BYRD S GREATEST MOMENT.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 5 December 1929, Page 7

BYRD S GREATEST MOMENT.

mS FLIGHT OVER SOUTH POLE. (.Copyright.—By Owen Russell.) Received Wednesday 9.0 p.m. > BJLt OF WHALES, Dec. 3. Continuing his narrative, Commander Byrd writes: There was not-less than 300 miles between us and the Pole. If the sun remained, the sun ♦compass and wind drift indicator should take us there as straight as the bee flies, but we would have to ride the engines all the way. The plateau •was so high that if one of the three ♦engines should stop, we would have to land on the snow, which, at places, was nearly two miles above sea level. 'An uncertain thing at any time, if was in ore' uncertain with the load aboard. t ‘ -Tho engines must keep going .... To the left were great mountainous passes looming high above our level. 1 would hesitate to estimate their altitude, but they are .very high, since at this place the plateau itself is about 10,000 feet above sea level. Mac.’a .photographs must tell the story. Beyond this mass were separated peaks of many different shapes, running to the south-eastward. There was one great, isolated peak, .completely snow-covered and looking like a great inverted white porcelain v bowl Back of us, running east and west along the rim of the plateau, were enormous peaks, lifting their heads high into -the airilModked oyer to the right and got one of those kicks that pulls a man away from civilisation and which repays him for his offbtts.

* %ji'er& was a new mountain range in the distance, runniig north and south , —a now bit of land to add to the map the world, and which Mac, would shoot with his camera. We felt that at was worth while bringing him for that alone. It occurred to me, as I looked, around at the mountains, that a Ahoy must fringe the whole plateau—- ' nature's groat-dam holding the ice and .-snow, there. . It present, we can. only iguess what lies beneath that great ice •sap and what is its depth. It is one the world’s mysteries.

* ' Imaginary coal. ■ That imaginary point, the South Pole, is in the centre of an uplifted plain, hundreds of miles in diameter, a magnificent edifice, seemingly built to

•Snake more inviolable the tiny spot which wp were seeking. The plateau seems to range from .7.000 to 11,000 feet in altitude. 80. . yond the now mountain mass, we saw :a small peak sticking up through a great expanse of snow, a very lonely little black speck. It was hard to rea- . Jiae that it was probably the top of a jnpuntain about 9000 feet above sea level.

On we- went, flying at the rate of - JOO miles an-hour towards our goal. We bad to head the ’plane a dozen degrees to the loft in order to fly straight -■south. It was impossible to toll our

•exact altitude above the .plateau and

not easy to get our actual .ground speed, as it would have been •over water or ice near sea level but

there was a way—with a stop-watch. Wo got the time it took a smoke bomb beneath to traverse the : length a twelve-inch wire in the bottom ’ -of the 'plane. Turning south, we took •the time over the same object in the .same manner, then with, simple arithajetie calculated our speed. —lt was ten degrees below zero and .getting colder as we approached the Pole. We now found the wind against me, and instead of flying 100 miles an hour over the plateau, we were making -only about 85 m.p.h. It would take tie longer to reach the Pole, but wo would come back faster. We took a look back at the mountains and when we saw their great height, we realised ■that we must be very careful to allow for the wind. Unless we reached our •pass on tho Axel Heiberg glacier and * flew through down to the barrier, wo might be trapped by mountains we *rould not scale. Supposing clouds should close in around the mountains before our return, that would indeed 3rap us. Varied Topography.

■ Tho character of the plateau surface •varied greatly from time to time. We

-«aw to tho left the foot of a magni

glacier, running down from the and showing chaotic masses of ctevassed ice, shining blue against tho white snow. This" may have been thb “devil’s ballroom,” that dangerous area which Amundsen traversed. Wo passed over groups of haycocks, those small, rounded domes of snow which cover bottomless pits. There •wore wind-formed, arrow-shaped ridges, glistening more in the sun than the -other snow surfaces. That area must 'be one, of violent winds and landing ■there would have been like landing -among rocks. While the mountains wero still looming largo on the left, wc attempted to -.shoot the\sun with a sextant.to get our • and ».o. g»yc' *»• a linc tha * would erit our line of flight and at

the point of intersection:, tell us what w : the sun had.to say about our progress I ut the air was not smooth enough. The power engines Tn the nose of ‘the-, plane; exerting great force to keep tm two miles high, seemed to add to •the weaving motion of the ’plane. It was impossible, at this time to keep "the sun and the bubble in the sextant together long.onnugh to get a dependable. ’Sight: We hoped that things would favourable later on but this did not •’ worry us, for our distance was so - short that we could hardly miss our 7 bo keeping -about the same atmospheric preiwure. and we were there!ore not changing our altitude very much. The snow beneath us seemed to be 'getting farther away, so we judged p -that the plateau was sloping down - . with a gentle incline. Back in the tail

of the ’plami was a meteorgraph, recording changes in temperature, pressure and- humidity, which after the flight, would tell the whole story. Wo would know the exact moment of tak ing off, time of every subsequent altitude, the moment* of landing at the mountain base, and at Little America. Beneath us.somewhere was the trail that Amundsen had blazed to the South Pole. The trail was now buried far beneath the snow. ' My admiration for that great explorer increased tremendously when 1 saw with what he had' to cohtohd. Other Nations Honoured.

In his honour and in honour of Brent and other Norwegians at Little America and the whalers who, with such great generosity, had helped us, we earried- with us a Norwegian flag. We also carried with us a French' flag, as we had not forgotten’ the extraordinary hospitality that France showed our trana-Atlantio fliers, nor the friendship demonstrated for America at that time and the sportsmanship displayed at the success of Americans in the face of the loss of their gallant flier, who had set out on a more difficult feat.

