ok, Operation HighJump is really damn intriguing…

Operation Highjump 1947 US NAVY

https://www.hooktube.com/watch?v=w-RLncjmln8

The documentary about the expedition The Secret Land was filmed entirely by military photographers (…) It features Chief of Naval Operations Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in a scene where he is discussing Operation Highjump with admirals Byrd and Cruzen. The film has re-enacted scenes of critical events, such as shipboard damage control and Admiral Byrd throwing items out of an airplane to lighten it to avoid crashing into a mountain.

6:12 odd JollyRoger/Neptune ceremony

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Highjump

Operation Highjump, officially titled The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program, 1946–1947, was a United States Navy operation organized by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Jr., USN (Ret), Officer in Charge, Task Force 68, and led by Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding Officer, Task Force 68.

Operation Highjump commenced 26 August 1946 and ended in late February 1947. Task Force 68 included 4,700 men, 13 ships, and 33 aircraft.

Operation Highjump's primary mission was to establish the Antarctic research base Little America IV.

Highjump’s objectives, according to the U.S. Navy report of the operation, were:

-Training personnel and testing equipment in frigid conditions;

-Consolidating and extending the United States' sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the Antarctic continent (publicly denied as a goal even before the expedition ended);

-Determining the feasibility of establishing, maintaining, and utilizing bases in the Antarctic and investigating possible base sites;

-Developing techniques for establishing, maintaining, and utilizing air bases on ice, with particular attention to later applicability of such techniques to operations in interior Greenland, where conditions are comparable to those in the Antarctic;

-Amplifying existing stores of knowledge of electromagnetic, geological, geographic, hydrographic, and meteorological propagation conditions in the area;

-Supplementary objectives of the Nanook expedition (a smaller equivalent conducted off eastern Greenland). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nanook_(1946)

(…)

Naval ships and personnel were withdrawn back to the United States in late February 1947, and the expedition was terminated due to the early approach of winter and worsening weather conditions.

(…)

"Admiral Richard E. Byrd warned today that the United States should adopt measures of protection against the possibility of an invasion of the country by hostile planes coming from the polar regions. The admiral explained that he was not trying to scare anyone, but the cruel reality is that in case of a new war, the United States could be attacked by planes flying over one or both poles. This statement was made as part of a recapitulation of his own polar experience, in an exclusive interview with International News Service. Talking about the recently completed expedition, Byrd said that the most important result of his observations and discoveries is the potential effect that they have in relation to the security of the United States. The fantastic speed with which the world is shrinking – recalled the admiral – is one of the most important lessons learned during his recent Antarctic exploration. I have to warn my compatriots that the time has ended when we were able to take refuge in our isolation and rely on the certainty that the distances, the oceans, and the poles were a guarantee of safety."

(…)

After the operation ended, a follow-up Operation Windmill returned to the area in order to provide ground-truthing to the aerial photography of Highjump from 1947-1948. Finn Ronne also financed a private operation to the same territory until 1948.

https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/operation-highjump-18223476/

A year after World War II ended, the U.S. Navy mounted a massive-though hastily planned-mission to the bottom of the world.

(…)

It was the largest naval expedition ever in Antarctica. Even the [Operation Deep Freeze] expeditions during the International Geophysical Year [in the 1950s] were a fraction of that. These were also newly released soldiers and sailors from World War II. And there were very few of those 4,700 who had any [polar] experience. So it’s a little odd that they would have conjured up so many. The leadership ranks were very thin, especially in the flying ranks.

>>1547926

hmm…

uranium

connection

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000150.htm

November headlines in the New York Times declared a six-nation race to Antarctica "set off by reports of uranium deposits". (…)

According to news releases of Admiral Byrd's November 12 press conference announcing OPERATION HIGHJUMP, "The Navy strongly discounted reports that the voyage will be primarily a lap in the race for uranium. 'When this expedition was first talked about, uranium wasn't even mentioned. The statement that this is a uranium race for atomic energy is not correct', Admiral Byrd was quoted as saying. However, the basic objectives were not diplomatic, scientific or economic – they were military. OPERATION HIGHJUMP was, and to this day still is, the largest Antarctic expedition ever organized.

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000151.htm

A certain sense of uneasiness flowed through the seaplane crews at Norfolk, Virginia. The follow-up report on their mission stated that the operation "was characterized by a very limited period of personnel training, material inspections and logistic planning".

(…)

Briggs went on to say that Everson muttered something about Antarctica being British territory and that the United States should have cleared the expedition with His Majesty's government. "If London has any such notions as that, I assume steps will be taken to disabuse our British friends of any belief that we consider Antarctica British", Briggs concluded. Two days later Briggs noted that New Zealand, Australia and Chile had also indicated a rather keen interest in the motives and objectives of OPERATION HIGHJUMP. Would the United States abandon current policy and lay claim to vast areas not only claimed by the above, but also by the French, Norwegians and Argentineans? Briggs noted that representatives of the governments of Australia, New Zealand and Chile requested permission to go along as observers but that permission was firmly opposed by the navy. Finally, on November 27 as the USS YANCEY and USS MERRICK began to cram aboard every last item remaining on the docks at Port Hueneme, Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson telephoned Briggs to ask if he foresaw any "political difficulties" in the "Byrd expedition". According to the Secretary, President Truman's naval aide, Admiral Leahy, had expressed concern that it might be too bad to have the Chileans, "now so full of good will, acquire hurt feelings". Briggs attempted to put his President at ease, saying that both Chile and Argentina had expressed "some interest" in Highjump, however "I did not believe that relations with either country would be affected in any substantial or noticeable way by the expedition". Perhaps Secretary Acheson was put at ease, but the same can not be said of the President. At the very last moment, probably December 1 or 2, President Harry Truman tried to stop OPERATION HIGHJUMP. Briggs was told that "the navy" had suddenly been called into the Oval Office and told to cancel the expedition. When "the Navy Department remonstrated, pointing out that if the expedition did not sail now the opportunity would be lost, the President is supposed to have relented and allowed the expedition to proceed". Who the President addressed that day is unclear, but it was possibly Nimitz, or more probably James Forrestal. In any event, neither Byrd, Cruzen or the thousands of other men under their command were aware of how close they had come to missing their "trip of a lifetime".

• German Antarctic Expedition (1938–1939)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Swabia

>>1548167

so he didn't masturbate in front of the other inmates in his cell?

damn, he's really not himself anymore