Revision as of 17:50, 24 November 2012 by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )(talk | contribs)(Joseph O. Fletcher, deputy commanding officer of the 4th Weather Group, United States Air Force, will address the first meeting of the Baltimore chapter of the ...)
Fletcher started studying at the University of Oklahoma and then continued his studies in meteorologyatMIT. After graduation, he entered the U.S. Army Air Corps and eventually became the deputy commanding officer of the 4th Weather Group, United States Air Force, stationed in Alaska in the late 1940s.[1]
On March 19, 1952, his team landed with a C-47 aircraft modified to have both wheels and skis on a tabular iceberg and established a weather station there, which remained manned for 22 years before that iceberg broke up. The station was initially known just as "T-3", but soon renamed "Fletcher's Ice Island".
On May 3, 1952, pilot William P. Benedict and Fletcher as co-pilot[2] flew that plane to the North Pole, becoming the first humans to land there and the first humans (together with scientist Albert P. Crary, who flew with them) to set foot on the exact geographical North Pole. (However, some sources credit this achievement instead to a Soviet Union expedition that landed there on 23 April 1948.[3])
Fletcher left the Air Force in 1963. In later years, he held various management positions in meteorological institutions, including a post as director of the NOAA's Ocean and Atmosphere Research Labs (OAR). He retired in 1993. In 2005, he was awarded the honorary membership of the American Meteorological Society. He died in 2008 in Sequim, Washington.
References
^"Meteorologists To Hear Colonel". Baltimore Sun. September 18, 1952. Retrieved 2012-11-24. Joseph O. Fletcher, deputy commanding officer of the 4th Weather Group, United States Air Force, will address the first meeting of the Baltimore chapter of the ...{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
^The original article in the The Polar Times stated that Fletcher was the pilot, but in the Fall/Winter 1997 issue of the Polar Times, following a personal communication from Mr. Fletcher, a correction appeared stating that Benedict had been in charge of that flight. This is also confirmed by the interview Brian Shoemaker conducted with Fletcher in 1997 (link below).