Dan Snow's History Hit - Britain's Secret Expedition to Antarctica

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

In 1943, just as the Second World War was raging across the globe, the British government launched a top-secret mission to the Antarctic. Code-named Operation Tabarin, its goal was to gather scientific data in some of the harshest conditions on the planet and reaffirm British sovereignty in the region.Dan is joined by Camilla Nichol, CEO of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, and Klaus Dodds, Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway. Camilla and Klaus explain how this secret wartime operation, driven by scientific endeavour and geopolitics, set the scene for Antarctic research right up to the present day.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/We'd love to hear from you- what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hey everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. In early 1944, a very special military operation was underway. The British had launched Operation Tabarin, named after an apparently very sketchy Parisian nightclub. The Second World War was raging. The Soviet Union was launching massive offensives on the Eastern Front. Japan was reeling back across the Pacific. Britain, America, Canada, and others were stealing themselves for an invasion of France in the summer of that year, D-Day. But Operation Tabern, oddly, had nothing much to do with any of that at all. The ships of Operation Tabern were heading south, all the way south, to Antarctica. The British had decided to use this great period of global upheaval,

of reordering, of advances and retreats, to reaffirm their sovereignty in Antarctica, to face down their competitors, Argentina and Chile in particular, but also their mighty American ally. Operation Tabern carried a team of men who would stay down in Antarctica for two years. They would assert the claim of the British to that territory, and they would start the important work of methodical scientific evaluation, capturing data that's hugely important to this day. Tabarin has left us actually probably with one of the more important legacies of the many British military operations of the Second World War. And given it was one of the smaller ones, it's remarkable in its importance. The maps, the science, the tradition of a permanent presence in Antarctica

endures. To tell me all about Tabern in this important anniversary year, I've got Camilla Nicholls. She's the chief executive of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. And she spent time in Port Lockroy, for example, which is where the British Antarctic Survey still have a presence. And it was one established in those wartime years by Operation Tabarn. Alongside her, Professor Klaus Dodds is the executive dean for the School of Life Sciences and Environment at Royal Holloway. He knows all about the geopolitics of Antarctica and much else besides. It's great to have two luminaries in the field on the podcast to tell us about one of the most overlooked

but fascinating military operations during the Second World War. Enjoy. T-minus 10. Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again.

And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Camilla and Klaus, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having us. Thank you. I know we talk about the Second World War being a truly a world war. I must have that line a hundred times. But this is pretty global in its extent. Why are they worrying about the Antarctic? I think it's a really good question, because on the face of it, you know, you'd think what on earth is going on in the Antarctic that

would make anybody remotely interested, given the stakes are so high in Europe and Asia and elsewhere. So I think there are a number of reasons why. First of all, it's important to say that Antarctica was a commercially really important space. An awful lot of effort was devoted to the whaling industry. And it's easy to forget that actually, until oil and gas came along, whale oil really was a strategic commodity. I think the second thing to say is that Antarctica, of course, is connected to the world's oceans. So actually, if you're looking at the flow of maritime and military traffic, then Antarctica, whether you like it or not, is connected in one form or another to the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. And it's close to two major areas of interest, Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. And I think thirdly, which of course adds extra

zest to all of this, Antarctica was the space that was becoming increasingly of interest, not just to Germany and Norway as a whaling nation in the case of Norway, but actually also to the United States. And Britain, of course, through its ownership of islands like the Falklands, was keenly aware of this growing international interest. That's absolutely right. I mean, the kind of growing tensions in the Southern Atlantic at that time in terms of the tit-for-tat stuff that was going on in Antarctica and nations starting to create claims on portions of Antarctica,

the temperature started to rise. And I think that was kind of fuelled by what was going on in the rest of the world with the Second World War, of course. But certainly, you know, tensions were starting to rise. The Antarctic just wasn't left out. So that's interesting. So is it tension particularly with Germany or the Axis powers or under cover of this global upheaval, this vast kind of militarisation, huge resources? Was Britain just putting its house in order in the very southern part of the globe? Well, these tensions have been rising since the turn of the century. We had the heroic era of exploration where flags were being vigorously planted across the continent.

