My short note in an earlier issue of Polar Record [21(133): 394–95 (1983)] outlined events in the Falkland Islands Dependencies arising from the Argentinian attack and occupation of April 1982, with a brief summary of the political exchanges preceding the Argentinian action. This article chronicles some of the events that precipitated the dispute, and the military activities leading to the occupation and subsequent recovery of King Edward Point, the administrative centre and principal station of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) on South Georgia.

By autumn 1940 the first round of fighting in World War II was over. In northern Europe, German forces occupied Poland, Norway and Denmark. Both sides recognized that further operations demanded naval and air superiority in northern waters. Germany needed free access to the Atlantic Ocean through the North Sea; Britain had to prevent that access, which threatened the lifeline to the United States. More than ever before, it became essential for both sides to have meteorological information from the northern Atlantic Ocean area. Germany's need was especially acute, for the routes for her shipping from ports in Scandinavia traversed enemy-patrolled waters, where foul weather was essential for evasion.

Project MIZPAC (Marginal Ice Zone Pacific) was initiated in 1971 by the Arctic Submarine Laboratory, San Diego, California, to further the US Navy's understanding of problems associated with operating submarines under ice-covered oceans. Oceanographers from the Naval Postgraduate School took part in six summer cruises to the marginal sea ice zone (MIZ) of the shallow Chukchi Sea between 1971 and 1978 (Fig 1), providing the first detailed observations of the temperature-salinity structure within this dynamically active zone. Strong horizontal gradients of temperature and salinity marking boundaries between water masses (fronts), are widespread and well developed (Paquette and Bourke 1981). Where water masses intrude upon each other large-scale temperature inversions (anomalous increases in temperature with depth) often appear. Termed fine structure, these temperature anomalies include some of the largest observed anywhere in the world's oceans, sometimes exceeding 2°C over vertical distances of 5–10 m (Paquette and Bourke 1979). This article describes some of the fronts and fine structures observed in the Chukchi Sea, and shows how they develop within the general patterns of sea ice and circulation.

Few wars have a more misleading name than the Crimean War. Far from being a local conflict, fought in the Black Sea peninsula from which the name derives, hostilities took place in many different areas of the globe. Major military operations, largely between Turks (siding with Britain and France) and Russians, occurred in the Balkans and the Caucasus, and a considerable naval effort was made by the British and French to prosecute the war against Russia in the Baltic and Black seas, and also in the Far East and the Pacific (Stephan 1969). The war even reached North America; elements of the Royal Navy reconnoitred Russian settlements in Alaska in 1855 (Tyrrell 1856, 2: 355).

In May 1982, with the successful conclusion of FRAM IV, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) completed the FRAM series of observations from ice floe stations in the eastern Arctic (Fig 1)—expeditions initiated each spring from 1979 to 1982. The programme developed from an unsuccessful attempt by the Arctic Programme of the ONR to duplicate Fridtjof Nansen's drift of the FRAM across the Arctic. This was to have involved freezing the icebreaker USCGC Burton Island in the pack ice of the Laptev Sea, but the programme was cancelled due to lack of support. Arctic scientists meeting at the Third Symposium on Antarctic Geology and Geophysics at Madison, Wisconsin, decided on an alternative programme involving ice floe stations. Named FRAM in honour of Nansen's vessel (Hunkins and others 1979a; Kristoffersen 1979), this was eventually organized by the Arctic Programme of ONR to provide basic environmental data from the eastern Arctic north of Greenland. From its inception FRAM emphasized multi-disciplinary research by scientists of several nations. The stations were under US management, with logistics coordinated by the Polar Research Center, University of Washington, under ONR contract. Danish scientists were involved through the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland, Norwegians through the Norsk Polarinstitutt, British scientists through the Scott Polar Research Institute, and Canadians through the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. Each expedition emphasized a particular scientific discipline with supporting programmes: below are listed the dates, major studies (priority discipline first), chief scientists and key data reports of each.