Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr., USN (25 October 1888 – 11 March 1957) was an American naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights, in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of theAntarctic Plateau. Byrd claimed that his expeditions had been the first to reach the North Pole and theSouth Pole by air. However, majority of polar experts are now of the opinion that Roald Amundsenhas the first verifiable claim to each pole.^[1][2] Byrd was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for heroism given by the United States.

Ancestry[edit]

He was the son of Esther Bolling (Flood) and Richard Evelyn Byrd, Sr. He was a descendant of one of the First Families of Virginia. His ancestors include planter John Rolfe and his wife Pocahontas,William Byrd II of Westover Plantation, who established Richmond, and Robert “King” Carter, a colonial governor. He was the brother of Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, a dominant figure in Virginia Democratic Party between the 1920s and 1960s; their father served as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates for a time.

Family[edit]

Admiral Byrd was married, on 20 January 1915, to the former Marie Donaldson Ames (d. 1974). His father-in-law, a wealthy industrialist, purchased a large brownstone, in Boston’s fashionable Beacon Hill neighborhood, at 9 Brimmer Street,[1] for the couple in 1917. It would be Byrd’s primary residence for the rest of his life.

Byrd named a region of Antarctic land he discovered “Marie Byrd Land” after his wife. They had four children:

• Richard Evelyn III, (grandchildren Richard Byrd, Leverett S. Byrd, Ames Byrd, and Harry Flood Byrd II)
• Evelyn Bolling Byrd Clarke (grandchildren Evelyn Byrd Clarke, Marie Ames Clarke, Eleanor Clarke, and Richard Byrd Clarke)
• Catherine Agnes Byrd Breyer (grandchildren Robert Byrd Breyer and Katherine Ames Breyer)
• Helen Byrd Stabler (grandchildren David Stabler and Ann Blanchard Stabler)

He also had 3 great-grandchildren by Richard Byrd Clarke

• Samuel Ames Clarke
• Anna Marie Clarke
• Richard Byrd Clarke Jr.

Richard E. Byrd III[edit]

Byrd’s only son, Richard Evelyn Byrd III (usually referred to as Richard E. Byrd, Jr.), was a graduate of Milton Academy and Harvard College. He served in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant during the Second World War and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve after the war. In 1948, he married Emily Saltonstall (d. 2006), the daughter of longtime Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall. They divorced in 1960.

He died in early October 1988 at the age of 68. His body was found in a warehouse in Baltimore, Maryland. He had gone missing on September 13, 1988 after being placed on a train in Boston bound for Washington, D.C. Byrd was supposed to attend an event at the National Geographic Society honoring his father’s 100th birthday, but never arrived. He was buried, like his father, in Arlington National Cemetery.^[3]

Education and U.S. Navy[edit]

Byrd attended the Virginia Military Institute for two years and spent one year at the University of Virginia before financial circumstances inspired his transfer to the United States Naval Academy, where he was appointed Midshipman on May 28, 1908.^[4] While at the Academy, he severely injured his right ankle while performing a gymnastics routine. While he was able to graduate from the Academy, the injured ankle was the reason for his medical retirement from the Navy in 1916.

On June 8, 1912, he graduated from Academy and was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy. On July 14, 1912 he was assigned to the battleship USS Missouri and later assigned to the gunboat USS Dolphin.^[5] On March 15, 1916 he was medically retired, promoted to the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) and assigned as the Inspector and Instructor for the Rhode Island Naval Militia in Providence, Rhode Island.^[6]

Although technically retired, Byrd was able to serve as a retired officer on active duty during the First World War. He took flying lessons and earned his pilot wings in August 1917. He developed a passion for flight, and pioneered many techniques for navigating airplanes over the open ocean including drift indicators and bubble sextants.

During the First World War, Byrd was assigned to the Office of Naval Operations and commanded the United States Air Forces of Canada from July 1918 until the armistice in November.^[7]

He was promoted to lieutenant on September 2, 1918 and to temporary lieutenant commander on September 21, 1918.