The UK or Great Britain had asserted sovereign claim over a wedge of Antarctica in 1908. This was for taxation and other political reasons as well. But it really started a kind of ball rolling in terms of how nations, Antarctica without a indigenous population, of course, and no natural government or anything like that, it was kind of a free for all. And so nations who'd expressed interest in Antarctica here, the twos, around that heroic year of exploration, you know, they were starting to think, well, actually, there are riches here. They'd learned over the last couple of hundred years since it was first discovered in 1820, there are great riches in oil with whales and seals, and there's a great interest in what taxes could be levied in terms of the commercial activity down there. So these kind of sovereign claims are starting to be enacted, led by the UK

and the UK sort of assisted New Zealand and Australia with claims there at different parts of the continent as well. But of course, you've got two proximal nations with Chile and Argentina, who, for different reasons, asserted claims to the Antarctic Peninsula as well. So this is where this kind of tit for tat was starting to emerge, is where the UK was starting to plant flags and issue letters patent and exert kind of a sovereign authority. And Argentina and Chile were kind of saying, hang on a minute, we have equal, if not greater claim to this part of the world as well. And we're starting to do the same. So this is where this escalation was really starting through the 1930s and into the 40s. So we whisper it, but the threat as imagined here is really not so German U-boats or even

surface craft. It's sort of regional competitors, it's South American nations, it's maybe even Britain's American ally. I think that's a really good observation because actually it's multifaceted. If you're in Britain and you're in Whitehall and you're looking at the state of the world, you would say fairly straightforwardly, from 1938, when what was called the British Grahamland Expedition finished, Britain detached itself from the Antarctic in the sense that there really wasn't much else going on at that point, because not unreasonably, by 1939, attention was being diverted elsewhere. It just so happens that in the late 1930s, agitation in Argentina in particular was growing in and around not only the Falklands Malvinas issue, but also the Antarctic. And actually what we go on to is a decade long, if you like, rejuvenation of interest in the Antarctic, in Argentina in particularly, but also Chile as well.

That's one thing. The second thing I think was important to note was that just as Britain was losing interest in the Antarctic, also Germany was active in terms of its sea raiders and was starting to take its toll on Norwegian whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean. And then the third thing, which really did spark a bit of a panic, was there was a concern that Japan might yet invade and occupy the Falklands. And Winston Churchill, on learning this, said, we must send more troops to the Falklands Islands in order to deter potential Japanese aggression. So you've got it on all sides, Japan being potentially more interested in this part of

the world, Germany already showing that it had potentially militaristic designs in Antarctica, Argentina and Chile, and of course, the United States was also mounting an interest in the Antarctic and indeed dispatched an Antarctic expedition in the midst of the Second World War as well. So as Camilla has rightly said, agitation, interest was really quite something actually, in the most unlikely of circumstances. I think it's an interesting reminder that whilst of course, Britain is allegedly laser focused on fighting its Axis enemies, it's an interesting reminder that whilst, of course, Britain is allegedly laser-focused on fighting its Axis enemies, it's a useful opportunity to improve your geopolitical position all round, even in the Antarctic. Fascinating. Right, come on, let's come on to Operation Tabarin. What was the genesis of this?

