To Forestall Germany

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 161, 11 July 1939, Page 8

To Forestall Germany

AMERICAN EXPEDITION TO

VALUABLE MINERAL LANDS

United Press Association.—Bv Electric

Telegraph. —Copyright.

WASHINGTON, July 8. The expedition which Presidei:i Roosevelt has ordered Rear-Admiral It. E. Byrd to take to the Antarctic with* Dut delay to confirm American tern* torial claims and forestall a possible German move will claim approximate* [y 675,000 square miles of territory, including over 1000 miles of coastline directly south of Cape Horn. The territory comprises Marie Byrd Land (just east of the British-claimed Ross Dependency), James W. Ellsworth Land, and 75,000 square miles cf Princess Eliza beth Land.

Rear-Admiral Byrd says that the area includes valuable mineral lands and also bases for future aerial operations. He states the opinion that Antarctica will prove as useful from the aeronautical point of view as Green land.

Administration officials state that, once Rear-Admiral Byrd has established bases, the Government will be prepared to take the stand that any attempt by foreign Powers to establish bases west of the 190th meridian would be an unfriendly act. Officials have confirmed that the United States’s move is largely the re suit of Germany’s plan to send an ex pedition this summer into the area claimed by America. The Nazis alread> have claimed 250,000 square miles ad joining the United States’s sector. Pan of this extends beyond the 180th meridian, but the United States regards this, as cf insufficient size and important to warrant a controversy.