This was a good one that probably has been circulating around the _base_ for years...
very few details about the alleged incident, which makes me more than a bit skeptical.
As the story goes, an operator was driving a snowcat across the lake where Thule draws its fresh water from.
Legend has it, the snowcat and operator plunged thru the ice to a watery grave, never to seen again.
As glacier lakes are usually quite deep, its not totally outside the realm of possibility.
Anybody have anything on this or, at least, have heard the tale ???
A former Director of Engineering and Services (perhaps the position no longer exists in the organization), Robert Boyer, told me that there was a problem with the water intake line and he had a crew drive a Catepillar tractor out onto the lake. It broke through the ice and sank. However, the operator had plenty of time to get out of harms way - no one died. [The operator may have been Bob! ;) ]
Bob would have been a Major at the time. I was the Director of Engineering & Services at Thule March 1986 - March 1987. I am guessing that Bob Boyer was there in the early to mid seventies.
Yes....I'd heard of the incident and it was supposed to have occurred before I got there in '61....The version I heard was that there was also a WAF who was in the Snowcat....Never knew the truth of it.
