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BYRD, RICHARD E. 1888-1957

EXPLORER

The Fascination with Exploration

Born to an established family, Richard E. Byrd—whose brother, Harry Flood Byrd, was governor of, and later U.S. senator from, Virginia—attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and started an officer's career through which he rose to the rank of commander. Although he was forced to retire in 1916 because of a bad leg, he remained active in a variety of land posts, in particular in Pensacola, Florida, where he learned to fly. Throughout he remained fascinated with the various attempts that surrounded polar exploration and soon convinced several industrialists as well as the National Geographic Society to support a flight attempt to the North Pole from the islands of Spitsbergen north of Norway, a preferred departure point for air expeditions. In May 1926 Byrd succeeded in flying to the North Pole. Although his claim to success has been challenged several times, he nevertheless gained heroic status in the American public's mind. The image stuck when he also successfully flew across the Atlantic shortly after Charles Lindbergh. Byrd's interest then shifted to the South Pole, where throughout the 1930s he and his teams would distinguish themselves through many successful firsts.

The Polar Quest

In November 1929 Byrd flew over the South Pole, taking off from his base of "Little America" some seven hundred miles away and thus becoming "the man who flew over both poles." Other flyers had preceded him in the Antarctic, but Byrd was also able to use his machine to place a geological survey party on the Rockefeller Mountains. He also had a photographer on board to record the territory overflown. However, his efforts were unsuitable for cartographic work. It was not until the 1950s that proper coordination for the purpose of map surveying would be achieved. Admiral Byrd returned several times to the Antarctic in the 1930s, supported by funding from the National Geographic Society. Each time new or improved means of carrying out a scientific investigation were provided. A Kellett autogiro, the first vertical-takeoff machine used in a polar region, was employed on the second expedition for atmospheric checks. Ground installations also evolved. The first expedition had established several buildings for geological, meteorological, and physical purposes. The radio lab was just a corner of the administrative building, but on the second expedition a "science hall" went up, intended to investigate twenty branches of the sciences in the region. Improvements in living conditions were also noticeable, as in the case of making orange juice, a source of vitamin C, available on the first Byrd expedition. Several unique flights were successfully undertaken, criss-crossing the Antarctic continent and thus helping establish reference points for use by later surveys. The limits of technological support became clear, however, in 1939 on the third Byrd expedition. Previously he had used several snowmobiles to carry seismic survey equipment too heavy for dog sledges. In this case Thomas Poulter, a physicist who had served on the second expedition, designed a thirty-ton snow cruiser with living quarters, a machine shop, supply storage, and gasoline tanks for both the cruiser and an airplane carried atop the mechanical monster. Tested successfully on sand, it failed in the field, sinking in the snow under its own weight.

The End of Exploration

Byrd, along with other flyers and explorers, ironically contributed through his exploratory successes to the termination of grand exploration. As he helped demystify some of the globe's unknown regions, his small teams of intrepid men eventually were replaced with large groups of trained scientists and logistical support groups specializing in specific aspects of the Antarctic region. Public enthusiasm surrounding Antarctic exploration subsided and focused instead on other events. Byrd turned to cultivating his image as a prestigious retired explorer. Nevertheless, the Byrd expeditions represented a unique example of the interrelated growth of science and technology, a necessary step toward the full-scale development of Antarctic science and research.