use contacts in the AEC to get approval to move the generator in only four days, which he considered "a miracle in itself." A weekly Air Force flight to Vietnam was able to take it to Alaska. Getting the generator onto the island itself proved more difficult, since there were no Navy helicopters in the area. A bush pilot was contracted, two refueling locations were set up by the Army Corps of Engineers, and a Coast Guard escort (USCGC Northwind (WAGB-282)) was assigned, allowing the journey over the Bering Strait to be made safely. In the end, the project only took 10 days and "was done with no money or paperwork – mostly phone calls and personal visits." LeDoux was impressed that a project involving so many disparate military and non-military parties could be carried off in such a short span of time. The device, developed by Martin Marietta, was the first commercially developed instrument of its kind deployed for unattended field use by the U.S. government. This use was cited in 1978 congressional hearings on potential uses for nuclear waste. In 1981 two additional RTGs were added. All three RTGs were removed from the rock in 1995 in a joint Army/Navy operation with Chinook helicopters from B Company, 4th Battalion, 123rd Aviation Regiment, the "Sugar Bears" of Fort Wainwright, AK. The three RTGs were transported from Fort Wainwright, AK to the Richland Consolidation Facility at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state for disposal. See also Rockall, a similar, even smaller rock island in the northern Atlantic Ocean References External links US Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory: Summer 1986 Photo Spring 1989 Photo Full text of Hazardous and toxic waste disposal : joint hearings before the Subcommittees on Environmental Pollution and Resource Protection of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, United States Senate, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session https://archive.org/stream/hazardoustoxicwa01unit/hazardoustoxicwa01unit_djvu.txt Islands of Alaska Islands of Nome Census Area, Alaska Islands of Unorganized Borough, Alaska Bering Strait Islands of the Bering Sea