Ice Station Zebra
Encyclopedia
Ice Station Zebra is a 1963
thriller novel
written by Scottish
author Alistair MacLean
. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End
, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic
setting. After completing this novel, whose plotline parallels real-life events during the Cold War
, MacLean retired from writing for three years. In 1968 it was adapted into a film of the same name
.
Station Zebra, a British
meteorological
station built on an ice floe in the Arctic Sea, has suffered a catastrophic oil fire; men have died and shelter and supplies have been destroyed. The survivors are holed up in one hut with little food and heat. If help does not reach them quickly, they will die.
The (fictional) American
nuclear-powered
submarine
USS Dolphin is dispatched on a rescue mission. Just before it departs, the mysterious Dr. Carpenter, the narrator, is sent to accompany it. Carpenter claims that he is necessary as an expert in dealing with frostbite
and other deep-cold medical conditions.
At first, the submarine's Captain Swanson is suspicious of Carpenter, even though he receives an order from Chief of Naval Operations
of the U.S. Navy
instructing him to obey Carpenter's every command except where crew safety is at stake. Swanson tells Carpenter he is still inclined to refuse. Carpenter is thus forced to reveal that this is not simply a rescue mission; the station is actually a highly-equipped listening post, keeping watch for nuclear missile launches from the Soviet Union
. Hearing this, Swanson allows Carpenter to come along.
Before the Dolphin dives under the Arctic ice pack, it tries to contact Zebra, whose radio signals are becoming weaker by the hour, but in vain. Once under the Arctic ice pack, it approaches the calculated position for Zebra, then searches for a place to surface. Eventually finding a place where the ice is thin enough to break through, the Dolphin establishes tenuous radio contact, and gets a bearing on Zebra's position. But Zebra is too far away to attempt to reach it on foot, so the submarine re-submerges, hoping to get closer. Carpenter confides to the Captain that the commander of the station is his brother.
After a tense, desperate search, the Dolphin finds open water and surfaces just five miles from the station. Carpenter, Executive Officer
Hansen, and two crewmen make the perilous journey through an Arctic storm on foot, taking with them as many supplies as they can. Zabrinski, one of the crewmen, breaks his ankle on the way. After a harrowing trek they reach Zebra. Devastation awaits them. Three of the eight huts and almost all supplies have been destroyed by a widespread oil fire. Eight men are dead - burnt to a crisp. Eleven men are alive, but barely. While the victims are being tended to, Carpenter does some investigating on his own.
Unable to make radio contact, as the radio was damaged in Zabrinski's fall, Carpenter just receives a message from the Dolphin telling them to return at once, as the ice is closing. Carpenter and Hansen leave Zabrinski and the other crewman to attend to the survivors. After nearly getting lost in the terrible storm of blowing ice, Carpenter and Hansen finally return to the Dolphin, bearing news of their findings, as well as the relatively thin ice nearer to Zebra. Dolphin submerges and heads for Zebra. The ice there is still too thick to break with the sub's sail, so Swanson decides to blow a hole in the ice with a torpedo
. Unbeknownst to him, someone had tampered with the wiring of the indicators which indicated the open/close status of the outer tube doors. When the crew attempts to load a torpedo into one of the tubes, a torrent of water rushes through the inner door, killing an officer and sending Dolphin into a nearly catastrophic fall. Only by heroic measures is Dolphin able to save herself.
After successfully breaking through the ice with a torpedo, fired from an un-sabotaged tube, Dolphin finally emerges just two hundred feet from Zebra. The sick men are treated, but some of them are still too ill to be carried to the sub. Carpenter does some more investigating. He finds that the fire at Zebra was no accident; it was a cover to hide that three of the dead men, one of whom was his brother, were murdered. Carpenter already knows why; the only question is who. Swanson also has a look around and finds no trace of the sophisticated listening equipment Carpenter had claimed was Zebra's purpose — Carpenter had lied again. Meanwhile, Swanson found a loaded gun in the petrol tank of a tractor, where the petrol would keep it from freezing, whereas Carpenter found food, batteries and a powerful radio hidden in the hut being used as a morgue.
