Missing from the documentary is a convincing explanation of why the Navy undertook Operation Highjump: the task force was hastily assembled from ships that were being demobilized after WW2 and it was hastily dispatched --- if memory serves, one ship was never even able to join the convoy due to operational issues. The official line was that Highjump was designed to test Navy preparedness for high latitude operations against the Soviet Union (as well as surveying parts of Antarctica); if that were actually true, wouldn't the Navy have spent more than a couple of weeks assembling and fitting out craft for the experiment? And why send the submarines and Marine combat soldiers at all? There is a "conspiracy theory" regarding Highjump: that Byrd was investigating a possible Nazi submarine base in "Neuschwabenland" --- the huge Antarctic area claimed by Germany in the late '30s, which includes ice caverns (recently discovered, or rediscovered) that are accessible only by submarine. At any rate, Byrd landed opposite Neuschwabenland and deployed his forces in classic fashion -- the naval contingent was divided and advanced on his flanks while his aircraft probed the center. After two planes were lost (shot down?), Byrd cut the mission short. Strangely, his reports and his personal diary covering the period remain secret to this day.

In the summer of 1946 Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal approved the largest naval task force, 13 ships and 4,700 men, since the end of the Second World War to sail from Norfolk Virginia to the cold and ice capped seas of the Antarctic to map that unknown and frozen continent as well as monitor the vast and untapped natural resources hidden under it's frozen surface.The film "The Secret Land" is a documentary narrated by actors Robert Montgomery Robert Taylor and Van Haflin about that fabled expedition call Operation Highjump and the men who were on it. Who suffered through it's deadly cold winds ice flows and the dreaded coming of the Antarctic winter that may well have spelled doom to all of those sailors and merchant marines on that perilous expedition. Led by Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen Operation Highjump did what it set out to do, by mapping some 1.3 million square miles of the unknown Antarctic continent. There also was a number casualties among the ships and men on that voyage. The most noted was the USS Sennet a submarine that was crushed in the ice off the US base Little America. Leaving from the US port in Norfolk to the southern most part of the Pacific Ocean to Scotts Island and Little America on the Antarctic land mass. Aircraft carrier USS Philipine Sea the flag ship of task force 63, Operation Highjump, had on it's deck six giant RD4 supply planes who, with Admiral Byrd aboard, flew over the frozen wastes of that continent and photograph it. In the end the expedition was considered to be a major success but over the years it has all but been forgotten by the American public but It's good to see that the movie "The Secret Land" is still around and is being broadcast periodically on TCM to rekindle interest in that major post WWII event. Even though Operation Highjump was conducted over fifty years ago many of the photographs and documents on that expedition are still classified and there's the strange explanation of Admiral Byrd's missing three hours, when he flew over the South Pole in February 1947. Having the American public told that Byrd's RD4 had to jettison most of it's equipment to avoid losing altitude and slamming into the dangerously high Antarctic mountain ranges, that in some places are as high as 20,000 feet, that had communications cut off between him and the US base on frozen Antarctic coast. That explanation didn't wash with a lot of the people who listened to the Admirals radio broadcast as he flew over the pole. The broadcast by Admiral Byrd suddenly went dead for a number of minutes and there are those who think that it was done on purpose, by the US Navy, to keep the American public from knowing just what he saw there. There was one fantastic discovery by the Byrd task force that didn't escape the attention of the American media and public as well as the lens of the movie camera. That was the discovery, off the Shacklenton Ice Shelf in Wilkes land, of a place later named the Bunger Oasis. Flying over the ice and snow US Navy Let. Commander David E. Bunger spotted filmed and landed on this 300 square mile patch of land with tricolor fresh water lakes that were totally ice-free right in the middle of the blistering cold and freezing Antarctic! The lakes in the Bunger Oasis were the colors, red blue & green, of the vast amount of colored algae in them and even now, over a half century after the Bunger Oasis' discovery, nothing in the world of science has been able to explain it.

This is the story of a massive trip to Antarctica. If you thought your spouse brings too much on vacation, it ain't nothing compared to what the military brought to the bottom of the world after the second world war ended. This was a huge operation and this is its story. Never mind that this is educational and award winning, its simply a great story told expertly.I had run across this film by accident years ago on one of the Turner stations and was captivated. I fell into its tale of men over coming nature and its become a favorite of mine ever since.Granted its "America can do" attitude can make you a bit crazy, but it was that sort of attitude that allowed us to think we could do it in the first place.See it, not because you'll learn something, see it because you will be entertained better than most dramatic films entertain you.10 out of 10.

This documentary quite rightly won an Oscar for its efforts at showing the large scale exploration of Antartica undertaken by the United States military. The weather conditions were rather extreme, to put it mildly. I'd be curious to learn just how many cameras froze up during the expedition! The narration is capably handled by three prominent actors who also seved in the military during World War II and everything is very well-executed. Turner Classic Movies has been airing this fairly often in the last two or three years. Highly recommended.