CHAPTER 17
‘A race to the Antarctic’
1945–1947

As the Pacific War was coming to its cataclysmic conclusion, one public-spirited resident of South Carolina wrote to President Harry Truman to suggest that scientists and engineers build ‘a small, yet highly scientific and modern city’ in the Antarctic. He envisioned that it would be populated by volunteer families so that it would become a ‘normal city’. The continent was ‘truly our last frontier’, wrote this patriotic American, and it was ‘our solemn duty to colonize and develop it as soon as possible’.¹

There was no shortage of volunteers, with a man from Florida inquiring about the qualifications that were required for him to be among the ‘colonists that are being sent to occupy U.S. claims in the Antarctic.’ Presumably to his disappointment, the prospective settler was informed by a government official that the continent was ‘not being colonized at this time’.² The official was only partly correct. Cities were not being planned, but several nations were racing to establish permanent bases peopled by their citizens.

President Roosevelt had led the way in 1939 with the short-lived United States Antarctic Service, under the command of his old moose-hunting friend, Richard Byrd. Two bases had been established on the coast, and an ill-fated ‘snow cruiser’ had been sent in a vain attempt to establish one at the South Pole, before the war forced a hurried American withdrawal. Byrd spent the rest of the war largely out of public sight, working on reports for the navy. When the Pacific War ended, Byrd was among the gaggle of senior officers gathered on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay to watch General Douglas MacArthur accept the Japanese surrender.

It was while he was in Tokyo that Byrd penned a paper calling for the United States to establish bases on the Antarctic continent as a precursor to a territorial claim. He envisaged that the existing territorial claims by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, France, Argentina and Chile would have to be resolved by an international conference, from which a ‘world condominium’ might be formed to control the continent. To ensure a prominent seat at any such conference table, and a powerful place within any future condominium, the United States needed to use its present military might to make its own territorial claims. ‘Now is the time to act,’ declared Byrd, ‘while we have trained manpower and excess equipment.’ Byrd’s ambition was continental in scope. He wanted America to ‘use aircraft carriers and long-range planes to make a complete survey of the continent’, and for the United States Antarctic Service to be reinstated – with himself, presumably, as its leader.³

The US Navy had other reasons for going there. The end of the Second World War had left the United States and the Soviet Union as the two most powerful nations on Earth. If that rivalry ever erupted into war, it was expected the conflict would be played out in the Arctic, which provided the shortest air routes between the United States and the industrial centres of Russia. But the United States had little experience fighting in polar conditions. The US Navy’s staging of fleet exercises in the Arctic in mid-1946 led to fierce Russian protests, which encouraged the navy to look to the Antarctic as an alternative testing area.

In August 1946, the navy initiated what it called the ‘Antarctic Developments Project’ and began secret plans to send a naval task-force south in the southern summer. Dubbed ‘Operation Highjump’, the Antarctic armada would comprise twelve naval ships, including an aircraft carrier, two seaplane tenders and a submarine. Also going south was the powerful Coast Guard icebreaker, the Northwind, and the navy’s new icebreaker, the Burton Island, along with seventeen aircraft and six helicopters. Byrd was appointed to the operation’s overall command.⁴ The secrecy was all about getting a ‘jump’ on America’s rivals, so that the United States would have the Antarctic largely to itself during the brief window of summer flying weather. But the news caused a flurry of announcements from other nations, which then began preparations to send their own expeditions south.

On board the aircraft carrier Philippine Sea, Byrd was back in his element. Operational control was left to Rear Admiral Richard Cruzen, who had commanded the Bear in 1939 and who now took charge of the assortment of warships and cargo vessels that were headed for the Bay of Whales. The expedition would establish ‘Little America IV’ near to where Byrd had set up his previous bases. Almost sixty years old, Byrd lagged some distance behind in the Philippine Sea, taking note by radio of the moves made by Cruzen’s ships, as well as two other groups of naval vessels heading for different parts of the continent.

The plan was for Byrd to fly to Little America IV in one of six DC-4 transport aircraft, with movie cameras capturing his return to the scene of his earlier triumphs. Consequently, he was dismayed to read a signal from Cruzen, who was concerned about the ice conditions in the Ross Sea and wanted to end the expedition by 5 February 1947. That would leave little time to make the photographic and territorial claiming flights that were one of the expedition’s main purposes. Also, warned Byrd, it would delay ‘the conquering by our nation of the elements in polar regions which is so important to our national security’. With Byrd advising that the ice conditions were likely to improve, Cruzon agreed not to act until Byrd’s arrival.⁵ In fact, the ice was worse than Byrd had ever seen it, and the conditions would limit the aerial operations that he had planned.

There was no pretence that Operation Highjump was driven by science. When the expedition was formally announced in November 1946, the navy declared that its main purpose was to ‘train members of the Navy and to test ships, aircraft and other military equipment under frigid conditions’. They were practising for a future war against the Soviet Union in which Greenland, which had similar ice conditions to Antarctica, would feature as a forward base.

The relevance of the expedition for America’s territorial claims in the Antarctic lay mainly with the photographic and claiming flights, which were intended to provide the basis for maps that would surpass in detail and extent the maps of other nations. At the limit of each flight, proclamations were to be dropped onto the ice by the aircrew, who would display the Stars and Stripes as they did so. The official instructions made clear that the operation was about ‘consolidating and extending United States sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the Antarctic continent’ and testing ‘the feasibility of establishing, maintaining and utilizing bases in the Antarctic and investigating possible base sites’.

Apart from using the new trimetrogon cameras, which took simultaneous vertical and oblique photographs of the landscape for mapping purposes, the aircraft would have airborne magnetometers that would probe beneath the surface of the ice for geological formations that might indicate the presence of oil. There was also the possibility of discovering uranium, although Byrd denied that he was engaged in a race for uranium with Britain and Russia. Nevertheless, his comments would have alarmed those countries and others when he went on to tell journalists that the Antarctic was ‘the world’s greatest untouched reservoir of natural resources’ and that his expedition planned to ‘make as complete a survey as possible of the whole area’.⁶

The news that the United States was sending the largest ever expedition to Antarctica caused immediate concern among all the existing Antarctic claimants. There was particular concern in New Zealand, since Byrd was once again planning to establish a base on New Zealand’s Ross Dependency. The New Zealand press called for the government to send their own expedition so that New Zealand would be in occupation before the Americans arrived.⁷ The Auckland Truth thought it was incumbent on New Zealand to ‘race Byrd south, just as Amundsen raced Scott to the Pole’. If Byrd got there first and established a permanent base, warned the paper, New Zealand ‘would be cut off from the tremendous resources of the Antarctic and its backdoor would be permanently forced open’.