Finally the survivors are all brought aboard, Zebra is abandoned, and Dolphin heads back, but not without several further incidents. The ship's doctor is knocked into a coma
. Carpenter himself is severely hurt in another apparent accident. Then a fire breaks out in the engine room and the sub is forced to shut down its nuclear reactor
. Without power for air purification or heating, Dolphin looks set to become a frozen tomb trapped under the ice pack. Only the ingenuity of Commander Swanson and the dedication of the crew saves the ship.
Carpenter announces that the fire was no accident. He reveals to the Captain that he is an MI6 officer. Carpenter's real mission is to retrieve photographic film
from a reconnaissance satellite (see Corona
) that has photographed every nuclear weapon
s installation in the U.S. The film, ejected from the satellite, had landed near Zebra. Carpenter's brother had been meant to retrieve it, but Russian agents
killed him. The two Russian agents are amongst the survivors from Zebra. Carpenter finally reveals their motives, methods, and the men. The film is now in American hands, and the agents on their way to the gallows.
_surfaced_in_arctic_-_1959.jpg)
The novel was influenced by the heightened atmosphere of the Cold War
, with its escalating series of international crises such as the U-2 incident; West Berlin
; unrest in Hungary, Indochina
and Latin America
; and the Cuban missile crisis
.
The novel exploits contemporary fascination with the under-the-ice exploits of such American nuclear-powered submarines as , , and . MacLean may have been anticipating the excitement of his British readers regarding the upcoming commissioning of the , the Royal Navy
's first nuclear submarine. Also, MacLean may have been influenced by press reports about the nuclear-powered submarine USS Skate
visiting Ice Station Alpha, located on Ice Island T-3 in the Arctic
, on 14 August 1958, as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY)
. At the time that the novel was published, under-the-ice operations by U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarines were prohibited until SUBSAFE
measures had been implementated following the loss of the USS Thresher
.
Ice Station Zebra also uses the accelerating Space Race
between the United States and the Soviet Union as the backdrop for the novel, and may have been directly inspired by news accounts from April 17, 1959, about a missing experimental Corona
satellite capsule (Discoverer ll) that inadvertently landed near Spitsbergen
on April 13 and may have been recovered by Soviet agents. In 2006 the National Reconnaissance Office declassified information stating that "an individual formerly possessing CORONA access was the technical advisor to the movie" and admitted "the resemblance of the loss of the DISCOVERER II capsule, and its probable recovery by the Soviets" on Spitsbergen Island, to the book by Alistair MacLean.[1]
The story has parallels with CIA Operation Coldfeet, which took place in May/June 1962. In this operation, two American officers parachuted from a CIA-operated B-17 Flying Fortress to an abandoned Soviet ice station. After searching the station, they were picked up three days later by the B-17 using the Fulton Skyhook system.
Finally, MacLean even mentions the newly-operational Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin
by involving the ship in an aborted attempt to reach the survivors at Drift Ice Station Zebra.
film
of the same name starring Rock Hudson
. The most obvious changes involved the names of the novel's characters:
Additional characters were added, including a U.S. Marine platoon
trained in Arctic warfare:
Much of the novel's characterization involving the submarine's crew was jettisoned in favor of these new cinematic creations. Also all characters from the Ice Station Zebra in novel were removed. They were claimed to have died in the fire, notably two main villains who had caused the fire in the first place. Also removed were all references to Dr. Carpenter's brother.
Beyond the name change, the film's submarine has a design similar to the first nuclear-powered submarine, the , rather than the more streamlined, teardrop-shaped vessel, either the contemporaneous Skipjack
or Permit
design, that was described in the novel. In the movie, the fire on the drift Ice Station was explained away as accidental.
