Introduction
Most accounts thoroughly document the exploration of the east Antarctic coastline. However, there remains at least one enigma, one gap in our knowledge of the early explorations: the location of the sites in Prydz Bay where the eminent Australian explorer/adventurer Sir Hubert Wilkins made several landings and placed three cached proclamations in January 1939. Whilst the third of Wilkins proclamation landings, that at Walkabout Rocks near Vestfold Hills, has been identified and well documented since 1977, the locations of the other two have remained unknown until recently. It was only in 2022 that the location of the landing site where the first proclamation was read was established as being on Skipsholmen Island (Hilliard, Reference Hilliard2023a), the northernmost of the Svenner Islands. The second proclamation landing site, unidentified since 1939, is now considered, based on recent research (Hilliard, Reference Hilliard2023b; Harley, Reference Harley2024) and as further outlined below, to be on Macey Peninsula, the southernmost landfall of the Rauer Islands.
This contribution compiles, describes, and analyses the evidence, much of which has not been previously available for use in researching the landing sites. It ultimately leads to the identification of both of the elusive landing and cache sites. The information presented provides a basis for these sites to be verified through well-targeted field visits, and the historically significant Wilkins proclamations and other items to be physically documented and the identified locations registered as Historic Sites and Monuments under the Antarctic Treaty.
At the time of the 1939 expedition with which Sir Hubert Wilkins was involved, financed by Lincoln Ellsworth and referred to as the Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition, the whole eastern Antarctic coastline from Cape Adare to Enderby Land was weakly defined. There had been no Australian landings in Prydz Bay prior to 1939. Sir Douglas Mawson had only sighted the area from the air on his BANZARE expedition in 1931, identifying possible land ice some 200 miles to the south of his take-off point, and later seen from the ship and named Princess Elizabeth Land. The British Admiralty Antarctic regions chart, published in 1931, reflected this information accordingly. However, this chart only shows an approximation of a coastline lacking identifiable features.
Norwegian whaling fleets owned by Riiser Larsen and Lars Christensen had been working in the vicinity for many years prior to and after Mawson laid claim to the area. In 1936, the Norwegian Sydishavet (translation: Southern Seas) chart was published by Lars Christensen. This applied Norwegian names to features, including Vestfold Mountains as well as both the Svenner and Rauer island groups in Prydz Bay.
The 1938/39 Ellsworth expedition, therefore, marks the real beginning of Australian interest in the Prydz Bay area. Although the expedition did not produce any new mapping, and did not position or name any new features, it left a lasting, and controversial, legacy. This legacy is in the shore landings Wilkins made at three sites where he deliberately raised the Australian flag and left a territorial-based record (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a). Eighty-six years have passed since this expedition, and only one site, Walkabout Rocks, has been located and visited. This research identifies the exact locations of each of the other two sites where Wilkins left records.
This aspect of Sir Hubert Wilkins’ life story is barely mentioned in the many books written about him and in most is totally excluded. The discovery of the two missing sites and documentation of Wilkins exploration along the Ingrid Christensen Coast has the potential to rewrite the history of the exploration and subsequent claiming of the area known as Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica, as Australian Antarctic Territory.
Methodology
Finding her father’s research on the two previously unidentified Wilkins’ landing sites, the first author revised and analysed the available information, adding to this primary source by searching collections in Australian, United Kingdom, Norwegian, and United States archives, universities, libraries, and museums.
As indicated above, published books about Wilkins proved to be of little use as secondary sources of evidence.
Requiring advice on mapping, Dr John Manning, Antarctic surveyor and cartographer, was contacted, and Graham Cook was consulted on the topography of the area, having wintered at Davis Station as Station Leader in 2007 and 2011. Their previous interest and personal searches for the Wilkins landing sites, along with their expert advice, were invaluable in helping analyse, discuss and evaluate the evidence.
There is no one single primary source of evidence that provides complete and accurate details to facilitate the identification of the sites. Multiple documents include varying degrees of information on the same event and piecing them together led to the identification of the landing sites.
Wilkins and the 1938–1939 Ellsworth expedition
Sir Hubert Wilkins was technical adviser and expedition organiser aboard the Wyatt Earp on all four of Lincoln Ellsworth’s expeditions to the Antarctic between 1933 and 1939. Lincoln Ellsworth had publicly declared that he would not be making any claim to land discovered or explored whilst on the expedition (Ellsworth, Reference Ellsworth1938).
Prior to departing on this, the fourth and final Ellsworth expedition in 1938/39 Wilkins advised Hon R G Casey, Federal Treasurer, that as a technical advisor, not a member of Ellsworth’s expedition he was free to conduct independent actions while in the Antarctic and requested an appointment to discuss Australia’s position in relation to the Christensen Land area of Antarctica (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939b). In this same telegram, Wilkins recommended that the Commonwealth miss no opportunity to strengthen Australia’s claim. Subsequently, meeting with Commonwealth of Australia officials, Wilkins informed them that the Norwegians considered Australia’s claim to the western portion of the Australian Antarctic Territory defective because Sir Douglas Mawson had not actually landed on the mainland. He also stated that the Norwegians did not accept the “sector” principle. The Australian Department of External Affairs (1938) discussed which Antarctic areas would most interest the government in filling geographical knowledge gaps. This information was indicated to Wilkins in sketches provided to him before departure (Hodgson, Reference Hodgson1938). Wilkins was advised that it would not be necessary to fly the flag for Australia in the regions he visited, as Mawson had claimed the entire area of interest from the air in 1931. Wilkins was, however, provided with a general authority to enter, explore, and report on the Australian sector as an official representative of the Commonwealth of Australia (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a) and agreed to submit a written report on his return to Australia.
The expedition originally aimed for Enderby Land, with Ellsworth planning to fly from there to Little America. En route, Ellsworth considered going to Wilkes Land instead, but Wilkins suggested that the best possibility of finding a suitable flying field would be along the Ingrid Christensen Coast (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a, p. 6) and that is where they headed.
Discussion of the primary sources of evidence
No single report or document provides a full, geographically robust account of the voyage of the Wyatt Earp over the key period from 1 to 11 January 1939, when it was offshore of the Ingrid Christensen Coast. Five partial or selective records exist, and these need to be analysed and integrated to arrive at a relatively complete timeline tied to specific geographic coordinates. The five records and their weaknesses or omissions are described next.
The Ohio State University (OSU) acquired the Wilkins collection in 1985. This collection contained valuable information, described below, that contributed to resolving the mystery of the location of the proclamation sites.
