On October 31, 1956, Rear Admiral George John Dufek became the first person to land an airplane at the South Pole. He also became the first to set foot on the South Pole in 40 years.
Dufek was an American naval officer, naval aviator, and Antarctic expert. He served in World War II and the Korean War and in the 1940s and 1950s spent much of his career in the Antarctic. In 1954, he joined a special Antarctic planning group preparing for the Navy’s Operation Deep Freeze, a scientific polar research expedition.
Operation Deep Freeze was a series of expeditions in Antarctica between 1955 and 1998, which were military run and supported by various American military agencies. Rear Admiral Byrd was the officer-in-charge and the most senior US representative monitoring political, scientific, legislative and operational activities of the US Antarctic programme. The primary mission of the 1955-56 expedition was to establish two stations along the Ross Sea and the transportation of personnel, equipment and supplies to build two stations in the interior the following spring. In addition they would undertake reconnaissance by aircraft and tractor and carry out scientific projects.