Ice Is Where You Find It

"You never can tell about ice—what it will be like—until you get there. Remember, ice is where you find it." Captain Thomas, whom Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd has termed “one of the best ice sailors alive,” was to recall his first lesson in polar navigation many times. He learned it the hard way when he was assigned to the command of the Coast Guard cutter Northland on wartime duty with the Greenland Patrol. Before 1943, though he was an experienced officer, he knew about ice only to the extent