OPERATION HIGHJUMP

Michael Layne
Subject: Re: Research question!
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 00:01:13 EST

Sorry to take so long to get back to you on this!

One source that should give you data on many of the world's warships and naval weapons (and links to more data) is the "Warships of the World"site. Among the navies covered there are the US, Russia, China, Australia, and the UK. In many cases, the webpages for a given warship class will give you the specifications, units in the class, perhaps a history of the class, and photos. (Not all ships listed there have all of these items...)

For info on the US sub fleet:
(These sites also have links to sundry other sites concerning USN and foreign submarines!)
For interior diagrams of the 637 class SSN, 688I class SSN, SSN-21 class SSN, and a few other types, go to the "Books" page on Michael DiMercurio's "USS Devilfish" site, and scroll down to the selection links for "Submarine Diagrams". I recommend DiMercurio's novels -- especially his first two ("Voyage of the Devilfish" and "Attack of the Seawolf", both of which include glossaries in the back covering a lot of the technical terminology! These books were written by a former Navy nuclear submarine officer.)
USS "Springfield", a 688I submarine (the "improved" version of the "Los Angeles" class -- same type as "Cheyenne" in Tom Clancy's "SSN" computer game) has a homepage; there is also a site that includes a "virtual tour" of the "Nautilus" and the "Springfield" (at least forward of the reactor room bulkhead!).
"Hammerhead", a typical 637 boat ("Sturgeon" class SSN) has a page here. The 637s were the USN's workhorses through the last years of the Cold War, and, though they are being phased out now with the ongoing force reductions, are still considered better than the early 688s ("Los Angeles" SSNs) for Special Ops and Arctic operations.
US subs operated on intelligence-gathering missions such as IVY BELLS, some of which might have served as cover for DG oriented operations!

The USN's homepage. Plenty of useful info and links there!

As for Her Majesty's Navy, the official site.

The Royal Australian Navy has an official site, plus there are links to some RAN ships' homepages.

The Royal New Zealand Navy has a website that includes a "virtual tour" of one of their ASW frigates...
The "State of the Russian Navy" site, with data on Russian naval developments, and links to other sites with technical data on Russian warships and ordnance. (While it is currently fashionable to say we won't be fighting the Russians, I strongly suspect that, even if the Bear doesn't resume his old ways, we'll be fighting users of Russian-made equipment for some time to come -- and the Great Russian Arms Bizarre seems made for folks like the Karotechia to buy up their toys!):)

The Japanese officially don't have a Navy, but they have the Japanese Marine Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). The site gives some data on its operations, and on those ships which have survived the depredations of Gojira... :)

The "Chinese Navy" is officially the "People's Liberation Army Navy" (not kidding -- "People's Liberation Army" seems to be the name given to not only the Communist Chinese land forces, but to their air and naval forces as well)! Some information on them can be found at: http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~wen/plan.html and also at: http://members.aol.com/youngph 846/navy.htm
Michael
theherald@juno.com
DGGF#688




Michael Layne
Subject: DG: Re: HIGHJUMP (long)
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 12:37:03 EST

On Tue, 29 Dec 1998 20:36:56 -0800 (PST) CO CHRISTOPHER Wrote:

>Greetings, all. Could I get a show of hands of our case officers
>currently researching the Antarctic situation? Once the EMERALD
>HAMMER report is well underway a compilation of intelligence on HIGHJUMP,
>Neuschwabenland, the Miskatonic Expedition, et al, may be of great value.
>
>On Tue, 29 Dec 1998, The Man in Black wrote:
>> This would make an interesting "lost expedition" to kick off a DG op to
>> the Ice Palace tho'.
You asked about HIGHJUMP?

I've been doing a little reading on the expedition over the past six months, and some of this might be useful in comparing the "historical" and "DG" timelines for HIGHJUMP, and for those working to simulate DG operations in the Antarctic during HIGHJUMP...

So I guess my hand is up.. :)

Some of this data was previously mentioned in my post of 5 September 98, some wasn't...

A good source on the web for data on HIGHJUMP is here. This is a stamp-collector's site, but has a surprising amount of information concerning the expedition.

There is coverage of the expedition, including the names of the leaders, a listing of the ships involved, subdivisions of the expedition and the routes they took, a gallery of HIGHJUMP mission photos, Antarctic maps, Antarctic exploration timeline , and an account (by a survivor of the crash) of the loss of "George 1", one of the expedition's PBM Mariner aircraft. ("George 1" is the one aircraft that the official histories of HIGHJUMP admit to losing -- no comment at this point on whether unofficial losses included a few F7F-4N Tigercats, F8F Bearcats, or even XF5U-1 Flying Discs!)

