BEFORE THE POLAR FLIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 20

BEFORE THE POLAR FLIGHT.

BYRD RELIEVES DISTRESS. SUCCOURS TWO TKAITEKS. \Vhen in Spitzbergen last month, Commander Byrd did something more thati tly to the Pole. He earned relief to two trappers, concerning whom word had been received tnat they were isolated in the snow wastes. W'lule lie was waiting for a favourable opportunity to make the Polar flight, news was received at King's Bay of the plight of tne trappers, who were stated to be badly in need of food. Byrd. accompanied by Mr. Floyd Bennett, ' his pilot, and Mr. Smith Meyer, manager of the Spitsbergen coal mine, lost no time in loading a plane with provisions and settint! oh* to the trappers' relief. The plane bore westward over the mountains toward Foreland Sound, which was reached in a few minutes. It thin followed the Sound southward, amid a gorgeous panorama of gigantic crags, swept bare by the winds thrusting through tiie limitless snow and fJiaeiers crumbling in crushed blocks along the shore. All ey.- were strained for traces ot the mi-.-ing men. who were supposed to have trap-lines all along the Sound. but nothing but the vastly beautiful waste could be seen. t oncern over the men's fate was intense when Miller Point came into i view, where it was hoped the men j would be found. In the far distance [tiie first signs of life appeared when three big brown dogs leaped out and ran madly toward the plane, apparently

harking. A moment later a human form emerged, and then two more, waving their hands excitedly. Food Dropped. Bennett drove pa-t them, and then circled hack at an altitude of about .">OO feet. while Commander Byrd opened a trap-door and dropped several tins of pemmican. to which a note was attached by Smith Meyer. He suggested that if a-sistanre was needed they should try to get a man through to King's Bay. Peder Pederson had been gone since October 14, while two others who went to fetch him had been absent for three weeks, although expected to return within a week. It must have been astonishing to them to see the giant plane suddenly burst through the Arctic stillness, unbroken since last summer. as the Foreland Sound has been blocked by ice since then. It was almost as strange to those on board to realise that they had made a contact lin less than an hour with men whom o'herwi-c could not have been reached except by two or three days' hard dog I sledding. I Tlie plane circled back and Vrth i several times, -watching to see if the j men made any signs expressing an apI peal for help. Nothing, however, but greetings were waved. Those on board waved greetings from the windows of the plane, and with Byrd now- piloting the machine, returned to King's j'Bay over the same route, after an [absence of an hour and a half.