Chapter 8 North Pole and South

Dinner was a jolly affair. Everybody was in excellent humor. Hal had quite recovered from his afternoon's experience; Pat had succeeded in getting the Marianne into perfect shape; Bill looked forward to his evening's plans with relish; and Bob was happy just on general principles, anticipating a great evening, and because he was usually happy. Mrs. Gregg, who often became lonely by herself, was glad of being in such pleasant company.

They went into the garden after dinner, and the Captain, after filling up his ever-present pipe, began his story.

"Well," he said, "there's only one way to begin the story of anybody's life. That's by telling when he was born, because after all, that's the first thing that happens to a man, isn't it? Well, Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd was born on October 25, 1888, in Winchester, Virginia, where there had been Byrds ever since anybody could remember. In fact, the first Byrd settled in America about 1690, and the name has been a prominent and honored one ever since. There were Byrds fighting in the Revolution and in the Civil War, so it wasn't from nowhere that our Richard Evelyn got his courage and grit that carried him through the dangers of being the first man to cross both the North and the South poles in a plane.

"He had a grandmother, too, who gave him a goodly supply of what it takes to do great deeds. That was Jane Byrd, who was the sort of person around whom legends spring up, and are carried down from generation to generation. In fact, one of them was a famous story of her killing of a huge blacksnake. It was during the Civil War. Her husband and her brother were both fighting for the Confederacy, and Jane Byrd was left alone to manage the great plantation and farm. And manage it she did. One day she went to gather the eggs in the chicken house, and found a great blacksnake had swallowed twelve prized guinea eggs that had been set under a setting hen. She clubbed the snake to death with a club, taking care not to strike the twelve bumps that showed all down its body the places where the twelve guinea eggs reposed. Then she cut the snake open and took out the eggs and put them back under the hen, without a bit of fuss or excitement. She took seriously the charge that she must take care of the estate while her men were away fighting.

"Richard Byrd couldn't have had better ancestors to back him up in his adventures, but every ounce of courage, every bit of perseverance that he inherited, he needed. He was a man who met with hundreds of disappointments, and innumerable obstacles in carrying out the plans that meant so much to him and to the world. But he was never downed by them. Set-backs that would have made other men, men of lesser caliber turn from their paths and give up their plans, were just so much more of a spur to him.

"Dick Byrd was never a robust man. He had the physical handicap of a bad ankle to overcome, and his general build has always been slight. He is not the huge, strapping hero of story-book fame; he was the little Napoleon with a great determination that outweighed any physical weakness. A man doesn't have to be big to get places. A little fellow, if he wants to badly enough, can accomplish a lot.

"And Dick Byrd certainly wanted badly to go to the Pole. Even when he was a kid in school, it was his ambition to be the first man to reach the North Pole. Somebody beat him to it. Peary got there first, but it took him a long time, and he had to go on foot. Byrd flew, and accomplished in a few hours what had taken days and weeks to do before.

"Not only did he want to go to the Pole-he wanted to go to all sorts of places, and he did, too. Before he was fourteen years old, Richard Byrd traveled alone around the world! That took nerve. And not only nerve on Richard Byrd's part, but on the part of his mother! The trip wasn't a regular round-the-world tour that anybody can make today on a boat that's like a little palace, but it was a rough, adventurous voyage on an army transport, and a British tramp.

"It was like this. You see, Dick had struck up a friendship with Captain Kit Carson. After the Spanish American War, Carson went to the Philippines as a Circuit Court Judge. But he didn't forget his friend Dick. They exchanged letters. In one letter the Captain mentioned that it would be a fine idea if Dick Byrd came down to the Philippines to see the exciting time that they were having down there. Dick took him up on the idea, and made plans to go. At first his mother was horrified at the idea, since Dick was not a strong boy. But with unusual intelligence, she decided to let him go, since the trip would be an educational one, and would do the boy more good than any possible harm that could come to him. The very fact that he wanted so badly to go, and planned his trip so carefully, made her feel that he had reached an age where he must be allowed to decide for himself. This was a very wise decision on her part, since it was probably this trip, with its adventures in self-reliance that made Richard into the successful adventurer that he is."

"The trip to Manila was made exciting by a typhoon that stuck the transport-something that the boy would not have wanted to miss, although the Captain of the transport could have done very well without it-he said it was the worst that he'd ever been through.

"They got to Manila, though, safe and sound, and Dick was greeted by his friend Carson. Manila was intensely amusing for a boy of fourteen. Amusing, and mighty exciting. The excitement included a lone combat with a gang of angry rebels armed with knives-from which the young Dick escaped only by the fleetness of his pony's heels. That's the sort of adventure young boys dream of, and that's the sort they should have to look back on, if they are to live the full sort of life that Richard Byrd did.

"From Manila, Dick went visiting to Darim Island. On the island the cholera plague was raging, and Dick got exposed to the disease. They put him into quarantine. He didn't get the cholera, but all around him men were dying in terrible agony. Finally the doctor managed to get Dick to the seaport, and he got a boat for Manila. They were glad to see him back, and he was glad to be back.