After the war, Byrd’s expertise in aerial navigation resulted in his appointment to plan the flight path for the U.S. Navy’s 1919 transatlantic crossing. Of the three flying boats that attempted it, only Albert Read‘s NC-4 aircraft completed the trip, becoming the first ever transatlantic flight.^[8]

He commanded the aviation unit of the polar expedition led by Donald B. MacMillan from June to October 1925.^[7]

1926 North Pole flight, and controversy[edit]

On 9 May 1926, Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett attempted a flight over the North Pole in a Fokker F-VII Tri-motor monoplane named Josephine Ford, after the daughter of Ford Motor Company president Edsel Ford, who helped finance the expedition. This flight went from Spitsbergen (Svalbard) and back to its take-off airfield. The distance covered was 1,360 miles in 15 and a half hours. Byrd claimed to have reached the Pole. This trip earned Byrd widespread acclaim, including being awarded the Medal of Honor and enabled him to secure funding for subsequent attempts to fly over the South Pole.

From 1926 until 1996, there were doubts, defenses, and heated controversy about whether or not Byrd actually reached the North Pole. In 1958 Norwegian-American aviator and explorer Bernt Balchen cast doubt on Byrd’s claim on the basis of his extensive personal knowledge of the airplane’s speed. In 1971 Balchen speculated that Byrd had simply circled aimlessly while out of sight of land.^[9] During his lifetime, Floyd Bennett, the pilot on the trip, never contested that they hadn’t reached the pole. (Bennett died on April 25, 1928 during a heroic flight to rescue downed aviators in Greenland.) Bennett would not have been able to dispute the claim, however, as there were no discernible landmarks in the polar region and Byrd had made all the navigational calculations. Simply put, the barren vicinity that the Josephine Ford reached was considered at the time, the geographical North Pole, rather than the pinpoint North Pole.

The 1996 release of Byrd’s diary of the 9 May 1926 flight revealed erased (but still legible) sextant sights that sharply differ with Byrd’s later 22 June typewritten official report to the National Geographic Society. Byrd took a sextant reading of the Sun at 7:07:10 GCT. His erased diary record shows the apparent (observed) solar altitude to have been 19°25’30″, while his later official typescript reports the same 7:07:10 apparent solar altitude to have been 18°18’18″.^[10] On the basis of this and other data in the diary, Dennis Rawlins concluded that Byrd steered accurately, and flew about 80% of the distance to the Pole before turning back because of an engine oil leak, but later falsified his official report to support his claim of reaching the pole.^[11] Others disagree with Rawlins. In 1998, Colonel William Molett, an experienced navigator published “Due north?”. Molett maintained that Rawlins had put too much significance in erased navigational calculations which can be explained by any number of other reasons, including favorable windspeeds as well as simple human error due to lack of sleep and stress.^[12]

Accepting that the conflicting data in the typed report’s flight times indeed require both northward and southward groundspeeds greater than the flight’s 85 mph airspeed, a remaining Byrd defender posits a westerly-moving anti-cyclone that tailwind-boosted Byrd’s groundspeed on both outward and inward legs, allowing the distance claimed to be covered in the time claimed. (The theory is based on rejecting handwritten sextant data in favor of typewritten alleged dead-reckoning data.)^[13] This suggestion has been refuted by Dennis Rawlins^[14] who adds^[15] that the sextant data in the long unavailable original official typewritten report are all expressed to 1″, a precision not possible on Navy sextants of 1926 and not the precision of the sextant data in Byrd’s diary for 1925 or the 1926 flight, which was normal (half or quarter of a minute of arc). Some sources claim that Floyd Bennett and Byrd later revealed, in private conversations, that they did not reach the pole. One source claims that Floyd Bennett later told a fellow pilot that they did not reach the pole.^[16] It is also claimed that Byrd confessed his failure to reach the North Pole during a long walk with Dr. Isaiah Bowman in 1930.^[17]

If Byrd and Bennett did not reach the North Pole, it is extremely likely that the first flight over the Pole occurred a few days later, on May 12, 1926 with the flight of the airship Norge and its crew of Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile, Oscar Wisting, and others. This flight went from Spitsbergen (Svalbard) toAlaska nonstop, so there is little doubt that they went over the North Pole. Amundsen and Wisting had both been members of the first expedition to the South Pole, December 1911. Later, in 1952, the first human being to actually set foot on the North Pole ice was Joseph O. Fletcher, after he landed his aircraft and made a short excursion.

