SOUTH POLE AND BACK

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1929, Page 7

SOUTH POLE AND BACK

BYRD’S GREAT FLIGHT A THRILLING NARRATIVE I ; . ■ ■ • ; ' • , ' i . ■ ■ . . . ■ - • ' \ ; I .. • -" '■ '■ ''' (Copyright—By Owen) ! Commander Byrd reports:— South Pole, Saturday, Nov. 29. “By my Calculations, we have reached the vicinity! of the South Pole. We are flying high for a survey. The aeroplane is in good shape. The crew all well. lam now turning north again. We can see an almost limitless Polar plateau. We are departing from the South Pole at 1.25 o’clock. ' BAY OF WHALES, Nov. 29. i Commander Byrd has returned in the plane from the South Pole to “Little America.”

! “A TERRIFIC BATTLE.”, ! byrd describes journey. i " IBs Bussell Owen—Copyrighted, 1929, the New York Times Company, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All rights for publication, reserved the world. Wireless to New York Times.] f BAY OF WHALES, November 29. The conqueror of the t\yo B ol es air, Commander Byrd, flew into camp at ten past ten o’clock this morning. He had been gone exactly ninet ®®“ hours, of which one hour was spent at the Mountain Base in refuelling. “The first man to fly over both .the North and South Poles, and _Jh e only man to fly over the South Pole, stepped from his plane, and < swept up on the arms of the men in camp, who, for more than an hour, had been anxiously watching the Southern horizon for a sight of the returning plane. Deaf from the roar of the motors, and tired from the continual strain of the flight and the long period of navigation under difficulties, Commander Byrd was, nevertheless smiling and happy. He had reached the South Pole after as hazardous and as difficult a flight as has ever been made in an aeroplane, that was tossed by gusts of wind, climbing desperately up the slopes of glaciers, only a few hundred feet above the surfaco. His companions tumbled out stiff and weary, but so happy that they forgot their cramped muscles. They were also tossed aloft, pounded on the. back, and carried to the entrance ot the Mess Hall. Balchen, the “clameyed” pilot, who first met Byrd in Spitzbergen, and who was with him on his Trans-Atlantic flight, came out first. There was a little smudge of soot under his nose, but the infectious smile which has endeared him to those who know him, was radiant. Then came Harold June, who, between intervals of helping Balchen and. attending to the fuel tanks and taking pictures, found time to send radio bulletins, which told the plane’s progress. After him, Captain McKinley was lifted from the doorway—beaming because his surveying camera had done its work all the way.. The men crowded about them, eager .for the story of what they had been -through, catching fragments of iheir sentences. It evidently had been a terrific battle to get up through the mountains to the Polar Plateau. “We had to dump six weeiks’ food to do it,” said Commander Byrd. “I am glad it was not gas’ It was ‘nip and tuck’ all the way!” '

“Yes,” chuckled Balchen, “do you remember when we were sliding around those knolls, picking wind currents to help us, and there was not 'more than three hundred feet undei’ us. At times we were just staggering along with drifts and cloudy around us.”

It transpires that when the plane approached mountains on the route south, Byrd picked out the line of a glacier somewhat west of the Axel Hiberg Glacier as the best passageway. High mountains shut them in all round, as they fought their way upward. Balchen was conserving his fuel to the utmost, coaxing his engines, and picking up the currents of air as best he could to help the plane to ride upward. Clouds swirled about them. At times puffballs of mist, driven down the glacier drift, scurried beneath them. It was a wicked place for an aeroplane to be walled in by the hem of towering peaks on either side. There was one time when they “had to lighten ship,” and Byrd, looking around for what could best be spared, decided to dump food. There was a dump valve in the fuselage tank, but he had determined to go through, and he did not know what winds he might face at the top, so the fodd was thrown overboard.

AWFUL-LOOKING PLACE. - Scattered over a ridged and broken surface lies- the glacier. “It is an awful-looking place,” said Byrd. They finally, reached the hump at an elevation of eleven thousand five hundred feet, and there was little space under the staggering plane, buffered by winds that eddied through a gigantic gorge. Once at the top Balchen could level off for a time, and then gain altitude. Then there came into view, slowly, long ranges of mountains. The Queen Maud Range was striking away to the southwest, and there was a magnificent panorama of the entire bulwark of mountains along the edge of the Polar Plateau. “It was the most magnificent sight I have ever seen,” said Byrd. “I never dreamed that there were so many mountains in the world.' They shone under the sun wonderfully tinted with colours. south-east a bank of clouds hung over the mountains, making a scene which I shall never forget.”

