FLIGHT OVER POLE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 44, 5 December 1929, Page 6

FLIGHT OVER POLE

BYRD’S GREAT VENTURE WONDERS OTTHE SOUTH The story of Commander Byrd’s flight to the South Pole, as told hy himself, is continued from the point to which the narrative took readers of the “Chronicle” yesterday morning. (By Commander Byrd.—Copyright) BAY OF WHALES, Dec. 3. Continuing his narrative, Commander Byrd states: There was not loss than 300 miles between us "d the Pole. If the sun remained, the sun compass and wind indicator should take us there as straight as the bee flies. We would have to ride the engines all the way as 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. What was an uncertain thing at any time, and more uncertain with a load aboard, was that the engines must keep going. . I was saying this to myself when the starboard engine began to sputter. Bornt nosed down and Harold 'rushed to" f.Ko gas tank valves and stood looking at the engine arid listening to the jarring interruptions the missing cylinder caused in the rythm. , Mac, for once, hesitated in his mapping work. After our hard struggle, was our flight to be Prided so near our objective? Bernt hurriedly manipulated the altitude control. In an effort to economise on the precious fuel, the gasoline had been made too lean. The motors began to sing again. I say sing for its roar was music, when it was riot missing. Plying on a flight of this kind is full of contrasts. Everythrrig is perfect one minute, and tho.next everything is black. All was well again.. We looked around .and ahead was an apparently limitless plateau, glistening in the sunshine — the great Polar PMeriu at last. It was good to see it after the months we 'had wondered about it and the hum 1 dreds of times wc‘ asked ourselves if we Would r ever be lucky enough to reach it. r To the left wpro , great mountains, their masses looming high above our level. I 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’s photographs must tell the story. Beyond this mass were Separate peaks of many different shapes, running to south-eastward . New Mountain Range There was due great isolated peak completely snow covered and looking like a great 'in verted white porcelain bowl. At the back of us running cast and west along the rim of the plateau, were enormous peaks lifting their heads high into the air. I looked over to the right and got one of those kicks, that pulls a man away from civilisation and which repays him for his efforts. There was a rieW mountairi fringe in the distance, running north and south —a new bit of land to add to the map of the world. Mac would shoot it with his camera. We felt that it was worth while bringing him for that alone. It occurred to me, as I looked around at the mountains, that they must, fringe the whole plateau. Nature’s great dam holding the ice and snow there. At present wo can only guess what lies beneath that groat ice cap and what is its depth. It is one of the Wofld’s mysteries. • That imaginary point, the South Polo, is in the centre of an uplifted plain hundreds of miles in diameter —a magnificent edifice seemingly built to make moftf inviolable the tiny spot which we wore seeking. The plateau, ..septus tp range from 7000 to ll.QOOft. altitude.

Bcyorid the new mountairi mass we saw a small peak sticking up through the groat expanse of snow—a very lonely black speck. ' It was hard to realise that it was the top, probably, of a mountain about 9000 ft above sea level. On wo .wont, flying at a rate of 100 miles through the air towards our goril. GUr drift indicator showed wind from the left. Wo had to head the ’plane a dozen degrees to the left in order to fly straight south. It was impossible to toll ouf exact altitude above the plateau and therefore not caSy to get our actual ground speed, as it would have been over water or ice near the 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 of a twelve inch wire in the bottom of the ’plane. Turning south, we took the time over the same object in the same manner, and then, with simple arithmetic, calculated the speed. To do this, we were forced to open a two-foot trap door. A strong wind coming up through it quickly numbed the face. We observed that it was 10 degrees below zero and was getting colder us we approached the pole. We found the wind against us, and instead of flying 100 miles an hour over the plateau, we were making only 84 or 85 miles.

While the mountains were still looming large l on our left, wo attempted to shoot the sun with the sextant to got th e altitude!! and so give us a sun line that would cut our line of flight, and, at the point of intersection, toll us what the sun had to say about our progress. But the air was not smooth enough. Th 0 five hundred and twentyfive horse-power engines in the nose of the 'pian e were exerting great force to keep iis two miles high, and seemed to add to the waving motion of the 'plane. It whs impossible at this time to kep the sun and bubble in the sextant together long enough to get a dependable sight. W e hoped that things would be favourable later on, but this did not \Vorry us, for our distance was so short that we could hardly miss our objective. Our altimeter showed us to bo keeping about the same atmospheric pressure and we were therefore not changing our altitude very much. The snow beneatii ug seemed to bo getting farther away, so we judged that the plateau was sloping down with a gentle incline. Back in the tail of the 'plane was a metcograph recording the changes in temperature, pressure and humidity, which, after the flight, would toll the whole story. Wo would know the exact moment of taking off, the time of every subsequent altitude, and the moment of landing at the mountain base and at Little America. Beneath us, somewhere, wa s the trail that Amundson had blazed to th e South Pole. The frail was now buried far beneath the snow. My admiration for that groat explorer increased tremendously when I saw what he had had to contend with. In his honour and in honour of Brent and the other Norwegians at Little America, and the whalers who, with such great gencro ity, have helped us, we carried with i the Norwegian flag. We also carrie with us tke French flag as we hav 0 no