"After Manila, Dick went on his merry way around the world by way of Ceylon and the Red Sea to Port Said, where he reshipped for the last lap of his cruise. It was a wonderful trip for a boy, and there's no doubt that it had a great influence on all that he did later.

"When Richard got back, and had settled down more or less, his parents decided that he should go to Virginia Military Institute. He was popular at the Institute, as he was popular wherever he went, for his spirit-that old spirit that carried him around the world, and later across both of the earth's poles. It was the same spirit that made him try out for the football team at V.M.I.-and carried him to the position of end on the first team. It was at that time that an incident occurred which was to be very significant in his later life. In one game of the season he broke his ankle. This was not important in itself-but it happened to be the first break of an ankle that was going to bother Dick again and again-and almost at one time defeat him entirely.

"But I'm getting ahead of my story. After being graduated from the Military Institute, Dick Byrd went quite naturally to Annapolis. He entered in 1908. He carried his popularity and his success with him to this place. His grades were not of the highest, but he excelled in athletics, going out for football again, besides track, boxing, and wrestling.

"In his last year at Annapolis, Dick's ankle made itself felt again. Dick was Captain of his gym squad, which was competing in the big exhibition of the year. Dick, as Captain, wanted to make a spectacular showing, and cinch the meet for his team. To do this, he invented an intricate, complicated series of tricks on the bars, calculated to stir up the most lethargic members of the audience. It would have been a great trick-if it had succeeded-but it didn't. Dick slipped, somehow, and his hands failed to connect with the bars. Down he went-on the same ankle, breaking it once more.

"In 1912 he got his commission, and became an ensign. And he also began to formulate plans for his great adventures. Connected with the Navy-there was no telling what opportunity for adventure would come to him. But he reckoned without his ankle. It gave way a third time-this time while he was going down a gangway, so that he was pitched headfirst down. They tried to fix up the ankle-in fact, they joined the bones together with a silver nail. That is, Byrd thought that they had used a silver nail-and when he discovered that just a plain, ordinary nail had been used, he felt very much deflated. Nail and all, Byrd walked with a limp, and an ensign with a limp was just useless, so far as the Navy was concerned. So Byrd was retired.

"That must have been an awful blow to him. Not only was the only career open to him cut short, but he had been married the year before, to Marie Ames, a childhood sweetheart from Winchester. So that his retirement affected not just himself, but another as well.

"It might have floored a lesser man. But not Dick Byrd. In 1917 the United States went into the World War, And Byrd, who had been rejected by the Navy, and who doubtless could not have found a place in the army, decided to go into the branch of the service that wouldn't ask questions about his bad leg-because it didn't matter whether he had a bad leg or not-in aviation. So to aviation he turned.

"He entered the Naval flying school at Pensacola, Florida. It was a lucky day for Byrd and for aviation that he took to the air. It seems that the air was where he belonged. He was a Byrd by birth, and might have been born with wings, for the ease with which he took to flying.

"He became assistant superintendent of the school, and was on the commission to investigate accidents. There were a lot of them, then. The planes were not so highly developed as they are now-and the green youngsters who were entering the service could not handle them. You can imagine how horrible it was to see some friend's plane come crashing down into the ocean, and have to be the first to go out in the rescue boat, in order to do what was possible to rescue him, and to discover what had caused the accident. A warning from the observation tower-somebody was in tailspin. A deafening crash! And the rescue boat would be put out before the waves from the great splash had subsided. At this work Byrd learned that more than half of the accidents could have been avoided with care-either in inspecting the machine before going up, or in handling it up in the air.

"Dick Byrd was just too good. That was his tough luck at this point in his career. He was too good to be sent over to France, where he wanted to go. He was sent instead to Canada, where he was chief of the American air forces in Canada. At this job, as well as at any other that he undertook, Byrd acquitted himself admirably. And even though he chafed at being kept in America, he did his job well.

"But his mind was soaring across the ocean. As early as 1917 Byrd wanted to fly the Atlantic. But there was always something that interfered. After the war, he petitioned the Navy again about a cross-Atlantic voyage, and was given permission to go over to England and sail the ZR-2 back to America. How tragically this may have ended for Byrd you can see. The ZR-2, on a trial flight suddenly burst into flames and crashed into the Humber river. Forty-four of the passengers were killed, among them friends of Byrd. It was Richard Byrd's task to investigate the wreck that might very easily have claimed him for one of its victims.

"In 1924 his hopes seemed about to be realized at last. He was assigned to the dirigible Shenandoah, and was to fly it across Alaska and the North Pole. But the Shenandoah, too, met with disaster, and Byrd's hopes were again dashed. The Navy rejected his petition to go with Amundsen on the trip that he planned over the Pole, and all hope seemed gone. In fact, as a final blow, Byrd was retired from the aviation service altogether.

"But he was as undaunted by this setback as he had been by his retirement from the Navy. He set about immediately to organize his own Polar expedition, which was to be climaxed by his flight over the Pole in 1926.