Ovei* the Plateau the Commander set his course for the Pole. They had a beam wind all the way into the mountains until they got over the edge of the Plateau. They had used a lot of gas, and there was some doubt as x to whether there was enough to get back. If as much time had to be consumed in coming in as going out, they would run out of gas. He took the chance- and won. Flying over the plateau with long, sweeping slopes, leading up to the mountains, with a wind drifting the snow down from them along the surface, it was very difficult to estimate the drift of the plane, but, by constant attention to ' the drift meter, Byrd was able to get enough sights on the surface below to keep the plane on its course, and to correct the inevitable tendency in all

long-distance flights to swing to one side or the other. AT THE POLE. Between the mountains and the Pole, at one point, Byrd saw a new range of mountains, lying apparently between the trails that were followed by Amundsen and Scott, but there were mountains far to the west in continuation of the range that’ was seen running up the western side of the barrier. These, as Byrd describes them, were simply magnificent. Everyone had rather hoped that mountains would be seen at the other side of thePole from Little America, but there was nothing in sight there. When Commander Byrd’s calculations showed he had reached the vicinity of the South Pole, he ran along a line at an angle to his course, and then he swung in a wide circle, as he did when he was at the North Pole, to make sure of coming within striking distance of that infinitely small spot of the earth’s surface. Some time was spent in that manoeuvre. Then the plane was set on a course for Little America. The accuracy of the navigation was strikingly shown in this part of the flight, as it was necessary to navigate the entire distance home by means of a sun compass. The Commander hit the Axel Heiberg Glacier exactly, and the plane slid down that to the Barrier. To understand what that means, try to realise being in a vast plane nearly four hundred miles from the place where the mountains were entered, with an encircling rim of majestic peaks, all looking different from the south side than they had looked on the way in. Amundsen had remarked on this vastly different aspect of his return journey, but the course, as laid, brought the plane flying high over the plateau to the mouth of Axel Heilburg. The plane kept a good elevation on the way down, but even so, it was a rough ride, for in the narrow gorge of this glacier, which Amundsen ascended on his way to the Pole, the wind tossed the plane around like a cork in a washtub. High peaks were sticking ■up all around them. It was the hardest part of the trip from a flying point of view. When the Barrier was reached, the plane headed for the base that it had laid down on the previous flight, and the landing there was made at five o’clock this morning. June landed the plane there, as he had been in her on the previous flight, and he also took off and made a splendid job of it. More gas was put in the tanks, and when the plane was in the air again, Byrd headed to the east towards Carmen Land. What they had seen there on the previous flight interested Byrd, and his interest was re.paid.’ He not only traced out more definitely the course of the Charles Knob Mountains, but also saw another range far to the east.

CAMP EXPECTANCY. The camp was out of touch with the plane sometime after this, although the signals from the locked radio key came in, and showed it was in the air. The men had waited up all night in the Mess Hall, clustering about the radio room to get news of the progress of the flight. As the reports indicated the slow time the plane was making on the way in, there was some anxiety, and the mechanics checked and re-checked the figures to estimate the amount of flying time that the plane had with the gas in its tanks when it left and what ground speed it was making. There was some gloom as the slow progress inland was recorded and then, as a long interval came between the messages before the Pole was reached, everyone wondered what was keeping June so busy. Finally there came the message that the plane was in the vicinity of the Pole, and there Was a sigh of relief, and the men lay down on their bunks and tried to get a little sleep. The whine of the plane transmitter from the loud speakers in each' house was a reassurance, rather than annoyance, and if this sound had ceased, probably.everyone would have started up instantly. As it was, the fluctuations in the signals made sleep almost impossible. The other two expedition pilots in the camp, Parker and Smith, were flying the plane all the way, showing by their tense expressions how they were linked with men in the cockpit of the Floyd Bennett, fighting its way through the mountains. One man lay down on a wooden bench under a loud speaker, and went to sleep, and when the signal strength died down one time, he jumped up as if pricked with a pin. It was an anxious night in the camp, for everyone here realised what those men in the plane were facing in their climb through the rifts in the mountains. There was a pleasant omen in the weather however. It was somewhat overcast in the north when the plane took off, but afterwards the conditions steadily grew better. There was a dead calm at Little America, and a clear sky, with only a thin line of sea smoke to the north over the sea. Better landing conditions could not have been asked for.

