Locating Sir Hubert Wilkins’ enigmatic 1939 landing sites in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica: an 86-year-old puzzle resolved and the importance to the history, exploration and discovery of Princess Elizabeth Land

Abstract In January 1939, Sir Hubert Wilkins became the first Australian to set foot on several islands and the mainland along the Ingrid Christensen Coast, Antarctica, leaving records reaffirming Australia’s claim to the area at three landing sites. Prior to 2022, only the third of these sites had been identified. Wilkins had indicated that the first of the landings, that of 8 January 1939, was in the Rauer Islands and the second, that of 9 January 1939, at the western end of Vestfold Hills. We prove that these attributions are incorrect. An integrated analysis of all reports on the expedition over the period 3–11 January 1939 and the contemporaneous imagery and film footage, along with modern photographs, establishes that the 8 January 1939 landing was on Skipsholmen, the northernmost island of the Svenner Group, and that Wilkins landed at Macey Peninsula on 9 January 1939. These two important heritage sites should now be visited to locate and record the relics left by Wilkins. This research raises the question of whether Wilkins’ landings and sovereignty actions in 1939 are of greater significance to Australia’s Territorial claim to the area than Mawson’s questionable sighting and naming of Princess Elizabeth Land in 1931.