Bigger than any Antarctic expedition before or since, HIGHJUMP involved over 4,000 personnel (some sources suggest closer to 4,700), and some 13 ships of various types. (See: Here for a picture of some of the ships -- in order, the ones depicted in the photo are Northwind, Merrick, Yancey, and Mt. Olympus.) Over a dozen tracked vehicles were carried, including Caterpillar tractors and Weasels.

USS PHILIPPINE SEA (CV-47) (see here and here) was an ESSEX-class carrier (899 feet, 3,448 men wartime complement (counting air units), 39,800T full load), fairly new at the time (launched in September of 1945, just too late to take part in WWII), which served as RADM Byrd's flagship for at least part of the op. She was armed with a dozen 5-inch/38 dual-purpose guns (in four twin enclosed mounts and four single open mounts), some thirty-two 40mm guns (in twin and quad open mounts), and forty-six single 20mm Oerlikon AA guns. (The five-inch and some of the 40mm could fire under radar control if necessary.) Even with all the AA guns, her major protection, if she came under attack, was considered to be her aircraft. She was "straight-deck", as the angled landing deck so familiar to modern carrier sailors had not yet been introduced.

She carried six ski-wheel equipped R4D Skytrain transports (naval version of the Douglas C-47/DC-3) lashed on deck. These were being transported down to the Antarctic for land-based operations, and would not be able to land aboard the carrier once launched. (See: here, here, and here).
Most likely, it was one of these R4Ds that was involved in Admiral Byrd's mapping flight that reportedly returned 3 hours late, due to severe weather (or encounters with Nazis, or some combination of the two). :)

CV-47 was rated to carry up to 100 aircraft (all considerably smaller than the R4D), in squadrons of Grumman F8F Bearcat and F7F Tigercat fighters (the latter the radar-equipped F7F-4N night fighter version of the twin-engine TIgercat), Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo planes, and Curtiss SB2C Hell Diver dive-bombers (The Navy crews, who perversely preferred the old SBD Dauntless dive-bomber that the Hell Diver had replaced, insisted the designation meant "Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class...).

For HIGHJUMP, many of these aircraft would likely have been left behind, as they could not operate off the flight deck until after the R4Ds had flown off; any remaining would have been struck below in the hangar deck before the R4Ds were lifted aboard by crane at the Navy base.)

In the DG timeline, with Byrd expecting to encounter diehard Nazis down south, more of the planes are likely to have been embarked, together with appropriate ordnance (ammo, rockets, bombs, aerial torpedoes... (I have data on the magazine loadouts of the ESSEX class, if anybody wants to get that detailed:)), and the embarked aircraft might have included "black program" service versions of the Vought XF5U-1 Flying Disc (which would have been appropriate to do battle with the Nazi discs). The Navy's initial jet fighter squadron (VF-17A, flying McDonnell FH-1 Phantoms) wouldn't embark on the "Philippine Sea"'s sister carrier "Randolph" until May of 1948, so all of HIGHJUMP's aircraft would have had props.

A handful of Sikorsky helicopters were apparently along (the above-mentioned graphic shows a helicopter operating off the icebreaker "Northwind" during HIGHJUMP), but helicopters would not figure prominently in Antarctic exploration until Operation WINDMILL (the expedition following HIGHJUMP).

USS CURRITICK (AV-7) and USS PINE ISLAND (AV-11) were CURRITICK class seaplane tenders (9,106 T). Designed to support squadrons of seaplanes (in this case Martin PBM Mariners), they were equipped with large stern-mounted cranes (strong enough to hoist a PBM on deck for repairs), and carried a wartime complement of 1,247 each.

USS HENDERSON ( or DD-785) and USS BROWNSON (or DD-868) were GEARING class destroyers (2,425 T), each with six 5-inch guns (in 3 twin mounts), two quintuple 21-inch torpedo tube mounts, and a dozen 40mm AA guns). Capable of 35 knots at full power, each carried 350 men.

USS MOUNT OLYMPUS (AGC-8), was an amphibious force flagship, built on a converted C2-S-AJ1 single-screw freighter hull (7,430 T). Equipped with extensive communications gear and quarters for an amphibious force commander and staff, plus plenty of radio operators, she carried a wartime complement of 633.

