POLAR FLIGHT

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 17, 19 December 1927, Page 7

POLAR FLIGHT

AIMS OF BYRD’S- EXPEDITION,

COMPLETELY AMERICAN ' ' VENTURE.

“FILLING IN THE GREAT BLANK

SPACES.”

(By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 16. Commander R.' E. Byrd, the famous American aviator, has informed the National Geographical Society of his plans for his flight to the South Pole. Ho stated:

“The last great challenge to an aviator to explore comes from the •Antarctic Continent.”

He further said that the personnel and equipment of his expedition will be taken to a base at the Great Ross Barrier in a ship especially built to withstand ice pressure. Three ’planes, will be used, with which he hopes to lay down bases a hundred miles apart to the edge of the unexplored area and fill in “great blank spaces on the maps of school children at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.”

The party will be composed of six Esquimaux; the rest will consist of a dozen men who are expert at the work. Commander Byrd added that he hact already received over 300 aplications from persons, young and old, who desired to participate in the expedition. “The primary object of the expedition is scientific, and we hope to plant the American flag on the South Pole, photograph geological sections of the rugged mountainous cliffs, and search for fossil remains in an effort to disclose something of the past,” Commander Byrd continued. “I will depart from South America for the Antarctic, and I hope that a valuable by-product of the expedition will be the cementing of goodwill between the United States and South America.

Ho concluded: “It is my intention to make the expendition completely an American venture.” —A. and N.Z. cable.