NEUSCHWABENLAND, the secret war at the bottom of the world.

I won't bother you with descriptions of Vrilcraft and a narrative overview of the popular tales surrounding Operation Highjump, here I will just present facts and anecdotes I've gathered through my research that paint a picture of something very secret happening in Antarctica

First an overview of the capabilities of the Kriegsmarine. Throughout the war the U-Boat fleet maintained stations in remote places like northern Canada, Greenland and the Arctic Sea around Russia. Many of these places remained undiscovered for decades after the war.

Most of these stations were unmanned weather monitors that sent reports to Germany in order to keep abreast of likely convoy movements in the Atlantic. However, there are rarer finds of bunkers with garrison quarters, anti-aircraft guns and complex radio equipment.

These boat crews even at the end of the war were capable of travelling great distances, German and even Italian U-Boats sailing to Japan after the surrender of their own countries, also deliver top-secret cargo. 39 U-Boats, many late-war advanced models, are still unaccounted for

Their escape to places like Argentina and Chile fuels much of the speculation surrounding the survival of post-war elements of the Third Reich in Neuschwabenland. It's the closest settled area to territory and also the only politically friendly one.

It is this reason that I believe prompted Operation Highjump as opposed to any official notion of 'conducting a scientific survey' and 'opposing Soviet expansion'. Secret cargoes like the ones they found for Japan, the survival of bases like the ones they found in the Arctic.

The immediate post-war years were chaos for the American military, as it suffered rapid decommission and demobilization and all the branches jostled to be the one to head the new era of development. For the Navy to launch this expedition, it would need a BIG reason.

Whatever happened during that Op, I don't know, but it was ended abruptly just over 2 months into it's 6 month planned expedition, with rumours of destroyed aircraft and a sunken vessel. Despite this apparent failure of a largely irrelevant mission, the USN probed further.

A side note, both the US Navy and Royal Navy have a documented history of camouflaging the losses of ships on top-secret missions; decommission and shipbreaking reports are fabricated and a new vessel bearing the old one's name is added to the roster. This would be easy in 1947.

After this time, the 50s sees the beginning of a great many lesser-known expeditions, not just by the US, but also the UK, the USSR. Also Chile, who mounted it's own expedition to enforce territorial claims against the British, but for some reason, immediately backed off after.

This culminates in the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year, where all three major powers launch major joint military-scientific expeditions to Antarctica in collaboration with one another. Information about the Soviet expeditions is especially hard to find.

These expeditions, ostensibly there purely for research in the natural sciences, also contain quite unusual military testing and theorizing. A follow-up expedition to Highjump testing 'underwater demolition' and other ones tasking the Navy to assemble airbases on frozen plains.

Worth noting, the US Army made a big PR show in 1960 showing off 'Camp Century' in Greenland, a mighty underground complex carved from the ice with it's own nuclear power and capable of containing missile sites. Quite alot of research had been invested into this evidently.

In addition to the multitude of events surrounding Antarctica in 1957-58, Operation Argus is perhaps the most unusual. Amidst the peak of international cooperation and a brotherly PR campaign centred around science, the USN tests several nuclear weapons in the South Atlantic

This event is the reason ascribed to the presence of nuclear weapon-derived isotopes throughout Antarctica. Reddit science dept dismisses reports of vastly varying concentrations of the isotopes throughout the continent proper as the fault of yet-unexplained weather phenomena.

Thankfully, our overlords signed the great Antarctic Treaty in 1959. It locks the current ownership of who owns what in stasis, completely demilitarizes the continent and bans any and all private expedition and travel there.

I'm surprised at the lack of daredevils and world travellers that have declined to test this Treaty and sail for some coast of the continent themselves. I have never seen a video of some random asshole filming himself going there and reporting who, if anyone comes by to say hello

And I don't think I ever will. I'm sure that video has been filmed before, and after some time, asshole had a couple men in white uniforms approach him on skidoos and that was the end of the video. Another sailor lost off New Zealand.