Well, this sort of sprung from that we've been talking about. It's this tensions rising, Churchill becoming aware of the strategic importance of this part of the world, and particularly the Southern Ocean and these seaways. It was an expedition that was kind of, I think, frankly, cobbled together from the start. It was in January 1943, the colonial office and the admiralty kind of got together and sort of said, well, something must be done, and we need to kind of exert our sovereignty a bit more visibly,

a bit more assertively down there, and kind of conceived an expedition or an operation to send down a team of people to go and create a permanent British presence in Antarctica. They had kind of two aims, really. One was to kind of discourage and monitor what other people were doing there. So referring back to what Klaus was mentioning before in terms of the interest in stocks of whale oil and things like that that are around that could be useful, but also to assert this sovereignty by being there 365 days of the year and having activity and sovereign activity, particularly in Antarctica, that was very visible. This was everything from flying

flags and putting up signs saying British Crown Land to running post offices. So it was an expedition that would come from the very top. The government issued it and established it and said, let's get on with it. But of course, this was under the tensions and the somewhat privations of the Second World War. There weren't a lot of assets. There weren't many ships available, there weren't any men available. A lot of these people in 1943 were occupied with what's going on in Europe, particularly. So they had to kind of scrabble to find a decent vessel to take them south, to find a decent crew and an exhibition team to go south to establish this program, which would be two years being in Antarctica.

So it was an interesting and very speedy planning process and actually didn't really get going until about September 1943. And the first ship left in November. So you can see it was a pretty hasty planning cycle. The timing is so fascinating because basically Germany has had a catastrophic year in 1943. It's sort of lost the Battle of the Atlantic. So the German surface fleet is negligible, even the U-boat fleets. So was it sold internally in Whitehall or sort of sold as, don't worry, no, we're going to be denying safe shelter to Axis shipping? Because that must have felt like a bit of a dodgy cover story by that stage of the war. Again, I think this is what makes Operation Tabarin so fascinating. And by the way, it's probably just worth saying for the record, what is Tabarin? Tabarin comes from

Bell Tabarin, a Parisian nightclub. And the two key authors of the record, what is Tabarin? Tabarin comes from Belle Tabarin, a Parisian nightclub. And the two key authors of the operation, Brian Roberts and John Mossop, sort of noted, and this is captured in a Foreign Office memo, that they like the idea of Tabarin because like the club, they said it was a bit chaotic, a bit mysterious. And it sort of absolutely captured what Camilla's just said. There was a kind of DIY quality to all of this. I think, Dan, one of the things that's worth saying is that actually when all of this plotting and planning was going on, the backdrop was not really the German threat or the Japanese, you know, proto-invasion planning. It was really the shocking news, truly shocking news, that actually

Argentina had mounted an expedition the year before, and worse still, had proven actually pretty effective at generating a presence in parts of the Antarctic where Britain, of course, considered to be theirs, namely the Falkland Islands dependencies. And so when Mossop and Roberts were planning Tabarin, one of the things they were very, very struck by, because there was a memorandum again from October 1942 that sort of set all of this out, and it was described as Argentine encroachments. And what, of course, the people attached to Tabarin had to confront was plenty of evidence of Argentine flags, Argentine painting, in some cases, of ships' names in myths of penguin rookeries. And then,

I mean, what an affront, timber from Norwegian whaling stations being used, stolen, to construct Argentine base buildings. So, you know, there was this kind of real sense in which, look, whatever Germany and Japan was getting up to, this was a real sense of effrontery that Argentina had just gone ahead and launched this successful expedition. So the stakes had risen considerably. Did the people who were about to sail south in Operation Tabern, did they know exactly what they were heading out to do? They didn't. No, I mean, really only James Marr, who was the expedition and operation leader, and Captain Marchese, who was the captain of the ship. Only they really had been briefed on what

this was all about. In fact, actually, Captain Andrew Taylor, who ended up leading the expedition after James Marr left in 1945, it wasn't until after he came home that he sort of saw in the papers and saw some memos that he really understood that it was about, you know, countering large and time, as you say, encroachment of British territory. They were very much under the understanding that they were going on an expedition to do some science, to set up some bases, but they didn't really know where, most of the crew. And in fact, when they were issued with their kit, sort of late in October, November of 1943, they were issued with them sort of cold weather gear, sunglasses and all sorts. I remember a comment, I think it was Taft Davis,

