BYRD’S OWN STORY

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1929, Page 7

BYRD’S OWN STORY

DIFFICULTIES OFFLIGHT TRIBUTE TO DEAD COMRADE NeT«k Timos.] (By Cable—Press Assn.—Copyright-) BAY OF WHALES, P** mbe * Commander Byrd states: • W down here with a cloud-covexed s y - like flying in a world that has turned to milk. There is nothing to check on the horizons, and there is no wa y J? tell where the snow begins, how rough the surface is, or even how high we are above it. The altometer records inaccurately on account of the rapia changes in the sea-level barometer, and there are bigger barometric changes in the Antarctic than any* where else in the world. With such weather, navigation would be uncertain and landing impossible. Visibility down here is like the little girl with a curl, —very good when it is good, and terrible when it is bad. To have sunshine for 800 miles in this country of changeable weather is more than one can expect, but for the success of our flight it would be absolutely necessary that the mountains around the plateau should not be cloud-cover-ed. In flying across the ocean one can fly through clouds, and even storms, with impunity, but when the course goes over the mountains, whose peaks tower highef than the ’plane can fly, good visibility is required to get between the peaks and over the glaciers.

“We have long felt that we might have to make several attempts before we could get proper combination of the circumstances. When we took off with our heavy load, clouds partly covered the sky. There was, however, a rim of green on the horizon to the south, and we knew it would be clear beyond. As the skis left the snow, all I could see in that white bowl beneath us was a little group of my shipmates, throwing their hats in the air, wild with joy that at last we were headed for the Pole. My mind shot back to exactly a similar scene in the Arctic spring, May 9, 1926, when Bennett and I rose from the snow at Spitzbergen and headed for the North Pole. Many of the fellows who were in the cheering crowd at Spitzbergen were below me now. It had been three of us, Bennett, Balchen, and myself, who had est out on this job two years before, and the three of us would be together at the finish, for we knew that Bennett’s spirit flew with us. He had selected the Ford plane, prepared it anti flown it, and had' helped with our early plans, so that his genius and his friendship were with us, helping us to reach our gool. The last thing we put in the ’plane was a stone that came from Floyd’s grave at Arlington. We weighted with it, the American flag we proposed to drop on the South Pole.

In a few moments we emerged from the confusing bowl of milk over the take off into sunshine that stretched ahead to the horizon a thousand feet beneath us. We picked up the dog team trail. It is only with the sun in certain position that the .trail can be seen from the air. Now it was a faint broken thread that we lost time and again but managed to pick up each time with the sun compass. “A strong easterly breeze forced us to head ten degrees left of the course to allow for this wind, so the plane crabbed along toward the south with its nose pointed well to the left of the trail. We had constantly to check the course by the drift indicator, the instrument through which the ground is sighted, to ascertain the amount the wind has caused the plane to drift from the true direction. We enjoyed the first few hours of the flight when we had time to look around, for flying over this mysterious barrier

NEVER LOSES FASCINATION. Shortly after we passed the crevassed area 150 miles from Little America. We sighted the mountains to the westward. Again I was struck with the majesty of these ranges. We saw one great mountain mass end, and another one, unaccounted for on the maps, begin to the south and running toward Breadmore Glacier. Great white glaciers flowed into the barrier, and about 100 miles off were some alpine snowcovered peaks towering high over the barrier,, that glistened like fire from the sup’s reflection, so that they looked like great volcanoes in eruption. Soon the great mountains ahead loomed up, and an hour afterwards we sighted the trail party three hundred miles due south from Little America. There could be no doubt" that so far we had come south straight as., an arrow. It was well for we had messages and photographs to drop for Gould and his party. We planned to leave food and fuel at our mountain base for them, and in order to enable Larry to locate the cache, a little speck in those great spaces, McKinley had located the spot on photographs he had taken on our base laying flight over the surrounding mountains. We dropped these in a bag attached to a parachute. We could see two or three of the boys dashing after it, for they knew it contained also radio messages from home, letters from friends at Little America, cigarettes and various other things ijie trail party had asked for by radio. We are expecting great results from Gould’s work, for geologically speaking, these mountains should tell things of great importance to science. “Those fellows are a long way from Little America, and they must be

HITTING THE TRAIL like veterans to make good as they uro doing. Seldom have men undertaken so difficult a trail journey for purely scientific investigation. They will have many weary weeks of hiking before, their job is done.

“Immediately upon dropping, the package, we started our long climb to get over the bump about a hundred miles ahead. Here was great uncertainty. For many months our minds had been concentrated on the knotty problem of getting over this rampart without having' to leave behind our mapping camera, without which the geographical value of pur flight would have been greatly lessened; Neither June, Balcheh nor I could manipulate the hundfed-pound camera, as serial surveying is highly specialised work. McKinly, with his three months’ food,

Polar equipment, and surveying outfit, weighed barely six hundred pounds. About a thousand feet was the highest altitude at which we could fly. We had made very careful tests with the plane, and had checked and re-checked our ' figures for weeks. Finally, we had decided that we could just stagger over the bump with an extra six hundred pounds.

BRITISH CONGRATULATIONS (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 2. Lord Thomson has sent the following message to Commander' Byrd on behalf of the Air Council: “Hearty congratulations to yourself and companions on the splendid flight over the South Pole.” antarcticTpossession. WASHINGTON, December 2. “The Washington Post,” in an editorial, declares that Commander Byrd’s Polar flight > has strengthened tlie United States’ claim to the Antarctic. The “Post” says that the British claims to Antarctic are based on nothing but impudence and effrontery. It is pointed out that Lieutenant Wilkes, of the United States Navy, discovered the Antarctic in December of 1832, whereas the Britisher, Captain Ross, did not see any land there prior to the year 1840. The newspaper contends that Commander Byrd’s expedition has been the more practical. . It adds : ‘ ‘He has discovered new lands, and has claimed them and occupied them for the United States.”