When he returned to the United States from the Arctic, Byrd became a national hero. Congress passed a special action on December 21, 1926 promoting him to the rank of commander and awarding him and Floyd Bennett the Medal of Honor.^[18] Byrd and Bennett were presented with Tiffany Cross versions of the Medal of Honor on March 5, 1927 at the White House by President Calvin Coolidge.^[19]

Trans-Atlantic flight, 1927[edit]

In 1927 Byrd announced he had the backing of the ‘American Trans-Oceanic Company, Inc.‘, which was established in 1914 by Rodman Wanamaker with the purpose of building the aircraft to complete the journey. Byrd was one of several aviators who attempted to win the Orteig Prize in 1927 for making the first nonstop flight between the United States and France. His flight was sponsored by department-store magnateRodman Wanamaker, an early visionary of Trans-Atlantic commercial flight.

Once again Byrd named Floyd Bennett as his chief pilot, with support from Bernt Balchen, Bert Acosta, andGeorge Noville. During a practice takeoff with Tony Fokker at the controls and Bennett in the co-pilots seat, the Fokker Trimotor airplane, America, crashed, severely injuring Bennett and slightly injuring Byrd. As the plane was being repaired, Charles Lindbergh won the prize by completing his historic flight on May 21, 1927. (Coincidentally, in 1925, Army Air Service Reserve Corps Lt. Lindbergh had applied to serve as a pilot on Byrd’s North Pole expedition, but apparently his bid came too late.)^[20] But Byrd continued with his quest, naming Balchen to replace Bennett as chief pilot. Byrd, Balchen, Acosta, and Noville flew from Roosevelt Field East Garden City, New York on 29 June 1927. Arriving over France, cloud cover prevented a landing in Paris; they returned to the coast of Normandy, crash-landing near the beach at Ver-sur-Merwithout fatalities on 1 July 1927.^[21]

Byrd was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this flight. Byrd was not awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his flight to the North Pole notwithstanding a number of sources which state that he did.

After he returned to the US, Byrd wrote an article for the August 1927 edition of Popular Science Monthly in which he predicted that while specially modified aircraft with one to three crewmen would fly the Atlantic non-stop, it would be another 20 years before it would be realized on a commercial scale.^[22]

First Antarctic expedition, 1928–1930[edit]

In 1928, Byrd began his first expedition to the Antarctic involving two ships, and three airplanes: Byrd’s Flagship was The City of New York (a Norwegian sealing ship previously named Samson that had come into fame as a ship in the vicinity of Titanic when the latter was sinking); a Ford Trimotor called the Floyd Bennett (named after the recently deceased pilot of Byrd’s previous expeditions); a Fairchild FC-2W2, NX8006, built 1928, named “Stars And Stripes” (now displayed at the Virginia Aviation Museum, on loan from the National Air and Space Museum); and a Fokker Universal monoplane called the Virginia (Byrd’s birth state). A base camp named “Little America” was constructed on the Ross Ice Shelf and scientific expeditions by snowshoe, dog-sled, snowmobile, and airplane began. Photographic expeditions and geological surveys were undertaken for the duration of that summer, and constant radio communications were maintained with the outside world. After their first winter, their expeditions were resumed, and on 28 November 1929, the famous flight to the South Pole and back was launched. Byrd, along with pilot Bernt Balchen, co-pilot/radioman Harold June, and photographer Ashley McKinley, flew the Ford Trimotor to the South Pole and back in 18 hours, 41 minutes. They had difficulty gaining enough altitude, and they had to dump empty gas tanks, as well as their emergency supplies, in order to achieve the altitude of the Polar Plateau. However, the flight was successful, and it entered Byrd into the history books.

As a result of his notoriety, Byrd was promoted to the rank of rear admiral by a special act of Congress on December 21, 1929. As he was only 41 years old at the time, this promotion made Byrd the youngest admiral in the history of the United States Navy.^[23] (Note – Some sources claim that the distinction of being the youngest admiral in the history of the US Navy belongs to Elmo Zumwalt but Zumwalt was 44 years old at the time of his promotion to rear admiral.)

After a further summer of exploration, the expedition returned to North America on 18 June 1930. A 19-year-old American Boy Scout, Paul Allman Siple, was chosen to accompany the expedition. Unlike the 1926 flight, this expedition was honored with the gold medal of the American Geographical Society. This was also seen in the film With Byrd at the South Pole (1930) which covered his trip there.

Byrd, by then an internationally recognized, pioneering American polar explorer and aviator, served for a time as Honorary National President (1931–1935) ofPi Gamma Mu, the international honor society in the social sciences. In 1928, he carried the Society’s flag during a historic expedition to the Antarctic to dramatize the spirit of adventure into the unknown, characterizing both the natural and social sciences.^[24][25]

Byrd’s later Antarctic expeditions[edit]

Byrd undertook four more expeditions to Antarctica from 1933–35, 1939–40, 1946–47 and 1955–56.

