SHADOW OF THE POLE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17116, 23 November 1929, Page 7

SHADOW OF THE POLE

BYRD’S GREAT FLIGHT A PERSONAL NARRATIVE W ONDER FT! L EX PE IH ENG ES (Copyright 1929 by tho New York Times Co., and tho St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All rights for publication reserved throughout tlie world.) (By Wireless to tho New York Times.) (Copyright Bv Commander Byrd). (Received Nov. 23, 11 a.m.) BAY OP WIIAI.KS, Nov. 21. The day before yesterday our Ford plane established a liny base almost within the shadow of the South Pole. We went out a total of 440 miles. Before we started the (light I told Dean Smith to deliver mail to the mountains. We all knew what an air mail pilot with mail aboard "'ill go through when it can beftone. Dean did a line job, holding the indistinct trail made by tlie dog teams of the geological party.

We passed the party 200 miles onl, and also looked down at our comrades 2000 ft. beneath us, making only HI or 15 miles a day where we were making 101) miles an hour. it emphasised the great difference between the old method of polar exploration by the dog team system, and the new method by ,aviation. The dog team party, however, will be aide to remain at the mountains for several weeks, where an aenqilor.e might be blown away in a storm. That is why minute geological investigations must be made by tho foot traveller even now. However, we have learned enough to design a plane that we can anchor to the snow and so defy tlie winds.

A CHAOTIC MAKS About midway in the flight we (Kissed over territory in the crevassed region that the supporting party worked its way through. We could see their zig-zag path as it wound in and out along the bottomless crevasses and dangerous pits. All the more we realised what a wonderful job this party did in getting through this area. A chaotic mass uf criss-crossing chasms, gigantic ice blocks on end, fan-shaped cracks, wide and narrow, stretching miles to east and west, it is entirely beyond my powers of description. We must let the mapping camera tell the story.

Not long after passing the crevassed area we sighted the great mountains on our starboard bow. Later, on the return trip, from 5000 ft., we thought we could follow them for 150 miles. We judge that we saw all the way to the Boardmore glacier, where Kcotf and Shackleton ascended to the plateau on their polar effort. .McKinley photographed this range, and a new one running near it in the same direction. We can definitely join up the Axel-Heiberg glacier with the Boardmore. glacier. This is a magnificent range. HUGE GLACIERS SEEN As we approached the mountains peak after peak came into view until finally the whole horizon from the south-east to the south-west was filled with mountains. It looked as if nature had built these impassable ramparts to keep forever the secret of the South Pole, but as we approached nearer we saw huge glaciers’debouching ice into the Barrier through great rugged gashes in the mountains. These are outlets for the two-mile high plateau of ice in the centre of which lies the Kouth Pole.

Never have I seen such rugged mountains or such magnificent scenery. Great mountain masses rise from sea level precipitously to thousands of feet, and peak after peak to heights 10,000 ft., 12,0000 ft,,. and 15,000 ft. McKinley photographed with his mapping camera dozens of mountain peaks never before seen. He will develop his films so that the world can see what we saw, and science study at its leisure and with the microscope these extraordinary glacial phenomena. Perhaps one of the biggest moments of the whole expedition was the landing at the foot of the mountains, for landing away from base on unknown fields is always uncertain, and even more so in polar regions with a heavy load aboard. ALL STAKED ON LANDING

As far as our aviation mission was concerned, and as far as many other vital things, were concerned, all our eggs were in the plane when the landing was made. All was staked on that landing. It was an unknown quantity. What a colossal mess it would have been had we failed. It was one of those risks one must sometimes take in the polar regions. Smith was given the responsibility of landing on this unknown ground, and he did his stuff just as he carried the mail to the mountains.

When we had built our base and taken the air again we could look back at the little pile of food and gasoline. It appeared very tiny and utterly lonely there on the great expanse of snow, with these tremendous mountains in the background, 'they make our problem a, peculiarly difficult one, and prevent a non-stop flight to the Pole from Little America. We cannot carry a sufficient gasoline load to scale those peaks, ita-cli the Pole, and return non-stop, so that, is whv we must have gasoline available at ‘the foot of the mountains, when we shall become short of fuel on otu return.