Saludo a la Bandera Argentina durante la Operación 90

Operación 90 (''Operation NINETY'') was the first Argentine ground expedition to the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

, conducted in 1965, by ten soldiers of the

Argentine Army The Argentine Army ( es, Ejército Argentino, EA) is the Army, land force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of Argentina. Under the Argentine Constitution, the president of Argentina is the comman ...

under then-Colonel Jorge Edgard Leal. It was performed to attempt to cement

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

's claims to a portion of

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 cont ...

, as well as for scientific reasons and to perfect polar exploration techniques. The operation was named after the target: 90 degree South

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north ...

point (the geographic South Pole). It remains the only documented breach of the provisions of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits any military activity on the continent. Leal's team departed on six

snowcat A snowcat (short for snow and caterpillar) is an enclosed-cab, truck-sized, fully tracked vehicle designed to move on snow. Major manufacturers are Pisten Bully (Germany), Prinoth (Italy) and Tucker (United States). Snow groomers A sno ...

vehicles (believed to be Tucker Sno Cat based on the spelling used) from General Belgrano Army Base on October 26, 1965. The main group was preceded by a scouting four-men patrol on a sled drawn by 18 dogs. While the scouts remained at 83° 2″ S, Leal and his men reached the geographic South Pole on December 10. They then returned to Base Belgrano, which they reached on December 31. Overall, the mission lasted 66 days."Operación 90: La llegada al Polo Sur por vía terrestre"
by Jorge Edgard Leal
(Click on Llegada al Polo (terrestre) on the column at the left) The operation was performed in secret so as not to upset the superpowers of the time: the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. The main purpose of the expedition was to exercise the claimed rights of Argentina to the continuation of its landmass, which (along with almost the entire Western Hemisphere, including the US and Canada) had been proclaimed as a Spanish entitlement by

Pope Alexander VI Pope Alexander VI ( it, Alessandro VI, va, Alexandre VI, es, Alejandro VI; born Rodrigo de Borja; ca-valencia, Roderic Llançol i de Borja ; es, Rodrigo Lanzol y de Borja, lang ; 1431 – 18 August 1503) was head of the Catholic Churc ...

in 1493 through the

Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, ; pt, Tratado de Tordesilhas . signed in Tordesillas, Spain on 7 June 1494, and authenticated in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Em ...

. General Leal and his men, shortly after arriving to the South Pole, were met by a radar operator from the US

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is the United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the southernmost point under the jurisdiction (not sovereignty) of the United States. The station is located on the ...

, who asked them who they were and what they were doing there. After Leal explained that they were not

Soviets Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Nationality policy in ...

, the group was invited to take a meal at the American sub-snow base: the first decent food, said Leal, that the group had in some weeks.

References

External links

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Interview with General Jorge E. Leal
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Operacion 90 Non-combat military operations involving Argentina History of Antarctica 1965 in Argentina 1965 in Antarctica Military in Antarctica Argentina and the Antarctic Antarctic expeditions Argentina–United States relations South Pole