They did feed us pretty good but as I have described in other threads, each of the buildings in the picture had its own kitchen because when we had a bad storm (known as a "Herbie") it would produce white-out conditions and people couldn't go outside so they had to do their own cooking. Because of that, they allowed us all to draw uncooked food supplies from the stockroom and keep them on hand. The stockroom had lots of frozen beef, especially tenderloins, so I always had plenty of that on hand and made a mean tenderloin "Bourgignone". What we lacked, however, was any kind of fresh fruit or vegetables because during the winter it wasn't possible to fly in there and bring anything fresh.
In the summer it got to the freezing mark or, rarely, a little higher. The warmest I recall was one day it hit +40 degrees. There was a ditch that ran through the base which we referred to as "The Antarctic River" and we treated ourselves to a celebration when it had running water in it.
The diesels never ALL went out. I can't recall how many there were--4 or 5 I think--but we had excellent Navy enginemen and Seabee mechanics to keep them running. I worried more about the water desalinization plant (not in the photo) which was a lot more delicate to operate than those diesels.
Of course the biggest threat, also not in the photo (it would be behind the photographer) was Mt. Erebus, an 11,000 ft active volcano that spewed steam regularly while I was there:
Notice the steam venting from the summit. If Erebus had had a full-scale eruption while we were there, we would most likely have been cooked a la Pompeii.
No DQ, Bill, nor an Arctic Circle Drive In (although, if I'd ever heard of it then that would have been too ironic not to put a sign up somewhere) but there WERE Golden Arches.