Report on the expedition to the Commonwealth government
On his return to Australia, Wilkins submitted a report, titled “Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition 1938–39”, which is in a file at the National Archives of Australia (NAA) (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a). Whilst a copy of the Report had been found earlier (c. 1995) in the Ohio State University Collection (OSUa, n.d.), the original Report was not discovered in the National Archives of Australia until 2020. A handwritten note accompanying the report on the NAA file indicated that a chart showing Wyatt Earp’s track was attached; however, the chart was not in the file retrieved from the NAA. The Report included a transcription of the Proclamation left on 11 January 1939 at Walkabout Rocks, but no transcripts of those made at the landings on 8 and 9 January 1939 were included. This omission and the lack of detail on the landing sites would mean their location would likely remain undiscovered without additional information beyond the Report, except possibly by accident.
As will be shown below, attributions in Wilkins’ Report (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a) indicating that the landing sites were located: “on an island in the group marked as Rauer on Lars Christensen’s chart” and in “western Vestfold Mountains” are inaccurate and have led to all previous searches being made in the wrong areas.
Abridged report on the expedition to the Commonwealth government
According to correspondence between Dr Phil Law and Wilkins, the 1957 Davis wintering expeditioners were provided with information to assist in their search for and location of the 11 January 1939 landing site. The first author (SMH) discovered a document in her father’s files entitled “Copy of typewritten Diary by unknown Author found at Davis”. It is assumed that this is a copy of a document provided to the expeditioners in 1957, originally compiled by or for Dr Phil Law. This document is an abridged and edited version of the original report later discovered in the NAA. The original Report included transcriptions of both Wilkins and Ellsworth’s proclamations; however, it is interesting to note that it was a transcription of the declaration Ellsworth dropped from the plane on his flight claiming the area for America that was included in the abridged Report, not a copy of the proclamation Wilkins himself read and deposited in the January 11 1939 cache. Both documents share identical coordinates, assumed to be Wyatt Earp’s location, not the declaration’s drop point or the cache’s exact location. The absence of the Wilkins’ declaration from Law’s abridged report may reflect a reluctance to acknowledge Wilkins’ claims, for policy or personal reasons. Law’s own writings make no mention of Wilkins’s claims (e.g. Law, 1983).
Meteorological Logs (Met Logs)
Discovered in the OSU collection by Alan Parker, the first author’s father, was a set of Meteorological Logs (Met Logs) pertaining to the period between 2 January and 17 January 1939. The first author later discovered the entire set of Meteorological Logs covering the period from 30 October 1938, to 2 February 1939 (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939c) in the OSU Wilkins collection and obtained a copy of them for this study. Wilkins used various materials to compile his diaries, and the Meteorological Logs apparently formed the primary record for his Report to the Commonwealth of Australia on the expedition.
Most of the entries until 1 January 1939 and after 12 January 1939 are quite detailed. In contrast, the entries from the period along the Ingrid Christensen Coast (2–11 January 1939) contain minimal readings, though they do include weather details. The Met Logs do, however, usefully contain additional coordinates and specific descriptions of the group of islands visited between 5 and 8 January, information not included in the Report to the Commonwealth of Australia. Notably, the Rauer Islands are not mentioned by name in the Meteorological Logs.
Press releases, New York Times (NYT) newspaper and Polar Times (PT)
Among the Wilkins collection housed at the OSU were Press Releases, reporting on the progress of the expedition to the New York Times (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939d). These included descriptions and coordinates that were not included in the Report to the Commonwealth of Australia. The articles in the New York Times were based on the Press Releases supplied by Sir Hubert Wilkins, and the New York Times articles were the primary sources for articles published in the Polar Times (American Polar Society, 1939). Once again, these three closely related sources (press releases and published articles) do not mention the Rauer Islands by name.
Comparison of the original Press Releases with the New York Times articles based on them showed some dates had been changed to the date of publication rather than the date of the events as they occurred on the expedition. This alteration of dates caused confusion regarding the actual timeline of events, for example, when descriptions used phrases like “the day before yesterday.”
Davis station logs
The 1957 Davis Station Log described the finding by station members of the 11 January 1939 Proclamation site at Walkabout Rocks as “Records were located under a large rock at the top of the highest point.” There is no further official record in the Station Logs of any searches made for Wilkins landing sites between 1957 and 1972. There is a brief mention in the 1973 Davis Station Log of an unsuccessful search for the site at Walkabout Rocks. The 1976 Davis Station Log (NAA: P1556, 14/634-2) states the expeditioners received a request from the Antarctic Division to search for the landing site, following the location description from the 1957 Station Log. Their search for the cache failed, but they built a cairn on what seemed to be the highest point of Walkabout Rocks. On return to Australia, Peter Arriens, Officer in Charge Davis Station, had a discussion with Nils Lied, the 1957 Davis Station Radio Officer. Although Nils’ recollection was imprecise, he remembered the record being lodged in a hole under a rock near sea level; this information was relayed to the 1977 team. With this additional oral evidence, the Walkabout Rocks cache was successfully located in May 1977. In a 1957 Davis Station field trip report, Nils had also mentioned searching for another Wilkins cairn near Crooked Fjord, in Vestfold Hills.
Discussion of additional sources of evidence
This research uncovered various other sources of evidence not previously used to locate the sites; these are discussed below.
Ships log books
Rough Deck Logs for the Wyatt Earp were located at the National Archives of Australia (NAA: 1557, LB17/56; NAA: 1557, LB17/57), incorrectly recorded as covering the period 1936–1938. The logs included entries for 1939, but curiously, they lacked entries for the period the ship was near the Ingrid Christensen Coast and Vestfold Hills. Nor was there a chronological account of events during the expedition, the logs consisting only of coordinates relating to the location of the Wyatt Earp.
Map evidence: the Antarctic Regions II chart and Lars Christensen’s chart
A note on the original copy of the Wilkins Report to the Commonwealth of Australia indicated that the report included a chart showing the ship’s track along the Ingrid Christensen Coast. The chart’s absence from the NAA file (NAA: A981, ANT22) was noted; however, extensive searching located it in the National Library of Australia, filed as “Antarctic Regions, Sheet II” (ARS II), and in the National Archives of Australia as “Admiralty chart 3171, with annotation in lead pencil showing route of WYATT EARP. Annotations in yellow pencil show area referred to in record dropped.”
The Antarctic Regions Sheet II, (Admiralty Chart 3171, 1933) base chart in the National Library of Australia (Fig. 1) was produced in 1931 prior to the discovery and charting of the Ingrid Christensen Coast and Rauer Islands by Klarius Mikkelsen in 1935. Only a dashed line marks the relevant coastline, bounding Princess Elizabeth Land.