Unlike the film, the novel shows little overt Soviet interest in recovering the lost spy satellite other than a spy ship disguised as a fishing trawler waiting outside Holy Loch
when the Tigerfish sets sail. The novel's climax of a fire onboard the submarine is replaced with the nearly fatal flooding of the forward torpedo room prior to the film's intermission
. The film's new climax involves a superpower
confrontation between Soviet paratrooper
s and the American marines at Ice Station Zebra itself, but concludes on a much more ambiguous note than the novel, reflecting the perceived thaw in the Cold War following the Cuban Missile Crisis
.
," the eleventh episode of the second season of The West Wing
. In the opening scene, Josh and Sam are trying to make a fire in the Mural Room fireplace because the building's heat isn't working. As he's piling wood into the fireplace, Josh says, "It's like Ice Station Zebra in here."
The novel is parodied in the Sealab 2021
third season episode, "Frozen Dinner." The Sealab crew must rescue scientists aboard Ice Station Zebra, a research station on top of an ice floe. The ice floe has turned upside down and trapped the two men, while the Sealab crew tries to rescue them in a submarine. While the scientists immediately turn to cannibalism, the Sealab sub — led by a German crew resembling that from Das Boot
— predictably fumbles the rescue.
The rock band Silkworm
titled a song "Ice Station Zebra" on their 1997 album Developer
.
An episode of the TV series Get Smart
was titled "Ice Station Siegfried."
An episode of the TV series "Breaking Bad
" mentions a fictional company called Ice Station Zebra associates.
1963 in literature
The year 1963 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*First United States printing of John Cleland's 1749 novel, Fanny Hill . The book is banned for obscenity, triggering a court case by its publisher.*Leslie Charteris publishes his final collection of stories...
thriller novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
author Alistair MacLean
Alistair MacLean
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare, all three having been made into successful films...
. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End
Night Without End
Night Without End is a thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, first published in 1959. It is generally considered one of MacLean's very best, especially in its depiction of the unforgiving Arctic environment; among others, the Times Literary Supplement gave it strongly favorable...
, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
setting. After completing this novel, whose plotline parallels real-life events during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, MacLean retired from writing for three years. In 1968 it was adapted into a film of the same name
Ice Station Zebra
Ice Station Zebra is a 1963 thriller novel written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic setting...
.
Plot summary
Drift IceDrift ice
Drift ice is ice that floats on the surface of the water in cold regions, as opposed to fast ice, which is attached to a shore. Usually drift ice is carried along by winds and sea currents, hence its name, "drift ice"....
Station Zebra, a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
meteorological
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
station built on an ice floe in the Arctic Sea, has suffered a catastrophic oil fire; men have died and shelter and supplies have been destroyed. The survivors are holed up in one hut with little food and heat. If help does not reach them quickly, they will die.
The (fictional) American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
nuclear-powered
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
USS Dolphin is dispatched on a rescue mission. Just before it departs, the mysterious Dr. Carpenter, the narrator, is sent to accompany it. Carpenter claims that he is necessary as an expert in dealing with frostbite
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...
and other deep-cold medical conditions.
At first, the submarine's Captain Swanson is suspicious of Carpenter, even though he receives an order from Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations
The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
of the U.S. Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
instructing him to obey Carpenter's every command except where crew safety is at stake. Swanson tells Carpenter he is still inclined to refuse. Carpenter is thus forced to reveal that this is not simply a rescue mission; the station is actually a highly-equipped listening post, keeping watch for nuclear missile launches from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Hearing this, Swanson allows Carpenter to come along.
Before the Dolphin dives under the Arctic ice pack, it tries to contact Zebra, whose radio signals are becoming weaker by the hour, but in vain. Once under the Arctic ice pack, it approaches the calculated position for Zebra, then searches for a place to surface. Eventually finding a place where the ice is thin enough to break through, the Dolphin establishes tenuous radio contact, and gets a bearing on Zebra's position. But Zebra is too far away to attempt to reach it on foot, so the submarine re-submerges, hoping to get closer. Carpenter confides to the Captain that the commander of the station is his brother.
