by Jeremy Scott
It was Fokker who had constructed the Jo Ford and Byrd now asked him to build a new version of the tri-motor, modified for the 3,600 mile attempt. He wanted bigger wings with extendable flaps, larger fuel tanks, more powerful motors and an exterior catwalk, so if one engine failed it could be repaired in flight while the plane continued on the other two. A literally hair-raising scene to visualise.
There were a dozen other competitors preparing aircraft for the race. With $500,000 from Wanamaker, Byrd had a deeper purse than any of them. Most intended to fly a single-engined plane, but Byrd’s big tri-motor was safer and more reliable. Not very sporting of him, some commentators remarked, but Byrd had his answer ready: he wasn’t interested in the race, he was doing this to prove the viability of transatlantic passenger flight. This would be an achievement similar to Bleriot’s first crossing of the Channel in 1909, which created the financial and technical climate for the industrial development of aviation. Bleriot’s crossing had shown air transit between countries to be feasible; his own would demonstrate that a regular intercontinental passenger service US–Europe was now a practicable reality.
In April 1927 the plane was ready for its first aerial test. Fokker was at the controls, Byrd and Bennett in the pilot’s cabin with him. In flight the aircraft behaved correctly, but when Fokker cut back the power to its 60 mph landing speed the plane revealed itself dangerously nose-heavy; it would not glide. On coming in to land the aeroplane descended at a steep angle, slammed into the ground and cartwheeled, coming to rest upside down. Fokker was thrown clear, unhurt. Byrd’s right arm was broken (he set it himself in the ambulance on the way to hospital), but Bennett’s leg was smashed and he was in a bad way. He was rushed into intensive care but for ten days his condition remained so serious it was uncertain whether he would pull through.
On 28 June Bernt Balchen was waiting somewhat disconsolately by the hangar at Roosevelt Field, smoking a cigarette. Byrd’s plane had been repaired and stood inside fuelled-up and ready to go, but the prospect of the transatlantic flight was not exhilarating. Four of the contestants in the race to Paris had crashed and died in their attempts, but more crucially the Orteig Prize had already been won by Charles A. Lindbergh in the Spirit of St Louis.
News of Lindbergh’s win (after a flight of 33 hours 39 minutes at an average speed of 107 mph, in a plane with one engine, no radio, no map, no parachute, no life-raft, two pints of water and five sandwiches) had reached Roosevelt Field with particularly bad timing, for at that instant Byrd’s Fokker was being christened America at a ceremony attended by the French ambassador, the media and 2,000 specially invited guests from government, banking, big business, science and aeronautics. This was a fully orchestrated promotional event and for the news to come through just now must have been a shattering blow for Byrd – moreover one he had to endure in full view of the public – but he handled it well, turning the occasion into a party to celebrate Lindbergh’s victory. He had already done what he could to distance himself from the race, deliberately holding back from registering as an official contestant, but now clearly something more was required – and fast. Even while he was toasting Lindbergh’s win, the highly effective press office he and Wanamaker had set up in the hangar was preparing a release announcing that the America’s hop to France was merely a test of the aircraft’s long-range capacity. Byrd’s next flight would be infinitely more spectacular and hazardous – he intended to fly the aeroplane to the South Pole.
But Balchen’s dejection this morning came from a more personal cause than the above reasons. He was not included on the America’s transatlantic flight to Paris as Wanamaker saw the crossing as a patriotic statement: America First. He wanted an all-American crew on the plane. Balchen was not yet a US citizen; though he’d filed an application, his nationalisation had not been processed.
While Balchen was brooding on the injustice of the world, he saw a car pull up in front of the aircraft hangar. The driver sprang out to open the passenger door. An arm passed over two crutches and after a long moment a man slowly, awkwardly negotiated his way out. Watching from the corner of the building, Balchen recognised Bennett. His face looked dirty grey in colour and he was painfully thin. Swaying on his crutches, he threw Balchen a wave then hobbled into the open hangar to join Byrd and Wanamaker’s publicist in the press corner.
Balchen saw the three men talking earnestly for several minutes, then Bennett detached himself from the group and tottered over to where he stood. He put his hand out to shake and Balchen was saddened by how weak his grip was. But Bennett was grinning. He said, ‘It’s OK Bernt, it’s all set. You’re on the crew.’