Figure 1. Enlarged section of the 1933 ARS II chart. Note the Ingrid Christensen Coast is not shown. (Antarctic Regions Sheet II, base chart, National Library of Australia, nla.obj-1554266811-1). Source: National Library of Australia.
The Lars Christensen Chart that Wilkins referred to in the Report to the Commonwealth of Australia is believed to be the Sydishavet chart (Fig. 2), which shows the ship’s track of Lars Christensen’s 1936 expedition (Sydishavet, 1936).
Figure 2. An enlarged section of the Sydishavet Chart (1936) that was used to transpose the geographical features onto the ARS II chart. Note onshore landfalls are labelled in bold lettering whereas offshore islands are denoted by names in italics. Sydishavet Chart courtesy of the Vestfold Museum, Norway.
The geographical features on the Sydishavet Chart were transposed by hand onto the Antarctic Regions Sheet II map, presumably by Wilkins in 1939 (Fig. 3). This is the annotated copy in the National Archives that had been submitted with the official Report on the expedition.
Figure 3. An enlarged section of the ARS II chart showing the Wyatt Earp’s track. Admiralty Chart 3171, National Archives of Australia NAA1964/7, 25.
The placement of key places and areas on each chart are correct with respect to each other, for example, the northeast to southwest order of Vestfold – Sørsdal – Rauer – Ranvik – Svenner – Larsemann – Søstrene, but are understandably generalised and lack the accuracy of maps produced since the International Geophysical Year of 1957. Two apparent labelling anomalies stand out, which may have led to subsequent misinterpretations. Firstly, and somewhat surprisingly, the word “Rauer” is present on the 1936 Sydishavet Chart, but does not appear on the ARS II chart. Secondly, both charts cartographically place the label “Svenner” on the mainland instead of offshore. The label’s position alone, despite referring to offshore islands, could be confusing. The 1936 Sydishavet Chart uses font style to distinguish known land features, labelled in bold font, from offshore islands, labelled in italics. This was apparently common practice at least on Norwegian charts. The Sydishavet Chart italicises “Svenner,” indicating islands; however, this detail seems to have been overlooked when the information was handwritten onto the annotated ARS II (Fig. 3) chart.
The word “Depot” on both charts refers to the location of the landing made by Captain Klarius Mikkelsen and his wife Karoline in 1935. This location, labelled as on the mainland in the hand-annotated ARS II chart, was originally denoted by an italicised label on the 1936 Sydishavet Chart, indicating the depot to be on an island. This is consistent with its now known location in the Tryne Islands. During the 1938–39 Ellsworth-Wilkins expedition, the expedition members may not have known about this subtle indication of an island location.
Given the concerns raised by Wilkins regarding the Norwegian’s attitude towards Australia’s claim to Territory in the area it is unlikely to be a coincidence that the vicinity of where Wilkins made his proved landing on 11 January 1939, at Walkabout Rocks is in the same vicinity that the “Depot” site is recorded on the Sydishavet Chart and transposed, though not in italics, onto the annotated ARS II chart.
This full-scale expedition map, shown only in small detail in Figure 4, also shows Ellsworth’s flight track into the interior and marks his dropping of a claim for the USA to a large area of land on 11 January 1939.
Figure 4. (a) Scene from OSU film, clipped and flipped horizontally from the still in the original film, showing a distinctive boulder set of exposures surrounded by nesting penguins. View looking north. Width of field of view approximately 12 metres across, indicated by horizontal scale bar set for the position of the boulder outcrop. Box 95, reel 10.wmv, Sir George Hubert Papers, SPEC.PA.56.0006, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University. (b) Enlarged section of an aerial photograph taken on Skipsholmen in 2010 island showing a distinctive set of white, rounded boulder exposures surrounded by nesting penguins, located at 69° 0’ 32 “S, 76° 58’ 27” E. This set of exposures is considered to correspond to those shown in (a). Photograph courtesy of Dr Colin Southwell (Australian Antarctic Division).
In 1939, a “new” Map of the Antarctic was produced as a joint publication between the Department of External Affairs and the Department of the Interior and was accompanied by an explanatory handbook and index (Bayliss & Cumpston, Reference Bayliss and Cumpston1939). The ARS II chart showing the Wyatt Earp’s ships track was referenced in the handbook
Checking the Wyatt Earp’s ships’ track on the ARS II chart using coordinates and directions from various documents revealed exclusions and errors, which are addressed in 5.4 below.
Coordinates and dates
In order to clarify the timeline and definitively link coordinates to dates, it is necessary to construct a table cross-referencing them, anchored by positions common to most or all of the sources described. Table 1, including all known ship coordinates from 1 to 11 January 1939, follows. This compilation confirms that no single source in isolation gives the full record of the location of the ship over the period in question.
Table 1. Comparison of the coordinates of the Wyatt Earp for the period 1 to 11 January 1939 from all known sources
Plotting errors on the Antarctic Regions II chart
The integrated coordinate data, now assembled, and herein presented in Table 1, were plotted onto a modern map of the Antarctic and placed as pinned points on Google Earth. This procedure confirmed a position for the Wyatt Earp near the Svenner Islands, not the Rauers, over the period 3–9 January 1939.
This result immediately appears to be at odds with the track drawn onto the ARS II chart (Fig. 3). However, a closer examination of the ARS II chart, checking the accuracy of the plotted coordinates and ship’s track on 1, 2 and 3 January 1939, identified two important mistakes in that plotted track. First, the 1 January 1939 coordinate of latitude 68.24o longitude 73.42o was incorrectly plotted on the ARS II chart. Second, and critically, the Met Log and Report’s description of 2 January’s travel – 28 miles at S35E – was incorrectly plotted as S55E, a 20-degree bearing error. Correctly plotting the coordinates shows the ship’s track as S35E (i.e. Correcting the position (145 degrees) on the ARS II chart places the ship closer to the Svenner group, not the Rauers.
The Met Log provides coordinates for 3 January (Table 1), at latitude 69.02° longitude 76.50°, and the Press Release provides a different position at latitude 69.10° longitude 76.30°; the ARS II Chart did not plot either position. Both coordinates would place the Wyatt Earp close to the Svenner Islands on that chart. On the same day, according to the Report to the Commonwealth of Australia, the Wyatt Earp purportedly travelled to Vestfold Mountains and returned to its original location, which may explain the two different coordinates. Neither position places the ship near Vestfold Hills.
