Secret Journey to Planet Serpo by Len Kasten Read Free Book Online Page B

diplomatic, scientific or economic—they were military.” Quite possibly, it was actually Byrd who had initiated the entire operation and had convinced the Cabinet of the necessity of the mission because of what he had learned in Hamburg in 1938. This, added to the reports of Operation Tabarin and the U-boat commander interrogations, were sufficient to launch “the largest Antarctic expedition ever organized.” *13
    THE BATTLE OF THE WEDDELL SEA
    The operation, planned jointly by Admirals Nimitz and Byrd, involved a three-pronged approach, very similar to an invasion scenario and typical of a military attack. The central group, consisting of two icebreakers, the aircraft carrier, two cargo ships, the submarine, and the flagship, would reestablish the previous base at Little America III, now to be called Little America IV. The six DC-3s would take off from the carrier in the Southern Ocean and fly over the Ross Ice Shelf to the base where a landing strip would be constructed for the planes. They would then conduct reconnaissance flights over the interior using ground-penetrating radar. When ready for the attack, the eastern and western groups, consisting of a PBM seaplane tender, a tanker, and a destroyer each, would encircle the continent from two different directions, and would rendezvous in the Weddell Sea off Queen Maud Land. Four DC-3s, carrying explosives—one piloted by Admiral Byrd—would then fly over the South Pole from Little America toward Queen Maud Land, while the PBM seaplanes were launched from the tenders. The PBMs (Flying Boats) carried loads of bombs and were capable of sinking ships from the air. They had sunk ten German U-boats during the war.
    Descriptions of the expedition never mention the disposition of the Marines. Most likely they would be divided into two groups and carried onboard the tenders and destroyers from which they would be ready to disembark near the mouth of the tunnel from two different directions. The presence of the destroyers and the PBMs clearly signaled the military nature of the operation. So all three groups were to converge on Queen Maud Land. Presumably, the expedition forces had learned from the British the precise location of the entrance to the tunnel leading to the Nazi base, and they now had more current information from the DC-3 reconnaissance flights.

    Western group seaplane tender USS Currituck
    One of the PBMs flying off the USS
Currituck
seaplane tender in the western group discovered the ice-free zone and the warm water Rainbow Lakes in central Antarctica. The seaplane landed on one of the lakes and found the water temperature to be about 30°F. The eastern group encountered difficulty. The PBM designated
George One,
flying off the seaplane tender USS
Pine Island,
suddenly exploded in midair. Three seamen died in that incident. There was no official explanation for the explosion. The remaining six men in the crew were rescued thirteen days later by the seaplane
George Two,
having survived on the supplies from the plane in the wreckage. More mysterious was the fate of the tender itself. According to Erich J. Choron, in his article “How High Can You Jump?” (see
above), “The USS
Pine Island
was struck from the Naval Register, on an unknown date . . . Her title was transferred to the Maritime Administration for lay up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet . . . on an unknown date . . . and . . . the ship’s final disposition is unknown. . . . Now, how does one go about ‘losing’ a major surface ship . . .”
    According to the official records of Operation Highjump, all the ships in the eastern group met up off Peter I Island in the Bellingshausen Sea on February 14, 1947, and prepared to sail together around the Antarctic Peninsula to the Weddell Sea. It appears that the eastern and western groups were supposed to rendezvous there just off the coast of Queen Maud Land to execute a joint attack with the DC-3s. There