who said, we thought we were going somewhere sunny with sunglasses. And they were on the ship heading southwards across the equator and kept going. And they thought, hang on, this isn't right. So they didn't really even know that they were going to the Antarctic. So they were pretty poorly briefed, I think, is probably the best way of putting it. And it really wasn't that clear that this was really a sovereign operation that they were engaged in. When you

look at the documents from the establishment and the rules and the objectives of the operation, it is about building these bases and establishing a presence in Antarctica. But it was also to start a scientific program. Now, this is kind of secondary. But when you look at the makeup of the crew, you can see that they were handpicked. And these were handpicked by James Marr, the captain and the leader of the operation. They're handpicked people who were either great seamen, naval officers and others, but also scientists that he'd encountered or knew the reputation of or had worked with on previous expeditions on board ships. So he was involved in the discovery investigations, which was more than a decade long scientific

program, ship-based scientific program in Antarctica to study whale ecology to see if the whaling industry was sustainable. So he'd met a lot of scientists and exemplary people doing that and actually kind of tapped a few of those on the shoulder. So when you look at the makeup of the men involved in Tabarin, these are established, experienced naval seagoers, if you like, some of the naval officers, and some of them were scientists and really good scientists, particularly in the example of Ivan McKenzie Lamb, a really established, very well respected, and even today, botanist, who was based at the National History Museum at that time. So a really interesting makeup, but as I say, most of them were in the dark, literally,

with their sunglasses on, as they were heading south. And it wasn't really until they got there and were starting having to hand build the bases and things, towards they landed, that they kind of got an idea they're going to be here for a couple of years, and it was going to be a pretty unique experience. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about Antarctica and World War II. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis.

And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends.

Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. Talk me through the science. What kind of science were they hoping to collect?

What were they hoping to learn? James Wordy was involved here. And James Wordy of endurance fame, course in a long hardy antarctica and he was kind of instrumental in supporting the scientific side of this but it was a kind of a secondary mission to this operation in the sense that science is a good way of occupying people through the long cold winters of the antarctic so having some scientific endeavors setting up programs actually conducting some useful meteorology, some surveying, that sort of thing was always going to be really useful. But it was also a very good way of occupying 12 men through the long, dark winters.

I think what Camilla raises is something really important as well, which is, if you are going to do science, how can science be of help? And I think there were two obvious ways it was helpful. Operation Tabarin set the scene actually for what really was to become British Antarctic Survey many years later. So if you're going to do science, the first science that's incredibly helpful, particularly when you're dealing with a disputed territory, is mapping and surveying. So one of the things that we saw starting with Operation Tabarin and lasted at least for 15 years is what I would call the onset of map wars. This is where Britain, Argentina and Chile devoted a huge amount of time and effort to trying to produce the very best maps and surveys they possibly could.

And the second thing, and I think Camilla's absolutely put a finger on something important, which is about meteorology and weather. So one of the things that Operation Tabarin started was a tradition of keeping really good weather reports. And some of that weather reporting was then made available to the whaling industry when it restored its activities after the Second World War. So there was this idea that science had to support what was called effective occupation, had to keep the men busy, as Camilla rightly says, but also could have a commercial value, which is, can we help those whalers, for example, amongst others, in terms of giving them weather forecasting, weather prediction, amongst others, in terms of giving them weather forecasting, weather prediction, you know, might that be useful to the commercialisation of that industry? Because some of the bases that were established by Operation Tabarn, there were five main bases,

some of them were very, very close to centres of existing whaling activity. So there was lots of reasons, in other words, why science mattered mattered so they enter the antarctic is it deception island where they make landfall at first everyone must go and google earth deception islands are my favorite islands in the world it's like a hollow donut with little piece nibbled out on one edge beautiful natural harbor you can get a ship right in there as a result and is this their first port of call it was yes the plan was always to go to deception island set up a base there there was previously a whaling station there. There were buildings there already, but they were unoccupied at that time. So a useful and handy place, sheltered, a good harbour, water in some

parts of it. The other place they were intending to go was Hope Bay, which again was a good strategic location. So you can sort of see Deception Island and Hope Bay were kind of gateposts to the Antarctic Peninsula. So they're great locations that you could monitor what was going on in the shipping lanes, establish radio communications between the basesctic Peninsula. So they're great locations that you could monitor what was going on in the shipping lanes, establish radio communication between the bases quite easily. And they're in strategic locations. One was a formal whaling station with residual oil on base. Again, you could protect that from any potential raiders.