Distances between locations
With the following information provided in the Press Release and excluded from the official Report, using modern charts and Google Earth, we can further conclude that on3 January 1939 Wilkins was actually describing the Svenner Islands and not the Rauer as named in the Report.
Wilkins states (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939d): “the Wyatt Earp steamed up to within a short distance of the islands which fringe the coast at Latitude 69.10° S Longitude 76.30° E. The Islands – a group of ten or more – are apparently ten or twelve miles from the mainland ice.” These coordinates place the ship closer to the Svenner Islands than the Rauer and there are far more than 10 islands in the Rauer group. The islands in the Rauer group are all much less than 12 miles from the mainland ice cap. The most southwesterly point of Hop Island, the outermost of the large islands of the Rauers, is only 6.5 nautical miles from the continental ice edge. However, in comparison, the Svenner group of Islands is a much smaller group than the Rauer, consisting of two main islands and several smaller ones. The distance from Skipsholmen, the most northerly of the group, to Brattstrand Bluffs on the mainland is 12 nautical miles in a southerly direction.
Additionally, in the Press Release on 3 January (Table 1): “there is another group of islands to be seen in the distance – some twenty-five miles East of where I landed today” this is consistent with the ship tracking towards the Rauer Islands from the Svenner a journey of some 26 nautical miles in an easterly direction. The nearest potential landing site opposite southwestern Vestfold Hills is approximately 42 nautical miles.
Film footage and photographs of the expedition
The present study located two films and photographs taken by Wilkins during the expedition.
The first film, Referred to here as Wilkins & Ellsworth (Reference Wilkins and Ellsworth1939a) and housed at the OSU, has a run time of approximately 7 min and is a compilation of several films most likely prepared for a public lecture by Wilkins. Comparison with entries in the Report to the Commonwealth of Australia clearly identifies the film’s unlabelled scenes; these scenes depict the voyage and the landing sites on 8, 9, and 11 January 1939. Comparison to a photo in the Wilkins collection at OSU, using Google Earth and modern aerial photography, positively identifies a section of this film as being on Skipsholmen, the northernmost and highest island in the Svenner group.
The second film (Wilkins & Ellsworth, Reference Wilkins and Ellsworth1939b) was located at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Film and Television Archives. The film has a run time of approximately 23 min. It is quite possible that the film has not been shown publicly since 1939, when Dr. Rhoads, the ship’s physician on the Wyatt Earp, delivered it to the News of the World. The UCLA film differs from the OSU compilation. One scene shows a motorboat travelling from the Wyatt Earp to an island, confirmed by Google Earth and recent photographs as part of the Svenner group.
The film compilation found in the OSU (Wilkins & Ellsworth, Reference Wilkins and Ellsworth1939a) presented an anomaly in that when compared to a photo Wilkins took of the same scene, the film appeared to be in reverse. Determining the correct orientation was important because the correct view is believed vital for locating the 8 January 1939 cache site.
Aerial photographs of the Svenner Islands taken in 2010 confirm that the ground photos and film taken by Wilkins are on Skipsholmen island in the Svenner group and furthermore that it is the photo that is in the correct orientation. Hence, the section of the film clip of the same scene is in reverse, back-to-front. Recognising this error resolves all ambiguity in attributing the landing and cache site on 8 January 1939: the landing occurred on Skipsholmen island in the Svenner group. The two photographs are compared in Fig. 5.
Figure 5. Google Earth image of the middle group of Svenner Islands. North is vertically up the page. The islands correspond to the description in the Met Log of a “banded island” with “3 islands parallel” and “a passage between them … less than five yards wide.” The coordinates of the largest part of this threefold island are latitude 69o 2’ 0 “S, longitude 76o 51’ 30” E. The photograph shown in Fig. 6 is taken from a site at the southern edge of the middle of the three segments of the island, marked here by the yellow dot. The “heavily banded” portion of the island group is the northeast-facing shoreline 400 metres ENE of the position of the dot. Source for image: Google Earth Pro, Imagery date: 1/6/2008; latitude −69.038219o longitude 76.864146o; elevation 0m; eye alt 1.57 km.
The OSU film clip includes a brief, dark section towards the end, which was assumed and later confirmed to have been taken at the landing site made on 9 January 1939 and is the only photographic evidence in the Wilkins collection of this site to date. This section was also in reverse orientation.
The expedition
The following description of the expedition is derived from a combination of the official Report Wilkins submitted, the Met Logs and Press releases.
The Wyatt Earp departed South Africa on 29 October 1938. When passing by Heard Island, Ellsworth advised Wilkins that he did, in fact, intend to claim an area for the United States of America along the longitude of his intended flight into and across Antarctica.
The ship reached the pack ice on 20 November 1939 and had slow progress in the pack, delaying the arrival to the Ingrid Christensen Coast area until 2 January 1939. Between 2 January and 9 January 1939, the Wyatt Earp was based at an approximate position of latitude 69o S and longitude 77o E.
The essentials of the January 1939 exploration of the Ingrid Christensen Coast are summarised below.
Shipboard observations on 1 January 1939, placed the Wyatt Earp at 68.24° latitude and 73.42° longitude. Taking off from a small lead of water, the Aeronca reconnaissance plane climbed to 5,000 feet, revealing the edge of the barrier from Cape Amery to Vestfold Mountains. The Wyatt Earp proceeded eastward for 35 miles through fairly loose ice until reaching latitude 68.40o longitude 76o at 4 am on 2 January 1939. Maintaining a course of S35E for 28 nautical miles until 10 am on 2 January, the ship found itself opposite islands off the Ingrid Christensen Coast.
The official first landing by Wilkins, as recorded in both the Report and Met Log, occurred on 3 January, with subsequent landings on 5, 6, and 7 January 1939. However, the Report provided no description to facilitate identification, and Wilkins read no proclamation on these occasions.
On 3 January 1939, at coordinates 69.02° latitude and 76.50° longitude, they unloaded the Aeronca and conducted another reconnaissance flight to find a large fast ice field suitable for a flight with the Northrop Delta, a much faster and longer-range plane. Wilkins reported (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a,Reference Wilkinsb,Reference Wilkinsc) that several of the nearby islands were visited and some geological specimens collected from them. It was decided to proceed eastward to the next group of islands and make a further search for a suitable ice field. Starting at 11.15 am and sailing slowly eastward, by 11.15 pm, twelve hours later, Wilkins reported the ship as being opposite “Vestfold Mountains.” A further flight was made in the Aeronca seaplane but while some flat ice was seen between the islands it was observed to be cracked and did not appear to be as suitable as that which had been examined earlier that day.
