Operation Highjump

Operation HIGHJUMP, officially titled The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program, 1946–1947, (also called Task Force 68), was a United States Navy (USN) operation to establish the Antarctic research base Little America IV. The operation was organized by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Jr., USN, Officer in Charge, Task Force 68, and led by Rear Admiral Ethan Erik Larson, 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, 70 ships, and 33 aircraft.
HIGHJUMP's objectives, according to the U.S. Navy report of the operation, were:
The Western Group of ships reached the Marquesas Islands on December 12, 1946, whereupon the USS Henderson and USS Cacapon set up weather monitoring stations. By December 24, the USS Currituck had begun launching aircraft on reconnaissance missions.
The Eastern Group of ships reached Peter I Island in late December 1946.
On December 30, 1946, the Martin PBM-5 George 1 crashed on Thurston Island killing Ensign Maxwell A. Lopez, ARM1 Wendell K. Henderson, and ARM1 Frederick W. Williams. The other six crew members were rescued 13 days later. These and Vance N. Woodall, who died on January 21, 1947, were the only fatalities during Operation HIGHJUMP.
On January 1, 1947, Lieutenant Commander Thompson and Chief Petty Officer John Marion Dickison utilized "Jack Browne" masks and DESCO oxygen rebreathers to log the first dive by Americans under the Antarctic. Paul Siple was the senior U.S. War Department representative on the expedition. Siple was the same Eagle Scout who accompanied Byrd on the previous Byrd Antarctic expeditions.
The Central Group of ships reached the Bay of Whales on January 15, 1947, where they began construction of Little America IV.
Naval ships and personnel were withdrawn back to the United States in late February 1947, and the expedition was terminated due to the early approach of winter and worsening weather conditions.
Byrd discussed the lessons learned from the operation in an interview with Lee van Atta of International News Service held aboard the expedition's command ship, the USS Mount Olympus. The interview appeared in the Wednesday, March 5, 1947, edition of the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio and read in part as follows:
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 to 1948. Finn Ronne also financed a private operation to the same territory until 1948.
As with other U.S. Antarctic expeditions, interested persons were allowed to send letters with enclosed envelopes to the base, where commemorative cachets were added to their enclosures, which were then returned to the senders. These souvenir philatelic covers are readily available at low cost. It is estimated that at least 150,000 such envelopes were produced, though their final number may be considerably higher.
Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding
Capt. George J. Dufek, USN, Commanding
Capt. Charles A. Bond, USN, Commanding
Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding Officer
Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd, Jr. USN, (Ret), Officer in Charge
Capt. Clifford M. Campbell, USN, Commanding
On December 30, 1946, aviation radiomen Wendell K. Henderson, Fredrick W. Williams, and Ensign Maxwell A. Lopez were killed when their plane crashed (named George 1—a Martin PBM Mariner) during a blizzard. The surviving six crew members were rescued 13 days later, including aviation radioman James H. Robbins and co-pilot William Kearns. A plaque honoring the three killed crewmen was later erected at the McMurdo Station research base, and Mount Lopez on Thurston Island was named in honor of killed naval aviator Maxwell A. Lopez. In December 2004, an attempt was made to locate the remains of the plane. In 2007 a group called the George One Recovery Team was unsuccessful in trying to get direct military involvement and raise extensive funds from the United States Congress to try to find the bodies of the three men killed in the crash.
On January 21, 1947, Vance N. Woodall died during a "ship unloading accident". In a crew profile, deckman Edward Beardsley described his worst memory as "when Seaman Vance Woodall died on the Ross Ice Shelf under a piece of roller equipment designed to 'pave' the ice to build an airstrip."
The documentary about the expedition The Secret Land was filmed entirely by military photographers (both USN and US Army) and narrated by actors Robert Taylor, Robert Montgomery, and Van Heflin. 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 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. It won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Coast Guard.