Although the New Zealand Herald thought there was ‘much to be gained by co-operation with the Americans’, it wanted New Zealand to do so from a position of strength. If New Zealand had a meteorological station in the Ross Dependency, opined the paper, a ‘daily broadcast … would leave no doubt that the Dominion is in occupation’.⁸ Although some newspapers pointed to the practical problems of New Zealand trying to pre-empt the United States, or suggested that the territorial competition could be ended by having the Antarctic administered by the newly established United Nations, New Zealand did consider sending a small expedition to beat Byrd and demonstrate to the world that New Zealand was in effective occupation of the Ross Dependency.⁹

When the director of New Zealand’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr Ernest Marsden, a British-born physicist, read in his morning newspaper of Byrd’s expedition, he immediately wrote to New Zealand’s naval chief, stressing the importance of sending an expedition to conduct cosmic ray research. Marsden noted that there was likely to be heightened sunspot activity that year, and the work would be ‘of great value in relation to atomic energy research’. His proposal received a positive response from other officials and was taken up with the government.

It was not just cosmic rays that interested Marsden. He was conscious that there was ‘much at stake’ for New Zealand, and was concerned by reports that Argentina and Chile were also planning expeditions. With all those nations heading for the Antarctic, Marsden was keen for New Zealand to get there first, suggesting that ‘we do not advertise our plans until we are actually en route’.¹⁰ However, when the government came to consider the proposal in December 1946, it decided that it had neither the time nor the resources to send an immediate expedition. The cabinet decided instead to plan an expedition for the following summer, when Australia might also send one.¹¹

The announcement of the Byrd expedition forced Canberra, too, to hurriedly dust off its pre-war plans of establishing permanent bases in the Australian Antarctic Territory. Pressure also came from London, with the British government fearing that its own claims might be imperilled by the inaction of its dominions in relation to their claims. In October 1946, the Australian representative on the secretive interdepartmental Polar Committee reported to Canberra that British legal advice now considered that ‘continuity of effective occupation’ was required for a valid title. Australia certainly had not ‘effectively occupied’ its territory. With a conference of Antarctic powers likely to be held within eighteen months, the British government urged Australia to take ‘active steps to strengthen [its] claim to disputed territory before the holding of such a conference’.¹²

The ageing explorer Douglas Mawson added to the pressure on the Australian government. Australia’s territorial claim would be put at risk, warned Mawson in October 1946, unless the country took action to demonstrate its ‘interest in the exploration and development of the region’. The prominent journalist Osmar White also took up cudgels in support of an Australian effort, noting that the ‘Australian quadrant had been explored and charted by Australians with Australian money. Australians were the first to land on Adelie Land, where the flag was hoisted, and Australians lie buried there.’¹³ Hence, implied White, their ownership of the territory was more legitimate than that of their rivals.

At the time, the Australian government was beset with the problems of post-war reconstruction, including the repatriation of service personnel and the development of a massive immigration scheme. Amidst this plethora of problems, the Antarctic might have been ignored, had it not held out the possibility of jobs being created for the fast-growing Australian population. At the federal election in September 1946, Labor prime minister Ben Chifley predicted that Australia was ‘about to enter upon the greatest era in her history’; the Antarctic was expected to contribute to Australia’s new ‘golden age’.¹⁴

Various ways of securing its territory were urged upon the Australian government. From Santiago came a memo from Australian diplomat John Cumpston, who had been instrumental in preparing Australia’s map of the Antarctic in 1939. He warned that Byrd’s expedition ‘will undoubtedly complete at least an aerial photographic survey of the Australian Antarctic territory as far to the east as Queen Mary Land’, which was where America had a strong claim ‘by right of prior discovery’.

To forestall Byrd from landing by helicopter and taking possession of Australia’s territory, Cumpston urged that Catalina flying boats be sent south immediately to photograph the coast of Wilkes Land so that an updated edition of the Australian map could be issued ‘before the U.S. are able to advance a claim based on the work of the present [Byrd] expedition’. With the 1939 map becoming obsolete, the publication of a new edition would provide ‘the strongest evidence we have of the strength of our claim’ and help to ensure that it was widely accepted as the standard map of the continent. It was important, argued Cumpston, that the Australia map should appear before the US Hydrographic Office was able to produce an updated map of its own. The revised Australian map, declared Cumpston, ‘will be far superior to the American and should be a standard map for at least another ten years’.¹⁵

Although it was not possible to send flying boats on such a hazardous mission, Cumpston’s call for an updated edition of the Australian map was embraced by the minister for external affairs, Dr Herbert Evatt, who instructed in February 1947 that he wanted ‘the best possible map of the area [to] be prepared’. Without a photographic mission by flying boats, Australia had to gather its updated cartographic information from elsewhere. The task was given to the Department of External Affairs, which would gather the information and compile a new handbook to accompany the map, while the National Mapping Division of the Department of the Interior would draw it up. Cumpston and Mawson were asked for any information they could provide, while an appeal went out to Britain’s Polar Committee and the Royal Geographical Society for the latest British maps and charts. Cumpston sent the latest Argentine and Chilean maps to Canberra, while additional information was sought from the Norwegian whaling society, the report of the 1939 German Schwabenland expedition and from the United States.¹⁶ It was crucial that the Australian map remain the most authoritative in existence. But it would take more than a map to secure Australia’s hold on the Antarctic.

In the wake of Chifley’s re-election, officials from nine government departments gathered at the old bluestone Victoria Barracks in Melbourne in December 1946 to discuss Australia’s future activities in the Antarctic. There to advise them was Mawson, who had been advocating the development of Antarctic resources for more than three decades. With the officials having been instructed to prepare recommendations that would ‘ensure the development and use of the Australian Antarctic Territory and greater continuity of effective occupation’, Mawson was well placed to advise them.

Chairman William Dunk of the Department of External Affairs opened the meeting by alluding to the ‘intensive interest’ shown by other nations in the Antarctic and the threat this posed to Australian sovereignty. Turning to Mawson, Dunk asked for ‘more factual information on the resources in the territories so that consideration could be given to practical means of using them’. Mawson was more than happy to oblige. He suggested that most minerals, including uranium, were probably present in the Antarctic, and that the coal deposits could be used in situ to smelt other minerals, such as copper. Whaling might also provide a permanent industry for Australia, so long as international controls were implemented to prevent their extinction.¹⁷ Mawson was averse to government- controlled expeditions and wanted any base to be a university one, which would be engaged in ‘scientific exploration … linked with fisheries development (Mainly whaling)’.¹⁸

The officials gave the nod to Mawson’s suggestion that a permanent base be established as soon as possible. Some even thought that two bases were necessary for purposes such as meteorology, while defence officials pointed to the strategic reasons for establishing an Australian base before a potential enemy was able to do so. But there was considerable uncertainty about where a base could or should be established.