THE FINAL PHASE. In the meantime, the plane had taken off at the mountains on its return, and Byrd flew east for a time to see over into Carmen Land. Then he set a course for Little America,-and in addition to navigating all the way, flew the plane himself for a time. By starting so far east of the course for the camp, he placed himself out of reach of any aid from the flags laid down by the geological and supporting parties, and the dog team train. There

was a constant tendency to fly east, b(it Byrd was sure that his course lay further west, and he held the plane in that direction. He hit the trail about forty miles south of Little America on a direct- course for the camp, and word was sent in from the plane that they would arrive in a short time. Everybody here tumbled out of the houses and clustered on the snow near the Fairchild plane, where two deep trenches marked y the resting places oi the Floyd Bennett plane’s skis. They watched th© horizon, and after what seemed to be hours, a thin line appeared in the southern sky, and grew rapidly, flying high, and then sliding down rapidly to a few hundred feet over the camp. The men waved their hats and cheered,, jumping up and down, yelling with joy. The plane crossed the camp at eight minutes past ten, and two minutes later made a wide circle over the Bay, and landed. . One of the most difficult flights in the history of aviation had ended, and the conquest of both Poles by air had been accomplished. An adventurous thought born in the mind of a young Virginian several years ago had been fulfilled. The Atlantic had been spanned and the North and South Poles encircled by aeroplane. Commander Byrd, accompanied by Pilot Balchen, Photographer McKinley and Radio Operator June, had departed on Thursday afternoon at 3.29 Little American time, which is equivalent to 12.19 on Friday afternoon, in Australian time, the entire flight taking approximately twentyfour hours.

THE MEN’S STORIES. CHOICE OF ROUTE. BAY OF WHALES, November 30. The South Pole flight was one of the most dramatic, as well as efficient flights ever made. As the incidents were recalled by the four men concerned it seems miraculous that everything went so "well. The weather which favoured them turned into a storm in a few hours after the return way, in which the plane with its heavy load, was washed over a hump at the -top of the plateau. The smooth running of the motors under the most severe conditions, make it seem the more remarkable as the story is told. There never was a busier plane crew. One gets the impression of continuous and strained activity from their stories.

Byrd, in the morning, was about taking sights and observations from all parts of the’ plane, conferring with the others on the gas consumption and routes through the mountains and making notes. June and McKinley were juggling gas cans and cameras over a mass of supplies in the middle of the fuselage. Balchen sat for long hours in the cockpit at the controls, and was relieved occasionally, so he could stretch and handle the gas cans and tanks, as a break in the monotony. Both Mac and June were still stiff and sore to-day after a good night’s sleep. “I feel as though I had been run ovei* by a steam roller,” laughed June, as he got up.

The flight out to the mountains was without incident, and after passing the geological party, where mail and food for them were dropped, the plane started climbing. It had about eight thousand feet, as the mountains were reached. There came first the important decision as to what route to take. Axel Heiburg was the Amundsen route, but Byrd thought the Lins Glacier, named , after Nansen’s daughter, seemed the better path. Even that was a gamble, for although it could be seen that there was some sort of opening at the top, it was impossible to tell at first what height it, touched the plateau. To get into a narrow gorge, where the mountains would close in and the plane could not turn, with a glacier in front, too high for the heavy plane to climb over, would have been disastrous. At an elevation of ten thousand feet, it was seen that the plane could not get over the mountain with its load. “Balchen told me, he had to get rid of something,” said the Commander, “so I decided to dump food. The gas was too precious. Two hundred and eight pounds of grub were thrown through a hatch in the bottom fuselage the brown bags whirling over and over until they struck the' glacier five hundred feet below,. The plane had just passed over a steep precipice in the glacier and ahead loomed another

STEEP RAMPART OF ICE. Balchen had been dodging from one side to the other to get favourable upward currents, and when the food was dumped, June began to empty the gasolene from tins into the fuselage tank, and throw the tins overboard to get rid of their weight./ The plane was winding from one side of the gorge to the other, stretching the ten mile approach ahead as much as possible to help in the stiff climb upward.”