But in the event, Hope Bay was not going to be possible. The sea ice prevented the ships getting in. Worth mentioning that really the two ships that did go, the Fitzroy and the Scoresby, they were seasoned polar vessels, but they weren't terribly strong and they weren't icebreakers by any sense. So they had to navigate very carefully. So sea ice was always going to be a potential problem. And that year, the time they're heading there, sort of January, February time in 1944, sea ice did prevent them getting to Hope Bay. So they hit Deception Island first and got to

Whalers Bay where these enormous rusted tanks there, a big Argentine flag painted on one of them. There was an Argentine flag planted and various other signs of sovereignty. So the first job there was to raise the Indian flag and destroy any evidence of Argentine visitation or occupation. Those were obliterated, packaged up and sent back to the governor of the Falkland Islands. And they set about kind of updating, upcycling, if you like, the manager's house at Whalers Bay. And they renamed it Bisco House, which was named after an Antarctic ship. And this became, you know, one of the first permanent British Antarctic stations in Antarctica. And they named it Base B. Base A was going to be at Hope Bay, but they needed to find a different location for Base A. And did they spend their first winter on Deception?

So basically the crew of the expedition, of the operation, if you like, sort of split in half. So they left, I believe it's five members on Deception Island, Base B. They got them established. They got their stores offloaded. They helped improve the hut a little bit, making more habitable, set up radio communications, which is vital for their continued safety and communication. And then the ships left. They went to look for a new harbour.

So yes, that team there were based on Perception Island and they were going to be there for two years. It was going to be two winters in the event. Which Ryan Liston, some of these people are naval personnel. They had no choice but to look at the scientists. Anyone volunteered to this or were they just told, by the way, you're now spending two years in Antarctica? They knew they were going for two years at the start.

So they had signed up for a two-year operation and they had made plans to leave their loved ones behind and all that goes with that. The communications were really important. So the ability to communicate with home softened the blow a little. So the radio communications were important and they were kind of relayed between stations and then back to Stanley, Port Stanley as it was in those days, but also establishment of the post office. So a postal service was also another way in which you could communicate back to and fro with home. And that was, I think, probably came as a great comfort to those who are going to be spending two years down south on these tiny islands off the Antarctic Peninsula. But also,

strategically and politically, it was an excellent way to demonstrate one's sovereignty, you know, a national sovereignty. It's an administration, it's administrative, there's commerce involved, there's an enormous amount of stamping that happens, you know know there's a real sense of purpose around running a post office and a mail service it's effective occupation again dan so i think that's really significant and incidentally a lot of these scientists would have multitasked you know they would have been expected to be a justice of the peace a post office master maybe some a meteorologist, you know, have done lots of different things. So Camilla's right, you've got a very small number of people being asked to do all kinds of things. And a lot of this revolves around, again, fundamentally, how do we effectively

occupy a really vast geographical space, you know, what we now call British Antarctic Territory, just to give everybody a sense of what we're talking about, is about three to four times larger than the United Kingdom. So even what was then called the Falkland Islands Dependency, it's a vast area. And actually, the Antarctic Peninsula is the most accessible part of it. And that's why throughout Taborin, you see five stations that are established in various strategic points. So it might have been South Orkney, which is to the north of the Antarctic Peninsula, South Shetland, which is a little bit closer to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

