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Figure 1.14
Tabarin nightclub poster from
Paris before World War II.
historical, geographical and geological arguments. At a meeting on 28 January
1943, the War Cabinet decided to mount a secret naval expedition to the Antarctic,
code named Operation Tabarin after a Paris nightclub. The real reason was to
strengthen the legal grounds for opposing the Argentine and Chilean claims to
sovereignty but this would have been unacceptable to the United States. Argentina
'
s
wartime links with Germany as well as the actions of the German Navy in the
South Atlantic provided a convincing cover story that Operation Tabarin was
needed to forestall German threats to British convoys and monitor warships
around Cape Horn. The public objectives were to establish several stations to
watch for German raiders, but the actual orders were to establish more or less
permanent occupation and to remove any marks of Chilean or Argentine
sovereignty. Building stations initially at Deception Island and at Hope Bay
Operation Tabarin had a quiet war with no Germans sighted. Transferred to
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