by Lynne Cox
In order to test out his Fokker F-VII, on June 29, 1927, Byrd made his own bid to fly across the Atlantic with Bernt Balchen, a former lieutenant in the Royal Norwegian Naval Air Service who had been on the Amundsen-Ellsworth Norge expedition. They took off from Roosevelt Field, New York, along with two other crew members, and on July 1, 1927, crash-landed on the shores of Normandy.
Byrd began to correspond with Amundsen and asked for more advice about his dream of becoming the first to fly to the South Pole. Amundsen took on the role of Nansen and wrote Byrd and told him the type of pemmican he would need, that he should hunt seals to provide fresh meat for his crew and the dogs. He told Byrd that he was trying to get all the equipment he needed, and he advised Byrd to bring chocolate and oatmeal crackers. He gave Byrd suggestions to wear good woolen underwear with a light windproof jacket over it. He cautioned Byrd against dressing too heavily and perspiring, and stressed the need to stay dry and warm. He also advised him to wear goggles to prevent snow blindness, and that they would make it easier to detect crevasses on sunny days.
Byrd and Amundsen continued exchanging letters and telegrams, and Amundsen did everything he could to help Byrd reach his goal of flying to the South Pole. Byrd wrote to Amundsen on June 7, 1928, to express his gratitude and friendship.
Unlike Amundsen, Byrd was able to secure the massive support he needed to cover the enormous cost of the South Pole expedition. His support often came from giants in the business world who had great vision; his backers included John D. Rockefeller Jr., Edsel Ford, Vincent Astor, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund, Harold S. Vanderbilt, Gilbert Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society, Adolph Ochs and Arthur Sulzberger of the New York Times, Joseph Pulitzer of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the U.S. Navy.
Byrd required funds to pay for the cost and outfitting of three ships, the City of New York, Eleanor Bolling, and C. A. Larsen, and two aircraft, a Ford Trimotor and a Fairchild. He had to raise funds for the buildings that would be constructed at Little America—a mess hall, bunkhouse, photography laboratory, library with three thousand books, radio laboratory, hospital, and separate housing for the physician, geologist, meterologist, and physicist, as well as buildings for the magnetic observatory, weather station, radio storeroom, aviation workshop, and machine shop. Byrd had to provide twelve hundred gallons of gasoline, seventy-five tons of coal, enough food for fifteen months, and supplies and equipment for fifty-four men, eighty sled dogs, and Igloo, his small white terrier.
On September 1, 1928, when it was presumed that Amundsen was dead, Byrd wrote a letter for the Aftenposten, the newspaper in Oslo (as Christiania had been renamed in 1925), Norway, and the letter appeared in the newspaper on September 3, 1928:
Amundsen was my close friend. He was a lionhearted man and one of the greatest explorers of the ages. America shoulders this sorrow with Norway. He died nobly going to succor those in distress. In Amundsen’s honor I shall carry a Norwegian flag with us to the Antarctic continent.
R. E. Byrd
On January 2, 1929, the City of New York reached Little America, Byrd’s base in Antarctica on the Bay of Whales, on the Ross Ice Shelf, four miles north of where Amundsen had established Framheim. Byrd and his crew wintered over in Little America and discussed how they would achieve the first flight to the South Pole. They had to consider every detail: How much fuel and oil would they need to complete the flight, and how much of a reserve? If they had to make a forced landing, how much food and clothing, sledge equipment, and repair equipment would they need to carry for their survival?
They contemplated how they would attempt the flight: as a nonstop flight or with two stops. Dean Smith, one of the pilots, was concerned that if they hit a headwind, they wouldn’t be able to reach the South Pole and return to Little America, and if they landed twice for refueling, in unknown places, they increased the risks of crashing by 20 percent. They decided to run fuel and altitude tests to see how the aircraft performed. Byrd also had his crew itemize and weigh everything they would be carrying on the aircraft—emergency food, sledges, medical supplies, tents, radio, scientific equipment—and they did the same for the sledges. They removed what was deemed unnecessary and reduced the weight of everything they could.