USCGC BURTON ISLAND (WAG-88) and USCGC NORTHWIND (WAG-282) were two of the seven WIND class icebreakers (3,500 T) built by Western Pipe Co. of San Pedro during and just after WWII. They employed diesel-electric drive, to a pair of main screws, and a bow-mounted screw under the forefoot (which had a habit of breaking in heavy ice, and was later removed during refit). They were heavily reinforced to break ice (by smashing through thin ice, or by ramming thicker ice, sliding partway on top of it, and smashing it down with their weight. The icebreakers were a rough ride, both when breaking ice (for obvious reasons), and in heavy seas (their rounded hull cross-section, with no bilge keels, made them roll heavily). In 1946, these two ships each mounted a twin 5-inch mount (similar to those in the DDs) forward, plus up to a dozen 40mm AA guns, and carried a small helicopter (replacing the floatplane -- generally a Grumman J2F Duck -- previously embarked) for scouting the best routes through the icepack. This soon after WWII, both icebreakers are very likely to have been in wartime grey, rather than the more familiar white (and later red) their hulls were painted in later years. These were considered to have been some of the best US icebreakers ever built, and the last WIND class vessel was not retired until about 1980.

USS SENNET (SS-408) was a BALAO class submarine (1,525 T surfaced, 2,415 T submerged), launched in June of 1945. Of a type familiar to all of you who have watched WWII submarine movies, she carried 80 men, and could make 20 knots on the surface on her diesel engines (if she used all four of them to run the electric motors rather than charge her batteries), and could make up to 10 knots for short periods submerged under battery power. She had six torpedo tubes forward, four aft, but, while normal loadout for this class of sub is two dozen "fish", she might or might not have carried torpedoes during HIGHJUMP. She was probably not yet equipped with a snorkel. The BALAO class fleet submarines were a development of the earlier GATO class, with the main difference being a thicker pressure hull, rated for 400 feet, rather than the GATO's 300 feet (although in wartime submarines of both classes dived substantially deeper on occasion). (For information on the layout and equipment of a USN WWII fleet sub, check out http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/2560/liontour.html, and http://www.coos.or.us/~ftoon/memory/diagram.html) At one point during HIGHJUMP, "Sennet" apparently got stuck in the ice, and was pulled free by the icebreaker "Northwind"!

USS CACAPON ( and AO-52 ) and USS CANISTEO (AO-99) were Navy oilers of the CIMARRON class (Type T3-S2-A1; 7,256 T), launched in mid 1943. In response to the Japanese air threat of their era, the CIMARRON class oilers were constructed with one 5-inch gun, and a dozen 40mm guns (by 1946, four of the 40mm had been replaced by two twin mounts of the then-new 3-inch AA gun). The two oilers each carried a crew of 304, and were equipped to refuel other ships underway, at sea. (see: here and here) IIRC, the difference between "tanker" and "oiler", in Navy usage, is that the oiler is equipped to refuel warships underway.

USS YANCEY (and AKA-93) and USS MERRICK (AKA-97) were attack cargo ships (Type C2-S-B1) of the ANDROMEDA class (6,556 T). They were built to carry heavy military equipment for a landing force (an attack transport (APA) would carry the troops for a landing), and to land the equipment with their landing craft (15x LCVP, 8x LCM(3), 1x LCP(L)), but, for HIGHJUMP, were serving as supply ships.

(Most of the above ship data is from "US Warships of World War II", by Paul H. Silverstone, the USN's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS), "American Warplanes", by Bill Gunston, "US Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History", by Norman Friedman, and "Encyclopedia of the World's Warships", by Hugh Lyon.)

Other coverage of HIGHJUMP (not nearly as good -- they get ship names and other details wrong, for instance) can be found at: http://www.thule.org/highjump.html, http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8167/ufodefmp.htm, and http://www.eagle-net.org/omega/omega20.htm.

Case Officers researching Antarctic ops might also be interested in the data here which includes "Your Stay at McMurdo Station Antarctica" , and "Your Stay at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station Antarctica" -- text of the actual orientation manuals issued by USARP.

Another interesting page is http://www.thule.org/snowcruiser.html -- it describes the "Snowcruiser", a large wheeled Antarctic vehicle tested by ADM Byrd on an expedition just before WWII. The vehicle was not entirely successful, and the expedition was recalled before any modifications could be made to the machine, which was abandoned on the ice. A later expedition -- possibly during WINDMILL -- tracked down the "Snowcruiser" and dug it up from beneath the snow, but didn't move it. However, an even later expedition came looking for it, and found it missing! Theories include the piece of ice with the "Snowcruiser" on it breaking off and floating out to sea (something like this happened with a Navy R4D which got set adrift!), or its recovery (and transport eleswhere for testing?) by a Russian expedition... (The "Snowcruiser" may still be parked at one of their out-of-the-way bases, or may be sitting up on blocks in Siberia!):)

Michael
theherald@juno.com

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