After a tense, desperate search, the Dolphin finds open water and surfaces just five miles from the station. Carpenter, Executive Officer
Executive officer
An executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative law:...
Hansen, and two crewmen make the perilous journey through an Arctic storm on foot, taking with them as many supplies as they can. Zabrinski, one of the crewmen, breaks his ankle on the way. After a harrowing trek they reach Zebra. Devastation awaits them. Three of the eight huts and almost all supplies have been destroyed by a widespread oil fire. Eight men are dead - burnt to a crisp. Eleven men are alive, but barely. While the victims are being tended to, Carpenter does some investigating on his own.
Unable to make radio contact, as the radio was damaged in Zabrinski's fall, Carpenter just receives a message from the Dolphin telling them to return at once, as the ice is closing. Carpenter and Hansen leave Zabrinski and the other crewman to attend to the survivors. After nearly getting lost in the terrible storm of blowing ice, Carpenter and Hansen finally return to the Dolphin, bearing news of their findings, as well as the relatively thin ice nearer to Zebra. Dolphin submerges and heads for Zebra. The ice there is still too thick to break with the sub's sail, so Swanson decides to blow a hole in the ice with a torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
. Unbeknownst to him, someone had tampered with the wiring of the indicators which indicated the open/close status of the outer tube doors. When the crew attempts to load a torpedo into one of the tubes, a torrent of water rushes through the inner door, killing an officer and sending Dolphin into a nearly catastrophic fall. Only by heroic measures is Dolphin able to save herself.
After successfully breaking through the ice with a torpedo, fired from an un-sabotaged tube, Dolphin finally emerges just two hundred feet from Zebra. The sick men are treated, but some of them are still too ill to be carried to the sub. Carpenter does some more investigating. He finds that the fire at Zebra was no accident; it was a cover to hide that three of the dead men, one of whom was his brother, were murdered. Carpenter already knows why; the only question is who. Swanson also has a look around and finds no trace of the sophisticated listening equipment Carpenter had claimed was Zebra's purpose — Carpenter had lied again. Meanwhile, Swanson found a loaded gun in the petrol tank of a tractor, where the petrol would keep it from freezing, whereas Carpenter found food, batteries and a powerful radio hidden in the hut being used as a morgue.
Finally the survivors are all brought aboard, Zebra is abandoned, and Dolphin heads back, but not without several further incidents. The ship's doctor is knocked into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. Carpenter himself is severely hurt in another apparent accident. Then a fire breaks out in the engine room and the sub is forced to shut down its nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
. Without power for air purification or heating, Dolphin looks set to become a frozen tomb trapped under the ice pack. Only the ingenuity of Commander Swanson and the dedication of the crew saves the ship.
Carpenter announces that the fire was no accident. He reveals to the Captain that he is an MI6 officer. Carpenter's real mission is to retrieve photographic film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
from a reconnaissance satellite (see Corona
Corona (satellite)
The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force...
) that has photographed every nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s installation in the U.S. The film, ejected from the satellite, had landed near Zebra. Carpenter's brother had been meant to retrieve it, but Russian agents
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
killed him. The two Russian agents are amongst the survivors from Zebra. Carpenter finally reveals their motives, methods, and the men. The film is now in American hands, and the agents on their way to the gallows.
Background and origin of plot
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, with its escalating series of international crises such as the U-2 incident; West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
; unrest in Hungary, Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
and Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
; and the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
.