When he was not handling cans, June was making moving pictures. The plane was tossing in violent gusts and up and down the currents. The walls of the canyon were spinning past, and occasional views of the mighty peaks on eithei’ side being seen through the breaks in the rampart around them. Walls of stone were closing in around them, and the plane laboured upward. Ahead, a fringe of clouds lay over the edge of the plateau, where the glacier ended. On one side a little knoll stood above them. On the east was the higher slope of the mountains, ending in the clouds below, but far above the plane. Everything hinged on those next few minutes. There was no room to turn and no assurance that there was a gap where that fringe of cloud lay, and the plane staggering at its maximum, with the load it then carried, squashed along sluggishly. Perhaps it would make the grade with two or three hundred feet to spare'. Bernt headed for the knoll to rest in the hope that the up current, there would help them over, while Byrd beside him Started ahead, and at the sjdes and listened to the smoothly 'running motors. If one of them had Then, even as they watched a tiny hole, over the cloud and surface, of the glacier could be seen., The plane could just make it. With its final effort it just ballooned over, as Balchen put it. He shook his head and smiled at the recollection of that moment. ,

But the end of that-long. effort of maximum height was not yet over for flying at eleven thousand five hundred or twelve thousand feet, the plateau stretching flat under them, and only a short .distance below, they still had to flop along. June ,was still emptying gasolene and taking movies,' and Mac was lugging his big camera, weighing fifty pounds, back and forth/ Their movements made flying more difficult for with every change

in the distribution of ■weight at that height, the stabiliser had to be adjusted, and if was STIFF FROM THE COLD. Balchen was driving with one hajid, and pumping with the other alternately. .The others began to feel the effects of their rapid movements at such altitude, and emptying gas tanks made fumes in the cabin, which were almost overpowering. Sweat streamed off them. “I could feel my heart pumping away, and was gasping for breath,” Byrd said, “and wondered what was the matter with me, till I looked at Harold, and saw him with his mouth wide open like a catfish gulping.” The ah’ was warm in the plane all the time, so .warm that Balchen flew with bare hands the entire trip, and the others only put on gloves when they worked near the open window. The plateau, stretching ahead, was covered in spots by drift snow, and in the south-east and for a time in the south, clouds hung on the horizon again. Things did not look so good. If the weather changed too soon and it undoubtedly was changing, they were again out of luck. June relieved Balchen at the controls, and Bernt dumped seven more cans of gasolene into the fuselage tank, so it could be pumped to the wings or dumped if necessary. Ahead, was still another hump which had to be crossed, although the plane was holding its altitude and climbing little. -

“ABSOLUTE LUCK.” “The motors hummed steadily, like three cats purring,” said Balchen. “The weather and this hour of strain on the engines made another anxious time. It is difficult to guess the weather over an 8000-mile course without weather (stations. Not only were there no weather stations here, but half the route was at a tremendous elevation. A radio message from the geological party near the foot of the n. ntains said that the weather was cle«r there, and checking with the observations of the meteorologist at the camp indicated. that the plane could scoot through before a change came, but it was evident that the flight was timed with absolute luck, for they rode back on the wings of the coming storm. Byrd had the problem of drift to contend with then, and was constantly busy at the indicator, catching a glimpse of the Sastrhi as they moved by underneath, sometimes interrupted by drifting snow on' the surface. When he had an opportunity he a sight, and as the reports of' gas consumption came to him he estimated the probable length of time they could run There was seme wind against the plane, and the;’ gasolene problem loomed more and more critical as time went on. If it would only last! The sky had begun to clear and the light puffy clouds which had begun to form over the Pole drifted away and left clear sides. The sun would work any way, and a sight could be obtained. That was one comfort.” „ “But that last hour was a strain, said June. “It seemed that we would never get through. , Finally the commander, after taking observations with the sextant, gave the word to turn and fly courses to one side and the other, then to circle, and the dead reckoning of all of us was that we had gone past the Pole. We were, satis tied. I remember Bernt leaned back and stuck his hands out and shook hands.” . The route home was chosen, and tlie precision with which the sun compass guided them down the medidian was so that they struck the Axel Heiberg Glacier in the middle. “We couldn t have done that if we had not taken our departure accurately from the Pole,” said June,” and I think it was a remarkable landfall and showed the accuracy of the navigation.