And then you've got the three other bases in various locations along that northern tip of the peninsula. And that really is the geographical and the, what you might call the political geographical centre of interest, because that's where Argentine, Chilean and American expeditions had been in that intervening period. There's a fundamental logic of why the area of focus is the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and some of the surrounding islands. But it also just so happens, as Camilla's explained, it is more accessible. And places like Deception Island are one of those places where you can be pretty certain

you can get in and out of, providing, of course, you can find the little gap into it. Whereas Hope Bay, as was proven, you can get inclement conditions and that's it. You might not be able to land because of sea ice. And one of the places that they go to, Port Lockroy, which is an island much closer, almost touching the Antarctic, but very close to the Antarctic Peninsula. And that's hugely significant because there is still a British presence at Port Lockroy today. What an amazing moment. Indeed, yes. I mean, very close to my heart, as you might expect. But Port Lockroy, in the same sort of tradition, if you like,

as Deception Island, they were looking for somewhere where they could build a base. You know, they had this base that was prefabricated in Norwich by Boughton and Paul, ready to be assembled on land, planned for Hope Bay, but they couldn't do it there. So they needed to find somewhere that they knew was going to be reliable, habitable, accessible, all of those things. And Port Lockroy, you know, has a reasonably long history, actually, of visits from ships and expeditions.

And it was known as a safe harbour, an anchorage. It has this amazing kind of fjord-like landscape surrounded by mountains. It's very sheltered. It's an island that is fairly low. Relief, if you like, has a kind of flat area on it, which was incredibly helpful. There had also been whaling there, so it's the same as the Secession Island. flat area on it, which was incredibly helpful. There had also been whaling there. So it's the same as the Secession Island. I can't stress enough how much whaling happened in the Antarctic Peninsula and this region of the world prior to this. So the kind of whaling activity and the

residues of that were still very obvious. You know, the whaling boats and things and bones littered across these places. So Port Lockroy, Gudea Island, which is the island in the harbour that was identified as where Base A should be planted in Port Lockroy. And that in February 1944 is when the ships pitched up, they knew it was safe, they could get out of the wind, and they started to assemble the bases. And just go back to something that Claire said about the men having to be multitaskers. I mean, their first job really was to be carpenters. And there was only one official carpenter in the whole expedition, a guy called Chippy Ashton. But all the rest, the scientists and naval men and all the rest of it, all had to pick up hammers and nails and saws

and start assembling, putting their base together. So when they landed at Port Lockroy, unlike how they did at Deception Island, it was just bare rock, and they had to take everything ashore and start building it. They were living off the ship whilst they did this. And they took this prefabricated flat pack, if you like, hut, and tried to assemble it on base. What they discovered, however, though, conditions of the Antarctic are not particularly helpful

when you're trying to read letters on the sides of bits of wood to try to bring B next to B and C next to C, what have you. So they ended up using hammers and nails rather more vigorously than planned, I think. But they did it, and they built a hut. They got a roof on it. They got walls. They got half of a floor, by which time the ship said, well, we need to press on. So the ships kind of finished unloading the stores and left nine men at Port Lockroy to start their two-year expedition or their service at Port Lockroy and to make Port Lockroy home for the next two years. Once the ships had departed, leaving the people that would

be overwintering, how did people survive? What did they get up to? Were they doing a lot of reading? Were they playing some darts? What's going on? Yeah, well, probably that too. But you know, they had to establish the base. There was an awful lot to do with that. They built their main hut, they built a generator shed, they established kind of their daily routines. There's a quasi military operation in this. So there were kind of good routines and plans already in place for how they would conduct themselves and organise their days and all that sort of thing. They got on with the science. So the first expedition was a few months later when they headed out onto the sea ice with a sledge, manhauling some kit, went over to a nearby