The novel exploits contemporary fascination with the under-the-ice exploits of such American nuclear-powered submarines as , , and . MacLean may have been anticipating the excitement of his British readers regarding the upcoming commissioning of the , the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
's first nuclear submarine. Also, MacLean may have been influenced by press reports about the nuclear-powered submarine USS Skate
USS Skate (SSN-578)
USS Skate , the third submarine of the United States Navy named for the skate, a type of ray, was the lead ship of the Skate class of nuclear submarines...
visiting Ice Station Alpha, located on Ice Island T-3 in the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
, on 14 August 1958, as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY)
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
. At the time that the novel was published, under-the-ice operations by U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarines were prohibited until SUBSAFE
SUBSAFE
SUBSAFE is a quality assurance program of the United States Navy designed to maintain the safety of the nuclear submarine fleet; specifically, to provide maximum reasonable assurance that subs' hulls will stay watertight, and that they can recover from unanticipated flooding.SUBSAFE covers all...
measures had been implementated following the loss of the USS Thresher
USS Thresher (SSN-593)
The second USS Thresher was the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines in the United States Navy. Her loss at sea during deep-diving tests in 1963 is often considered a watershed event in the implementation of the rigorous submarine safety program SUBSAFE.The contract to build...
.
Ice Station Zebra also uses the accelerating Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
between the United States and the Soviet Union as the backdrop for the novel, and may have been directly inspired by news accounts from April 17, 1959, about a missing experimental Corona
Corona (satellite)
The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force...
satellite capsule (Discoverer ll) that inadvertently landed near Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
on April 13 and may have been recovered by Soviet agents. In 2006 the National Reconnaissance Office declassified information stating that "an individual formerly possessing CORONA access was the technical advisor to the movie" and admitted "the resemblance of the loss of the DISCOVERER II capsule, and its probable recovery by the Soviets" on Spitsbergen Island, to the book by Alistair MacLean.[1]
The story has parallels with CIA Operation Coldfeet, which took place in May/June 1962. In this operation, two American officers parachuted from a CIA-operated B-17 Flying Fortress to an abandoned Soviet ice station. After searching the station, they were picked up three days later by the B-17 using the Fulton Skyhook system.
Finally, MacLean even mentions the newly-operational Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin
Soviet icebreaker Lenin
The NS Lenin is a Soviet icebreaker launched in 1957, and is both the world's first nuclear powered surface ship and the first nuclear powered civilian vessel. Lenin was put into operation in 1959 and officially decommissioned in 1989....
by involving the ship in an aborted attempt to reach the survivors at Drift Ice Station Zebra.
Film adaptation
The novel was later very loosely adapted into the 1968 John SturgesJohn Sturges
John Eliot Sturges was an American film director. His movies include Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the O.K. Corral , The Magnificent Seven , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra .-Career:He started his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932...
film
Ice Station Zebra (film)
Ice Station Zebra is a 1968 action film directed by John Sturges, starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine, and Jim Brown. The screenplay by Alistair MacLean, Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink, and W.R. Burnett is loosely based upon MacLean's 1963 novel of the same name. Both have...
of the same name starring Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
. The most obvious changes involved the names of the novel's characters:
- The nuclear submarine Dolphin became the USS Tigerfish (SSN-509).
- The British spy Dr. Carpenter was renamed David Jones, portrayed by Patrick McGoohanPatrick McGoohanPatrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
. - Commander Swanson was changed to Commander Ferraday, portrayed by Hudson.
Additional characters were added, including a U.S. Marine platoon
Platoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...
trained in Arctic warfare:
- Soviet defector Boris Vaslov, portrayed by Ernest BorgnineErnest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
- Marine Captain Leslie Anders, portrayed by Jim BrownJim BrownJames Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
- 1st Lt. Russell Walker, portrayed by Tony BillTony BillGerard Anthony "Tony" Bill is an American actor, producer, and director. He produced the 1973 movie The Sting, for which he shared the Academy Award for Best Picture with Michael Phillips and Julia Phillips...
