POLAR THRILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 19, 23 January 1929, Page 7

POLAR THRILL.

CHASED BY KILLERS.

Byrd's Party Has Exciting

Adventure.

BOLLING'S GOOD TRIP.

(United Service.)

(Received 9.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, January 22. CB |fv ?£• .. R xV ßsel i ° wen - Copyrighted 1928 th« S e ," W«i* Time s" Company, and for r,nMW- is Post Di spatch." All rights world bl w™, n served throughout the Times' "1 Wireless t0 the " New York

BAY OP WHALES, January 21

We have had our closest and most disconcerting experience and that was with killer whales last night. It was a short, but exciting, guessing contest and came during a long excursion by Commander Byrd in a small boat to a lead along the eastern side of the bay in a search for a landing place for the Eleanor Boiling.

The commander took one of the boats with an outboard motor. He was accompanied by Strom, the first mate, Paul Siple, the Boy. Scout, John Sutton and myself.

It had been snowing nearly all day, with a stiff wind blowing off the ice. Although it was still snowing a little Iwhen we put off, the sky was thick and a dirty grey. We could see several miles and could make out the smoky outline of the ice cliffs ahead.

The boat ran along the edge of the bay ice toward the Barrier to the east, the commander and Strom conning the boat through big lunks of pack ice, ome pieces 20 to 10 yards across, pinch stuck out ;reat tongues of olid blue ice far >elow the water ine in ugly looking helves, cobwebbed md honeycombed vith perforations. There were long tretches where there was little ice—only a scum on the surface. The boat dashed over the waves, which lapped against the bow. When we first reached the Barrier iM was 35 feet high, a steep wall of whit" snow. Outside, the true Barrier line, in which the strata of many snowfalls could be seen, the commander turned the boat's nose southward, then along the Barrier for more than a mile, to where the ice was caked too thick for our boat to buck.

Byrd examined the face of the Barrier inland with his glasses, especially a point where the Barrier sloped gently to the bay ice, now blocked in high pressure ridges, then he decided to start home. The motor had other ideas, however, eo we had to take to the oars. We wound in and out of big cakes of ice while two Askua gulls swept down to look over the strange invasion. There were many snow petrels sitting on the ice cakes, camouflaged against the snow, only their black eyes and bills making them visible.

Approaching the point where the boat was to turn westward along the face of the bay ice toward the ship, the low. feathery spout of a whale was seen half a mile ahead. We regarded that spout with an interest that might mildly be called intense. Byrd, who was steering, was standing up peering ahead, his keen face outlined by his woollen cap. The drift ice was thick here. As we wound through it all eyes were turned on the point ahead, broken and serrated by upstanding cakes of ice from an old pressure ridge.

Another spout was seen, then the long black fin of a killer standing over a low cake. The question was, how many were there? Chewing gum rapidly, his cap pushed back, Byrd and Strom switched the .45 guns around so that he could get at them quickly.

We have learned that a killer can be killed by a bullet. Byrd headed a course close to the ice, straight for the spouts. The responsibility was his. We all sat silently and watched.

We had reached a point with a small inlet beyond it when three fins rolled up towards the ice. Byrd at once turned the boat so as to cut across the tails. We paused not more than ten feet behind them as they disappeared, diving under. Then they broke the water again 20 feet behind us, heading towards the boat in an enormous deliberate roll.

As the whales rolled toward us, Byrd stood, his body half twisted around so that he could see them, holding the tiller in one hand and his revolver in the other. As the killers went under again he shifted his course and headed directly toward the ice.

"Get ready to get on the ice," he yelled. One scrambled ashore with a rope and the others tumbled out. Byrd was last to leave the boat. The killers must have dived under the boat and the ice thinking we were seals or some water animal. We waited for a time to see tf they would reappear and after a few minutes started the motor. We pushed off, keeping a watch for the killers, but rea'ched the ship in safety.

The look-out said he had seen three killers pass the ship a few minutes before we arrived. They are probably still looking for us.

The Eleanor Boiling entered the ioc pack at 6.30 a.m., and sent a message: "We are right among the bergs and loose ice. We have seen penguins and seals on the ice for the first time. We are having wonderful weather, clear but with no sun, with 24 hours' daylight and temperature 38 above. All hands are in the best of health and spirits.'

At noon the Boiling's position was 1441 miles south-east of Tairoa Head in latitude 68.38 degrees south, longitude 177.50 degrees east.