Secret Preparations For Gigantic American Antarctic Expedition

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27058, 18 April 1949, Page 5

Secret Preparations For Gigantic American Antarctic Expedition

New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 p.m. NEW YORK, Apl. 16. Secret preparations are being made in Washington for a gigantic United States expedition to the Antarctic which may have far-reaching international consequences, says the United Press. The expedition, it was said to-night, may produce a formal American claim to strategic areas of the Southern Continent.

The decision to despatch the new American expedition follows the failure of American efforts to reach an agreement for international control of Antarctica.

The American preparation assumes particular importance in view of the mounting evidence that Russia is fanning to stake a claim in Antarctica, where, according to Moscow radio, “ there is reason to believe uranium is to be found."

It has long been recognised that Russian explorers were the first to discover land inside the Antarctic Circle. Powerful Soviet whaling fleets cruised the South Polar Sea for four months last winter. Hitherto the

United States has made no claim to Antarctic territory and has officially refused to recognise the claims of other nations. A further message states that Admiral Richard Byrd will lead another expedition to the South Pole, according to a radio commentator to-night. The proposed expedition would not begin before late in 1950, and according to the commentator, it premises to be the most spectacular of all time and certainly the most daring trip Admiral Byrd has ever attempted. The commentator said Admiral Byrd hoped to explore a vast stretch of the icecap, embracing 3,000,000 square miles on the opposite side of the South Pole from Little America.