| Little America | |
| —n | |
| originally the chief US base in the Antarctic, on the Ross Ice Shelf: first established by Admiral Richard E. Byrd (1928); used for polar exploration. It closed in the 1960s | |
Little America
principal American base in Antarctica, lying on the northeastern edge of Ross Ice Shelf near Kainan Bay. First set up in 1928 as the headquarters for the polar explorations of Richard E. Byrd, it was reused and enlarged by Byrd on his return expedition in 1933-35. In 1940 Byrd established a camp 7 miles (11 km) northeast, later named Little America III, that served as the western base for a government-sponsored exploration of Marie Byrd Land before World War II. After the war Little America IV, consisting of an airstrip and 60 tents, was set up nearby as a headquarters for Operation High Jump (1946-47), an expedition designed to explore and document Antarctica's coastline as well as to extend U.S. sovereignty to the continent.
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