John Thomas Crowell, Jr. (1898-1985)

Abstract

Jack Crowell supported, led, and advised the work of innumerable people for many years in Greenland, northern Canada, the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica. He was a master mariner by training and he applied the discipline and skills of that calling throughout the transition of polar development from the age of sail to the jet age. ... every aspect of polar activity and development interested him, and he gave it his best support for more than forty years. ... [In 1953] Crowell joined the staff of the Northeast Air Command at Fort Pepperell in St. John's, Newfoundland, as a technical advisor in the Arctic Division. He was thus directly involved in planning and the initial site landings for DEW Line stations in Canada and HIRAN sites on the Greenland Ice Cap. He was advisor to the reactivation of T-3, Fletcher's Ice Island, in the Arctic Ocean for the International Geophysical Year, and he was subsequently advisor to the U.S. Air Force for the examination of unprepared emergency airstrips at Polaris Promontory, Hall Land, and Bronlund's Fiord, Peary Land, North Greenland. Crowell then joined the National Science Foundation as special projects officer. He was responsible for the conversion and commissioning of the Eltanin for Antarctic oceanographic research, for the planning and construction of the research vessel Hero, and for planning an Arctic Ocean drifting research barge - a concept that has not yet come to pass. Crowell made two trips for NSF on icebreakers to the Antarctic Peninsula to select a site for Palmer Station. ... An island in Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island, a harbor in Labrador, and a mountain in Antarctica are named for Crowell ....