To the South Pole!

As the heat of summer lingers in Kentucky, U.S.A., this October day, I am pleased to stay in the cold, far south of the world.  Richard Evelyn Byrd, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy Retired, tells us of "The Conquest of Antarctica by Air" in the August, 1930, issue of National Geographic Magazine."

Imagine a land as large as our United States, covered by ice and snow.  In 1930, there were many unanswered questions concerning the bottom of the world. "Is it a continent?  Some geographers believe it is two huge islands.  How far does its mountain range extend . . . How thick is the ice cap?  How old?  How is it fed?. . . Are there coal beds, minerals, fossils?" (p. 127).

Admiral Byrd reports, "with our airplane, in a single flight, we saw more of the continent than all the previous explorers, necessarily land-bound, could have possibly have beheld" (p. 127).  The land was also mapped by camera during his trip.

FYI:  "South Polar regions affect the world's weather even more than do Arctic areas" (p. 128).

Since there are no groceries in Antarctica, Admiral Byrd spent three years  making extensive preparations for the fourteen month trip.  They took tons of food and supplies with them on the sailing ship, The City of New York.  They chose this huge motorized sailboat due to the thickness of its hull, 34 inches of wooden timbers, proven to break ice if necessary.  Forty-two men went on the expedition "without critical illness or distress;. . . (their base contained) scientific laboratories, hospital, gymnasium, storerooms, mess hall, offices, machine shop, dog kennels, and radio station" (photo caption, p. 136).

For a new view of our beautiful world, look at the globe - upside down, with the Antarctic Continent at the top.  New Zealand is closer to the South Pole than Australia!  New Zealand is where many of the party's supplies were shipped prior to the Big Trip.  Oh!  The things I'm learning!

No wonder they took three years' supplies with them, in case they got stranded.  "When the winter night should set in, all the combined merchant marines and navies of the world could not reach us" (p. 137).

Admiral Byrd analyzed his feelings before the trip.  "I could get no sleep, knowing the risk involved, not only to the success of the expedition, but to the lives of the men.  I believe it is impossible for any one to realize how tough it is on a leader to have his men in grave danger" (p. 159).

Their two ships, "The New York and the Eleanor Bolling set sail from Donedin (New Zealand) December 2, 1928. (p. 138).  Also included with their supplies were two monoplanes and 80 dogs.  "In three days we faced the ice pack that encircles Ross Sea.  East and west, as far as we could see, the ice extended in an unbroken line of white" (p. 139).

The men tried traveling over the snow with a motorized snowmobile but it quickly broke down and they relied entirely on dogs pulling supplies on sleds while they skied.  The 80 dogs were fed with seal meat, easily obtainable.  The Weddell seals can be nine feet long, "sometimes weighing a ton or more" (photo caption, p. 168).  The men saw many penguins and whales also.

Part of the privilege of exploring new areas was naming them.  Admiral Byrd named the new land after his wife, "Marie Byrd Land" and claimed it for the U.S. (p. 168).  Note: parts of Antarctica had already been claimed by the British and Swedish during land expeditions.

The winter night in Antarctica was four months long, from April 18 to August 20, and there was NO SUN at all.  "Our main winter job is keep happy, and the way to keep happy under these conditions is to keep busy.  We allowed no one to stay in bed" (p. 175).

After the sun rose again, there was beauty in the land.  "The rolling plain of snow, leading into that vast ice wilderness, was tinted in soft rose traversed by purple shadows.  The Sun flamed above the western horizon; in the eastern sky rode the ghostlike moon" (p. 184).

The Admiral monitored news from around the world via radio.  "For several weeks we had been thrilled by the daily report from Dr. Hugo Eckener's flight around the world. . .we got in direct communication with the Graf Zeppelin" on August 29 (p. 183).  Please see this blog entry of Friday, September 27, 2013, "Around the World in 21 days in a Blimp."


To carry their supplies, all 650 tons of it, from the ships to the place where they would build the base camp, "Little America, dog sleds were used.  "They stuck to it without let-up" (p. 149).

During the fourteen months which the Byrd expedition spent at the Antarctic base, only two days recorded an air temperature above 32 degrees Fahrenheit" (photo caption, p. 162).  The extreme cold, as low as 72 degrees below zero, was, of course, a big problem.  Every aspect of the trip was considered before leaving.  Building materials and insulation were very thick.  "The walls and roofs were four inches thick and painted orange color so they could be seen from planes. . . not a nail was used.  The beams supporting the buildings were held by bolts which did not go to the outside, so they would not transmit cold" (p. 150).

How cold is 72 degrees below zero?  "We had to warm the candles under the meteorological balloons before they would burn" (p. 177).

The first plane, "Stars and Stripes,"  made its first flight January 15,  just weeks after camp was established. "Ahead of us stretched a vast snow-covered ice field that the eye of man was scanning for the first time.  We felt the lure of entering the unknown" (p. 154).

"In Polar regions there inevitably arise occasions when to succeed one must take long chances" (p. 159).   Here are some 'almost' disasters they faced:
*The planes 'almost' crashed into the many mountains they met.
*When unloading, one plane was almost lost to the breaking ice floes.
*There were no accidents when unloading supplies, even though everyone worked feverishly day and night.
*When a large ice chunk fell onto a boat, one man was thrown into the water.  The Admiral himself jumped in to rescue the man.  He failed but others succeeded in rescuing the man.
*On ice travel, there were many wide and narrow cracks and crevices, some descending 100 feet directly down to saltwater.
*The last supply ship was so coated with the winter ice it threatened to sink.

When the Admiral and his crew of three were ready to fly to and photo-map the South Pole, "we shared a feeling of excitement and interest; facing us was one of those adventures that occur seldom in a lifetime" (p. 193).  Near the Pole, Byrd described, "Never have I seen such rugged mountains or such magnificent scenery, but to us they were more like jealous ramparts guarding the solitude of the Pole" (p. 194).

The team decided to try to land close to the Pole at the base of a mountain.  "This was one of the biggest moments of the expedition.  Everything was staked on that experiment.  It was one of the risks an explorer must take sometimes to win" (p. 195).  They accomplished the landing, albeit rough.  They had to unload supplies for the geological team traveling by dogsleds.  In the extreme cold, they couldn't stop the airplane engine because the oil "would have solidified at once" (p. 198).  Then they left the area only to have to make an emergency landing in the rough snow when they were 100 miles from their base camp at Little America.

The remaining plane at the base brought them gasoline, they heated the oil and the engines, and made an uneventful trip back to base.

Byrd explains the difference between what explorers on foot could see and what could be seen from a plane.  "While a sled party can see over the flat snow approximately 50 square miles, from an airplane 10,000 feet up the visible world covers an area of about 50,000 square miles" (photo caption, p. 204).

Their primary goal of reaching the South Pole having been accomplished, the Byrd expedition packed up and returned by ship to New Zealand to be welcomed gloriously.  Byrd concluded, "Our expedition had carried the American flag a thousand miles farther south than it had ever been before. We are all proud of that.  Above all else - what means more to me than anything else - is that we left not a single man in Antarctica, and for that we give thanks to Providence" (p. 227).

When I started reading this article, I thought, "What could possibly be adventurous about a land of white snow in every direction?"  I found out!  This article was an amazing story of foresight, hard work, and scientific expertise.