On 4 January, the Wyatt Earp returned to the vicinity of its first site and tied up between the group of small islands and the mainland to their east. Wilkins estimated the distance between the most northerly of the set of islands and the continental ice cap, the mainland, to be some 10 or 12 miles, and also indicated that the southern islands of the group were closer to the mainland than the northernmost ones.
The Press Release for 5 January 1939 (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939d) provides the ship’s coordinates as latitude 69.10o longitude 76.30o. That day, they visited some islands, landing on a banded island and collecting geological samples.
On 5 January 1939 in the Met Log Wilkins reports that: “Today while Lymburner & crew were getting ready, we went to islands for Geological specimens on a banded island next to highest in group.”
On 6 January 1939, they again visited the islands for geological samples, including the banded island visited the previous day, a common factor on islands visited on 5, 6 and 8 January. The description in the Meteorological Log for 6 January 1939 (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939c) provides the most comprehensive description available for any of the landings and was instrumental in locating the group of islands that Wilkins was referring to.
The description reads: “Went again to islands for geological samples. Firstly, the ‘banded one’ again … the island is the one behind the one with the abrupt ending at its southern end most southerly of group looking East there are 3 islands parallel it is the centre one the passage between them is less than 5 yards wide the outside island has a penguin rookery on its southern end and a curious Bomb like formation broken in half with one half shoring to West.”
This expanded description of the islands visited on 6 January 1939 when considered in combination with Google Earth imagery of the Svenner Islands positively identifies the middle group of the Svenners as those referred to (Fig. 4). Photographic evidence of Ellsworth on an island with two smaller islands in the background (Fig. 6) further supports this assumption and allows the location of the photographer to be near the position shown on Fig. 4.
Figure 6. Lincoln Ellsworth on the middle island of the central group in the Svenner Islands. Based on the Google Earth imagery this photograph is taken looking west-southwest (240 degrees) from an observer site at latitude 69o 2’ 5 “S, longitude 76o 51’ 8” E, the position of the yellow dot on Fig. 5. The nearer of the two small islands is 1.2 kilometres distant. Source: Box 33, 1- Ellsworth Antarctic Flights, 1930s, wilkins36_1_25, Sir George Hubert Wilkins Papers, SPEC.PA.56.0006, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University (OSU).
These observations confirm the landings made on 5, 6 and again on 7 January 1939 were all made on the middle group of islands in the Svenner group.
On 7 January 1939, while the Wyatt Earp was located amongst the Svenner islands offshore of the Ingrid Christensen Coast, Ellsworth showed Wilkins a “memorandum” provided to him by the American Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa. The memorandum (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a) stated that it would be: “advisable for an explorer to claim for his country any territory that he actually explored, irrespective of whether it lay within an area already claimed.”
This quite controversial perspective on sovereignty most likely provided the motivation for Wilkins on his next three landings (8, 9 and 11 January 1939) to read and deposit as a record of his visit, his own proclamations reasserting the Commonwealth’s claim to the area.
The proclamation landings 8–11 January 1939
Before this research used the Meteorological Logs, the exact wording of the “records” left at the landing sites on 8 and 9 January 1939 remained unknown.
The Met Log entry on 8 January 1939 reports an attempt to reach the mainland. However, because of the ice conditions, they returned past the ship to the northernmost island in the group. The transcripts of the proclamations left on 8 and 9 January 1939 are identical except that for the 8 January 1939 landing, Wilkins notes that the word “mainland” was struck out and “the northernmost island of the group” was added. The following is the transcription of the proclamation Wilkins left at each site, without the amendment noted above for that left on 8 January 1939:
“To whom it may concern.
To further substantiate rights of the Commonwealth of Australia to administrate the area referred to in an order in council dated 7th Feb 1933 wherein it is ordered as follows:
That part of his Majesty’s dominions in the Antarctic seas which comprises all the islands and territories other than Adelie land which are situated south of the 60th degree of south latitude and lying between the 100th degree of east longitude and the 45th degree of east longitude is hereby placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia. I place this document as a record of having put foot on the mainland and upon several islands in the vicinity of Lat 69 south and longitude 77 East and having flown the flag of the Commonwealth of Australia leave it with this record on the mainland at approximately 69 degrees south latitude 77.10 degree East Longitude,
signed Hubert Wilkins Jan 9, 1939.”
The ‘records’ left on 8 and 9 January 1939 differ slightly to that left at Walkabout Rocks on 11 January 1939, which reads:
“To whom it may concern
Recognizing the rights of the Commonwealth of Australia to administrate the area referenced to in an order in council dated 7th February 1933
Wherein it is ordered as follows:
That part of his majesty’s dominion in the Antarctic seas which comprises all the islands and mountains other than Adelie land which are situated South of the 60th degree of South Latitude and lying between the 160th degree of East longitude and the 45th degree of East longitude is hereby placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia.
I place this document as a record of having put foot on the Antarctic mainland in several places and upon several of the islands in the vicinity between Lat 68 long and latitude 69 South and between longitude 77 and 79 east and having flown the flag of Australia leave it with this record on the land bordering the present continental glacier surface at approximately latitude 68.30 South and 79 degrees East longitude.
Date Jan 11th 1939.”
The landings on 8 and 9 January 1939, and the caches left there, are equally significant to the Walkabout Rocks site and will warrant recognition as historic sites once on-site visits confirm their locations. The proclamations at these sites, if still in existence, are of greater significance due to the wording of them in that they include the statement “to further substantiate rights of the Commonwealth of Australia to administrate the area.”
Skipsholmen Island, 8 January 1939
The abridged version of the Report supplied to the 1957 Davis expeditioners implied rather than stated that the landing was in the Rauer group, unlike the full Report which clearly noted that Wilkins landed on an island in the group denoted as “Rauer on Lars Christensen’s chart.” The Handbook accompanying the 1939 Antarctic Map (Bayliss & Cumpston, Reference Bayliss and Cumpston1939) and John Grierson’s book “Sir Hubert Wilkins Enigma of Exploration” (Grierson, Reference Grierson1960) both mention a landing being made in the Rauer group, as does “Australians in Antarctica” by R.A. Swan (Reference Swan1961). One of the present authors (Manning) searched Filla Island in 1969 based on the information in Bayliss and Cumpston (Reference Bayliss and Cumpston1939) handbook. Although searches were conducted of the Rauer Islands after 1977, including those by two of the present authors (Harley) in 1983 and 1988, (Cook) 2007 and 2011, it is believed that it was not until around 1992 (Alan Parker) and from 1995 (Rando & Davies, Reference Rando and Davies1996) onwards that the Wilkins (Reference Wilkins1939a) Report to the Commonwealth of Australia was used as evidence to locate the 8 of January 1939 landing site in the Rauer. These more recent searches were based on a description in the Report on 2 January 1939: “we came to within 10 miles of the most northern island in the group named Rauer on the Lars Christensen Chart” and again on 8 January 1939: “I landed on the northernmost island of the group marked as Rauer on Lars Christensen’s chart. It is the highest of the group.”