Mawson favoured Cape Freshfield, far to the south of Sydney at about 152° E, which was where his tragic overland expedition had ended in 1913 and where he had suggested setting up a base in 1940. However, he was unsure whether Cape Freshfield was accessible by ship in summer. He advised a flyover by a four-engine bomber to show whether the site was suitable. The meeting decided instead that an Australian naval ship equipped with an aircraft should go there during the current summer on a brief reconnaissance voyage, while officials went ahead to prepare ‘concrete plans for exploration and observation in [the] Antarctic’. Such was the officials’ sense of urgency that within three weeks of the meeting the government authorised the dispatch of a naval ship to find an ice-free base.¹⁹ Authorisation was one thing – finding a suitable ship was another.

The only ice-strengthened ship in the Australian navy was Ellsworth’s old ship, the Wyatt Earp, which had been renamed the HMAS Wongala and used for transporting explosives. After the war, it had been decommissioned and given to the Sea Scouts in Adelaide.²⁰ It would need months of work in a dry dock before it was ready to face the rigours of the Southern Ocean.

On 16 January 1947, Chifley was forced to concede that Australia had no suitable ship for an immediate voyage that summer. Instead, as New Zealand had done, he appointed a committee to plan an expedition for the summer of 1947–48.²¹ The change of plan was applauded by the Melbourne Herald, which noted that any Australian expedition should be part of ‘a carefully conceived scientific project’ and not a rushed response to America’s ‘lavishly equipped “task force”’. The paper wanted to see practical results of value to Australia in areas such as meteorology, whaling and mineral exploitation, and not just an expedition ‘to stake further theoretical and controversial claims to slices of an ice-capped Polar continent’.²²

With Australia and New Zealand hampered by the lack of suitable ships and experienced personnel, and with Norway and France distracted by more pressing post-war problems, it was left to the three remaining Antarctic claimants – Argentina, Chile and Britain – to counter the American push. Britain had already strengthened its hold on its Falkland Islands Dependencies by setting up two more bases during the summer of 1945–46, which added to the three that it had established during the war at Hope Bay, Deception Island and Port Lockroy. In July 1945, Operation Tabarin, which controlled the bases, was renamed the ‘Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey’. The new name was more appropriate to peacetime and would add to the moral legitimacy of the British claim, although its purpose remained the same. As Britain’s director of naval intelligence explained to his New Zealand counterpart, ‘the general purpose of the survey was to maintain effective occupation of key points in Graham Land, the South Shetlands, South Orkneys and to conduct a programme of surveying and research in those regions. The occupation of the main bases was to take precedence over all other activities.’²³ Sovereignty was everything.

With five bases, Britain’s occupation of the dependencies was more complete. Four men were put ashore to establish a base at Cape Geddes on Laurie Island, despite Britain’s legal adviser having suggested that, after more than forty years of occupying a meteorological station on the same island, Argentina’s title was incontestable. There was a fear in London that if it gave way on Laurie Island, the whole of the South Orkneys might be open to an Argentine claim. Ten other men were landed at Neny Fjord, on what the Americans called ‘Stonington Island’, where the United States Antarctic Service had occupied a base from 1939 to 1941 and where it was feared that the Americans might soon return. The five bases were scattered strategically across both the Antarctic Peninsula and the two island chains that comprised the Falkland Islands Dependencies. Each base had a post office, while new Falkland Islands Dependencies stamps were issued in February 1946 to remind the world of Britain’s ownership. Each also had a wireless telegraph office, from which it was intended to transmit weather forecasts for the South Atlantic as an additional reminder of British possession. The continental bases also had more dog teams to allow for exploratory sledge journeys.²⁴

Any illusions that these moves would be effective by themselves in defending Britain’s title were dispelled when the legal adviser to the Foreign Office warned in October 1946 of the changing legal requirements to establish a valid title. Britain had long relied largely on historic acts of discovery, but the government was now advised that international law had developed to the point where ‘little or no weight now attaches to discovery’. The long-held American requirement of continuous and effective occupation, or at least of maintaining effective control, was now accepted more generally as a prerequisite for a valid title.

This left Britain and its dominions on very weak legal grounds, in so far as their title to the Falkland Islands Dependencies, the Ross Dependency and the Australian Antarctic Territory were concerned. Indeed, the British government was advised that its title to the Falkland Islands Dependencies had possibly already gone to other claimants, while the Ross Dependency and the Australian Antarctic Territory were vulnerable if the forthcoming American expedition to the Antarctic led to US bases being established in those places and Washington subsequently made a territorial claim. Only the British claim to the Falkland Islands was beyond challenge, due to their long-standing and effective occupation.²⁵

The announcements of more British bases being established and of Byrd’s naval task force being sent combined to convince Argentina and Chile to respond in kind. Argentina’s president, Juan Perón, reacted by issuing a decree in September 1946 prohibiting the publication of maps of Argentina that ‘do not show the Argentine Antarctic’.²⁶ The following month, he issued another decree ‘declaring Argentine sovereignty over the Antarctic submarine platform and the water covering it’. A map in the Buenos Aires press indicated that the claim covered ‘the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, the South Orkneys, Graham Land and the entire Antarctic Sea-board’²⁷ – effectively, all the territories claimed by Britain. The coming summer’s supply voyage for the base on Laurie Island would see further assertions of Argentine sovereignty on those British territories.

Meanwhile, Chile responded by announcing in December 1946 that it would send three naval ships to reinforce its claims. At the same time, it issued a decree asserting its right to exploit any uranium found in its Antarctic territory.²⁸ With instructions from the Chilean naval chief to ‘extend and enlarge our territory’, the frigate Iquique set off to establish a naval base called Soberania (Sovereignty), along with a seaplane anchorage, on Greenwich Island in the South Shetlands, which was renamed ‘Presidente Aquirre Island’. Six naval personnel were left behind in a steel hut to act as a coastguard and to administer a post office.²⁹

After visiting Deception Island, the Iquique returned to Greenwich Island on 6 February 1947, when the ship’s commander took formal possession of the island with due ceremony. After the Chilean flag was raised and the national anthem sung, documents of possession were signed, with one copy being buried in the foundations of the building. A cross was erected as ‘a symbol of peace and justice’. Chilean ski troops then completed a topographical survey of the island and raised their flag on its highest point, while a navigational light was erected on nearby Roberts Island. When the Iquique finally left for Chile, it took hundreds of letters postmarked as coming from ‘Territorio Chileno Antarctica’. Arriving at Punta Arenas on 26 March, the ships were met with ‘speechmaking and fervent singing of the national song’ by ‘almost the whole population’. There was much to celebrate, since a Chilean title to the supposedly British-owned Greenwich Island, and perhaps to the entire South Shetlands, had now been established. Two special Chilean stamps were issued showing a map of ‘Antártida Chilena’, with its boundary set between 53° W and 90° W.³⁰

During their Antarctic cruise, sailors from the Iquique had painted a Chilean flag on a wooden board, which they erected on the shore of tiny Gamma Island, one of the Melchior Group off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The freshly painted flag was there when an Argentine expedition arrived at the end of January 1947 to select the site for a new meteorological and wireless station. President Perón had sent three naval ships, led by the Patagonia, to make further assertions of sovereignty throughout the so-called ‘Argentine Antarctic’. With Chilean observers on board, the Argentinians simply placed one of their own flags alongside the Chilean one, promising to protect the Chilean flag from being removed by the British.

