This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Kent Weekly (SS/DSV) (DBF), EMCS
to remember
Cruzen, Richard Harold (Dick), VADM USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Kansas City, MO
Last Address San Clemente, CA
Date of Passing Apr 15, 1970
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
As a Commander, Richard Cruz took part in Admiral Byrd's expedition to Antarctica. He returned to that area again as a Rear Admiral in charge of Operation High Jump.
Other Comments:
"I consider the War Trials as one of the more disgraceful manifestations of the past war hysteria." - quote by Vice Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, U.S.N.
Description Operation Highjump, officially titled The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program, 1946–1947, was a United States Navy operation organized by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Jr., USN (Ret), Officer in Charge, Task Force 68, and led by Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding Officer, Task Force 68. Operation Highjump commenced 26 August 1946 and ended in late February 1947. Task Force 68 included 4,700 men, 13 ships, and 33 aircraft. Operation Highjump's primary mission was to establish the Antarctic research base Little America IV.
Highjump’s objectives, according to the U.S. Navy report of the operation, were:
Training personnel and testing equipment in frigid conditions;
Consolidating and extending the United States' sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the Antarctic continent (publicly denied as a goal even before the expedition ended);
Determining the feasibility of establishing, maintaining, and utilizing bases in the Antarctic and investigating possible base sites;
Developing techniques for establishing, maintaining, and utilizing air bases on ice, with particular attention to later applicability of such techniques to operations in interior Greenland, where conditions are comparable to those in the Antarctic;
Amplifying existing stores of knowledge of electromagnetic, geological, geographic, hydrographic, and meteorological propagation conditions in the area;
Supplementary objectives of the Nanook expedition (a smaller equivalent conducted off eastern Greenland).