forgotten the extraordinary hospitality that France showed to the trans-Atlan-tic fliers, nor th c friendship demonstrated for th e Americans at 11,1 time, and the sportsmanship displayed at the success of the Americans, in the face of thc loss of their own gal ant flier, who had set out on a mor c diincult feat. . A half-hour past midnight we again tried to get the altitude of the sun. The sight was better this time, and it showed ns to by close to oui 1 o.u reckoning—a position that was good, but there was still enough movement in thc ’plane to prevent our being certain that thcr e was no error. But v.e felt confidence in our sun compass and drift indicator, and luckily our sight did not change our calculations. Harold was piloting and Burnt came aft to tell me that it was not quite so clear ahead, and that we might hud mist near the Pole. Once or twice we thought we saw snowk drifting kencath. An Antarctic storm seemed to be closing in on us, but we thought •• could get back to the mountains ahead of it. We had extended thc Grosvenar trail now so near th c Pole that within easy visih.i.ly, lay Scott's trail, who, with his companions, had perished on his way back. That great h° ro who had shown there are things more important than life, and who, in failiuc, won immortal success. In his mcmoiy and that of hi s gallant comrades, and in honour of our cousin and friend, the British Empire, we carried with us the British flag. Territorial Rights.

There flashed through my mind that someone had attempted to start a wild controversy covering thc territorial rights of the British Empire and the United States as the result of our discovery What a pity there should be such a 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 Hie nations that they represented could bo known gnd felt it would add its mite towards furthering good fcldowship, so vitally important now that pur country has joined with other nations in a sincere effort to secure peace and harmony for the world. The Barrier edge was now about four hours back. No wonder the boys thought I was flying beyond the Polo —thc Polo which was only a little more than 300 miles from the Barrier's edge. The wind has caused us to take longer than we had expected, but at last the big moment had come. That imaginary point, the very bottom of tbc world, was, according to my reckoning, somewhere beneath and within our view; I handed Harold the following message to radio to our comrades iii America: “My calculations indicate that we have reached the vicinity of the South Pole. Flying high for survey. Soon turn north." Bernt turned the nose of thc 'plane to the right, while I attempted to get an altitude of the sun with the sextant, but there was far too much movement of the- ’piano for results. We know exactly what the altitude of the sun. should be, since thc altitude of the sun's centre at any moment at the pole, is equal to thc declination of the spn, which, at that time, was 21 . degrees 27 minutes; Thc sun circles that point without any noticeable change id altitude. We flew-on to the right for live or six miles and then circled and flow to th c left )an equal distance, and followed our original line of flight live or six milcS further. I had vvqntcd: to go 50 miles beyond the Pile instead of half a dozen, but we had been a long time in reaching it. I saw Harold’s and Herat's anxious eyes on the gasoline gauges. It Would not ,be fair to these fellows to go any further. ...

Wc turned the nose of the ’plane back towards Little America. When we had reacned the place at which we had turned to the right, we 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—that VJ Uttle silk flag and that small stone tied together at the bottom of the world. Wo were about 2500 feet above the Pole, and the temperature had dropped from 10 degrees below , zero. .Visibility, was good in most directions, but Avhat was die direction? All directions arc north from the Pole. When we passed over the Pole wc had changed our time a whole day. Now Wc had Changed it back again. Wc 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. We watched the Sun compasiV and the drift indicator like'hawks. Wc must hit the mountain pass. On and on ivc went. Time that seemed long before, crawled now. First the mountains to the right, which had been clear on the outward journey, were half covered with clouds. Mac photographed them. Apparently the storm had' just reached there. Burnt had increased the motor revolutions and the great cyclone engine was doing its stuff. Through the Mountains

Wo aimed our course a few degrees to the right so as to reach the Barrier more to the eastward than wc had left it, to get a better view of Carmen Land and to obtain survey photographs, geographically of great importance. (Suddenly Bernt gave a shout of joy. A little to our left was the pass we had come through only partly cloud covered and what avo tooK for the Heiberg Glacier was almost dead ahead. The clouds were begin ning to form and wc were just in time. Wc were very thankful that wc did not have to waste precious time and gasoline looking for a way through the mountains. Soon we were sliding down the Heiberg Glacier. It Avas very rough but the ’plane was light. In another few minutes Harold brought her down gracefully on the ice-hard sastrugi at our little mountain base. We put aboard 200 gallons of gasoline and ten gallons of oil and a gasoline stove for Larry Gould’s party. In an hour avo Avere ready and Harold lifted the Floyd Bennett easily from the snow and headed for the camp. We took lUrith over the rolling Avhite plain and it seemed to us that avo could sec all that wc had left behind. A few more Aveeks and then home!