The Argentinian ships then went on to erect a lighthouse on Doumer Island, at the entrance to Port Lockroy, where Britain’s main base was located. When the ships returned to Buenos Aires in April, they were greeted by flag-waving crowds before the crews marched along festooned streets to Government House, where President Perón gave a stirring speech about how ‘Argentinians have shown, once again, what they can do in defence of their rights’.³¹ The threat to British Antarctica from the two South American republics became all the greater when they agreed in July 1947 to adjust their respective territorial claims so that they no longer over-lapped.³² Once that was done they could present a truly united front to Britain, and to the United States.

For a time in 1946, it seemed that there might be three US expeditions operating in the Antarctic at the same time. Apart from Byrd’s, there was also one being organised under the leadership of Finn Ronne, and another being mooted by the ageing Lincoln Ellsworth. Although Ellsworth’s expedition never eventuated, Ronne pressed on doggedly to win support for his proposal. The Norwegian-born explorer, who had since become an American, had a long association with the Antarctic. His father had gone south with Byrd in 1928, and he had gone himself in 1933 and again in 1939. On the latter expedition, Ronne had made a monumental sledge journey from East Base. Now he wanted to reoccupy his old quarters and take up the work that had been interrupted by the hurried evacuation in 1941. Even before the war had ended, while Byrd was otherwise occupied, Ronne had begun spruiking the expedition to potential donors and supporters. A prospectus made clear that geography and geology were at the top of his agenda. In contrast to Byrd’s expedition, it was planned to have only one small ship, two aircraft and just sixteen men.³³

Ronne had served out the war in the US Navy’s Bureau of Ships. Consequently, he was confident of obtaining the navy’s support. However, he first sought the backing of the American Geographical Society so that he could then declare that the expedition was being done under its auspices. It was only then that he planned to inform Byrd of his plans.³⁴ Although Ronne claimed to be ‘on very good terms’ with Byrd, his refusal to consult him was clearly a ruse to prevent the influential explorer from nipping his plans in the bud.

Once the society’s council had given its support in October 1945, Ronne had its director, John Wright, ask the secretary of the navy, James Forrestal, for the loan of a wooden-hulled rescue tug that Ronne had already picked out. Forrestal was informed that the expedition would explore the Antarctic between 35° W and 80° W, and that it had already received interest from various scientific and government organisations, including the Electronic Division of the navy’s Bureau of Ships.³⁵ Although Forrestal was favourable, the navy was unable to hand over one of its ships to an individual. So Ronne set up the American Antarctic Association as a nonprofit scientific organisation, with himself as chairman. Its advisory board included the geographers Isaiah Bowman, Samuel Boggs and W. L. G. Joerg, along with geologist Laurence Gould (who had first gone to the Arctic in 1926 with his mentor, William Hobbs), Bernt Balchen and Hubert Wilkins.³⁶

Even with these supporters, Ronne found it difficult to raise the meagre budget of $150,000 from the organisations that had been so generous to the pre-war expeditions. The New York Times wanted him to find the bulk of his money elsewhere before approaching them; the Hearst newspapers offered just $5000 instead of $45,000, and would only pay it after his return; while the National Geographic Society was unwilling to pay anything at all, saying the public interest was likely to be ‘very slight’.³⁷ By April 1946, Ronne was almost ready to admit defeat, complaining to Gould that there was insufficient ‘scientific interest in the scientific circles in this country, to justify supporting a non-profit and partially non-salaried expedition to [the] Antarctic’.

Six weeks later, about half of the funds had dribbled in and Ronne was again confident of getting away during the coming summer. He expected to receive $25,000 from the sale of the news rights and asked the American Philosophical Society for a grant of $45,000 to cover the outstanding amount, offering in return to do any scientific work that the society cared to nominate. But he was again disappointed. Ronne was forced to rely instead on obtaining contracts from the armed services for the testing of equipment in polar conditions. He was buoyed by the support both of Byrd, who had helped get congressional approval for the loan of the navy ship, and of the Smithsonian Institution, which agreed to pay the salary of his chief scientist, biologist Dr Carl Eklund, who had been on Byrd’s 1939 expedition.³⁸ By September 1946, Ronne’s expedition was being prepared for a December departure, with the hard-pressed American Geographical Society reluctantly agreeing to provide space at its headquarters for two of Ronne’s people.³⁹

Ronne had planned to return to the abandoned buildings of East Base and make use of the fuel, food and other goods that had been left there. However, the State Department was informed by the British government in September 1946 that much of the material had been removed by the sailors of a visiting Argentine ship, while the remainder was being prepared for return to the United States by the British expedition that was now occupying the abandoned buildings.⁴⁰ Although the Argentine government had sent some of the equipment to the United States, the loss of the supplies was a serious setback for Ronne. He would have to make up for it by taking more himself. More serious still was the news that the British were occupying the abandoned American buildings.⁴¹

When State Department officials asked the British Embassy whether the British would still be in occupation when Ronne arrived in March 1947, they were told that there was insufficient space in the buildings to accommodate both parties, and insufficient seals in the area that could be used as food for them and their dogs. That news did not go down well in the State Department, and the British were instructed to vacate the American buildings and leave them for Ronne and ‘future American expeditions in that area’.⁴²

A British emissary was sent to persuade Ronne to establish his base elsewhere. But that was not an option. Ronne needed the buildings for his accommodation. At the last minute, Chile also objected to Ronne setting up his base on territory that it regarded as Chilean. Its objections were appeased when Ronne allowed himself to be issued with Chilean visas that were valid for Chile and the Chilean Antarctic.⁴³