Byrd planned two flights: the first, to place fuel and supplies in a depot at the base of the Axel Heiberg Glacier for the return flight from the pole, and the second, to make the South Pole attempt. They would also lay down depots as emergency rations for the aircrew if they were forced to land.
The sled dog teams were essential to laying down the depots. They struggled alongside their handlers across the ice in the brutal cold and weathered numerous blizzards. To Byrd and his men, the dogs were far more than work animals; they were dear friends. Norman Vaughan, who was the expedition’s best dog handler, had a favorite dog named Spry. Byrd noted that Vaughan loved Spry as a brother. Spry had worked so hard unloading supplies that his joints were so inflamed when he finished he could barely walk. Vaughan considered shooting Spry to put him out of his pain. Instead Vaughan and Byrd brought him inside, and Byrd kept him in his room where it was warm and gave him a canvas to sleep on. They fed him a special diet. A couple of days later, they took Spry outside for exercise just as his old dog team was running by. Spry saw his teammates Watch and Moody frolicking past, and he went after them in a burst of speed, overtook them, and summoned something from deep within to force his way to his position in the team.
Byrd wrote that it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen: “The whole camp stopped working at the sight, and watched with wonder how Moody and Watch muzzled the veteran, and laid their paws on him in a most extraordinary gesture. That these wild and untrammeled animals should be capable of harboring so deep and lasting a sentiment was beyond understanding.” Spry gradually regained his strength, rejoined his team, and together with the men worked toward opening the Antarctic continent by dogsled and by aircraft.
Laurence Gould, second in command of the expedition, conducted the first geological survey of the Rockefeller Mountains from the air. Byrd and his aircrew photographed the first aerial survey of the Bay of Whales, and they monitored and tested the aircraft.
Throughout the expedition, the scientists, especially the magneticians and meteorologists, and the radiomen, were constantly problem solving and trying to determine the best day for the flight, and how they would maintain radio communications and help the aircrew navigate.
William Haines and his team of meteorologists made surface observations—temperature, wind, and so on—and sent pilot balloons up to thirty thousand feet, making some of the first observations of atmospheric circulation in Antarctica. They discovered that the upper atmospheric observations were the only reliable sources for indicating immediate changes in the weather.
And they also discovered that the earth’s magnetism affected radio communications. Byrd’s three radiomen, Malcom P. Hansan, Carl O. Petersen, and Howard F. Mason, created a radio system that operated on high and intermediate frequencies, which were less affected by physical disturbances, and they were able to provide the aircraft with a radio compass and a directive radio transmitting beacon for navigation. In a building they called Ochs Radio Station, the radiomen—along with Fred Meinholz, the radioman with the New York Times—kept the men in touch with the outside world, but after living months in cramped quarters, in the bitter cold and gray diffuse light, they longed for spring.
On October 9, 1929, Byrd and Russell Owen, a journalist with the New York Times, stepped outside their building, and, as Byrd wrote:
The air suddenly became charged with ice crystals, which fell like rain. The sun broke through the shattered cloud fabric which turned yellow and opalescent in its growing power, then arched more beautiful than any rainbow I have ever seen swept upward, curved, and in a moment the sun was crossed by two great shafts of brilliant light, in the center of which it burned with leaping tongues of flame. On either side could be seen the trembling halos of the mock suns, each
impaled on its shaft of prismatic light. Directly opposite the sun was the anthelion, the reflection of the outstretched reach of the cross, a luminous pillar rising from the snows of the Barrier. For nearly an hour we watched this gorgeous display, while the ice crystals that caused it fell in sparkling showers. (Little America, 279–280)
Portrait of Russell Owen (New York Times). Owen’s coverage in the New York Times of Byrd’s Antarctic expedition won a Pulitzer Prize in 1930. Owen and the New York Times opened radio communications into the interior of Antarctica and from Antarctica to the world.
Owen wrote that night, “We went indoors deeply affected by the beauty and grandeur of this great vision” (Little America, 280). They took this display as a favorable sign.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1929, Laurence Gould with the geographic party radioed that the weather was unchanged with perfect visibility. Harrison set off his weather balloons, and Haines checked the weather charts and told Byrd that he would never have another day as good as this.