The temperature seemed to be falling as we neared the Polo. The mountains abaft the beam were fading now and clouds, which may have covered unseen mountains, showed on tho horizon off the port bow. Harold was piloting and Burnt cam© aft to tell me that it was not quite se clear ahead and that we might find mist near the Pole. Once or twice, we thought wo saw snow drifting beneath. An Antarctic storm seemed to bo closirg in on us, but with luck, we should beat that storm. We were now so near the Polo that within easy visibility lay Scott’s trail, who with his companions had perished on his way back. That groat hero, who -had shown there are things more important than life and who, in failure, won immortal success. In his memory and that of his gallant comrades and in honour of our cousin and friend, the ■British Empire, we carried with us a British flag.

The barrier edge was now about four hours back. No wonder the boys thought I was flying beyond the Pole—the Polo which was only a little more than 300 miles from the barrier’s edge. The wind had caused us to take longer than we had expected but at Last, the big moment had come! That imaginary point the very bottom of the world, was according to my reckoning, somewhere beneath and within our view.

I handed Harold the following, message to radio to our comrades at Little America; “My calculations indicate we have, reached the vicinity of the South Pole. We arc flying high for survey and will soon turn north.” Bernt turned the nose of the ’plane to the rig-ht, while I attempted to get the altitude of the sun with the sextant but there was far too much movement of the ’plane for results. We knew exactly what the altitude of the sun should be, since the altitude of the Sun’s centre at any moment at the Pole is equal to the declination of the sun, which at that time, was 21 degrees 27 minutes. The sun circles that point without any noticeable change in altitude.

We flew on to the right for five or six miles, then circled and flew to the left an equal distance and followed our original line of flight five or six miles further. I had wanted to go 50 miles beyond the Pole, instead of half a dozen but we had been a long time in reaching it. I saw Harold's and Bernt’s anxious eyes on tho gasoline gauges. It would not be fair to these fellows to go any further,, so wo turned the nose of the plane back toward Little America. The Greatest Moment.

When wo reached the place at which we had turned to the right, wo opened the trap door and dropped the American flag weighted with a stone from Bennett’s grave. We stood and saluted the spirit 'of our gallant comrade and our country’s flag. We were about 2,500 feet above the Pole and the temperature had dropped from ten degrees, below zero. Visibility was good in most directions but what was direction? All directions are north from, the Polo. When wo passed over the Polo, we had changed our time a whole day and now we had changed it back again.

We still had a job to do. The .winds were gathering in force and in a short time, we could see more patches of drifting snow beneath us. Wc watched the sun compass and drift indicator like hawks. Wo must hit tho mountain pass..

The mountains to the right, which had been clear on our outward journey, were half covered with clouds. Mac photographed them." Apparently, a storm had just reached there. Dernt had increased .the motor revolution and the great Cyclone engine was “doing its stuff." We aimed our course a few degrees to the right, so as to reach the barrier more to the eastward than we had left, to get a better view of Carmen Land and to obtain survey photographs, geographically of great importance.

Bernt gave a shout of joy. A little to our left was the pass we had come through, only partly cloud-covered and what we took for the Heiberg Glacier was almost dead ahead. We were „t st in time and were very thankful that we did not have to waste precious time and gasoline looking for a way through the mountains.

Soon we were sliding down the Hoi* berg Glacier. It was very rough \ut the ’plane was light. In another few minutes, Harold brought her down gracefully on our little mountain base. We put aboard 200 gallons of gasolene, ten gallons of oil and a gasolene stove for Larry Gould's party. In an hour we wore ready and Harold lifted

the Floyd Bennett easily from the snow and headed for camp. We took nortl*. over a rolling, white plain and it seemed to us we could see all that we had left behind. A few more weeks ’ work, then home.

COMPANION OF SCOTT DENOUNCES DANISH CRITICISM.

SHACKLBTON POUND MOUNTAIN RANGE

DISMISSED AS FANTASY. Received Wednesday 8.30 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 4. Mr. Herbert George Ponting F.R.G.S., in a letter to the Daily Mail, who says he speaks for all, of Scott 'a companions, denounces tho whole tone and spirit of the remafks of Major Gran. Ho says they can only recoil on himself.

Commander Bryd spent two yearg preparing for the expedition, and established his base on the great ico barrier in, December.

His staff included geologists, meteorologists and other scientists. The main geologist party is now proceeding with dog teams to examine mountains, 500 miles from the base, which Major Gran dismisses as a fantasy. Every polar explorer, he says, know T s this vast range was first discovered by Lieut. Shackleton. “I highly admire the achievement of Byrd and his comrades. It is a colossal task.”

He recalls Byrd’s fine wireless tributes to Scott and the other pioneers and his words before Scott’s statue at Dunedin, which were a most beautiful and touching tribute from one man to the memory of another.

Mr. Pouting was the cameraman with Scott’s last expedition and subsequently lectured widely on his experiences.

Byrd’s Coments on “Wild Controversy”

PEACEFUL MISSION. (Copyright from Commander Byrd.) Received Wednesday lO.iib p.m. BAY OF WHALES, Dec. 3. In a long dispatch. Commander Byrd states: “There flashed through my mind the fact that some had attempted to start a wild controversy covering the territorial rights of the British Empire and the United States, as a result of our discoveries. What a pity there could bo such controversy! “This is a peaceful and scientific mission, trying to extend the boundaries of land and knowledge made by those heroes who gave their lives here. If the spirit of this expedition towards those gallant men and the nation that they represented could be known and felt, it would add its mite toward furthering that good fellowship which is .so vitally important, now that our country has joined with other nations in a sincere effort to secure peace and harmony for the world.”