"Floyd Bennett, whom Byrd often said was the best man in the world to fly with, helped him plan his expedition which was to be the realization of all his boyhood dreams and visions. It wasn't easy to plan, and the foresighted planning, they knew, would mean the success or failure of their project.

"They chose a three-motored Fokker monoplane, with 200 horsepower Wright air-cooled motors. It was 42 feet 9 inches long, with a wing spread of over 63 feet. It was capable of a high speed of 120 miles an hour.

"That was the plane, the Josephine Ford. Their ship was the Chantier, given him by the Shipping Board. The crew was made up of picked men, and Byrd knows how to pick them. Not one of them failed to live up to his expectations on that trip.

"On April 5, 1926, all of the plans being completed, and the last supplies of food to last fifty men for six months being stowed away, the Chantier sailed from New York for King's Bay, Spitzbergen. They got there on April 29th, after an uneventful trip, and anchored in the Bay. But the problem of getting the plane to shore arose. They solved it by building a huge raft, loading the heavy ship onto it, and towing it to shore through the choppy, ice-blocked water.

"When they got the plane onto the shore, the wheels sank into the snow, and they had to replace them with skis, which seemed ample to sustain the weight of even that great craft. How frail they really were was to be proved later.

"Byrd and his men set up camp, and prepared for the take-off to the Pole. They had to work fast. The Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile Expedition with its dirigible the Norge was well on its way with its preparations, and while there was no bitter rivalry between the two expeditions, nevertheless the distinction of being the first to fly over the Pole was one not to be sneezed at. Everybody worked-eighteen hours a day, with meals taken on the run. And nobody thought to complain-the morale never broke once. That's the sort of man Byrd picks to take with him-and that's the sort of respect they have for a man who chooses them. Byrd's a leader. No matter where he has come in contact with men, he has won their love and respect, and has got more work out of them by his kindness and gentleness than anybody else could have by slave-driving. They worked for Byrd because they liked to, not because they had to. He imbued them with his spirit of adventure, so that every man of them was determined that his expedition should be successful, and that Byrd should be the first man to fly across the Pole.

"One of the hardest jobs of all was packing down the snow into a hard, smooth runway for taking off. They had to take off going down hill, since there was no level stretch of snow for their start, and this hill had to be smoothed and leveled. The first attempt at a take-off was disastrous. The plane landed in a snowdrift, with a broken ski. The carpenters worked for two days and nights to make new skis, and the ship was ready for its second attempt.

"The second trial flight was a huge success. The ship rolled down the incline and took gently and gracefully into the air. At least they would be able to get off. The landing, too, was beautiful. So far, so good. They discovered by this trial flight that they could make the North Pole and return without landing once, as they had planned before.

"The Josephine Ford was a mighty heavy craft, and loaded with fuel and supplies, which they would need in case of a forced landing and overland trek, she weighed five tons. This accounts for the terrible job getting her off the ground and into the air.

"Well, finally everything was ready, the weather was just right; the motors had been warmed up, and Bennet and Byrd climbed into the plane, ready to start. Down the runway they coasted. There was a tense moment. Would she lift? With a groan, the men on the ground saw her lurch, roll into a snowdrift, and all but turn over.

"A lesser man, as I said once before, would have been discouraged. But not Byrd! He got out, inspected the plane, and found to his joy that it had not been damaged. No delay! Off again. They lightened the load as much as they dared by taking off some fuel, then taxied the Josephine Ford up the hill again. The men worked like Trojans to get the runway lengthened and smoothed out again. At last everything was ready.

"Byrd and Bennett decided to stake everything on that last trial. They decided to give the engine all the speed they could, so that at the end of her run she'd either rise into the air, or crack up once and for all. Even as they planned, they hoped against hope that it would be the former, and not the latter. The weather was perfect. It was a little past midnight. The men of the expedition were gathered about, anxiously awaiting the take-off. Byrd and Bennett shook hands with them, stepped into the cabin of the ship and started down the runway. The great ship rose laboriously into the air. There was a shout from their comrades. They were off for the North Pole! Those on the ground cheered lustily. The Great Adventure, for which one of those men in the air had been preparing all his life, had begun.

"They had to navigate first by dead reckoning, following the landmarks in the vicinity of King's Bay. They climbed to a good distance so that they could get a perfect view of the land below them, and looked down upon the snowy mountains, scenery grander than any they had ever seen before, and terrifying, too. In a short time they left the land behind, and crossed the edge of the polar ice pack.

"There are no landmarks on the ice, and when they reached the ice pack, they had to begin their careful navigating. In the first place, they had to hit the Pole exactly, chiefly because that was the place they had set out for, and then because if they didn't hit it exactly, they would have no way of reckoning their path back to Spitzbergen, and would be lost in the arctic wastes.

"But expert navigating was Dick Byrd's strong point. He had developed a sextant by which the altitude of the sun could be gaged without reference to the horizon line, and that was exactly what he needed now, because due to the formations of ice, the horizon was irregular. But figuring out position by means of the sextant requires at least an hour of mathematical calculation, and by the time the position had been figured, the men in the airplane had advanced about a hundred miles or more. So they used a method that they had learned, whereby their position could be judged by means of taking the altitude of the sun and laying down the line of position on a sort of graph.