Just after 3:00 p.m. on November 28, 1929, Richard Byrd, the navigator; Bernt Balchen, the pilot; Harold June, the copilot-radioman; and Ashley McKinley, the aerial surveyor–photographer, climbed into the Ford Trimotor Floyd Bennett, filled with rows of gasoline cans, piles of clothes, and sacks of food. They took off at 3:29 p.m. from Little America on the first flight toward the South Pole. Their major question was: would they be able to gain enough altitude to fly over the “Hump,” the critical place in the route where they would have to climb to eleven thousand feet, high enough to fly above the Polar Plateau?
New York Times (October 16, 1929) story and map of Amundsen’s achievement of the South Pole.
At 3:29 p.m. they took off from Little America and flew along the depot trail but lost sight of it off and on as they flew through a confusing haze.
The wind was gusting from the east, and Balchen had to correct 10 degrees to the left to maintain a straight line for the South Pole. He was calm, but eager to reach the Hump. June was working the radio, McKinley was using the mapping camera, and Byrd was studying the chart and navigating.
The men were shouting above the sound of the engines to communicate. They were hot in their bulky parkas and clothes, but a cool breeze blew through the cabin, and when the sky cleared, it was flooded with golden light.
Byrd noted their position and remembered that Amundsen had been delighted when they accomplished twenty-five miles per day; Byrd and his crew were now averaging ninety miles an hour over the barrier. Byrd also realized that in an aircraft he had the advantage of speed over Amundsen and his sled dogs, but if the aircraft had a mechanical failure or encountered strong headwinds, things beyond Byrd’s control, these factors could destroy their attempt, and take their lives.
They spotted Laurence Gould and the geological party one hundred miles from the base of the Queen Maud Range. Gould radioed Byrd and he confirmed the aircraft’s position. When they reached the Queen Maud Range, Balchen opened the engines up to full throttle—1,750 rpms. Byrd watched the altimeter and used a sun compass for navigation. The Floyd Bennett climbed steadily to forty-five hundred feet. When they arrived at the spot where the Axel Heiberg Mountains and the Liv Glacier came into view, they had to choose a direction, and they had to decide quickly—wasted time meant wasted fuel.
They recalled that Amundsen had said that the highest point of the pass on the Axel Heiberg Glacier was 10,500 feet. June calculated the fuel consumption and the weight of the airplane, and then they determined how high they could fly. They realized the towering peaks on either side of them, surrounding the pass, were higher than the aircraft could fly. But they weren’t sure how wide the pass was, or if they would be able to fit through it or turn around if it was necessary.
Balchen noticed a thin cloud capping the Axel Heiberg Glacier, perhaps indicating a change in weather, so they chose to fly through the pass on the Liv Glacier, named after Nansen’s daughter. Byrd judged it was not quite as high as the Axel Heiberg Glacier and perhaps a bit wider.
At 9:15 p.m. June tore open the fuel cans and poured the contents into the main tank and dropped the two-pound cans overboard to reduce weight. June calculated the fuel usage. They had encountered headwinds so the flight took longer and used more fuel than they expected, but they had taken aboard extra fuel just before they departed. They reached the face of the Liv Glacier and caught sight of what they thought might be the Polar Plateau.
Byrd noted that the glacier rose sharply in a series of terraces, some of which rose high above the altitude of their airplane. And there were glacial waterfalls up to four hundred feet high that were more beautiful, Byrd noted, than any stream he had ever seen. But beauty gave way to concern.
Air was rushing through the pass, and the airplane’s wings were shivering and teetering and bouncing in the air. The air grew so rough that they had to change course over a scary sequence of crevasses and into downdrafts that nearly stopped their climb. The winds were so strong that they were creeping through the narrow pass, unable to turn around. They knew that if they lost power for a moment or if the air became violently rough, they could only go forward or down.
Balchen struggled to get the airplane to continue to climb, but it wasn’t gaining altitude, and he shouted to the crew that they had to toss two hundred pounds overboard. Byrd had to decide between food and fuel. If it was fuel, they might not have enough to get to the pole and back; if it was food, and they crashed, they would have nothing for survival.
