stored for the rest of the winter by "cocooning" them with a plastic sprayed over canvas. They had come through in good shape. But artillerymen still have their troubles. Braking spades on gun carriages snap off on the first recoil; in extreme cold some explosives become unstable and are either dangerous to handle or hard to fire. Americans and Canadians, working in parallel experiments, are still trying to figure the best way to keep engine oils fluid.

Even if all the machines ran like clockwork, man in the Arctic would still be inefficient. A rifle will fire, but it takes a man to aim it and press the trigger--and a man wearing four layers of mittens has no trigger finger. Neither can he work small knobs on radio or radar sets.

To officers and men who have lived and worked in Churchill, the problems of large-scale Arctic war still seem almost insurmountable. Even if the cold could be licked, the difficulties of transport and supply would remain, and an Arctic army, like any other, must travel on its stomach. Dr. Omond M. Solandt, head of Canada's Defense Research Board, put it this way: "Today everybody knows it's impossible to fight a war in the Arctic, but we have to prepare for the man who doesn't know it's impossible."

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