"Their compass was of little value. They were too near the North Magnetic Pole, which had a tendency to pull their magnet from the geographical Pole to its own position, about 1,000 miles south. So they used a sun compass, that indicated their position by means of the sun. Of course, the fact that they had sun throughout the whole trip was an advantage. I doubt if they could have made it otherwise. Navigating up there is too difficult. Then they had to figure on wind drift. The wind, blowing pretty hard, say, about 30 miles an hour at right angles to their plane would cause it to drift thirty miles an hour out of its course. This they were able to make up for by means of the drift indicator, which compensated for the drift.

"Bennett piloted first. He would glance back to the cabin where Byrd was busy with the navigating instruments, and Byrd would indicate to him how to steer his course by waving his hand to the right or the left. When they were certain of their course, Byrd looked down on the land that he had desired to see since he had been a boy in school. Below them, stretching for mile upon mile was the ice pack, criss-crossed with ridges, seeming like mere bumps in the ice from their altitude, but really about 50 or 60 feet high. Every now and then they saw a lead, opened by the movement of the water-those treacherous leads that had led many a hardy explorer to his death.

"Byrd took the wheel. He steered with one hand while he held the compass in the other. Bennett poured gasoline into the tanks, and threw overboard the empty cans, to relieve the plane of weight. From then on they took turn and turn about at the wheel, Byrd navigating incessantly, until he had a slight attack of snow blindness from looking down at the snow so constantly.

"Soon they came to land where no man had ever been before. It was then that Byrd felt that he was being repaid for all the planning, all the hard work and heart-breaking disappointments that he had experienced. The sun was shining, the Josephine Ford functioning perfectly.

"Perfectly? Just a minute. They were about an hour from the Pole. Byrd noticed through the cabin window a bad leak in the oil tank of one motor. If the oil leaked out, the motor would burn up and stop. Should they land? No. Why not go on as far as they could, perhaps reach the Pole? They would be no worse off landing at the Pole than landing here, and they would have reached their goal. So on they kept. Byrd glued his eyes to the oil pressure gauge. If it dropped, their motor was doomed. But they would not land, or turn back.

"Luck was with them. At about two minutes past nine o'clock, they crossed the Pole. It takes just a minute to say it, but how many years of planning, how many years of patiently surmounting obstacles had prepared for that minute's statement!

"Below them was the frozen, snow-covered ocean, with the ice broken up into various formations of ice fields, indicating that there was no land about. Byrd flew the plane in a circle several miles in diameter, with the Pole as a center. His field of view was 120 miles in diameter. All this while he was flying south, since all directions away from the Pole are south. And now, his purpose accomplished, his hardest task faced him. He had to fly back to Spitzbergen.

"Soon after he left the Pole, the sextant that he was using slid off the chart table, breaking the horizon glass. He had to navigate the whole trip back by dead reckoning! With the oil fast spurting out, and the motor threatening to stop any minute, and no sextant to show his position, Byrd had his hands full. They lost track of time. Minutes seemed like hours, hours like ages. Then they saw land dead ahead. It was Spitzbergen! Byrd had flown into the unknown, 600 miles from any land, had turned about, and come back to the very spot from which he had started.

"Maybe you don't realize what wonderful navigating this was. But anybody who has navigated a plane by dead reckoning knows that it was a feat that called for great skill.

"Nobody was prouder of what Byrd and Bennett had done than the men who had worked so hard to make the trip a success, and who had stayed behind at Spitzbergen, without glory or reward except in knowing that they had been a necessary feature in the success of that journey. The whistle of the Chantier blew a shrill whistle of welcome. The men ran to greet Byrd and Bennett, and carried them in triumph on their shoulders. Among the first to greet them were Amundsen and Ellsworth, whom Byrd had beaten in the race to be the first to cross the Pole by air. But they shook hands with vigor. They were glad that it was Byrd who had beaten them, if it had to be anybody. Byrd affects people that way. He's just as well liked after successes as before them. That's the sort he is.

"They were pretty glad to see him when he got back to the United States, too. There were plenty of whistles blowing, plenty of ticker tape, and parades for the returning hero. But Dick Byrd stayed modest through all of it. In the first place, he never gets fussed. He isn't a southern gentleman for nothing. And in the second place, he realized that the shouting wasn't so much for him as it was for the thing that he did. He had brought the United States the honor of sending the first men over the Pole. And the United States was applauding the deed, not himself. But he seems to have forgotten that if it hadn't been for his years of planning, striving and struggling the deed never would have been accomplished.

"Well, Dick Byrd had accomplished his life's ambition. But it didn't mean that he was ready to quit. There were new fields to conquer. How about flying the Atlantic? He'd always wanted to fly the Atlantic. Anything that was all adventure appealed to him. So when they hoisted anchor at Spitzbergen after the flight across the Pole Byrd said to his companion Bennett, 'Now we can fly the Atlantic.'