At 5.20 a.m. next morning the America took off with Byrd, Balchen and two other pilots on board. The only plane in the race equipped with radio, this was out of action for much of the flight after one of the pilots trod on the wiring. Thirty-six hours later they sighted the coast of France and followed the course of the Seine to Paris, but Le Bourget airfield was invisible in the rain. They returned to the coast. The weather was dreadful, it was getting dark and their fuel tanks were almost empty. Balchen was at the controls, he had greater experience of foul weather flying than the other pilots. With great skill he crash-landed the plane in shallow water off Caen. No one was injured and the next day, assisted by the local villagers, who stole bits of it as souvenirs, they dismantled the aircraft and carried it to safety up the foreshore at a spot which seventeen years later would become known to all America as Omaha Beach, one of the sites of the D-Day landings.
Despite the failure of the America to land in Paris and Lindbergh winning the race, which might have been expected to scoop the publicity, Byrd, Balchen and the two American pilots were received rapturously in the city when they arrived by train the next afternoon.
Balchen who had made the flight wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt and oil-soaked trousers, had to have a suit made for him overnight with ‘coat and pants in the latest French style. The clerk wants to sell me a derby even; but I draw the line at that.’ He describes the scene he stepped into:
Never have I seen anything like the wild hysteria of Paris … the streets were blocked with crowds, and they swarmed over the car and broke the windows and almost tipped it over. The mob pushed us down the avenue shouting ‘Vivent les Americans! Vive Byrd!’ Women threw their arms around us and kissed us until our faces were daubed with red lipstick…
He found himself projected into a world he’d never encountered before, hardly had imagined to exist. He was introduced to the Prince of Wales; he met the venerable and shrunken Louis Bleriot, who had opened a new epoch of aviation with his historic cross-Channel flight; he met the equally shrunken Marechal Foch, encased in tight uniform, whose elfin chest was so medallioned it looked as though he was covered in shiny scales.
Afterwards, while sailing back to the States aboard the Leviathan, Balchen spent much of the voyage with Byrd, discussing his plan to fly to the South Pole. He and Floyd Bennett were to be the pilots. Arriving in New York they were accorded the same wild welcome as in Paris, plus a ticker-tape parade. In Washington (where Byrd was awarded the Navy Distinguished Flying Cross) Balchen was received by the President of the United States. For Balchen in his sharp new suit all was for the best in this the best of all possible worlds – of which he was about to become a citizen.
In August he packed an old rucksack and sailed on the Stavangerfjord to visit his mother in Norway. As the vessel steamed into Bergen he heard the sound of aircraft. A formation of single-engined Navy planes zoomed overhead, buzzing the ship in salute. In astonishment he recognised the wing numbers, it was his old squadron come to greet him. He felt something like love rise up within him and had to swallow hard to hold back tears. Over dinner in the Officer’s Club he was reunited with his cousin Lief Dietrichson (pilot of Ellsworth’s plane on the 1925 flight) and Omdal (mechanic on that same plane, also on the Norge) and Riiser-Larsen. ‘How did you find the girls in Paris?’ one asked him. ‘Easy,’ he told them, ‘They were w
aiting.’
In Oslo Balchen found a suite booked for him at the Grand Hotel, and a messenger in the uniform of the Royal Guards summoning him to the Palace. ‘You have carried the flag of our country far,’ the King told him.
He motions me to be seated and for an hour and a half he questions me with shrewd insight about flying and the future of aviation, what it will mean some day to Norway … He is particularly interested to hear of Byrd’s proposed Antarctic flight, and as I rise to leave he says, ‘We are proud that the American expedition is coming to Roald Amundsen for counsel. To honor him is to honor all Norway.’
The following afternoon Balchen and Omdal made a visit to the veteran, now-retired explorer. For Balchen this is a significant but also an awkward moment. Amundsen was his childhood hero and role model, the man who’d given him the opportunity to transform his life by picking him for the Norge expedition; Amundsen is a father figure to him. The two callers crossed to Bundefjord by ferry and saw the old man waiting for them, standing on the jetty.