island called Vinky Island to do some mapping and surveying there. And they were hunting for seals and whales to supplement their diets. They took some meat with them, which they buried in the snow, but it started to rot quicker than they anticipated, so they had to dispose of it quite quickly. So they were hunting to build up their stores. They're starting the scientific activity. So starting meteorological observations. Lamb was doing the botanising. There's geology going on there as well. But also you can't underestimate as well, the kind of the business of running the site, you know, running the post office was very important and getting that routine going, communicating with Deception Island and Whalers Bay and back with the Fulton Islands. So those kinds of daily routines and schedules for communications were also very important. So uploading their meteorological records and

schedules and checking in with Stanley on progress, all of that. So they filled their days quite effectively. I just love the idea of the post office. It just makes me so happy. Like who is using that post office? It's so British, honestly. It's the most British thing. just makes me so happy. Like who is using that post office? It's so British, honestly. It's the most British thing. It makes me so proud. It's like the idea of all these penguins sending postcards. But it's a statement of, as you say, a statement of sovereignty. It's brilliant. Indeed. It matters as well, because again, you just got to bear in mind that Argentina in particular is really rediscovering the Antarctic and is absolutely, particularly under Colonel

Perron, who makes his presence ever more felt in the midst of the Second World War, is really eager, actually increasingly eager, to make sure that Argentine citizens understand that there is an Argentine Antarctic territory and that the British presence is really rather unwelcome. So one of the other things that Operation Tavern had to do, and the men attached to those bases had to do, was they had to keep a vigilant eye out for Argentine and Chilean and anybody else who might be trespassing in terms of what Camilla's explained were British crown lands. And actually, as Camilla and I have both been to this part of the Antarctic, you know, you can still find a remain here or there that has

a signpost that tells you you're in British crown lands. And that's obviously good to know. And it was considered quite essential, because notwithstanding the communication vacuum that those men had to endure for much of that two years. Nonetheless, there were reports coming out of Buenos Aires from the British embassy that things were on the move. And indeed, during the Second World War, German spies were being blamed for disinformation campaigns and were being blamed for raising anti-British feeling within the Republic. There was a lot at stake, or that's what it felt like anyway, to those on the ice and, if you will, off the ice.

I wonder what their plan was going to be. Had a Chilean or Argentinian ship appeared, would it have come to violence or would it have just been some strongly worded communications? Well, actually, you've anticipated something that did occur a few years later, where famously something that did occur a few years later, where famously shots were fired by an Argentine party that encountered a British party at Hope Bay, and that was in 1952. So that did transpire. But what you also, I think, should know, or certainly the listeners should know, is that everybody who was part of Operation Tabarn, and then who stayed on in various different ways or perhaps joined what was subsequently called the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, was told to prepare themselves, sometimes at very little notice, to give what was called the Sovereignty Speech. So if you came

across an Argentine or Chilean party in the Falkland Islands Dependencies, aka the British Antarctic Territory later on, you then had to be ready to remind them that they were trespassing, that they understood they were committing an encroachment, and then politely remind them that actually they really did need to leave because they had not been invited. Now, most of the time when these sort of encounters happened, they were fairly good-natured and many of the men reported on all sides that usually there was a meal and some drinks to follow depending on who was doing the hosting. But nonetheless, everybody recognised there was a formality to this, there was a performance and a sovereignty speech had to be given. And sometimes it was handwritten and you had a note to read out. Other times you improvised, depending on where you met people.

So this was serious stuff, not to be taken lightly. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans,

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Absolutely. I mean, they were issued with firearms. I mean, Operation Tabarin had, well, it wasn't heavy artillery, put it that way. It was a few handguns and half a dozen rifles and 8,000 rounds of ammunition. It was not a lot. It was certainly never an intention, I think, for kind of hostilities and armed hostilities like that. The formality is very important, but also that kind of thing. People were just pleased to see somebody new. And whether they're Argentine or British, I think it was just, you know, some fresh food. And so a different conversation, I think, was probably welcome.