VIOLENT AIR CURRENTS. It had been lonely, wandering round over that endless plateau. Meantime, the weather turned hazy, and that didn’t augur well. The mountains were entirely out of sight. On and on they flew, until a shadowy line was visible, and slowly the mountains began to lift out of the distance, their heads circling the rim of that white wor Id. over which they were flying. At the Pole, June estimated that they had 250 gallons of gas left. That ought to be enough if everything went well, and they could see the snow slipping by under the skies much more rapidly than before. They think they made ten miles per hour better time coming back over the plateau than going out, but they were glad to see the mountains again, even though at first it was difficult to recognise them. “They were just like company arriving,” laughed June. “We got over being lonesome right away.” As they were approaching the mountains they could see cipuds forming, and the wind picked up more drifts now and whirled it thicker. It sifted off the sides of the mountains and drifted over the glacier. When they reached the Axel Heiberg Glacier they had risen to 13,000 feet, and entered the great canyon at that height, then began to slide down it. Even so, some of the mountains towered above them, and some of them to the east seemed to be 20,000 feet high. They were thrown up and down by violent currents as they slid down the mountain pass over the glacier, sometimes the plane being tossed to one side asif it were a chip. skated round like I was on skates,” laughed Mac ‘and finally sat on a blow torch. I had to move around, but I ‘shot’ out of every window in that plane, and some of these pictures are just going to be blurs ■ of the walls shooting past. Byrd again went forward on the down trip, ■. standing beside Balchen. The glacier gorge was full of peaks sticking up through the ice, and little clouds were forming about them and on the sides of the mountains -which lined the way.' Ascending currents flowed from the (bar rock, heated by the sun, and -the cold down drafts dropped them as they passed over the precipices of ice and snow. iTheie was one great hole, the sides of it being nearly 6000 feet, where the plane went down like a rock for 500 feet. Everyone inside was skidding and hanging on, and Mac was struggling again with ’plane slid on fast, the motors throttled down, and presently came out over the barrier to the east of the depot placed on the former flight. Byrd turned east for a time, to see something of the country over that way, but the finishing .gas caused him to turn back after a short time, and he headed for the depot. “It was hard to find out first, as the mountains looked so different at this new pole, but they changed to a more familiar aspect

as the ’plane neared the baseband they looked like old friends,” said Mac,. “When we got down there,” said June, “I thought ‘well, we can walk home from here.’ ” _ “Yes,” laughed Mac, “and I thought the same thing, only I thought I could run that 400 miles. June climbed into the cockpit and took the controls, as he had been there on the former flight, and after the smoke bombs had been dropped by the Commander to get the wind direction, June picked a fairly smooth landing place, Fortunately, the wind was such that she could land parallel to the snow ridges, f and by the time the ’plane hit the' bumps, the had decreased by half. We taxied around to get the plane in position, so that a good picture could be taken of it there on the snow with the base and the mountains in the back ground, and ground the last of his movie film. He noticed that since the former landing mlch more ice had formed by the melting of the foot of the Livs Glacier. It was like looking at a big pool of water shining in the sun.” At the base, the Commander took more sights and then buried more food for the geological party. While he was doing this Balchen and Mac were opening the gasoline tins left there, and passing them up to June top of the wing, where he stood in the cold wind of the idling motors.

When they had refuelled, which took about an hour, they took off again, and made it easily with the light load and the wind to help them. The load was on the wings before they hit the bumps, which eased the shock on the landing gear and skis. From there on, the flight was comparatively easy, although Byrd had to navigate all the way. They went somewhat to the east, and when they came back did not see'the dog trail at all. They first hit it at the crevasses, about 160 miles out, making a perfect landfall there, and then following a compass course, for the trail was completely invisible at this time. They came straight on to the camp. The Commander flew part of the way, and Mac also took the controls on the latter part of the flight. They did not see a landmark until a few miles from the camp, and then sighted the radio towers, dead ahead. In a few hours there was a high w;ind blowing, so much drift snow that the house windows were buried this morning.

MESSAGE TO MOTHER. 1 NEW YORK, November 30. Congratulations and praise for the aviation feat are being heaped upon Byrd and his associates following the South Pole flight. Commander Byrd radioed to his mother, Mrs. Byrd,, senior ,at Winchester (Virginia): “Back after fine flight. It was full of thrills.” Mrs. Byrd stated: “Dick sent a Thanksgiving Day message immediately before his departure, and the entire family waited, worried but confident, until news of his safe return.” Mr Hoover radioed his congratulations to Byrd. WILKINS. EXPEDITION. DAMAGE TO PLANE. LONDON, November 29. Sir H. Wilkins, in a message from Deception Island, elated November 27, states: Cheesman, flying the monoplane, had the season’s first accident. He was not hurt, btit the tail of the machine was skinned, and the ,underpart of 'the fuselage was torn off as he landed on a pile of rocks. The machine is still upright. . The landing field is unavoidably narrow, and it is lined on either side with the rocks that were removed for last year’s runway. A cross wind sprang up during the flight, making the landing most difficult. A margin of three- feet would have enabled the monoplane to clear the obstruction. Repairs were undertaken immediately, and we expect to be ready for a flight on the evening of November 28. /