# 1950s U.S. NAVY ICEBREAKER DOCUMENTARY FILM 76934

This 1952 U.S. Navy film entitled "Icebreaker" shows a U.S. Navy ship the USS Burton Island traveling from San Diego to Kodiak, Alaska, St. Lawrence and King Island in the Bering Sea. USS Burton Island (AG-88) was a United States Navy Wind-class icebreaker that was later re-commissioned in the United States Coast Guard as the USCGC Burton Island (WAGB-283). She was named after an island near the coast of Delaware, and carried a helicopter on board. Burton Island's mission in the film was supposedly to survey ice conditions in the Bering Sea, but the ship was also part of an effort by the U.S. Navy to establish a presence in the arctic during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. A Regulus missile submarine, likely the USS Tunny but possibly USS Cusk, is seen at the 2:45 mark with a hangar on the deck. Burton Island was one of the icebreakers designed by Lieutenant commander Edward Thiele and Gibbs & Cox of New York, who modeled them after plans for European icebreakers he obtained before the start of World War II. She was the sixth of seven completed ships of the Wind-class of icebreakers operated by the United States Coast Guard. Her keel was laid on 15 March 1946 at Western Pipe and Steel Company shipyards in San Pedro, California, she was launched on 30 April 1946, and commissioned on 28 December 1946. Her hull was of unprecedented strength and structural integrity, with a relatively short length in proportion to the great power developed, a cut away forefoot, rounded…

- Kind: Documentary
- Genres: Documentary, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/76934IceBreaker)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/76934IceBreaker?play=1)