And some of the oral histories we've heard since come across very strongly. No doubt, though, they had their hands kept full with the logistics of what they're trying to do, surviving, the conditions. Two years, and then they were taken away. But the British footprint remained. It did indeed. I mean, Operation Tabern was disbanded at the end of the war because it was a wartime operation.

These men left during, you know, high war and they returned home in peace. And it was quite a different world that they returned to. So they were relieved in 1945. A new cohort of men were dispatched to Port Lockroy and it became a regular, you know, there's a regular traffic heading south. Ships were sent south with supplies with men to refresh personnel down there, but also to build more bases. So Operation Tavern established five bases. But over the next sort of 10, 15 years, you know, another 15 bases were established on the Antarctic

Peninsula. And this scientific program, which was driven, as Klaus mentioned before, by surveying and mapping and meteorology, these are the kind of principal endeavors but supplemented also by biology botany and geology and later sort of ionospheric and atmospheric sciences which then became very important these kind of scientific programs started to become more better established and they were kind of building on a tradition of science that you know started in those early days of heroic exploration of scott and others and starting to be this kind of government-sponsored scientific program in the Antarctic. It was a great way of having a vigorous endeavor. It was real work.

It had real benefit and value. The scientific data that was being generated was important and could be used, could be commercialized as well. And so the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, which is what Tabryn became, continued until 1962. Dependencies Survey, which is what Tabarn became, was continued until 1962. And this was the program of this surveying, huge map making, place naming, all of these sorts of things going on to really both further consolidate the sovereign claim to the British Antarctic Territories, it was to become in 62, but also to actually just really contribute to global scientific

endeavor. And during this period, you had the International Geophysical Year, you had other nations also establishing scientific bases across the continent as well. So there's a real growth in this kind of activity through the 50s and into the early 60s. One thing just to add to that, when I was writing a book about the Falklands Dependency Survey, interviewing a couple of the men who joined in 1945-46, I asked them, I said, and exactly what Camilla said, what caught your interest? What did you notice that, well, this is the opportunity for me? Anyway, so one of them did recount to me verbatim what the advert said, and let me read it to you.

Candidates, comma, single, in bold, comma, must be keen young men of good education and high physical standard who have a genuine interest in polar research and travel and are willing to spend 18 to 30 months under conditions which are a test of character and resource. And anybody who hears that will think that sounds like a recruitment advertisement for Shackleton, Scott, William Spears, Bruce, whoever you have in mind from the heroic era. And that's exactly what they all said to me when they came to their interview. They were being interviewed by people who had served in heroic era expeditions. And that's exactly what they were looking for. Single men, no women were allowed to join the Falkland Islands Dependence Survey. That's another thing that's just worth reasserting

time and time again. This is all about young men. There's no diversity beyond that. The only diversity you get really is occupational diversity, whether you go down as a scientist or a cook or a pilot. But it's that kind of thing that helps to animate the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey shamelessly, pulling on the heroic era in terms of the recruitment. But as Camilla explains as well, it has this very clear scientific and geopolitical dual agenda. You know, we want to do good science because that's the way we build international credibility. But more locally, geopolitically speaking, there's no getting away from it. We have Argentina and Chile, and they claim exactly the same part of the Antarctic. And that is a perennial concern. And that wasn't going away anytime soon. And worse still, Britain was hugely dependent on

Argentina for meat supplies in the post-1945 period, when rationing, of course, was widespread. Three-dimensional chess. Very, very complicated scene. Klaus and Camilla, thank you so much for coming on and talking to me about this forgotten wartime expedition, one that had a reasonably successful outcome in terms of the objectives set down. you so much coming how can people learn more about this visit our website uk antarctic heritage trust ukht.org follow us on socials of course but this year is an important you know 80th anniversary of the establishment of portlock roy so we're going to have lots of interesting things going on this year to tell this story because as you say it is not very well known and deserves to be better known. It's such an

interesting period of history and such an interesting story. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you guys for coming on. you