Charles A. Bevilacqua

Charles A. Bevilacqua (June 8, 1930 – November 29, 2019) was a United States Navy Seabee who, during Operation Deep Freeze I, helped to build McMurdo Station and was then promoted to Chief Builder, in which role he led the building of Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station and the installation of the first South Pole "ceremonial pole", which he painted orange and black to honor his Woburn, Massachusetts, high school.[1][2][3] He served with the Seabees construction battalions 1948–1978, including service in the Korean and Vietnam wars as well as Antarctica.

Charles A. Bevilacqua, head of the Seabees team that built the first permanent station at the South Pole. 1956 photo by Dick Prescott, NSF.
Ceremonial South Pole marker in 1980, painted orange and black by Bevilacqua in 1956

Biography

Bevilacqua was born on June 8, 1930,[4] in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Charles E. and Ann (Paris) Bevilacqua.[5]

In 1948, he joined the Seabees, construction battalions of the United States Navy's Civil Engineer Corps, which had been set up during World War II.[1] He joined the Seabees right after finishing high school, where he had done a vocational track on carpentry. After training, he worked with Seabees in Micronesia, the Marianas Islands, the Philippines, and, during the Korean War, in Korea.[3]

In 1955, when Bevilacqua decided to volunteer for an opportunity for Seabees to work in Antarctica, he was a 26-year-old First Class Petty Officer.[lower-alpha 1][6][7] Bevilacqua persisted despite being turned down at first, and eventually succeeded in being taken on as an expert in building Quonset huts.[3]

Bevilacqua's journal records his experiences in the Antarctic, including the trip there on the USS Wyandot, which passed through the Panama Canal before arriving at McMurdo Sound on December 27, 1956.[8][9]

According to the Los Angeles Times, Bevilacqua was "one of the first humans ever to step foot (sic) on the geologic South Pole".[10] Together with 18 other Seabees, he parachuted to the site to establish a camp and identify the Pole so that it could be marked.[10]

The expedition's scientific leader Paul Siple, in his 1959 book 90 Degrees South, described Bevilacqua as "especially likeable", noting his appearance as well as his role:[11]

Bev sported a set of Irish-style black chin whiskers without a moustache that lent his appearance an extremely salty air ... Dressed in orange-yellowish windproof trousers and olive-drab windproof jacket and headgear, Bev led his team of men in leveling snow, putting down the snow sills, setting the trusses in place beneath the buildings that required them, laying down the floor, raising the sides, snapping in place roof trusses and covering the structures with the roof panels ... By December 6, Bev and his builders had already finished the garage-powerhouse shell and had begun work on the mess hall foundation.

Chapel of the Snows (1956)

Bevilacqua made the altar for the original Chapel of the Snows.[12] The building originated as a memorial site for US Navy Petty Office Richard Williams, who was killed early in the mission when his tractor broke through McMurdo's ice.[7] The original plans for McMurdo did not include a chapel, but the building was slowly constructed by volunteers from gathered materials.[13] The chapel was dedicated to "Our Lady of the Snows" in May, 1956.[14] In 1996, when the chapel celebrated its 40th anniversary, Bevilacqua got the consent of the Williams family for the installation of a plaque that honors not only Williams but all the people who later died in Antarctica.[3][15]

On December 14, 1956, Bevilacqua and his team erected a 15-foot (4.6 m) pole that remained in use as the "ceremonial South Pole" at least until 2018.[16] The ceremonial pole was supposed to be painted with a red-and-white candy stripe, but Bevilacqua instead painted it orange and black, the colors of his Woburn high school football team. When questioned, he claimed that all other colors of paint had been frozen.[4][3] The pole remained orange and black until 1980, when it was repainted to red and white.[17] Bevilacqua also put up a sign nearby, "City Limits of Woburn", took pictures, and sent them to the local home newspaper.[11]

He and his team then "wintered over" at the South Pole, the first people to do so.[18]

