Southern Thule is a collection of the three southernmost

island An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be ...

s in the South Sandwich Islands: Bellingshausen, Cook, and Thule (Morrell). The island group is barren, windswept, bitterly cold, and uninhabited. It has an extensive exclusive economic zone rich in marine living resources managed as part of the

SGSSI ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song_type = , song = , image_map = South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in United Kingdom.svg , map_caption = Location of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic O ...

fisheries. The Admiralty's ''Antarctic Pilot'' says that Southern Thule is part of an old sunken

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

, and is covered with

ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

and

penguin Penguins ( order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapt ...

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of Seabird, seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant ...

. There are seals, petrels, and a bank of

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "under ...

just offshore, especially around a small inlet on Morrell called Ferguson Bay.

History

The island group was first sighted in 1775 by the expedition of James Cook, who named it Southern Thule because it seemed to lie at very much the extreme end of the world (see Ultima Thule). It was further explored in 1820 by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen who established that it consisted of three separate islands. The Southern Thule territory has been administered by the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

since 1908 and also claimed by

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 second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

since 1938.

Argentine occupation 1976–1982

In November 1976, a party from the

Argentine Air Force "Argentine Wings" , mascot = , anniversaries = 10 August (anniversary) 1 May (Baptism of fire during the Falklands War) , equipment = 139 aircraft , equipment_label = , battles = * Operation Independence * Operation Soberanía * Falkl ...

landed on Thule and constructed a small military base complete with barracks and a concrete helicopter landing pad. They set up a weather station, a radio station, and a flagpole from which the Argentine flag flew. The base was named Corbeta Uruguay. In December 1976, the British discovered what had happened. The Argentine action became the subject of British protests, the first of them on 19 January 1977. In November 1977, under the name Operation Journeyman, Britain sent a naval taskforce consisting of the nuclear-powered submarine , two frigates, and two support vessels, in order to deter any threat to the Falklands, but ruled out using direct force to end the occupation of Southern Thule.Ben Fenton (1 June 2005
"Secret Falklands task force revealed"
''Daily Telegraph''BBC News: Secret Falklands fleet revealed
/ref> Arrangements to legitimise the station were discussed in 1978 but failed. More than a year went by before word of the occupation of Southern Thule leaked out to the public. Argentine forces remained on Southern Thule during the 1982

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territori ...

. On 20 June 1982, six days after the war had ended and as part of Operation Keyhole, Royal Marines landed and the Argentine garrison, outnumbered and outgunned, surrendered and relinquished its weapons.

Aftermath

After the surrender, Southern Thule was left unoccupied. Six months later, a passing British warship noticed that the

Union Flag The Union Jack, or Union Flag, is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. Although no law has been passed making the Union Flag the official national flag of the United Kingdom, it has effectively become such through precedent. ...

had been taken down from the flagpole and the

flag of Argentina The national flag of the Argentine Republic is a triband, composed of three equally wide horizontal bands coloured light blue and white. There are multiple interpretations on the reasons for those colors. The flag was created by Manuel Belg ...

run up in its place. The military was ordered to destroy all buildings on Southern Thule, leaving ''Corbeta Uruguay'' unfit for prolonged habitation. By Christmas 1982, the barrack block, mess room, and meteorological station had been destroyed.

References

External links

Bibliography

* Simon Winchester, '' Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire'', Harper Perennial, 2004 (originally published in 1987). {{South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Islands of the South Sandwich Islands Volcanoes of the Atlantic Ocean Volcanoes of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Uninhabited islands of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Falklands War in South Georgia