SPEEDING-UP PREPARATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3899, 4 December 1928, Page 24

SPEEDING-UP PREPARATIONS.

FAVOURABLE ICE REPORTS ESSENTIAL. OFFER BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. The Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, on the arrival of Commander Byrd in Dunedin, sent him a letter conveying a welcome from the chamber to the members of the expedition, and offering any assistance which it could give. Commander Byrd replied expressing appreciation of the chamber’s offer, and pointing out that whilst the expedition had already called on the chamber for advice, it would be pleased to do so again should the necessity arise. FELICITATIONS FROM FLORIDA. The following cablegram was received by Commander Byrd on Wednesday morning from America:—“Dunedin (Florida) joins Dunedin (New Zealand) in hailing your expedition and extending best wishes for your courageous venture.”— (Signed) Dunedin (Florida) Chamber of Commerce.” “ SUCH IS THEIR VERSATILITY.” Commander Byrd selected the personnel’ - of his expedition from over 5000 volunteers. Many of his men have been with him on his Greenland and North Pole expeditions, and quite a number are serving in dual or triple capacities, such is their versatility. Joe De Ganahl, one of the mates on the Eleanor Boling, is a wealthy man, as is also George A. Thorne, who is serving as a seaman in the City of New York. Dr Ganahl, who was born in Mexico, is not only a navigator, but also a good aviator, and is a reserve pilot of the United States Flying Service. He was a member of Byrd’s Nortn Pole Expedition, and of him Comm adder Byrd has written: “ Joe De Ganahl came aboard with bag and baggage the day we left New York, and said he had to go. I looked him over, sized him up as a good man, and took him. He turned out to be a perfect wonder.” Thomas B. Milroy, chief engineer of the City of New York, served with Byrd’s North Pole Expedition in a similar capacity in the steamer Chantier, which carried them to Spitzbergen and back. “ I look on his achievement of steaming north and back without a single breakdown as something close to a miracle,” wrote Commander Byrd. “ He claimed afterwards that his assistants were to blame for his ‘ luck ’ as he called it. But I happen to know he did his share.” COMMANDER RICHARD BYRD. Nearly two and a-half centuries ago—• it was in the year 1690 —a -boy stood by the rail of a little ship lying in the 1 James River, Virginia, watching a

crowd of negroes rolling the last hogsheads of tobacco into the hold. He was William, the first Byrd born in the New World, going to London to be educated. On Saturday, November 24, 1928, his great-great-great-grandsoh, Richard Evelyn Byrd, a commander in the United States Navy, stood on Pipitea Wharf, Wellington, watching the preparations for departure of a tiny ship—his own ship Eleanor Bolling—carrier of the most precious part of his equipment for flying from the Ice Barrier to the South Pole (says the Dominion). To all outward appearance Richard Byrd was the least concerned of any person on the pier, yet what was going forward meant more to him than to any other man there. So he had stood on a pier in New York on April 5, 1920, watching the last loading of the ship in which he sailed for Spitzbergcn to fly to the North Pole a month later. So, too, he had stood 17 months ago on Roosevelt Field, New York, watching the warming up of the engines of the great plane in which 42 hours later, he ' landed in darkness on the coast of France over 3000’miles away. With him was Bernt Balehen, who had piloted the aeroplane much of the way, and who cleverly landed it in the water when the petrol supply was running low, and it was imperative to land. And there were with him, too, other men who had shared in the preparation and execution of those great achievements. Now he was watching with keenly observant eyes the penultimate preparations for his departure on the greatest adventure of his life. For the half hour, in the brief intervals when he., was not discussing pressing matters of business, or, with infinite courtesy and patience, replying to well-wishers and signing autographs, Commander Byrd stood watching the stout little ship—the tiny basket packed with the most precious eggs of the ex-pedition—-the four great aeroplanes. Doubtless, in his mind’s eye he saw the Eleanor Bolling fighting her way through stormy seas and grinding packice on her 2300-mile passage from New Zealand to the Ice Barrier, and he was able to visualise the strenuous days to come in landing and assembling all this inass of equipment at the Bay of Whales, where there are no piers and cranes, and ingenuity, improvisation and sheer hard ■work will come into play. And it cannot be doubted, too, that' Richard Byrd, as he glanced up at the Bristol plane droning in swift circles over the hillringed harbour, visualised his great trimotored plane roaring across the white wastes of the Ice Barrier and over the mighty mountain peaks o£ the ice-cap of the South Pole plateau. Given a fair run to the base, this young man, descendant of the long line of Byrds of Virginia, backed by the best equipment that science can give him and a 100. per cent.' competent staff, will achieve his purpose.