Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
207
Figure 7.1. First seen in
December 1939 during
a flight to close the gap
between Beardmore and
Liv Glaciers, 13,398-foot
Mount Wade towers over
its domain. Shackleton
Glacier drains from the rear
to the right of the image,
behind Mount Wade.
Mount Munsen, used as a
survey station by the Topo
East party in 1963, is the
dark-faced peak in front
of and to the right of the
summit of Mount Wade.
Although it was the intention of a number of the stakeholders to continue manning
the bases after the initial winter-over in 1940, Congress showed its feelings by drastically
cutting funds and forcing the return of the expedition in 1941. By then the nation was be-
ing swept into World War II, and Antarctica was of little interest. No oYcial reports of
the expedition were ever compiled.
The war radically changed the world political scene. Europe had been devastated,
the United States had emerged the primary military and economic power, and the Soviet
Union was moving to consolidate its hold on the East. Antarctica became a component
in a matrix of foreign policy issues in which the United States attempted to balance rela-
tions with Western allies and the growing threat of the Soviet Union.
In 1946-1947, however, before directions had become established, the United States
staged the most massive human undertaking in the history of Antarctica—the U.S. Navy
Antarctic Developments Project (code name Operation Highjump). Hastily established
in seven weeks, the operation sailed on December 2, 1946, consisting of more than forty-
seven hundred men, thirteen ships, and around two dozen airplanes and helicopters. The
foray was primarily a military exercise of the U.S. Navy, flush with manpower following
the war, and anticipating the possibility of conflict in the Arctic, where the Soviet Union
was menacing Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. The logistical experience gained through
this eVort would give the United States distinct advantage in the events that transpired a
decade later.
Task Force 86 (as it was called) operated a fleet that included two aircraft carriers, two
ice breakers, a command ship with positions for fifty radio operators, and two task groups
each consisting of a sea plane tender, a tanker, and a destroyer, the latter included for its
speed in the event that a rescue situation arose. Each tender sent out two Martin Mariner
