Commanding Officer of a USAF Arctic weather squadron in Alaska during the late 1940s when large tabular icebergs were discovered locked in the Arctic Ice pack. In 1952 he and a team of scientists landed on one of these bergs in a C-47 and established a field research station that was manned for 22 years. It operated under three names during that time: T-3; Fletcher's Ice Island; and Ice Station Bravo. In May 1952 Fletcher and another USAF and scientific team made the first ever landing at the North Pole. Subsequently Fletcher held numerous high level management positions: Director, Air Force Cambridge Laboratories; U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year; Director of the Office of Polar Programs of NSF; Chairman of the Polar Research Board; Weather Researcher at RAND Corporation.