Where’s Greenland? What’s “Thule?”

It was May 1959 when my Military Air Transport Service plane touched down at Thule Air Force Base in northwestern Greenland! Not realizing it at the time, this is where my radio broadcasting career — which spanned six decades — would get underway for real … which you’d likely see as a rather inauspicious place and situation.

If you are a radio industry veteran or know much about the biographies of even the biggest radio stars from over the years, you know that many, many of my peers had their beginnings in a similar manner.

In my memoir, RADIO … My Love, My Passion, I tell of my personal experiences during the 11 months I spent in the cold north, thanks to the kindness of the United States Army … sent there as a personnel clerk, not a radio announcer.

Last year, when President Trump proposed buying Greenland, I wonder how many actually knew where it was located or anything about it. So, since I’ve been there, I thought I might provide a little history about the place and background related to our military’s being there on this “huge block of ice,” along with a story involving one of my radio station associate’s.

First … the map above allows you to place the location of this most-northern U. S. air base as related to the entirety of North America. While the Inuit indigenous peoples have lived in the area for centuries, Arctic explorers, including Richard Peary, began visiting the area in the early 1800’s. However, it was Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen who would establish the first permanent settlement in the early 1900’s and name it Thule (“TOO-lee”) after a location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature. For the record, even though the United States military has the major presence there, Greenland is a county within the nation of Denmark; however, it was granted self-rule some years ago and is seeking independence.

Forward to 1940 … after Nazi Germany occupied Denmark, the Danish and U. S. governments signed an agreement, handing over control of the world’s largest island to the United States for defense purposes, upon which our military immediately constructed an airfield along with weather and communications stations at Thule.

After the war and as the “cold war” ensued, a treaty between the two countries gave the U. S. permanent residence at Thule. This was 1950, and being that Thule was half-way between and the most direct route from Washington, D. C., to Moscow, our military hierarchy recommended building a full-fledged air base installation. Soon after President Truman approved, construction began in secret … with much of the airfield and base being completed in only 60 days, thanks to a crew of 10,000 and the work going on around-the-clock, thanks to summertime 24-hour daylight.

Beginning in the middle 1950’s saw the establishment of the DEW-line (Distant Early Warning) installations, a series of 63 radar stations spread across the north country from Thule westward across Canada to Alaska. Their purpose was the detection of attack from the north by bomber or missile. Next, in 1957, came construction — this is where I come in — of four Army Nike Missile sites to serve as protection of the air base itself. My assignment was as the clerk handling the payroll activities of the men manning these Nike sites.

While I did not realize it until long after my departure, it was my privilege to serve at Thule at the time of heaviest activity. The Nike system was less than a year old when I arrived, the base infrastructure was still being completed, construction of the huge BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System), needed as the DEW-line facilities weren’t capable of recognizing ballistic missiles) antenna up on the hill was just getting under way and the “alleged” scientific research facility, Camp Century, was just opening. It was situated well inland from Thule and under the icecap which covers much of Greenland, entered via a miles-long tunnel carved from the ice.

During this time, we had 10,000 or more men working within our Thule complex … 5,000 military plus an equal number of contract construction personnel — I said “men,” as there were only three women known to be on the base in those days, all nurses at the base hospital.

While I served the pay needs of my guys faithfully during the time it was my duty, through the eight months of the tour in which I was involved with the radio stations … that is where my heart was really lodged. In my book, this is how I tell about “getting my foot in the door”:

Upon arrival, I quickly learned that the base had two radio stations, but only one was operating at the moment due to a burned-out transformer in the 1,000-watt transmitter. This was May; by September the transmitter repairs had been completed. The next question was what to do with the second station, as no one seemed to remember what it had aired previously. At the same time, it was discovered that someone had presented the stations with a large collection of RCA Victor LPs, the bulk of which contained classical music and Broadway shows. While continuing my day duties, I volunteered to operate the second station a few hours each evening, programming from this LP library.

Then, I go on to share how I got to go where my love and passion were … although I gave up getting the promotion to Spec4 which I had earned and was due:

After working about 13 hours a day between the two jobs for three months, I was exhausted and ready … for a 10-day leave at home in Pennsylvania. Upon my return to Thule, it was Christmas-time and my Commanding Officer finally agreed to allow me to be the Army’s representative at the stations as my full-time job. As I was the only known person on the base that had any previous radio station experience, I was assigned to handle the evening shift on KOLD, which gave me the opportunity to do a 4-hour disk jockey show, which I did until my year’s assignment ended in late April 1960.

Since Thule becoming a permanent installation in 1951, it has seen a number of management changes within the U. S. Air Force structure; however, the Air Force Space Command controlled operations from 1982 until last December when the United States Space Force was established as a branch of the Air Force, taking over from and expanding upon its predecessor entity. During the period when I was in Thule and again through the 1980’s, the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command, known as SAC, was in charge of operations.

At the radio stations, we had both voiced newscasts as well as the Associated Press teletype print news service available, both delivered from SAC headquarters in Nebraska via shortwave radio transmission. However, our receiving either one depended on atmospheric conditions being right … which seemed to be no more than 50% of the time. Keep in mind, this was the late 1950’s, satellite transmission was still several years away and there were/are no telephone lines in Greenland, as least not long distance.

I’ve told you about our news resources as I want to share a story about one of my radio station associates during those months I worked the evening shift on KOLD. I can still visualize him but cannot for the life of me remember his name. So, I’ll call him Wally … he was sort of a Bubba like character, yet a genuinely nice guy.

Wally had no radio station experience whatsoever, I’m not sure he’d ever even been in a radio station previously. It just so happened that they were short-handed for people with any radio experience, but in reviewing base personnel listings they found someone qualified, based on his MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) … Aircraft Radio Repair Technician! That was Wally, he was a trained “radio” person, he wasn’t needed in the hanger – so put him at the radio station.

Now, if you’ve ever worked with Associated Press teletype-delivered news, you know that once an hour there was a five-minute period called “the split,” where the national network was broken down by individual states for sending out stories particularly appropriate for stations within their home state. Since SAC was headquartered in Nebraska, we received the Nebraska split stories … and it just so happened that Wally was from Nebraska. You know the rest of the story … Wally was totally happy doing newscasts, bringing his listeners the news from home, his home. Listeners from other states, not so much – as they never heard about anything happening where they came from, no matter how big the story!

Today, I doubt the radio stations are even still in operation … plus staffing at Thule is at greatly reduced levels — and has been for years — compared to when I was there, now numbering only in the hundreds, not thousands. But, it’s still serving a vital function in protecting our nation. Related to today, you might find these two television news reports from 750 miles above the Arctic Circle interesting, the first one from 2014 and seen on the BBC America channel:

And, another which aired on CBS This Morning in 2017.

As for Greenland as a whole, it is an autonomous, self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Its peoples, totaling less than 60,000 and living in one of only 17 towns or villages, desire to become an independent nation. Whether this is sustainable is a great question as, for instance, the only real way to travel by ground between most of the 17 communities is by dog sled.

If you’ve not read my memoir, which includes my basic story about the Thule experience and the many others in a career which I feel so fortunate to have been able to live, I invite you to take advantage of the offer below.

Thank you for reading … your comments always welcome and appreciated.

Image Credits: Thule Map from Google via Business Insider , Associated Press printer courtesy of Ken Mellgren