Further problems came from the US Navy, which wanted to withdraw its contracts now that it was sending its own much grander expedition under Byrd’s command. Although Ronne’s shoestring budget was getting smaller and smaller, he was determined to press ahead. The navy was still providing him with the promised ship, for which fuel had been donated by an oil company, and some of the men were going as unpaid volunteers or were being paid by their home institutions. The US Army Air Force had also provided him with equipment that it wanted to be tested.⁴⁴

Another setback came when Eklund dropped out as chief scientist; there was no time to find a replacement. Ronne promised nevertheless to provide the Smithsonian Institution with ‘some information of use and interest’.⁴⁵ Ronne’s other plans became that much harder to achieve when delays by the navy in refurbishing the small tug Port of Beaumont in Texas forced him to delay his departure until 25 January 1947, which meant they would be arriving at Marguerite Bay at the end of summer. He had planned for the ship to leave from New York, where the publicity could be maximised, but he now would have to go from Texas via Panama to Punta Arenas in Chile. Nevertheless, Ronne sent a relatively cheery message to Wright at the American Geographical Society as the ship steamed southward on 2 March, reporting that ‘everything has worked out as I had scheduled it two years ago; even though there were many obstacles purposely placed in my way’.⁴⁶

Ronne made history by taking two women with him. One was his wife, Jackie, who was on the staff of the State Department, and the other was the wife of his pilot Harry Darlington.⁴⁷ Another change was the inclusion of a Chilean observer, who was taken on board at the request of the Chilean government when the ship called at Punta Arenas. Ronne had been opposed to the Chilean presence but relented when it was made clear that the man would be paying for his passage. Ronne needed all the money he could get.⁴⁸

Like so many leaders of private expeditions before him, Ronne left for the Antarctic weighed down by debt and the expectations of his supporters, including the United States government. Although parts of the US Navy had become half-hearted in their support once Byrd’s naval expedition was announced, the Office of Naval Research recognised the potential value of Ronne’s more modest venture and had pressed for it to become a government expedition. Apart from the important meteorological and cosmic ray observations that Ronne would make, and the deposits of uranium that he might find, the office pointed to the need for the United States to ‘embark officially on Antarctic exploration on a large scale’ so that it would be better placed to participate in any international conference on territorial claims.⁴⁹ But the expedition remained a private one, although it relied largely on government money and Ronne had been secretly appointed as a US postmaster.⁵⁰ To give the impression that it was an overwhelmingly private and scientific expedition, Ronne had called it the ‘Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition’.

As the Port of Beaumont steamed slowly towards Stonington Island, there was no sign of any occupants, nor was there any national emblem flying above the abandoned buildings of East Base. But there was a British flag about a hundred metres away, flying above the base that had been established a year before and that presently was occupied by a small group of British scientists and soldiers. There was also a large sign on the British building declaring that it was the ‘Graham Land Post Office, Marguerite Bay’. When Ronne reached the American buildings, as he later reported to the State Department, he found the doors thrown open to the elements and ‘shocking evidence of complete and utter vandalism’, with the ‘entire place [having been] littered with rubbish in an indescribable manner’. It would take a month to make the buildings habitable.

The leader of the British base, Major Kenelm Pierce-Butler, claimed that the damage had been done by the sailors from a Chilean ship that had called there in February, and those from another Chilean ship just days earlier. When the accusation was published, it caused outrage in Chile. Oblivious to the political storm, Pierce-Butler conceded that his men had taken some of the American equipment and building materials for use at their base, and he promised to return it. Ronne insisted the British also stop using the American toilet and build one of their own. It was the start of an uneasy relationship between the two groups that lived just metres apart at the bottom of the world. The State Department counselled Ronne to ‘establish and maintain amicable relations in the best traditions of both countries’.⁵¹

Yet their respective territorial claims made it difficult to create good relations. When Ronne hoisted the Stars and Stripes on the old flagpole of the American base on 13 March 1947, he received an immediate challenge from Pierce-Butler. Acting under instructions from London, Pierce-Butler advised Ronne by letter that he had no objection to the American flag, on condition that it did not signify an American claim to the territory. However, if it did signify a claim then he was ‘bound to protest’. Ronne replied that he was neither making a claim nor recognising the British claim. Of course, Ronne knew that American claim sheets had been secreted in prominent places around Marguerite Bay by the members of the US Antarctic Service, including himself, between 1939 and 1941, although he would not admit this to Pierce-Butler. Instead, he insisted on his right to occupy the base and fly the American flag. ‘As an American expedition reoccupying this base on Stonington Island,’ said Ronne, ‘we have reflown the American flag on the American-built flagpole at the American camp.’

Once their respective stances on sovereignty were established, and with toilet arrangements agreed, Ronne spent the remaining months of his sojourn on Stonington Island enjoying relatively amicable relations with Pierce-Butler and cooperating in their respective sledge journeys. The British commander had been instructed to maintain cordial relations with American parties, and to offer ‘every material assistance’ while upholding British sovereignty. In the event of a Chilean or Argentinian expedition arriving there, however, he was told to ‘adopt a more formal, though courteous attitude’ and ‘make no offer of assistance’. He was also to emphasise the scientific aspects of his own expedition and hide ‘any evidence and specimens, of any minerals of commercial significance’.⁵²

Even before Ronne had left Texas for the Antarctic, the Northwind was pushing a passage through the unusually thick ice to the Bay of Whales. Following behind came the transport ships and submarine of Operation Highjump, ready to land hundreds of men and sufficient material to establish Little America IV. However, such were the ice conditions that one of the ships, whose hull had been damaged, had to retreat, as did the submarine.

Once ashore, the sailors and marines prepared a landing strip for the six DC-4s. The size of the aircraft meant they could barely take off from the deck of the Philippine Sea. They had to have jet packs attached to their wings to get them aloft. Byrd was a passenger on the first of the planes to land at Little America IV. Although there was not enough time for the planes to complete their full program of photographic flights, there was time for Byrd to fly to the South Pole on 16 February 1947, recreating for the movie cameras his aerial conquest of 1929. Although American planes were now dropping proclamations onto other parts of the Antarctic, Byrd symbolically dropped a carton containing the flags of all fifty-four members of the United Nations, along with the flag of the United Nations.⁵³ It was a sign of the continuing conflict between American policymakers, and of the indecisiveness of Byrd himself, as to whether the United States should formally annex the territory it was exploring, or whether it was better to claim it on behalf of the United Nations or some ‘world condominium’.