Much of the novel's characterization involving the submarine's crew was jettisoned in favor of these new cinematic creations. Also all characters from the Ice Station Zebra in novel were removed. They were claimed to have died in the fire, notably two main villains who had caused the fire in the first place. Also removed were all references to Dr. Carpenter's brother.
Beyond the name change, the film's submarine has a design similar to the first nuclear-powered submarine, the , rather than the more streamlined, teardrop-shaped vessel, either the contemporaneous Skipjack
Skipjack class submarine
The Skipjack class was a class of United States Navy nuclear submarines. This class was named after its lead ship, the . This new class introduced the teardrop hull and the S5W reactor to U.S. nuclear submarines. The Skipjacks were the fastest U.S...
or Permit
Thresher/Permit class submarine
The Thresher/Permit-class was a class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines in service with the United States Navy from the 1960s until 1994. They replaced the class...
design, that was described in the novel. In the movie, the fire on the drift Ice Station was explained away as accidental.
Unlike the film, the novel shows little overt Soviet interest in recovering the lost spy satellite other than a spy ship disguised as a fishing trawler waiting outside Holy Loch
Holy Loch
The Holy Loch is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.Robertson's Yard at Sandbank, a village on the loch, was a major wooden boat building company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
when the Tigerfish sets sail. The novel's climax of a fire onboard the submarine is replaced with the nearly fatal flooding of the forward torpedo room prior to the film's intermission
Intermission
An intermission or interval is a recess between parts of a performance or production, such as for a theatrical play, opera, concert, or film screening....
. The film's new climax involves a superpower
Superpower
A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...
confrontation between Soviet paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
s and the American marines at Ice Station Zebra itself, but concludes on a much more ambiguous note than the novel, reflecting the perceived thaw in the Cold War following the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
.
Popular culture
The novel is referenced in "The Leadership BreakfastThe Leadership Breakfast
"The Leadership Breakfast" is the 33rd episode of The West Wing.-Plot:Toby wants real issues to be discussed at a breakfast to herald the start of the new legislative session, including minimum wage and health care coverage...
," the eleventh episode of the second season of The West Wing
The West Wing (TV series)
The West Wing is an American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006...
. In the opening scene, Josh and Sam are trying to make a fire in the Mural Room fireplace because the building's heat isn't working. As he's piling wood into the fireplace, Josh says, "It's like Ice Station Zebra in here."
The novel is parodied in the Sealab 2021
Sealab 2021
Sealab 2021 is an American animated television series. It was shown on Cartoon Network's adult-oriented programming block, Adult Swim. It premiered on November 23, 2000 and the final episode aired on April 25, 2005...
third season episode, "Frozen Dinner." The Sealab crew must rescue scientists aboard Ice Station Zebra, a research station on top of an ice floe. The ice floe has turned upside down and trapped the two men, while the Sealab crew tries to rescue them in a submarine. While the scientists immediately turn to cannibalism, the Sealab sub — led by a German crew resembling that from Das Boot
Das Boot
Das Boot is a 1981 German epic war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann...
— predictably fumbles the rescue.
The rock band Silkworm
Silkworm (band)
Silkworm was an indie rock band active from 1987 to 2005.The members were Tim Midgett, Joel RL Phelps, Andy Cohen, and Michael Dahlquist. Phelps left the band in 1994. Matt Kadane of Bedhead and The New Year played keyboards on Italian Platinum and It'll Be Cool...
titled a song "Ice Station Zebra" on their 1997 album Developer
Developer (album)
Developer is the fifth full-length album released by indie rock band Silkworm. It was their second and final album released on Matador Records before they switched to Touch and Go.-Track listing:#Give Me Some Skin --...
.
An episode of the TV series Get Smart
Get Smart
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show starred Don Adams , Barbara Feldon , and Edward Platt...
was titled "Ice Station Siegfried."
An episode of the TV series "Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is an American television drama series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Breaking Bad is the story of Walter White , a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer at the beginning of the series...
" mentions a fictional company called Ice Station Zebra associates.