"The plan to fly the ocean had its origin in the same motives that the North Pole flight had. Byrd wanted to make America aviation conscious; and he wanted to make American aviators conscious of the benefits of careful planning. Dozens of lives had been lost in unsuccessful trans-oceanic flights-the lives of young men full of the love of adventure, who made hasty plans, or no plans at all for spanning the ocean-who had no qualifications except a great ambition to see them through the great grind that was before them. Byrd wanted to show all fool-hardy young flyers that care, care, and more care was needed in their preparations. He had to prove to the United States, too, that if care were exercised in these flights, they were not necessarily dangerous. All this Byrd had to prove. And in the meantime he'd have the time of his life, steeped in the adventurous sort of work that he craved.

"So Byrd and Bennett started their plans. The first step, of course, was the choosing of the plane. Opinion was in favor of a single-motored plane for a cross-Atlantic flight, since a single-motored plane would have a greater cruising range; offer less resistance in the air; and be less complicated to handle than a multi-motored craft. But Byrd held out for the tri-motor, the same type of plane as the Josephine Ford, which had carried him over the Pole. There was this to say for it: if one motor stopped, the other two would still function; and it might be the solution to the problem of what kind of plane would cross the Atlantic in the future, when planes ran on regular schedule. They wanted a bigger plane than the Josephine Ford, though. So they had one designed with a wing spread of 71 feet, which meant that they got an increased lifting power of about 3,000 pounds. That enabled them to take along about 800 pounds of equipment above what they actually needed, to show that a pay load could be carted across the water in a plane.

"They needed plenty of equipment, though. There was a special radio set, rockets to shoot off as signals if anything went wrong; two rubber boats for the crew; and emergency food and equipment of all sorts for forced landings; and even a special apparatus for making drinking water out of salt water so that they would not go thirsty. In fact, they could have survived for three weeks in case of an accident. They? Why, Byrd decided that besides himself and Bennett, they would take along passengers, also to prove something-this time that passengers could be carried across to Europe by plane.

"They successfully petitioned the Weather Bureau to make predictions for the trans-Atlantic flights, and for the first time in history regular weather maps for aviation were made of the North Atlantic.

"At the end of April, in 1927, the plane was ready for its factory test. Byrd planned to make his flight in May, which he figured was a good month. It happened that there were at the time several other planes preparing to cross the ocean. Byrd was in no race, however. Of course, it would have been nice to be the first man across the Atlantic, as he had been the first man over the Pole-but he encouraged the others who were preparing and made no effort to be the first to start. However, his plane was ready before the others.

"Byrd, Bennett, Noville, who was going with them, and Fokker took her up for her first flight. Fokker was at the controls; the other three, passengers. Everything went smoothly. She took off well; her motors functioned perfectly. But as soon as the motors were turned off for the glide, they felt her nose dip. She was nose-heavy. When they tried to land, they knew definitely that she was nose-heavy, and zoomed into the air again to plan what they should do. However, they couldn't stay up indefinitely-they hadn't much fuel. Down they glided again. The wheels touched the ground. Fokker jumped. But the other three were caught.

"Byrd felt the fuselage heave up. The plane went over on her nose, turned completely over. Something struck him with an awful impact, and he felt his arm snap. They had to get out of this! They were trapped in a mass of wreckage which might at any moment burst into flames and burn them to death before they had a chance to escape. Noville, beside Byrd, broke a hole in the fabric with his fist, and they crawled out. The wreckage did not burn. Someone had turned off the switches of all three motors.

"Bennett? He was hanging head down in the pilot's seat, unable to free himself. His leg was broken; his face bleeding. He was badly injured-so badly that for a week it was thought that he would never recover. But he did-of course. His iron nerve and grit pulled him through. But any thought of his going on the trip was out. This was a blow to Byrd. There was no man he would rather fly with than Bennett, Floyd Bennett, the cheerful companion, the willing worker, himself an expert pilot, and able to divine instructions before they were even given. Tough luck!

"But tough luck, too, was the fact that the plane was almost irreparably damaged. Byrd set his arm on the way to the hospital, had them put it in a sling so that it would be out of the way, and went back to the factory to supervise the repairing of the America. It took over a month of work night and day to repair the damage that had been done, and re-design the nose so that the craft would be balanced.

"May 21st was set for the christening of the plane. The christening-was changed into a celebration of the successful flight of Lindbergh. Bennett was pleased with Lindy's achievement, since Lindy had proved the very things that Byrd himself had set out to prove-that with careful preparation, the ocean could be spanned; and that a successful ocean flight would stir the imaginations of the people, making them more conscious of aviation and its strivings. Then, too, Lindbergh cemented relationships between France and the United States, which was one of Byrd's purposes in flying to France instead of to England, or any other country.

"Well, after the ocean had been crossed, there was no need for hurry. Not that Byrd had been in a rush; but there was a great deal of criticism concerning the delay of his trip. Nobody knows how these things start, or why. It seems that it should have been Byrd's, and Byrd's business alone, as to when he chose to cross the ocean. After all, it was his life being risked, and his glory if the flight were successful. But a great many people in the United States felt that there must be some ulterior motive in his not starting immediately; and that he had been bested by a mere boy when he let Lindbergh be the first man to conquer the ocean.