Even the proclamations made by the personnel making territorial claims had been carefully worded to allow the State Department the option of denying that any claims had been made by the United States government itself, rather than just by the individual concerned. Each proclamation noted that it was being made by a named ‘member of the United States Naval Antarctic Developments Project, 1947, operating by direction of the President of the United States of America and pursuant to the instructions of the Secretary of the Navy’. The proclamations went on to declare that:

… we have discovered and investigated the following land and sea areas … And thereby claim this territory in the name of the United States of America and in support of this claim I have displayed the flag of the United States thereon and have deposited (or dropped from airplane) this record thereof.

It was a fine legal point, but a State Department report would later argue that the proclamations were dropped from aircraft or deposited ‘by individual members of the Task Force’, and thus that the territorial claims were ‘made by individuals as American citizens, not by the Task Force itself’.⁵⁴ Although meant to be secret, the dropping of the proclamations was reported in American newspapers in April 1947. When questioned by reporters, a State Department spokesman declared that they were not official claim forms, and that they presumably ‘bore the signatures of a person in the aircraft from which they were dropped’.⁵⁵

Apart from the proclamations, the strength of any American claim was meant to be fortified by the aerial photographs and the improved map of the continent that would result. However, the rushed nature of the expedition had not allowed the pilots to be trained in making photographic flights, and ‘the camera compartments were not properly sealed against wind-blast’, which meant that the photographers had to work wearing thick gloves. Because of these limitations, Cruzen reported, the photographer usually did not have sufficient time to operate the oblique cameras that photographed to each side of the plane’s flight path. Although the aircraft flew over an estimated 4,000,000 square kilometres of the continent – about half of which had not been explored before – not all of the area was photographed.

There would be great problems for those trying to make maps from these photographs. Without adequate ground control points, there was no way for the mapmakers in the US Navy’s Hydrographic Office to situate any newly discovered mountains on a map.⁵⁶ As far as the mapmaking was concerned, the flights had largely been a waste of time and money. However, the flights did lead to the discovery of ice-free lakes amid ‘low hills of apparently bare earth’, situated in the Vestfold Hills area of the Australian Antarctic Territory. The area was described by newspapers as being akin to an oasis that ‘might be warm enough to support a human settlement comfortably all the year round’, while the lakes were big enough for flying boats to use.⁵⁷

When Byrd’s ships returned to Wellington in early March, the six DC-4s were left on the ice, with the expectation that they would be used by another expedition the following year. However, the Americans failed to return, and both the planes and Little America IV were lost to the remorseless movement of the ice shelf, floating off into the Southern Ocean. Still, the potential American claim to the Ross Dependency remained in place, although Byrd assured reporters when he arrived back in Wellington that ‘the United States had not gone into the question of territorial claims in the Antarctic, and had made none’. It was a familiar and disingenuous refrain. Byrd had made similar comments each time he had passed through New Zealand on his way to or from the Ross Dependency. With the founding of successive Little Americas and the making of more territorial claims, he was well aware that the American title to the Ross Dependency became that much stronger. Yet Byrd said that he ‘could not conceive of any controversy between the United States and New Zealand over Antarctica’.⁵⁸

Similarly, geographer Paul Siple told an Auckland press conference of his admiration for what he took to be the New Zealand attitude towards Antarctica, which concentrated ‘on the valuable work which might be done there rather than on questions of national possession’.⁵⁹ That was certainly the attitude projected by the pragmatic New Zealand prime minister, Peter Fraser, who held a dinner in Wellington to welcome Byrd. During the dinner, Fraser disparaged newspaper reports that had ‘tried to stage a race to the Antarctic between New Zealand and the United States’. New Zealand simply did not have the ships and ‘wanted to co-operate to the fullest extent’, said Fraser. Byrd replied in kind, arguing that there should be ‘some kind of international organization to share scientific work in the Antarctic’.⁶⁰

The concern in New Zealand about the United States’ intentions in the Ross Dependency was partly allayed by Byrd’s visit. He had provided the New Zealanders with samples of polar clothing and had suggested that, if Australia and New Zealand established bases, the United States might provide an ice-breaker to service them as well as its own bases.⁶¹ The Americans certainly gave the impression that they would be back. Cruzen told journalists that ‘intelligent defence of the poles is impossible unless [the United States] is willing to support not one but many expeditions similar to this Antarctic survey’. He noted that technological developments had placed ‘both Poles within our grasp.’ It would be ‘unfortunate’, said Cruzen, ‘if we were to relinquish our hold over and the potential conquest of them’.⁶²

But any misconceptions were swept away when Byrd arrived back in the United States, where reports revealed that Operation Highjump ‘had an avowed purpose of laying a basis for a claim by making aerial surveys of the region and dropping insignia of sovereignty’. The New York Herald-Tribune predicted that Washington would ‘soon make a formal claim to a vast area of Antarctica’ based upon the claim sheets and American flags dropped from the aircraft of Byrd’s expedition.⁶³ However, Byrd was unsure whether he would ‘recommend official United States action toward establishing part of Antarctica as American territory’.⁶⁴ And American officials remained divided on how best to proceed, with some being concerned about the ramifications on their relationships with close allies such as Britain.

With newspapers making repeated predictions during 1947 that the United States was on the verge of annexing territory, the seven existing claimants continued to reinforce their own positions prior to the much-mooted international conference. New Zealand had a particularly shaky position. With no New Zealand expedition ever having gone to the region, and no New Zealand official ever having stepped onto its shores, it was secretly conceded that the Ross Dependency was legally a no-man’s land to which the United States had the stronger claim.⁶⁵

That did not mean that New Zealand was prepared to surrender its control. A series of papers prepared for the government in early 1947 stressed the importance to New Zealand of asserting its sovereignty. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research pointed to the economic value of whaling and urged that a ship be converted for use as a factory ship. It noted the worldwide shortage of fats and oils, arguing the importance of whale oil for margarine and the potential of whale meat as a source of protein. The department also suggested that New Zealand should pioneer the harvesting of krill.⁶⁶ There was also the value of Antarctic weather observations for pure science – connections might be established between Antarctica’s climate and New Zealand’s – and the possibility that the Ross Dependency had coal, gold and uranium deposits.⁶⁷ While the New Zealand chiefs of staff believed the Falkland Islands Dependencies had to be retained to guarantee the security of the sea connection to Britain, they also thought that the Ross Dependency had ‘no military significance’ unless oil or uranium was found there, which might then ‘warrant energetic measures to establish possession’.⁶⁸ But New Zealand was still in no position to establish an Antarctic base.