After leaving Antarctica, Bevilacqua continued to serve in Seabees construction battalions until 1978, including service in the Vietnam War, retiring with rank of CWO4 (Warrant officer Grade 4.)[lower-alpha 2][6][1]

He died at the age of 89 on November 25, 2019.[4]

Legacy

In 2007, Mount Bevilacqua in Antarctica, "a mostly ice-free mountain rising to 1,164 meters [3,819 ft] 1.5 miles [2.4 km] north of Mount Evans" was named for him, as "the senior enlisted construction Builder Chief and member of the construction crew, which built the original McMurdo Station and the original South Pole Station in the 1955–57 pre-IGY period".[19]

The Antarctica Society wrote of his life: "Charlie was a dedicated, focused, and gifted individual whose unending hours of punishing and innovative work in often grueling conditions helped to start the U.S. Antarctic Program on its trajectory of unexcelled polar science."[4]

References
  1. Bevilacqua, Charles A.; Benson, James, Charles A. Bevilacqua Collection, Ivonne McDowell, Department of Veterans Affairs, Public & Intergovernmental Affairs, retrieved April 9, 2021
  2. "In Memory Page 21" (PDF). EXPLORER'S GAZETTE- Volume 19, Issue 4. As a BU1 CB was in MCB (Special) and helped to build McMurdo Station during DF-I. After wintering over at McMurdo he was promoted to BUC and he went to the geographic South Pole and helped to build South Pole Station. Mount Bevilacqua is named in his honor.
  3. Belanger, Dian O (August 3, 1999). "Antarctic Deep Freeze Oral History Project: Interview with Charles A. Bevilacqua, CWO4, CEC USN (Ret.)" (PDF). Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program. Retrieved April 11, 2021. I picked out the best bamboo pole I could, that was still in the pile, the longest and straightest one, and I came up with the idea of painting it orange and black, which was my Woburn, Massachusetts, high school colors ... But the question came up, why was it orange and black and not red and white, and my answer was that was the only paint that wasn't frozen. (p. 27)
  4. "Charles A. Bevilacqua, 1930–2019" (PDF). The Antarctican Society Page 11.
  5. CurrentObituary.com. "Charles A." www.currentobituary.com. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
  6. "U.S. Military Rank Insignia". US Department of Defense. Retrieved April 13, 2021. Warrant officers hold warrants from their service secretary and are specialists and experts in certain military technologies or capabilities ... They derive their authority from the same source as commissioned officers but remain specialists, in contrast to commissioned officers, who are generalists.
  7. Minneci, Beth (October 22, 2000). "A life on the ice" (PDF). The Antarctic Sun. Retrieved April 11, 2021. It was 1955. First Class Petty Officer Bevilacqua, then 25, was in the South Pacific working as a U.S. Navy Seabee, which is essentially a military construction worker. After seven years of that, he was ready for a change of scenery. When the Navy asked for volunteers to work in Antarctica, Bevilacqua threw his hand in the air.
  8. Belanger, Dian Olson (2010). Deep Freeze: The United States, the International Geophysical Year, and the Origins of Antarctica's Age of Science. University Press of Colorado. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-60732-067-8. Retrieved April 12, 2021. The Wyandot, built in 1942, was on its first trip to Antarctic waters, 'just as it was the first trip for most of us,' wrote diarist Charlie Bevilacqua, a Seebee builder chief assigned to a canvas bunk and locker on the second deck.
  9. "Naval History and Heritage Command: Wyandot (AKA-92)" (April 24, 2017)
  10. Warchol, Richard (March 13, 1998). "Navy Puts the Antarctic on Ice". LA Times. Retrieved April 11, 2021. Bevilacqua who in 1956 became one of the first humans ever to step foot on the geologic South Pole ... arrived with the Navy's first construction crew in Antarctica ... he vividly recalls parachuting from a plane with a team of 18 other Seabees in an effort to pinpoint the geologic South Pole—and establish a camp there.