"But Byrd didn't care. He knew what he was about. He was a southern gentleman, and he said nothing to his defamers. And he went on completing his preparations. Chamberlin, with his passenger Levine, broke the world's record for flying to Germany, in a remarkable flight. Byrd hailed their success.

"Then at last, on June 29th, early in the morning the weather man reported that weather conditions, while not ideal, were favorable. Dick Byrd decided to delay no longer. He called together his crew, and met them on the field at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. It was a miserable morning, and a light rain was falling. By the light of torches the crew was putting the finishing touches on the huge' America. There she was, atop the hill that they had built for her, so that she would get a good fast start. And a good fast start she needed, all 15,000 pounds of her. Think of the speed they had to get up in order to lift that bulk from the ground! They'd have to be going a mile and a half a minute!

"Bert Acosta was at the wheel; Noville, recovered from his serious injuries in the trial crash, sat with his hand on the dump valve, by means of which he could dump a load of gasoline if they didn't rise into the air; Bert Balchen, the young Norwegian relief pilot and mechanic, was busy with the spare fuel.

"The engines were warmed up. The great ship was ready-no, not quite ready. But she was eager to be off. The America broke the rope that held her, and glided down the hill on which she had been held. It was a tense moment. Would they be able to get this great hulk into the air? Along the ground she sped, gathering momentum. Her wheels lifted. There was a shout. She had cleared the ground. But the danger was not over. They must fly to at least 400 feet. Then the America showed her metal. She climbed on a turn, and they were flying at an altitude of 400 feet. They were off!

"On they sped to their destination at last. The wind was behind them, helping them; the weather was disagreeable, and slightly foggy, but this did not bother them. They reached Nova Scotia easily. But when they got there they got a horrible shock. They had run into a fog. But what a fog! One so thick that they couldn't see the land or ocean under them. And they flew for 2,000 miles like this, absolutely blind, with black towering clouds ahead of them, below them, and when they ran through them, all around them.

"The strain was terrible. In addition, Byrd calculated that they had used more fuel than he had expected, because of climbing so high to get over the clouds, and they might not have enough to take them to Europe. But they did not want to turn back. They would take their chance. Balchen and Acosta piloted with great skill, and Byrd took his turn at the wheel while they slept. The wind was with them, and they made excellent speed. Radio messages came to them clearly. They judged their position, and their gas supply, and found that they had underestimated their remaining gas. They could get to Rome.

"On the afternoon of the second day they came out of the thick fog, and saw the welcome water beneath them. They were bound for France, and they hit the coastline at Finisterre. They headed for Paris. Then they radioed ahead for the weather report. Fog! Fog and storm, with its center at Paris. This was the worst thing that could possibly have happened to them, this arriving at their destination in a fog. But they went on. It would be a triumph, and an addition to aviation knowledge if they could land in a storm, after coming all the way from America.

"They figured finally that they must be almost over Paris. But suddenly the fog below them was pierced by a queer light. It was the revolving signal of a lighthouse! Their compass had gone back on them, and they had made a circle, coming out not at Paris, but back to the coast of France.

"They turned around, after adjusting their compasses, and made once more for Paris by dead reckoning. They were above Le Bourget. But what could they do? They could see nothing below them, only an inky blackness that nothing could penetrate. Landing would have meant not only death to themselves, but perhaps to many people who had gathered to watch their triumphal landing. Their gas was getting low. Byrd saw only one solution. They turned and flew once more back to the coast. They were heading for the lighthouse that they had come upon accidentally before. They flew very low, over the sleeping towns and villages that they knew were below them, but which were shrouded in pitch blackness. A revolving light pierced the blackness, and they were at the seacoast. But over the water it was just as inky black as over the land.

"Balchen was at the wheel. Byrd gave the signal to land. They threw over a line of flares that gave them some idea as to where to land, then descended. The force of their impact with the water sheared off the landing gear. The plane sank to the wings in the water, and the fuselage filled rapidly.

"Byrd was thrown into the water. He swam to the plane. Noville was climbing out. The other two were nowhere to be seen. Byrd called to them. He swam over to the plane, which was almost submerged. Balchen was caught in the wreckage, but managed to extricate himself. Then Acosta swam up from nowhere. His collar bone was broken. But a hasty survey assured Byrd that the others were all right. Almost exhausted, they got out the collapsible boat, blew it up, and paddled to shore. It was a mile to the village, and they trudged wearily on.

"They certainly did not look like a triumphal parade when they got to the village, four tired, wet, dirty men, who looked more like tramps than aviators. They tried to arouse the villagers, but they could not. A small boy riding by became frightened when they spoke to him, and scooted away. Finally they approached the lighthouse, aroused the lighthouse keeper and his wife, and made them understand what had happened.

"From then on, all was beer and skittles. There wasn't enough that the villagers could do for the Americans who had landed so unceremoniously in their midst-or practically in their midst. They rescued the plane, and the mail that was in it.

