Interview of Frederick E. Crory by Brian Shoemaker

Mr. Crory (Fred) grew up as a Massachusetts farm boy. At age 15 he joined the Massachusetts National Guard and at age 17 joined the Marines – serving in Guam and Japan. He also served during the Korean War. Upon discharge he used the G.I. Bill and attended the University of Massachusetts graduating with a degree in Civil Engineering. During his senior year one of his professors, Karl Hendrickson, introduced him to soil mechanics in the Polar Regions. This led to a job at the Army Corps of Engineers at their Arctic Construction and Frost Effects Laboratory (ACFEL). Fred describes his experiences in doing basic research for construction projects in the Arctic. Early on he began to work on developing adequate piling supports for the Distant Early Warning System (DEW) Line bases. Later it was on towers that oscillated due to the wind and affected their foundations. He explains frost heaving in airfields constructed on permafrost. This work took him to Fairbanks for a two-year (1956-59) assignment where he traveled the entire north Alaskan Coast conducting Arctic construction studies. Back in Massachusetts he took over the pile-testing program at ACFEL. He explains the merger of ACFEL and the Snow, Ice, Permafrost Research Experiment (SIPRE) to the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in 1961 and the move to Hanover. Fred took over the Foundations Group of CRREL in the early 1960’s. With the development of the oil industry on the North Slope of Alaska, Fred became involved with development of foundations for oil-rigs, roads, airstrips, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and etc. He explains his work studying how to protect the tundra and permafrost at test sites at Inagok, Tunaluk and Lisburne. He visited the USSR three time s to learn from their methods. He also traveled to Thule in Greenland to develop “refrigerated foundations” for the radars, the Ballistic Missile Warning System in Clear, Alaska and DEW line stations across the north slope of Canada and the United States when they were upgraded to automated sites of the North Warning System. Along the way he picked up a Master of Science degree from the College of Applied Sciences of the University of New Hampshire. Fred retired in 1990 and conducted Arctic consulting work until 1995. He is fully retired today and lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.

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