We walk slowly up the lawn to Captain Amundsen’s house. He is still erect and vigorous. His living room is starkly furnished and the walls are bare … He sits in his favourite leather chair and listens with only half-interest to my story of the Atlantic Air Derby, but his eyes brighten as I describe winter flying in the Canadian bush … Now he begins to talk about the Antarctic, the bitter cold and violent storms there, how to survive on the ice barrier, how an air base might be established…
Amundsen was open-hearted and wholly generous in his advice on the South Pole flight. He knew the Antarctic, he’d learned it the hard way during thirty years and he gave the younger man the benefit of his great experience. He even indicated a suitable ship for the expedition (which Byrd later bought), offering to negotiate with the owners. That he should provide such help to Balchen is understandable, the young Norwegian had been a protégé since boyhood, but this was for the advantage of Richard Byrd, the man who had triumphed over him. Byrd had everything now, while Amundsen was bankrupt and deeper in debt than ever due to the disastrous deficit on the Norge expedition. But Amundsen had never complained or grumbled, never uttered one word questioning the validity of Byrd’s polar victory. Instead, he gave. He invited his two visitors to stay the night. Balchen writes:
That evening, after supper, Captain Amundsen has his own special nightcap, a brandy toddy in a tall glass, mahogany-coloured and consumed boiling-hot … ‘You are young, both young,’ he says, sipping his toddy, ‘And aviation today is for young people. Old men stay home and write their memoirs.’ But I can see that he is ill content with retirement, and would like to be going with us. There is a caged restlessness in his eyes, a touch of bitterness that he must end his days in an easy chair by the fireplace. He would like to fight the Arctic ice once more, to die with his straw-filled mukluks on, in the north and the great white silence. We leave after breakfast, and he stands on the pier as the ferry pulls away. His lone figure dwindles from sight, but I can still see the great hawk-nose, the face carved in granite as timeless as time itself, the last Viking.
It is an elegiac tone Balchen adopts when writing of his visit to Amundsen but his emotions at that parting on the shore must have been both confused and guilty. Amundsen’s melancholy reduced circumstances were directly due to the fact that he had not succeeded in being first to reach the North Pole. Yet how could Balchen console his old benefactor with what he suspected (or by now knew) to be the facts about Byrd’s win? He was now a member of Byrd’s team and on Byrd’s payroll and the truth was something he could not afford to reveal. It must have been a poignant moment.
As soon as he got back to the States in October, Balchen went to visit Floyd Bennett, who was convalescing from his accident at home in Brooklyn. Balchen was dismayed to see how ill he looked. Byrd had put him in charge of organising the plane and its equipment for the South Pole expedition, and he filled in Balchen on all that had happened while he’d been away. The original plan had been to commission Tony Fokker to build a more powerful version of the America for the flight, but expedience – that obligatory element governing any expedition’s plans – had resulted in another aircraft. Edsel and his father Henry J. had contributed substantial funds to the proposed expedition; they wanted Byrd to make the attempt in a tri-motor made by the Ford Motor Company. The advantage was that it came free, the downside that the new aircraft had barely been tested in operation; its flying characteristics and capability in Arctic conditions were unknown.
Two weeks later Balchen and Byrd took the train to Detroit to meet Edsel, and in March 1928 the two flew the Ford to Canada to test it on snow in sub-zero temperatures. Stopping at Winnipeg to refuel, they flew on to Le Pas in the far north. They landed into the middle of a rackety spectacular. The tiny frontier town was straining at the seams, for it was the site of a sensational gold strike. Prospectors, would-be prospectors, gamblers and adventurers had flooded into the place to stake a claim and throng the boardwalk and the bars – and following them had come a regiment of whores, raucous, gaudy and unsuitably clothed for winter. Saloons were rowdy with shouts and argument, wild laughter, piano music, stinking of whisky, spilled beer, sweat, cheap perfume and tobacco smoke. Raw gold, in the form of dust or nuggets, was the common currency of the town. Hotels, saloons, stores and the parlour of every hooker were equipped with scales. Here, in the bars, gambling joints and dance halls of this honky-tonk outpost throbbing in the hectic fever of a gold rush, Balchen and Bennett relaxed awhile, as best friends may in such untrammelled circumstances if they happen to be male. It is fitting they should share this furlough, for it would prove to be their last.