"Paris was next, and the real triumphal parade started then. The flyers were almost overwhelmed with the wonderful greeting that the Parisians gave them. It was worth all of the hours of agony that they had gone through. They had accomplished what they had set out to accomplish, after all.

"Then America. Once more the American people welcomed Dick Byrd back as the hero of the moment. He had excited interest in aviation; he had proved many valuable scientific facts; he had proved a hero under trying circumstances; he had added to the friendly feeling felt by the French for the American people; in fact, he had done all things except one. He had not extinguished his spirit of adventure.

"No sooner was Admiral Byrd back from his trip across the Atlantic when he was planning another voyage, this time reflecting again the boyish dreams of his early youth. He planned to go to the South Pole to make certain scientific studies, and to fly across the Pole when he was there.

"Very carefully he began to plan. He first obtained his ships. The Larsen and the Sir James Clark Ross were to be used as supply ships. The City of New York, once an ice breaker, was to be his chief ship, and the Eleanor Bolling, named in honor of his mother, was to be the chief supply ship. He took, too, four planes, three for observation flights, and the huge three-motored Fokker, the Floyd Bennett. Every division of the expedition was equipped with radio sets. Every division of the expedition was further so equipped that in case of accident, or in case it should be separated from any other unit, it could rescue itself.

"Among the preparations was the purchase of about a hundred eskimo dogs, which were to be used in the arctic. Ships, planes, cameras, radios, footgear, and a thousand other details Byrd had to plan carefully. Almost a million dollars had been spent before the ships even left New York.

"In the midst of the preparations Admiral Byrd received a terrible blow. This was the death of Floyd Bennett, that someone has already told about. Bennett flew to the aid of Major Fitzmaurice, Captain Koebl and Baron von Huenefeld, who had been forced down in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, during the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic. At Murray Bay, Quebec, he developed influenza, which turned into pneumonia. He died in Quebec. Colonel Lindbergh rushed to Quebec with serum to save his life, but it was of no use. Floyd Bennett, whom everybody loved, and one of the greatest pilots of his day, had flown his last flight.

"It meant a loss to all aviation, but to Dick Byrd especially, since the two men had been close friends. There was no man with whom Byrd would rather have flown over the South Pole, as he had flown over the North. In memory of his friend, Byrd named the plane with which he was to fly over the Pole the Floyd Bennett.

"Preparations had to go on. It came time to choose the crew and staff which was to go with Byrd, to be gone for such a long time in the arctic wastes. The prospect does not seem inviting-the leaving of comfortable homes, of families, in order to spend a year in the coldest climate that will sustain life. But so great is the spirit of adventure in man that 15,000 people volunteered to go on the expedition. The men who were finally chosen were picked men-all physically in perfect health, and mentally alert. True, some of them shipped in positions in which they had had no training, but Admiral Byrd could safely say that he had made a mistake in no case. Every man that he chose proved himself worthy of the choice.

"Finally all was ready. On August 26, 1928, the City of New York started out. The Eleanor Bolling, a steamship, started later, as did the supply ship, the Larsen. The City of New York, a sail boat, got to New Zealand about the middle of November, the last to arrive. The Larsen's cargo was shifted to the other ships. On December 2, the Eleanor Bolling and the City of New York sailed for the ice pack. In about two weeks it came into sight. Then the latter ship took over the former's cargo, and while the sail boat sailed back for New Zealand, the steamer went on to penetrate the ice pack and steam at last into the Ross Sea.

"The ship and its precious cargo went on to the ice barrier, and it was on the ice barrier that Little America, the base of the expedition, that was to be the home of Byrd and his men for a rigorous year and a half, was built.

"The village they built was complete in every detail. As soon as they landed, the men started in with the building program. There were three clusters of buildings set in a circle about a thousand feet around. These included the Administration Building, containing living quarters, dispensary and radio reception room, a meteorological shelter, etc. Then there was the general dormitory, and the observation igloo. Other buildings included the store houses and medical supply store-house; a Mess Hall, which was reached by a tunnel, and contained the dining room, and more living quarters.

"The community was a comfortable one. There was plenty of work, of course, but there was time for leisure, too, and the men could listen to the radio, play with the dogs, read one of the books of the large library; play cards, in fact, do any one of a number of things. The food was good. Dried vegetables and fruits had been taken down in quantities. There was plenty of meat, both smoked, and fresh killed seal meat. They had electric light, and plenty of heat to keep them warm. In fact, the life was pleasant if anything.

"Of course, the most significant part of the whole expedition was Byrd's flight over the Pole. As in the other flights, the building of the runway was the greatest task, and one of the most important. It took the whole crew of 60 men to keep the runway in condition. On January 6th, the Commander made his first flight in Antarctica, making many photographs from his plane. After that, many trips were taken, new land discovered, and scientific observations made.

