Perspiration-soaked deckhands crowded their oil-stained dredges and watched a 185ft (56.3m) former tugboat exit Texas’s tea brown Neches River toward the Gulf of Mexico. They had little idea the Port of Beaumont with two wingless aircraft on deck would anchor beside the Antarctic continent 49 days later. Commanded by 42-year-old Norwegian-American Finn Ronne, the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) evolved at a time when America’s post-World War Two recovery had barely begun. Military budget allocations had earlier been gifted to publicity-seeking ADM Richard E. Byrd’s massive Operation ‘High jump’ of August 1946-February 1947, but Ronne’s principal backing between January 1947 and April 1948 came from private donations and personal loans. The underfunded undertaking would become the last private US-sponsored expedition.
Gen Curtis LeMay pushed aside bureaucratic obstacles and the Office of Naval Research managed to arrange the 1,190-ton, wood-sided Port of Beaumont. Notables like aviator Bernt Balchen advised on sub-zero operations and explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins contributed survival information. Almost all air and ground staff signed on unpaid. Five leghorn chickens and 43 dogs came aboard without complaint.
