Originally Posted by
ampan
Please do a little bit more research and then come back with you summation of "all the evidence" and what it might seem to suggest. I have read all the evidence, many times. But the reason why I am so confident about this point is that the briefing had an audio-visual section, with an audio-taped part, where a man reads things out from a transcript. Now get this: I HAVE THE TRANSCRIPT! Anyone can get it. I have the exhibit number if any of you "intellectually lazy" twits can be bothered spending a bi of time on this.
I repeat: At the briefing, Collins was told that the track went to McMurdo Station. And I repeat, there was no issue about this.
You place a lot of emphasis on the text of the briefing. The tape may well have voiced "McMurdo STATION" but that would've only been heard ONCE by the briefing attendees at a time when they were unfamiliar with the area and coming to learn of it, and certainly not familiar with the nuances of McMurdo Sound, McMurdo Station (the base), the McMurdo Station TACAN, the McMurdo Station NDB, or the 3 airfields Pegasus Field, William Field (the McMurdo Station Skiway) , or the Ice Runway. Whatever knowledge they gained would have been more likely to have been acquired by any printed material which they would've had the opportunity to read multiple times rather than a spoken word at the beginning of a briefing to which they had no context or means to recall (short of playing the tape again). The 3 maps at the route briefing Annex F had a McMurdo Station Tacan noted but a route line drawn down the middle of McMurdo Sound, Annex G referred to McMurdo Sound and had a line drawn down McMurdo Sound, Annex H had a line drawn towards McMurdo Sound and circled around two dots labelled McMurdo Station & Scott Base, that line did not go direct to McMurdo Station (if indeed that is what one of the dots represented. None of the 3 lines on the maps at the briefing went directly over Mt Erebus to McMurdo station. Annex I given to them on the morning had two McMurdo Stations listed and again no line drawn over Erebus to either of these two McMurdo Stations. The two printed flights plan, one at the route briefing, the one the day of the flight both said "McMurdo"although limited to 8 characters they couldn'y say "McMurdo Station", "McMurdo" NDB etc. The only map that had a straight line from Cape Hallett to McMurdo Station was Annex J from the route briefing but that had NO reference to topographical features. Annex J also says "For detail within the McMurdo Area see blow up" but I have not seen the blow-up if there is one.
AFAIK no map was even given that accurately showed the route overlaid with topographical features.
So back to my original point I don't think you can place that much weight to what was said in an aural briefing that they would've heard once with no background context, when the main point of knowledge building would've been the maps they had been given and could look at multiple times to build a picture in their mind.