In 1952 the Alaska Air Command organized Project ICICLE to establish a weather station on iceberg T-3. In March 1952 the first C-47 aircraft from Thule Air Base landed on T-3. This C-47 crashed on Ice Station T-3, aka Fletcher's Ice Island, on Nov 3, 1952. There were no fatalities, but the aircraft was determined to be unrepairable. This photo was taken several years later after it had been cannibalized for parts and some of the snow under it had blown away.
The station was abandoned in May 1954 as the weather station was no longer needed.
T-3 continued to drift around the Arctic being reoccupied by various research stations. In the late 1960s, T-3 was occupied by the Arctic Research Laboratory Ice Station I. During this time the icebreaker USS Burton Island was used to supply the station.
My Uncle Robert Shumaker was a helicopter pilot aboard the USS Burton Island, but that was a few years before its visit to T-3.
T-3 was last visited in 1979. The iceberg eventually drifted through the Fram Strait in 1983, and apparently disappeared and melted in the Atlantic, depositing the remains of the C-47 in the abyss of the Atlantic.
More about this "Drifting Ice Station"
Another view from the Air Force Magazine, April 1995 issue. Not sure of the data of this photo.
