Byrd flies over South Pole
American explorer Richard Byrd and three companions make the first flight over the South Pole flying from their base on the Ross Ice Shelf to the pole and back in 18 hours and 41 minutes.Richard Evelyn Byrd learned how to fly in the U.S.Navy and served as a pilot in World War I.An excellent navigator he was deployed by the navy to Greenland in 1924 to help explore the Arctic region by air.
Enamored with the experience of flying over glaciers and sea ice he decided to attempt the first flight over the North Pole.On May 9 1926 the Josephine Ford left Spitsbergen Norway with Byrd as navigator and Floyd Bennet as pilot.Fifteen hours and 30 minutes later the pair returned and announced they had accomplished their mission.For the achievement both men were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
However some doubt lingered about whether they had actually flown over the North Pole and in 1996 a diary Byrd had kept on the flight was found that seemed to suggest that the Josephine Ford had turned back 150 miles short of its goal because of an oil leak.In the late 1920s however few suspected Byrd had failed in his mission.In 1927 Byrds prestige grew when he made a harrowing nonstop flight across the Atlantic with three companions.Famous as he was he had little trouble finding financial backers for an expedition to Antarctica.
Byrds first Antarctic expedition was the largest and best-equipped expedition that had ever set out for the southern continent.The explorers set out in the fall of 1928 building a large base camp called Little America on the Ross Ice Shelf near the Bay of Whales.From there they conducted flights across the Antarctic continent and discovered much unknown territory.
At 329 p.m.on November 28 1929 Byrd the pilot Bernt Balchen and two others took off from Little America in the Floyd Bennett headed for the South Pole.Magnetic compasses were useless so near the pole so the explorers were forced to rely on sun compasses and Byrds skill as a navigator.
At 815 p.m.they dropped supplies for a geological party near the Queen Maud Mountains and then continued on.The most challenging phase of the journey came an hour later when the Floyd Bennett struggled to gain enough altitude to fly safely above the Polar Plateau.
They cleared the 11000-foot pass between Mount Fridtjof Nansen and Mount Fisher by a few hundred yards and then flew on to the South Pole reaching it at around 1 a.m.on November 29.They flew a few miles beyond the pole and then to the right and the left to compensate for any navigational errors.
Byrd dropped a small American flag on the pole and the explorers headed for home safely landing at Little America at 1011 a.m.In 1933 Byrd now a rear admiral in the navy led a second expedition to Antarctica.During the winter of 1934 he spent five months trapped at a weather station 123 miles from Little America.He was finally rescued in a desperately sick condition in August 1934.
In 1939 Byrd took command of the U.S.Antarctic Service at the request of President Franklin D.Roosevelt and led a third expedition to the continent.
During World War II he served on the staff of the chief of naval operations.After the war he led his fourth expedition to Antarctica the largest ever attempted to this date and more than 500000 miles of the continent were mapped by his planes.In 1955 he led his fifth and final expedition to Antarctica.
He died in 1957.