On this basis, a site in the far north of the Rauer Islands was preferred for the key 8 January 1939 landing and proclamation. However, an important contradiction between location and description was obvious: the northernmost island in the Rauers is definitely not the highest of the group.
The coordinates placed on a modern chart in conjunction with the recent evidence discovered in the Met Log, which provides a detailed description of an island group visited identify that the Wyatt Earp was located closer to the Svenner islands on this day.
Comparison of photographs and locations in the film clip taken by Wilkins with contemporary photography clearly indicates that the island in question was actually Skipsholmen, the highest and most northern of the Svenner Islands (Hilliard, Reference Hilliard2023a).
The attribution of Rauer by Wilkins was incorrect: there was no landing in the Rauer Islands on 8 January 1939.
Macey Peninsula, 9 January 1939
With the landing on 8 January 1939 confirmed as being on Skipsholmen, the description of the landing site on 9 January 1939 can be interpreted with more clarity. In the Met Log of 9 January 1939 Wilkins refers to: “moving to the Western side of the main group of islands.”
Although a somewhat obscure description, it is likely that the Rauer Islands would be the “main group” that Wilkins refers to. In heading northeast from Skipsholmen, the “Western side” would be islands such as Hop, Varyag and Torckler, and the mainland outcrops of Macey Peninsula.
Additional descriptions in the Met Log state that on 9 January 1939, the party “landed on the mainland in the first bay North East of the Glacier edge.”
Combining this description with the note in the Wilkins report (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a) of “being opposite the Vestfold Mountains,” the glacier could be interpreted to be the Sørsdal, an interpretation adopted by all previous studies of the expedition and one that led to several unsuccessful and ultimately futile attempts to find the site in the Mule Peninsula area of Vestfolds. Furthermore, the Sørsdal is clearly marked on the Sydishavet chart and was transposed onto the ARSII chart, yet Wilkins did not mention it by name in the official report. However, there are two other glaciers marked on the ARS II chart between the Sørsdal Glacier to the north and Ranvik Glacier to the south. These smaller glaciers, unnamed in 1939, are now Chaos and Brown’s glaciers. That closest to the Rauer Group is Brown’s Glacier and the mainland just to the north and northeast of its “glacier edge” is now known as Macey Peninsula. This seems to be a more likely interpretation than that previously made, as can be judged below.
Included in the Met Log was a transcription of the proclamation left on 9 January which stated: “having flown the flag of the Commonwealth of Australia leave it with this record on the mainland at approximately 69o south latitude 77.10o East longitude” it is assumed that this is the location of the Wyatt Earp. This coordinate is yet again closer to the Svenner islands and not in the vicinity of Vestfold Hills.
The detailed review of the coordinates and descriptions provided in the evidence compiled above strongly shows that the 9 January Wilkins reference to the “main group” of islands applied to the Rauers and not the islands opposite the southwestern part of Vestfold Hills. However, short of stumbling on the cache by accident, this proposition would have been impossible to prove without photographic evidence.
The fourth author, Simon Harley, had independently made enquiries at the OSU in 2023 regarding information on the Wilkins 1938/39 expedition. He had spent extensive periods in the Rauer Islands between 1983 and 2007. The OSU curator put him in contact with the first author, who had already conducted extensive research on the Wilkins 1938/39 expedition. The first author shared with him the draft Case Study of her research, along with the OSU film clip, highlighting that she believed the dark section towards the end of the clip to be the 9 January 1939 landing site and her theory that Wilkins had landed on Macey Peninsula (Hilliard, Reference Hilliard2023b).
Viewing the clip and a still photograph from it, Harley recalled the topography of an area he had mapped, though it didn’t immediately match any of his field photographs. Recalling that the film and the still extracted from it could be in reverse, he flipped the scene in the clip and immediately recognised it as a match to a scene which he had photographed from the northern summit of one of the western ridges of Macey Peninsula on 1 February 2007. This provided irrefutable photographic evidence that Wilkins and his party were standing on 9 January 1939, at precisely the same summit as Harley was in 2007 when he took the definitive photograph (Harley, Reference Harley2024). Figure 7 compares the two photographs.
Figure 7. (a) Scene from OSU film clip, flipped horizontally. Box 95, reel 10.wmv, Sir George Hubert Wilkins Papers, SPEC.PA.56.0006, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University. (b)View from main summit ridge of Macey Peninsula, looking east to the plateau and “Dragon Peak” (S Harley unofficial name). Digital photograph taken at approximately latitude 68o 54’ 52 “South, longitude 77o 55’ 19” east on 1 February 2007 during a geological traverse of Macey Peninsula by Professor Harley (University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK) and Dr Tomokazu Hokada (NIPR, Tokyo, Japan). Professor Harley collection.
From this evidence, it is quite certain that Wilkins landing on 9 January 1939 was on the Macey Peninsula.
Walkabout Rocks, 11 January 1939
On 10 January 1939, the expedition sailed to the location north of Vestfold Hills, where on the following day, Lincoln Ellsworth and Chief Pilot Lymburner took off in the Northrop Delta aircraft. While the plane was away on its flight to the interior, Wilkins again took the opportunity to fly the flag and read a proclamation. The coordinates given for this location, as noted in the Proclamation transcribed in the Report submitted, is latitude 68.30o South, longitude 76o east (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a).
Wilkins deposited a miniature Australian flag (Red Ensign), along with a record of the landing, in a small aluminium container at the first two sites (8 and 9 January 1939). At the site of his 11 January 1939 landing, he went further, depositing a full-sized Australian flag (Red Ensign) and a Proclamation wrapped in a copy of the Walkabout Magazine (a popular Australian magazine at the time), all protected by two white enamel mugs joined and wrapped in brown paper and string (Fig. 8) (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a; OSUa, n.d.). The cache deposited on 11 January 1939 lay undisturbed until 1957, when found by the Davis wintering party, and was not located again for a further 20 years when Alan Parker, the father of the first author, was Officer in Charge of Davis Station in 1977 (Fig. 9). Wintering expeditioners at Davis Station now regularly visit the site. This site has been designated Historic Site and Monument No. 6. by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) in 1972 and described in the Davis Station Heritage Study (Rando & Davies, Reference Rando and Davies1996) as:
Figure 8. Flag, proclamation, Walkabout magazine and enamel mugs found at the Wilkins 11 January 1939 site, Walkabout Rocks. Alan Parker collection 1977.