Then they took off for Reindeer Lake, deep in the snow-covered Canadian bush. There they flew cold weather performance tests – the results of which were disturbing. Then they piloted the plane back to Detroit, discussed the further work necessary, and caught the train to New York. When they drew into Grand Central Station they saw the newspaper headlines: BREMEN FLIERS DOWN IN LABRADOR.
The Bremen, a Junkers monoplane belonging to Baron von Huenefeld, had been trying to cross the Atlantic from Europe to America, which meant flying into the prevailing wind. Eight aircraft and their crews recently had gone down in the attempt. Now the Junkers was reported to have crash-landed on Greenly Island in the Gulf of St Lawrence. The crew were unhurt but their plane damaged and unable to take off without spare parts.
Aviators were few in number. Flying was a haphazard new profession and pilots saw themselves as a singular elect, the glory boys: a daring band of fairground, stunt and service flyers, well-heeled amateurs and penniless opportunists (with a handful of women among them, though two of these, the Hon. Elsie Mackay and Princess Löwenstein-Wertheim, had just died in their attempts on the east–west crossing). All were members of a de facto club, a classless fraternity with its own language, rites, rules – and a sporting tradition of camaraderie.
A Canadian bush pilot was the first to respond and go to the aid of the downed Bremen and its crew. Flying in to Greenly Island with a doctor in his two-seater ski plane, he left his passenger at the crash site and took off with one of Bremen’s pilots for Murray Bay. Plane crashes made good copy. A wreck, stranded flyers, rescue attempts… these were the elements of a front-page story and the editor of the New York World put his star reporter Charles J. V. Murphy on the job. To hype the story-value he asked the famous Commander Byrd to lend his new state-of-the-art aeroplane for the rescue flight. Despite his anxiety for the aircraft, which was precious to him, he agreed, asking Bennett and Balchen to fly the mission. Neither was in good shape; Bennett was in bed with flu and Balchen thought he was coming down with the same infection, but they flew at once in a Bellanca to Detroit with a replacement propeller and ski undercarriage for the damaged Bremen. Edsel Ford met them on arrival, and was so disturbed by how ill both were looking he ordered them directly into Ford Hospital.
Two days later they crawled out of bed into the cabin of Byrd’s tri-motor and too
k off on the nine-hour flight to Murray Bay. Charles Murphy was with them. They had to climb to 10,000 feet to get above the weather. It was fiercely cold, and there was something wrong with the cabin’s heater. Balchen at the controls became increasingly worried about Bennett who was slumped against the side of the cockpit, feverish and coughing continuously. He was running a temperature himself and so weak he could hardly hold the wheel steady in the turbulence they encountered. They were a fine pair to be going to anyone’s rescue, he thought. By the time they reached Murray Bay Bennett was in a state of collapse. He was carried to a nearby farm and someone went to find a doctor. Next morning, before taking off with Murphy and a Junkers mechanic for the crash site, Balchen went to see Bennett. He writes:
His face is the colour of the pillow, but there are blazing red spots on his cheeks. He does not open his eyes, but he runs his tongue over his dry lips and murmurs, ‘Have a good trip.’
‘I’ll see you when I get back, Floyd.’ There is a trace of a wry grin at the corners of his mouth. ‘That depends how the sock blows.’ His eyelids lift a little. ‘One thing I want you to promise me, Bernt. No matter what happens, you fly to the South Pole with Byrd.’
One year later I keep that promise…
But for now he flew to salvage the Bremen. Landing on the ice off Greenly Island, they located an Indian camp where they hired dog teams and drivers to reach the crashed aircraft. Then, having fitted the Bremen with a ski undercarriage and replaced the propeller, they could not get the motor to start. Recruiting every dog in the Indian camp, they harnessed the pack to the plane’s tailskid and towed it across the ice to the Canadian mainland and an Eskimo village, where it could be recovered in summer. While they were arranging this, a dog team arrived bringing a message for Balchen. It read simply: ‘Floyd Bennett died yesterday’.
