The Operation Highjump Antarctic Rescue Mission

After the Martin PBM Mariner went down during Operation Highjump, six crew members were stranded in Antarctica with temperatures around –20 °C. A rescue from USS Pine Island was initially impossible due to the brutal weather. As days passed and rations dwindled, morale plummeted. On day seven, a search plane flew nearby but couldn’t spot them through poor visibility. By day 13, the weather cleared. The plane located the crew but couldn’t land. Confirming they could manage a ten-mile trek, the survivors made their way across the snow and ice to the waiting rescuers, ending an almost two-week ordeal in one of the harshest environments on Earth.