Mount Hawkes is, at , the highest mountain along the

Washington Escarpment Washington Escarpment () is the major west-facing escarpment of the Neptune Range, Pensacola Mountains in Antarctica, extending some 50 miles (80 km) and being the point of origin of a number of west-trending rock ridges. Mapped by United Stat ...

, standing at the east side of

Jones Valley Jones Valley () is a snow-covered valley between West Prongs and Elliott Ridge in the southern Neptune Range of the Pensacola Mountains in Antarctica. It was mapped by the United States Geological Survey from surveys and from U.S. Navy air photo ...

in the

Neptune Range The Neptune Range is a mountain range, long, lying WSW of Forrestal Range in the central part of the Pensacola Mountains in Antarctica. The range is composed of Washington Escarpment with its associated ridges, valleys and peaks, the Iroquois Pla ...

of the

Pensacola Mountains The Pensacola Mountains are a large group of mountain ranges of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Queen Elizabeth Land region of Antarctica. Geography They extend 450 km (280 mi) in a NE-SW direction. Subranges of the ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. It was discovered and photographed on January 13, 1956, in the course of the trans-Antarctic nonstop plane flight by personnel of U.S. Navy

Operation Deep Freeze Operation Deep Freeze (OpDFrz or ODF) is codename for a series of United States missions to Antarctica, beginning with "Operation Deep Freeze I" in 1955–56, followed by "Operation Deep Freeze II", "Operation Deep Freeze III", and so on. (There w ...

I from

McMurdo Sound McMurdo Sound is a sound in Antarctica. It is the southernmost navigable body of water in the world, and is about from the South Pole. Captain James Clark Ross discovered the sound in February 1841, and named it after Lt. Archibald McMurdo o ...

to the

Weddell Sea The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha ...

and return. It was named by the

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-ACAN) is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending commemorative names for features in Antarctica. History The committee was established ...

for Commander

William M. Hawkes William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...

of the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

, who was the co-pilot of the

P2V-2N Neptune The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (designated P2V by the United States Navy prior to September 1962) is a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed to replace the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and P ...

aircraft making this flight. The

Hawkes Heights Hawkes Heights (or Mount Hawkes) is an ice-filled volcanic crater rising to that dominates the southern part of Coulman Island, in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, and marks the island's summit. The feature was named by the New Zealand Geological Survey ...

are also named for Hawkes, who was assigned to Air Development Squadron Six (

VX-6 Air Development Squadron Six (VX-6 or AIRDEVRON SIX, commonly referred to by its nickname, "puckered penguins") was a United States Navy Air Development Squadron based at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Established at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, ...

) in 1955–56.

References

Mountains of Queen Elizabeth Land Pensacola Mountains {{QueenElizabethLand-geo-stub