"The long night set in, and meant less activity, but in the Spring the sun rose once more, and activity broke out with renewed vigor, especially around the planes. Men had been sent ahead to cache food for emergency, in case of a forced landing of the Floyd Bennett. Byrd, Harold June, Bernt Balchen and Ashley McKinley were to make the flight. Everything was at last ready, and they were waiting only for favorable weather conditions in order to start.

"On November 27, this was in 1929, came a weather report that satisfied Byrd, no fog, and plenty of sun. The next day was bright and fair. The plane was given a final overhauling. It was carefully warmed; the oil was heated and poured in. Into the cabin went the dogs, and the dog sledge, the food and other supplies that the men would have to use in case of a forced landing. Into the plane, too, went Ashley McKinley's camera, which was to take records of the crossing of the Pole.

"Finally Byrd gave the signal. The Floyd Bennett was rolled out of its hangar to the runway. Balchen was to pilot first. He opened the throttle of all three motors. There was a roar, and they were on their way.

"Away they flew, into the cloudless sky. June and Balchen piloted, Byrd navigated. They flew high, and in spite of their load of 12,000 pounds, almost as much as they had had on the America, they attained an altitude of some 10,000 feet. This was necessary in order to clear the highest of the glaciers. On flew the Floyd Bennett, gayly as a bird.

"The craft had left Little America just before three o'clock in the afternoon. In ten hours she had covered 700 miles. Then suddenly they were over the Pole. They circled around in a great circle, whose center was the South Pole, and then turned back. At a little after ten the next morning they sped wearily into camp at Little America. In nineteen hours they had been to the South Pole and back, and Dick Byrd, even though he couldn't have been the first man at the North and South Poles, nevertheless found himself the only man in the world who had flown over both the North and South Poles.

"There was a let-down in the community's enthusiasm. The great task had been accomplished. They awaited the City of New York which was to come to take them home. Preparations were made for the homeward journey. It was with joyous cries that the steamer City of New York was greeted, and with pleasure that the men left Little America for New Zealand. By April they had left hospitable New Zealand behind, too, and had started for the United States.

"Once more his countrymen turned out to honor Byrd. Dick Byrd was now Rear-Admiral Byrd, but the same Dick Byrd as he had always been before. There were banquets, and medals, and many honors heaped upon him. All over the world movies which had been taken of the expedition were shown to entranced millions. Everybody shared in the work, the good times, the adventures of that group of men.

"And here was little Richard Evelyn Byrd, who had been the undersized, delicate boy, with a will of iron, and a spirit for adventure, the leader of it all, the prime force behind the whole expedition. He accomplished all that he sat out to accomplish, and more. The scientific data that he collected proved valuable; and interest in aviation was beyond a doubt stimulated. And that's that. How's that for a little fellow with a bum ankle? Pretty good, eh?"

Nobody answered the Captain at first. There seemed no answer. Each of them was busy with his own thoughts. Or her own thoughts, because the feminine minds in that gathering were working very fast.

"Well," said Mrs. Martin at last, "I am usually the last person to point a moral, but I do think that there's a moral in that story." She saw her opportunity at last. "I think that Dick Byrd's parents were responsible for the boy's success. If they had squelched his adventurous spirit at the beginning, he would probably never have got any place."

Mrs. Gregg smiled to herself in the darkness. "Do you believe in young boys going off by themselves, Mrs. Martin?"

"It teaches them self-reliance," said Mrs. Martin firmly.

"Do you think that they ought to fly planes by themselves?"

"And why not? After all, there isn't very much to flying a plane, if you keep your wits about you. And I'm sure that both of our boys have their wits about them. I think that the earlier you learn a thing, the better it is for you. It makes everything else easier, too."

There was a silence for a while. Then Mrs. Gregg said, with a laugh in her voice, "I think that I'm being worked upon. First by the Captain with his story, and then by you. I'm afraid I have no defense." She turned to Hal, who had not spoken at all, but who had been thinking a great deal during the story of Byrd, and the obstacles that he had overcome. "Well, Hal," she said, "what do you think? Shall we yield to these people? Shall the Greggs yield to the Martins?"

Hal had not seen his mother so light-hearted and gay for a long time. The pleasant evening and the story had had a decided effect upon her.

Hal didn't know exactly what to say, But his mother went on, "I think we're beaten, Hal. Do you want to go to the mountains with your friends?" Nobody there knew the effort that that sentence cost Mrs. Gregg, but she had said it, and she stood committed.

Hal was at a still greater loss as what to reply. His heart was beating wildly. There was nothing that he desired more now than to go to the mountains, but he felt the effort that his mother had put behind her words. Should he go? He wanted to. He wanted to show them that he wasn't afraid. And he wouldn't be afraid, either. Not any more. Other people, little fellows, too, had done things, had gone places, and they weren't afraid. So Hal said, "Well, I'd like to."

"If you wish to, you may," said Mrs. Gregg.

Bob, who had listened breathlessly to this conversation, could restrain himself no longer. "Whoopee!" he yelled. "Hal's coming along! Hal's coming along!" He jumped up and started to execute a war dance, dragging Hal after him.

Captain Bill was pleased. His story had made a hit-more of a hit than he had even hoped for.

* * *