  11. Siple, Paul (1959). 90 south: the story of the American Sout Pole conquest. Putnam. pp. 191–193. Retrieved April 12, 2021. Chief Charles A. Bevilacqua, a twenty-six year old Seabee from Woburn, Massachusetts, was actually in charge of the building of the houses and tunnel construction ... I found him an especially likable individual and at times we would sit down and converse.
  12. Guy, Don (December 25, 1956). "Two ministers hold services in Antarctica". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. p. 4. Retrieved April 15, 2021. The altar itself had been fashioned with loving skill by Charles A. Bevilacqua or Woburn, Mass.
  13. "Chapel of the Snows: New Chapel of the Snows dedicated at McMurdo Station". SouthPoleStation.com. 1989. Retrieved April 13, 2021. The original plans for the station did not include a chapel...The Chaplain, Father John C. Condit, and volunteers from the construction battalion gradually gathered enough materials to build what was to become the first church ever erected in Antarctica. All of the work was done by volunteers after their daily duties were finished.
  14. McCormick, Patrick "Rediron" (2006). "Birth of McMurdo" (PDF). The Antarctican Society Newsletter (Vol 05-06). Retrieved April 15, 2021. Mysteriously, a stockpile of scrap building material began to accumulate at the end of the street near the base of Observation Hill. Chaplin Father John Condit, a rather free spirit, began to recruit "volunteers" to put this scrap together during their off time. We had no plans, but with Seabee ingenuity and a "can do" spirit, it turned into a chapel complete with steeple and belfry...On May 6, 1956, the chapel was dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows.
  15. Antarctic News Clips. USA: National Science Foundation. 1995. p. 154. Bevilacqua asked Fr Eccleton to make a trip to the Madonna, encased in rocks that looks out on the bay. 'We erected the shrine for Willy.'
  16. Blazich, Frank A. Jr. (December 10, 2018). "This Week in Seabee History: December 9–15". Seabee Magazine. Archived from the original on April 11, 2021. Retrieved April 11, 2021. December 14, 1956: Chief Builder Charles A. Bevilacqua erects a 15-foot tall, orange-and-black striped bamboo pole, topped with a 16-inch mirrored glass ball atop the newly completed garage at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. This "ceremonial" South Pole is still in use today.
  17. "1980 Ceremonial Pole". United States Antarctic Program. 1981. Retrieved April 11, 2021. In 1980, the ceremonial South Pole marker was an orange-and-black-painted bamboo pole with a mirrored ball on top. The bamboo pole was painted the current colors of red and white later that same year ... This Pole marker is distinguished from the actual U.S. Geological Survey post a few yards away that marks the exact location of 90 degrees south.
  18. Minneci, Beth (October 22, 2000). "Bonds they built on the ice" (PDF). The Antarctic Sun. Retrieved April 11, 2021. Charlie Bevilacqua was senior builder at McMurdo and a builder of the first permanent South Pole station. In 1957, he wintered-over with Bowers at the South Pole.
  19. "Antarctica Detail". USGS. Retrieved April 11, 2021. Mount Bevilacqua ... Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2007) after CW04 Charles A. Bevilacqua, Civil Engineer Corps (CEC), U.S. Navy (USN) (Seabees), who at the time was the senior enlisted construction Builder Chief and member of the construction crew, which built the original McMurdo Station and the original South Pole Station in the 1955–57 pre-IGY period.

Notes
  1. A "petty officer" in the Navy is a non-commissioned officer, with first, second, and third-class petty officers equivalent to the Army rankings of Staff Sergeant, Sergeant, and Corporal, respectively. The highest rank of petty officer is the Chief Petty Officer, equivalent to an Army Sergeant First Class.
  2. "Warrant officers" are the highest rank for enlisted men, with a rank above any petty officer but below any commissioned officer. The highest warrant officer rank is 5, but Navy rules set a strict limit on the number of CWO5s at any one time.
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