Australia was in a much better position and had much more territory to defend. It was expected that the Wyatt Earp and a supply vessel would be able to establish a permanent base in the Australian Antarctic Territory by early 1948. In the interim, however, its territory was vulnerable to an American claim being made. After all, the United States had a potential claim based upon the voyage of Wilkes, the recent voyage and flights of Ellsworth and the present activities of Operation Highjump. In order to avert the danger of American annexation, the Australian government went through the usual procedure of asserting its sovereignty by suggesting that the Americans seek permission if their ships or aircraft wanted to enter Australian territory. Although American policy dictated that no permission should be sought, the Australians were relieved to learn that the Americans were not planning to enter Australian territory. In fact, the aircraft of Operation Highjump did make photographic flights over Australian territory in their ambitious and ultimately failed attempt to make comprehensive maps of the entire continent.⁶⁹

With Britain’s Foreign Office urging that ‘regular aerial surveys’ should be done to show ‘evidence of occupation’, the Australians returned to the idea of sending bombers to assess the suitability of Cape Freshfield.⁷⁰ Byrd’s expedition was exploring further east, and the lumbering Liberator and Lincoln bombers of the Royal Australian Air Force made several flights over the now unoccupied Macquarie Island in March 1947, both to test cold-weather clothing for Antarctic-bound flight crews and to look for possible landing places for flying boats stopping over on any future flights to Antarctica. There were also plans to reoccupy the island and use it as a meteorological station to provide weather reports for Australia. So far, so good. But the air force was reluctant to risk its aircraft and crews on a return flight to Antarctica. The aircraft would be flying blind, since they could have no inkling of the weather they might encounter and there were no emergency landing places, other than the polar icecap, if they were forced down. In such an eventuality, with no ice-strengthened ship on standby, there could be little hope of rescue.⁷¹ The flights never ventured further south than Macquarie Island.

The practical problems of establishing an Antarctic base led to further delays. When the government set up a planning committee in April 1947, chaired by the young head of the Department of External Affairs, Dr John Burton, Mawson convinced its members that a reconnaissance voyage should be sent south during the coming summer, with a permanent base to be established at Cape Freshfield in the summer of 1948–49.

It was only in the wake of the planning committee’s first meeting that the veteran Antarctic mariner Captain John King Davis was asked for his advice. As the government’s director of navigation and long-time polar captain, Davis knew his ships. He was against the idea of refitting the Wyatt Earp, which was then being inspected in an Adelaide dry dock, and suggested that it would be cheaper to purchase a new vessel. Nor did he approve the idea of sending a steel-hulled tank-landing ship as an auxiliary to the Wyatt Earp. Without a suitable vessel on hand, he advised that a voyage during the current year was impossible. He was also unconvinced about the suitability of Cape Freshfield as the site for a permanent base, and was wary of the Australian National Research Council’s suggestions that any Australian expedition be done in cooperation with the Americans, British and New Zealanders. Davis was concerned that Australia was rushing into a commitment and in danger of making hasty and ill-advised decisions. There was ‘no call for haste in this matter,’ cautioned Davis, who nominated November 1948 as the earliest time that a ‘properly-equipped and planned expedition’ might be sent.⁷²

Mawson, though, wanted a ship sent as soon as possible. He complained to his wife about the serious delays being caused by the government’s slowness in voting funds for an expedition.⁷³ At the second meeting of the committee, on 5 May 1947, Group Captain Stuart Campbell was chosen as the proposed expedition’s leader. Campbell had been the pilot on Mawson’s two voyages in 1929–31 and was well versed in the requirements for claiming territory, although he had been more than a little contemptuous of them. It was only when the navy representative raised questions about the practicability of an expedition during the coming summer, and when Mawson conceded that Cape Freshfield might not be a suitable site, that the committee decided the initial expedition with the Wyatt Earp should be merely for reconnaissance purposes. The Minister of External Affairs, Dr Evatt, agreed to the change of plan, while at the same time indicating ‘his keen interest in the success of the undertaking’ and his desire that ‘everything possible be done to this end’. He even offered to ask General Douglas MacArthur, the American head of the Allied occupation forces in Japan, for the use of a Japanese factory ship.⁷⁴ Not that MacArthur was ever likely to agree. He was too concerned with obtaining whales to provide meat for the hard-pressed Japanese population, and earning revenue from the sale of whale oil.

Davis continued to raise concerns about Australia attempting to do too much too soon. His concerns, and those of the Department of Defence, seemed to have caused a rethink by External Affairs, which had charge of the expedition’s organisation. In mid-July, Campbell informed Davis that the government’s ambition was now only to ‘endeavour if possible to establish a permanent scientific station on the Antarctic Coast sometime within the next five years’. In the first instance, Australia would concentrate on establishing parties on Macquarie and Heard Islands, while an aircraft from the Wyatt Earp would reconnoitre the coast around Mawson’s old base at Cape Denison. It would be the first stage in a ‘systematic reconnaissance of the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory’, which would be undertaken over several years until a site was found for a ‘permanent scientific station on the Antarctic Continent itself’.⁷⁵ Despite Davis’s reservations, the Australian government decided on 11 November 1947 that a tank-landing ship would take a party that month to occupy Heard Island, south-west of Western Australia, and then return to take another party to Macquarie Island in January 1948.

The rush to occupy Heard Island was driven partly by a fear that the Americans might get there first. It was an island whose ownership had long been disputed between Britain and the United States, based upon the respective voyages of their nineteenth-century whaling and sealing ships. Byrd had wanted it in 1939 as a landing place for cross-Antarctic flights from South America to Australia, until he realised that it had no landing places or sheltered waters for flying boats. The Foreign Office’s legal adviser had confided to Britain’s Polar Committee in March 1947 that any British title had probably expired during the twenty years or so since a British expedition had visited the lonely speck.

Although the island had no strategic value, Britain thought that Australia or South Africa might find it useful as a meteorological base and suggested that one of them annex it. Within days, Australia agreed to do so, while South Africa sent a warship on a clandestine voyage to annex and occupy Marion and Prince Edward Islands, further west. Australia was convinced that it was in its interests ‘to secure ownership’ of Heard Island and accepted that it would require ‘a formal act of annexation on the spot and the maintenance of effective control thereafter’.⁷⁶

There was a fear in Canberra that Australia might be beaten to the island by the United States expedition, or by one of the Russian whalers then operating in the Antarctic. So the objective of the Australian expedition was kept top-secret.⁷⁷ While newspapers reported the departure of the tank-landing ship from Melbourne on 15 November 1947 – under the command of Campbell, who was described as ‘a rugged, athletic bachelor’ – the aim of the expedition was not revealed until 5 January 1948, some days after Campbell had completed the required claiming ceremony.⁷⁸