Byrd ordered June to throw a sack of food overboard, and the airplane began to climb again, but the downdrafts pressing on the aircraft increased, and so they threw out a second bag. The airplane immediately gained altitude, and they managed to clear the pass with five hundred feet to spare. They climbed over the Polar Plateau and slipped past peak after mountain peak on the eastern horizon. And they continued their flight on the 171st meridian.
Admiral Byrd landing in Antarctica, 1929.
On the floor of the airplane was a drift indicator that showed the plane’s drift to one side or the other. McKinley and Byrd were constantly checking it. Byrd was using that information along with a sun compass to guide Balchan.
Byrd took a sun shot, and at 1:14 a.m. Greenwich civil time their calculations showed that they had finally reached the South Pole. They crossed the pole a second time, and Byrd noted that they were over the spot where Amundsen and Scott had stood, and in their honor the flags of their countries were carried over the pole. Only a white limitless plain lay below.
They headed back toward Little America; the mountains that had been vibrantly clear were now covered in fast-moving clouds. Time moved slowly, but a tail wind pushed them along, and they flew at 125 miles per hour at an altitude of between 11,500 and 12,000 feet.
When they reached Mounts Ruth Gade, Nansen, and Christophersen, Balchen smiled, and they flew between Ruth Gade and Christophersen. They were making great progress, but suddenly the mountains didn’t look familiar to Byrd, and then he remembered what Amundsen had warned him about. The mountains change appearance from the position from which they are viewed. Byrd realized that they had been flying at a different altitude and suddenly recognized Mount Nansen and the Liv Glacier, where they landed smoothly and refueled. After taking off again, they finally saw the Bay of Whales and the radio spires of Little America. They landed at 10:08 a.m., November 29, 1929, and having completed the first flight to the South Pole in eighteen hours and forty-one minutes.
Richard Byrd coordinated four more pioneering expeditions into Antarctica, and in 1956–57 he commanded the U.S. Navy’s Operation Deep Freeze I and established permanent bases in Antarctica at McMurdo Sound, the South Pole, and the Bay of Whales. The bases would open Antarctica for further exploration.
CHAPTER 20
Navigating
How could I explore Amundsen’s vision and Byrd’s legacy? Who would know how to fly to the interior of the continent and the South Pole? It occurred to me: the navigator that I’d met in Greenland
before the swim in Ilulissat. Samantha East would know. I remembered she lived somewhere in New York State. I looked through my files. We had exchanged e-mails, but I couldn’t find her e-mail address in my computer. I tried different name-and-letter combinations. The e-mails bounced back. I began searching, trying to find a scrap of paper with her handwriting and her e-mail address. I searched for hours and sat down and looked at the wall in front of my desk. There right in front of my face was a beautiful photo calendar of Antarctica. Samantha had sent it to me. She had sent a note. I had saved it. She said the calendar was to show me some of the places she flew with the 109th Air Wing and to remind me of the swim that I once did there. I had her home address! It was in a small pile of notes on my desk. I wrote to her and waited.
But time was passing. It was June 2008, and I knew that December and January were the months when people traveled to Antarctica. It was a narrow window of time, and I found on a Web site that the National Science Foundation had an office of polar programs for artists and writers who could propose various writing or artistic projects and compete for NSF grants that would enable them to travel to Antarctica and pursue their project. The problem was that it was too late to apply for the 2007–8 season. I couldn’t fit in the NSF time frame, but I needed to go to Antarctica to write about the men and women who were fulfilling Amundsen’s vision.
When I heard from Samantha East, she advised me to get in touch with Sarah Andrews, her friend who was an author and had been to Antarctica a couple of years earlier. Sarah immediately responded and suggested that I get in touch with Colonel Ron Smith, who was the in-theater joint task force commander for Operation Deep Freeze. Sarah explained that Colonel Smith was in charge of all the C-17s, LC-130s, icebreakers, and other ships that resupply the Antarctic bases and back-haul retrograde and waste materials.
The route the U.S. Air Force flies from McMurdo to the pole does not overlay Amundsen’s route; he traveled farther east, but the LC-130 flies from the Ross Ice Shelf over the Transantarctic Mountains to the Polar Plateau.
