This day in history: the H.M.S.A.S. Transvaal makes a landing at Marion Island in 1947

Lieutenant-Commander John Fairbairn (o/c H.M.S.A.S. Transvaal) and Petty Officer Steward Henry Schott go ashore on Boulder Beach, Marion Island from the ship’s motor boat at 11h32 on 29 December 1947.   After building a small rock cairn with a metal Union of South Africa flag planted in it on Gunner’s Point, Lt-Cmdr Fairbairn reads out the Deed of Sovereignty  occupying the island for South Africa.  He then signs the document and deposits it in the cairn in a 40-mm Bofors cartridge case.  By 12h21 they had left the island for the ship.

Feature photograph: the H.M.S.A.S. Transvaal off Marion Island in November 1954; all photographs courtesy of the South African Naval Museum

Reference:

 Marsh, J.H. 1948.  No Pathway Here.  Cape Town: Howard B. Timmins.  200 pp.

John Cooper, Principal Investigator, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University