Patient movement from McMurdo Station, Antarctica Published Oct. 18, 2011 By 62nd Airlift Wing JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- Airmen and a C-17 Globemaster III from Joint Base Lewis-McChord participated in a routine mission, which included patient movement, from McMurdo Station, Antarctica to Christchurch, New Zealand October 17. Active-duty and Reserve Airmen from the 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings are currently deployed to Christchurch in support of Operation Deep Freeze. Operation Deep Freeze, which runs from mid-October to mid-February, supports the National Science Foundation in Antarctica. The support Operation Deep Freeze provides to the United States Antarctic Program is unlike any other U.S. military operation. It is possibly the military's most difficult peacetime mission due to the harsh Antarctic environment. The Globemaster flight was part of a coordinated international logistical effort to evacuate the patient from NSF's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The initial leg of the flight, from the Pole to McMurdo, were flown in a DC3-T aircraft flown by Kenn Borek Air Ltd, of Canada, which also supports the U.S,. Antarctic Program. For more information on Operation Deep Freeze, contact Joint Task Force Support Forces Antarctica Public Affairs at 808-449-7985 or e-mail 13af.pa@hickam.af.mil. To learn more about the U.S. Antarctic Program, visit the official website at www.usap.gov.