Figure 9. Alan Parker at Walkabout Rocks, 1977. Alan Parker collection 1977.
“The only piece of tangible evidence of an early Australian visitation to this part of the Australian Antarctic Territory and represents a reassertion of Australia’s territorial claim over the area and led to Australian settlement in Antarctica and a continuous presence on the continent.”
The context of territorial claims, however, is muddied by the fact that Lincoln Ellsworth dropped a proclamation claiming territory for the USA on the same day a few hundred kilometres away. That claim, like Wilkins’, has never been acknowledged as such by the country in whose name the claim was made.
Sovereignty claims of Princess Elizabeth Land
In 1929, the British King and the Australian Prime Minister authorised Mawson to claim land discovered while in Antarctica. Territorial law allows acquisition of space in three main ways: conquest, treaty, or discovery of terra nullius (Triggs, Reference Triggs1986). Land defined as terra nullius, or land belonging to no one, can be established through the eyes, feet, ritual performances, and documents of explorers (Collis, Reference Collis2004). Mawson, as an authorised explorer, had the international precedent to claim land for British possession by seeing the land, placing his foot upon it, flying a flag, reading a proclamation, documenting his actions in photos and maps of the area and leaving a record of the visit.
The principles of international law governing the acquisition of territory in Antarctica are complex, and it is not the purpose of this article to address those issues or definitively answer the question regarding the validity of Mawson’s claim to Princess Elizabeth Land. However, in evidence before a Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Territorial Boundaries on 12 October 1977, the then legal adviser of the Department of Foreign Affairs (E. Lauterpacht QC) emphasised that the Australian claim was not a sectoral one. He stated that “our claim to the Australian Antarctic Territory is based upon discovery and occupation” (Bush, Reference Bush1982, p. 141). In the light of this, the actions taken on the British, Australian, and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expeditions (BANZARE) in 1930 and 1931 to claim sovereignty from Princess Elizabeth Land to Enderby Land warrant further discussion.
Extracts from the diary of R.G. Simmers, meteorologist on BANZARE in 1929–30 and 1930–31, suggest that, for the expeditioners at least, only the final claim made in the second voyage of the HMS Discovery passed in full the criteria that they recognised “make a legal, complete and entire observance of claiming land” (Bush, Reference Bush1982, p. 4). Those criteria included being on the mainland and “building a cairn, hoisting the flag, reading the same proclamation as on the 13th, God save the King, and cheering”. According to Simmers this was finally achieved at Cape Bruce, Kemp Land, on 18 February 1931, where “Dux [Mawson] jumped ashore and ran up the valley waving a flag and looking as pleased as punch - and so he was because at last we were in a position to make a legal, complete and entire observance of claiming land”. Simmers noted with reference to claims made on Proclamation Island (13 January 1930) and at Scullin Monolith and Murray Monolith on 13 February 1931: “In all other attempts (except, of course, that at Cape Denison) there has been some little thing wrong: - “Proclamation” was only an island; the first proclamation on the 13th floated out to sea and the second on the 13th had no board or proclamation, but this time things have been done properly.” (Bush, Reference Bush1982, p. 4).
There is no mention of the sighting, discovery and naming of Princess Elizabeth Land in the contemporary accounts noted above. The Discovery had sailed well to the north of the position of Princess Elizabeth Land on its south-westward voyage towards the vicinity of Cape Darnley, and at latitudes of between 66° S and 67° 30’ S was some 200–280 kilometres (125–180 miles) north of the Antarctic coastline. At 1430 on 9 February 1931, from a ship position of 66° 45’ S, 76° E, Mawson and his pilot, Stuart Campbell, took off and flew the plane to 5700 feet to observe their surroundings. According to the narrative ship’s log of the Discovery for 9 February 1931, “It was seen that the pack to the S.W. was broken up and lanes of open water stretched to the south. Appearance of land was seen faintly to the S.E. – distance about 90 miles.” (Price, Reference Price1962, p. 137). This was the horizon that Mawson named Princess Elizabeth Land. In his later account of the expedition, Mawson (Reference Mawson1932) stated: “from a plane at 5,200 feet, a belt of bergs was seen to stretch south to what appeared to be ice-covered land seen merely as a faint line around the southern horizon extending from southeast to southwest. A few days later we had confirmation of this landfall and named Princess Elizabeth Land”. The ship was unable, because of the pack ice, to go any closer than 149 miles of the coast. No landfall was made or accurate mapping possible. Mawson did not set foot on any part of the mainland or islands along what he named Princess Elizabeth Land in February 1931.
Simmers’ account of this key flight states: “In the best conditions a flight was carried out at 2pm, the plane taking Stew (Campbell) and Sir Douglas up to 6000 feet from which height even land could not be seen. A faint blue line on the horizon may be plateau ice or open land water, though I have never heard of plateau looking blue from the sea.” (Price, Reference Price1962, p. 142). This account brings into question the claim that Princess Elizabeth Land had actually been seen by Mawson and Campbell, as does the discrepancy between their estimated distance to land (90 miles) and the distance (125 miles minimum) known today based on their geographic coordinates.
Given that Australia’s territorial claim is based on discovery, as emphasised by Lauterpacht in Bush (Reference Bush1982), and Mawson did not fulfil this in naming Princess Elizabeth Land from a distance which made such discovery unlikely, Sir Hubert Wilkins’ actions in 1939 as an official Australian representative potentially attain greater significance for Australia’s territorial claim to Princess Elizabeth Land.
In the letter provided to Wilkins by the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs (Hodgson, Reference Hodgson1938), W.R. Hodgson stated that “you (Wilkins) are given official status as a representative of the Commonwealth Government to carry out work which would demonstrate that the Commonwealth Government has not been content merely to make a formal claim to territory in the Antarctic, but has taken action to enhance the probability of international recognition of that claim by the exercise of additional acts of sovereignty over the territory.” On this basis Wilkins enacted what he considered to be additional acts of sovereignty by landing on islands and the mainland along the Ingrid Christensen Coast, Princess Elizabeth Land, and on three occasions leaving a record of each visit, taking photographic evidence and submitting a written report on the expedition including a chart of the Wyatt Earps’ track along the coast.
