In August '46, the military Navy of the US started a development program in the Antarctic that stayed in history as Operation Highjump. Its purpose was to create a US military base, with the name Little America IV.
The US Navy took advantage of the climate to train troops in freezing conditions. Besides the training, the army there runs a lot of tests on military equipment and weapons. For example, they landed many times aircraft on frozen surfaces.
In general, it is considered that the main goal of the operation was to determine how viable was the creating and operation of a strong military base in the Antarctic.
The main vessels of the fleet came only on January '47, when the creation of the base would start. But, due to the early winter, the weather conditions were worsened and the next month, February '47, the fleet returned to the US with the personnel.
The mission had human casualties too, as the Martin PBM-5 George 1 was crashed in December 1946 and 3 members of the crew died.
After the end of Operation Highjump, Admiral Byrd stated that the whole program helped the US Army a lot as it provided them with useful information in case of incoming attacks by enemy arctic bases.
