RONNE ANTARCTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION, 1946-1948 ! 
By CoMMANDER FINN Ronne, U.S. N. R. 
[With 8 plates] 
My interest in polar exploration dates from 1909, when my father, 
Martin Ronne, was selected to accompany Capt. Roald Amundsen 
to the Antarctic, on the memorable expedition on which the South 
Pole was first reached. That association continued until the great 
explorer’s untimely death, after which my father went with Admiral 
Byrd on his First Antarctic Expedition, 1928-30. During all this 
time I had closely followed the detailed work involved in the planning 
and successful execution of polar expeditions. Martin Ronne died 
suddenly in Norway in 1932, in his seventy-first year. On Byrd’s 
Second Antarctic Expedition, 1933-35, I had the good fortune to 
follow in my father’s steps in the capacity of ski expert. 
Upon my return to the United States in 1935, I began to plan for a 
small Antarctic expedition of my own, on which we would sledge and 
map the coast line from the Palmer Peninsula to the Ross Sea area. 
I planned to be set ashore, with four men and sufficient dog power, 
in the Charcot Island area by a Norwegian whaler and to be picked 
up by the whaler several months later on the Ross Sea side. However, 
an independent expedition did not prove possible at the time, and my 
modest plans eventually were merged into the United States Antarctic 
Service Expedition,? on which I acted as second-in-command of the 
east base, on Stonington Island, in Marguerite Bay, Palmer Land. 
EXPEDITION PLANS 
In May 1941, I obtained a commission in the United States Navy, 
in which I served until the end of hostilities. Off and on in my spare 
time I began formulating plans for an expedition to the old base of 
the United States Antarctic Service Expedition on Stonington Island, 
a location I considered well suited to geographical exploration, since 
within flying range lay the unexplored Weddell Sea coast line and 
perhaps the termination of the mountain axis of the Palmer Peninsula. 
1 Reprinted by permission from The Geographical Review, vol. 38, No. 3, 1948. 
2 English, R. A. J., Preliminary account of the United States Antarctic Expedition, 1939-41, Geogr. Rev., 
vol, 31, pp. 466-478, 1941. The operations from the east base are described on pp. 469-473. 
369 