Mawson did not physically set foot on islands or the mainland along the Ingrid Christensen Coast of Princess Elizabeth Land in 1931. Nor did he read proclamations, accurately chart the area, or provide documentary evidence of discovery. Therefore, it is possible that Wilkins’ landings and the proclamations he read may be judged in the future to hold more significance to the history of Australia’s territorial claim to the area. We leave it to experts in territorial law to investigate and evaluate this complex issue, should the need arise.
Summary
The Wyatt Earp did not, according to all coordinates provided in the Met Log and the Report, move from the vicinity of the Svenner and Rauer Islands area until the 10 January 1939 when it sailed past Vestfold Hills on its way to the area now known as Walkabout Rocks at latitude 68o 22′ S, longitude 78o 32′ E. The 11th of January site was discovered in 1957, then lost again until rediscovered in 1977.
The incomplete and somewhat ambiguous official information provided by Wilkins in relation to his other landings made on 8 and 9 January 1939 has played a significant role in frustrating subsequent attempts to locate those sites. From 1957 to 1998, searches were centred on Vestfold Hills site. The 1998 Davis Station Heritage Assessment constituted the only official search, and subsequent searches for the 8 January landing site, using the complete Report, focused on the Rauer Islands area.
Another factor contributing to the misdirection of previous searches was the use by Wilkins, in his report to the Commonwealth of Australia, of “Rauer” to describe the island visited on 8 January 1939 (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a). This was despite the explicit coordinates noted in the Report by Wilkins that the ship was located at and around latitude 69o S longitude 77o E throughout the period from 3 to 9 January 1939, coordinates that correspond to the northern end of the Svenners rather than “placing them near the Rauer.” This emphasises the problem facing all explorers – if no one had been there before, or had left only ambiguous records, how do you know where you are?
The track of the Wyatt Earp drawn on the ARS II chart (Fig. 3) showed them in the “Rauer” area of the chart, and explained why Wilkins used the terminology: “in the Rauer group as marked on Lars Christensen Chart.” Wilkins may well have accepted that the plotting on the ARS II chart was correct at the time of writing his report to the Commonwealth of Australia and, therefore, in accordance with the chart reporting the location of the islands as being in the Rauer Group.
Inserting the additional coordinates reported here in Table 1, and correcting the ship’s track provided in the Report on 2 and 3 January 1939 to its bearing of 145 degrees (S35E) on both charts places the Wyatt Earp close to the Svenner group of islands.
Coupled with the distances from and to various points and the descriptions of the islands visited, this data identifies the landing on 8 January 1939 as being on an island in the Svenner group not the Rauer. A comparison of aerial photography with photographs taken by Wilkins and his description indicates the landing occurred on Skipsholmen, the northernmost and highest island in the Svenner group.
This confusion suggested another explanation for Wilkins’ use of “Rauer”: we speculate that he may have assumed that the Svenner islands as we now know them were part of a more general area of offshore islands denoted on the Sydishavet chart as “Rauer.” The Rauer are not accurately located on the Sydishavet chart (Fig. 2), where the chart shows them offshore of the Sørsdal, and as noted above, the chart places the word “Svenner” cartographically on the mainland instead of offshore near the actual islands. These uncertainties may have prompted Wilkins to use the term “Rauer” simply as an umbrella term to collectively denote all the islands he encountered south of the Sørsdal Glacier.
Conclusions
When applying our present knowledge of the area, Wilkins use of the descriptors “Rauer Islands” and “opposite the Vestfold Mountains” in his Report to the Commonwealth of Australia (Wilkins, Reference Wilkins1939a) is misleading, and hence confounded for decades all searches for his landing sites of 8 and 9 January 1939. The written, photographic, and film evidence assembled in this research resolves the issue and conclusively demonstrates the following:
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1. On 8 January 1939, Wilkins landed, by motorboat, on Skipsholmen, the “most northern and highest island” in the Svenner islands (Hilliard, Reference Hilliard2023a). Photographs and film footage taken by Wilkins of their visit and aerial photographs of Skipsholmen taken in 2010 provide conclusive proof of the landing as being made on Skipsholmen Island.
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2. On 9 January 1939, again by motorboat, Wilkins landed on Macey Peninsula, a mainland area at the southern corner of the Rauer Group (Hilliard, Reference Hilliard2023b; Harley, Reference Harley2024). Wilkins took film footage of the visit at a location in the vicinity, when compared to photographs taken in 2007 by Simon Harley (Harley, Reference Harley2024), provides conclusive proof of the landing being made on Macey Peninsula.
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3. On 11 January 1939, Wilkins landed and read a proclamation at a site on land known as Walkabout Rocks after its discovery in 1957.
The landings on 8 and 9 January 1939, and the caches left there, are equally significant as the Walkabout Rocks site and will warrant recognition as historic sites once on-site visits confirm their locations. Furthermore, the proclamations at these sites, if still in existence, may be judged to be of greater significance in the historical study of territorial claims due to the wording of them in that they include the statement “to further substantiate rights of the Commonwealth of Australia to administrate the area.”
With the geographic information provided through our study, the opportunity now clearly exists to physically locate the rock formations described by Wilkins as holding the proclamations at both lost sites. Once verified, the sites can then be recommended for listing as Historic Monuments under the Antarctic Treaty.
Wilkins was provided with and enacted his authority as a representative of the Commonwealth of Australia. The discovery of the two landing sites and that the “record” left at each was in fact proclamation has the potential to rewrite the history of the exploration of Princess Elizabeth Land. The physical proclamations read and left at each site add another layer of evidence to the story of territorial claims in Antarctica and may potentially be of significance in future discussions of territorial claims.
Acknowledgements
Laura Kissel, archivist at OSU, is thanked for the provision of various documents, photographs and films to the first author (SMH), and for bringing SMH into contact with SLH. Tess Egan, information officer and librarian at the Australian Antarctic Division, is thanked for her provision of various documents. We thank Jeff Maynard, author and Wilkins expert, for supplying various documents, photographs, and encouragement. Dr. Colin Southwell’s encouragement and the irrefutable photographic evidence of the Skipsholmen landing site, from his photographs, are gratefully acknowledged. The first author thanks her family for their patience and support throughout.
Financial support
Fieldwork in Antarctica by Professor Harley was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, grant NEB504157/1) and the Antarctic Science Advisory Council (ASAC, project 2690).
Competing interests
The authors declare none.
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