Having privately derided the claiming ceremonies performed by Mawson, it was ironic that Campbell now had to do the same himself. As Mawson had done, there was the usual raising of the flag and the reading of a proclamation, a copy of which was duly enclosed in a cylinder and deposited beneath a cairn of rocks at the foot of the flagpole. The carefully worded document avoided any admission about the weakness of the existing British claim and instead portrayed the Australian annexation as a continuation of the ‘sovereign rights’ that had been ‘asserted and exercised’ by the British monarch. A description of the ceremony was also written in the ship’s log, while a press release told the world of the Australian accomplishment. Reports of the expedition’s work emerged through further press releases, which Campbell was instructed to draft in such as way ‘as to imply that the Expedition is in effective occupation of Australian territory’. A tent was designated as the island’s post office, with letters carrying a special postmark to show that the place was now an Australian possession.⁷⁹

The tank-landing ship managed to complete the landing of parties on Heard and Macquarie Islands, despite having only twenty-two hours of calm weather during the eighteen days that it had been stationed off Heard Island.⁸⁰ The ship’s steel hull could not be trusted further south in the pack ice. With nothing better on hand, the task of reconnoitring the coast near Cape Denison was entrusted to Ellsworth’s old ship, with its strengthened wooden hull. But it was Baltic pine rather than stout English oak. The Wongala had already been taken back from the Adelaide Sea Scouts and refitted under the supervision of the Australian navy, which renamed it the HMAS Wyatt Earp in November 1947, before it left for Melbourne to take on men and stores.⁸¹

The ship, which was painted a garish orange and black so it could be seen amongst the ice, made the short voyage to Melbourne through rough seas – a harbinger of things to come. Despite all the work done to it, crew members were forced to bail out water that washed over the rolling decks and down ‘into the mess decks forward and … into the cabins and wardrooms aft’. More repairs were done in Melbourne, where the ship was visited by various government dignitaries before it departed for the Antarctic on 19 December. But its engine broke down before it had even left Port Phillip Bay.

Makeshift repairs allowed the Wyatt Earp to continue on through the storm-tossed waters of Bass Strait to Hobart. However, as it prepared to leave Hobart on Christmas Day, the engine broke down again and the ship crashed into the wharf. ‘What an anticlimax!’ exclaimed First Lieutenant W. F. Cook, who described how the gloom was only broken when the captain ‘prescribed champagne cocktails and we sang with [scientific leader] Phil Law’s accordion and danced and skylarked till about 3 a.m.’. They got away the next morning – farewelled by just three men, two boys and a baby – only to be swamped again by heavy seas just out of Hobart. The concerned naval authorities ordered the ship back to Melbourne for yet more repairs.⁸² Australia continued to have the will but not the means to achieve its Antarctic ambitions.

In contrast, the United States had the means but continued to be wracked by indecision as to how it should proceed. It was Ronne who tried to end the uncertainty. From his cabin on board the iced-in Port of Beaumont during the dark of the 1947 winter, Ronne wrote a memo to Secretary of State George Marshall suggesting that America should establish a ring of four bases evenly spaced around the coastline of Antarctica, with additional temporary bases in the interior that would be occupied for several months each year. One of the primary purposes would be the mapping by air of the entire continent.

Ronne wanted one of the four bases to be at the site of his present base in Marguerite Bay, and proposed that all be manned by at least thirty personnel, including ‘qualified scientists as well as men to be trained in particular fields of military pursuit’. After speaking with the personnel at the British base, Ronne warned that Britain had plans to increase its activities at each of their bases, and even to increase the number of its bases. To counter this, and to encourage Washington to have bases of its own, Ronne offered to leave his equipment behind, along with some of his men, to assist an official expedition that would assume control of the old base. If the United States was to become involved in a polar war, wrote Ronne, ‘no more perfect training and testing ground for such a war could be found than the Antarctic continent’.⁸³

Ronne’s proposal received serious attention in the State Department and was sent to other agencies for comment. Most military officials were dismissive of Antarctica as a training ground and of its strategic importance, while those concerned with mapping argued that the aerial mapping of the continent was ‘virtually impossible’ because of problems with establishing adequate ground control points. When Byrd was consulted, he too expressed his opposition to the proposal, arguing that there were ‘many aspects which are not sound’. He recommended instead that the United States should coordinate its activities with ‘other nations having a scientific interest in Antarctica’.⁸⁴

Cruzen was almost a lone voice among the military in agreeing with Ronne that the Antarctic was important as an alternative training ground to the Arctic, where ‘political difficulties’ limited the ‘opportunity for military training and research’. Although Cruzen conceded that Ronne’s scheme for several bases was important for ‘exploration and territorial claims’, he thought that one or more large bases would be more useful from a military point of view.⁸⁵ There was much more support for Ronne’s proposal from scientists, who recognised the potential of the Antarctic for gathering data on meteorology and the workings of the upper atmosphere, as well as magnetism and cosmic rays.⁸⁶ It was a sign of things to come.

Although the US Army and Navy were largely dismissive of Ronne’s proposal, they acknowledged that it was the prerogative of the State Department to decide whether bases were required to secure America’s territorial claims. While Ronne continued his exploration of the Antarctic Peninsula by aircraft and dog sledge during 1947, both the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency were studying how the United States might claim all the territory that its citizens had discovered or explored or claimed since the early 1800s, including the claims made during Byrd’s latest expedition. In October 1947, the CIA completed a secret map of Antarctica displaying all the ‘areas which the United States proposes to claim’.⁸⁷ Here at last was an official American exposition of all the areas it felt justified in claiming.

Rather than being wedges of territory from the coast to the South Pole, they were swathes of hinterland over which American planes had flown, often with little connection to the coastline, since discovery of the coastline had been done mostly by other countries. If the United States accepted the sector principle, the American claims would have been much more limited. By rejecting the sector principle the United States was intruding on the territories of the seven Antarctic claimants, whose support was required by Washington in its increasingly tense standoff, and possible future war, with the Soviet Union.

While the CIA was preparing its map of potential American claims, the State Department was trying to reconcile these issues in a way that would maximise America’s advantage in the Antarctic. In a secret report of November 1947, the State Department noted the British bases that had been established to provide ‘proof of effective occupation’, and the largely symbolic administrative actions that Britain had taken to show the world that it was in control of the territory it was claiming.⁸⁸ With the two South American republics doing likewise and set on a collision course with Britain, and with the United States facing the prospect of being excluded from much of the Antarctic, the idea of bringing the continent under international control became more appealing to Washington.

The prospect of the Soviet Union also making territorial claims only added to the appeal of ending the continental carve-up and replacing it with an international regime marked by cooperation rather than competition. Such a regime had the added advantage for the United States, with its unequalled logistical capacity, of being able to dominate the scientific investigation and later economic exploitation of the continent. Consequently, the secret CIA map of American claims, and the similarly secret State Department report justifying the claims, were both left to gather dust.