Second Antarctic Expedition[edit]

On his second expedition, in 1934, Byrd spent five winter months alone operating a meteorological station, Advance Base, from which he narrowly escaped with his life after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning from a poorly ventilated stove. Unusual radio transmissions from Byrd finally began to alarm the men at the base camp, who then attempted to go to Advance Base. The first two trips were failures due to darkness, snow, and mechanical troubles. Finally, Thomas Poulter, E.J. Demas, and Amory Waite arrived at Advanced Base, where they found Byrd in poor physical health. The men remained at Advanced Base until 12 October when an airplane from the base camp picked up Dr. Poulter and Byrd. The rest of the men returned to base camp with the tractor. This expedition is described by Byrd in his autobiography Alone. It is also commemorated in a U.S. postage stamp issued at the time, and a considerable amount of mail using it was sent from Byrd’s base at Little America, which was powered by a Jacobs Wind 2.5 kW. Later a souvenir sheet was also issued.^[26]

In late 1938, Byrd visited Hamburg and was invited to participate in the 1938/1939 German “Neuschwabenland” Antarctic Expedition, but declined.

Antarctic Service Expedition (1939-1940)[edit]

Byrd’s third expedition was his first one on which he had the official backing of the U.S. government. The project included extensive studies of geology, biology, meteorology and exploration. Within a few months, in March 1940, Byrd was recalled to active duty in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. The expedition continued in Antarctica without him.

World War II Service[edit]

As a senior officer in the United States Navy, Byrd, performed national defense service during World War II (1941–45), mostly as a consultant to the senior Navy commanders. From 1942 to 1945 he headed important missions to the Pacific, including surveys of remote islands for airfields. On one assignment he visited the fighting front in Europe. He was repeatedly cited for meritorious service and was present at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.

Operation Highjump (1946-1947)[edit]

The fourth culminating expedition, Operation Highjump, is the largest Antarctic expedition to date. In 1946, US Navy Secretary James Forrestal assembled a huge amphibious naval force for an Antarctic Expedition expected to last six to eight months. Besides the flagship USS Mount Olympus and the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea, there were thirteen US Navy support ships, six helicopters, six flying boats, two seaplane tenders and fifteen other aircraft. The total number of personnel involved was over 4,000. The armada arrived in the Ross Sea on 31 December 1946, and made aerial explorations of an area half the size of the United States, recording ten new mountain ranges. The major area covered was the eastern coastline of Antarctica from 150 degrees east to the Greenwich meridian.

Operation Deep Freeze I (1955-1956)[edit]

As part of the multinational collaboration for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957–58, Byrd commanded the U.S. Navy Operation Deep Freeze I in 1955–56, which established permanent Antarctic bases at McMurdo Sound, theBay of Whales, and the South Pole.

Freemasonry[edit]

Byrd was an active Freemason. He became a member of Federal Lodge No. 1, Washington, D.C. on March 19, 1921 and affiliated with Kane Lodge No. 454, New York City, September 18, 1928. He was a member of National SojournersChapter No. 3 at Washington. He and his pilot, Bernt Balchen dropped Masonic flags on the two poles—Balchen also added his Shrine fez. In the Antarctic expedition of 1933-35, 60 of the 82 members were Freemasons and on February 5, 1935 established First Antarctic Lodge No. 777 of New Zealand constitution.

Death[edit]

Byrd died in his sleep on 11 March 1957 of a heart ailment at his Brimmer Street home in the Beacon Hill neighborhood in Boston.^[27][28] He was buried inArlington National Cemetery.^[27]

Exotic beliefs about Admiral Byrd[edit]

Adherents to the Hollow Earth hypothesis believe that Byrd flew over the North Pole and into the hollow earth in February 1947 and that he kept a secret diary of the incident. This belief was first published in 1957 in F. Amadeo Giannini’s book The Worlds Beyond the Poles. Giannini writes that Byrd encountered a humanoid being from another “world” who warned humanity to pursue peace and not war. He also reported that Byrd spotted a living wooly mammoth near the North Pole.

One major problem with Giannini’s account is that in February 1947, Byrd was leading the highly publicized Operation Highjump in Antarctica and was, consequently, no where near the North Pole. Another problem is that in February the Arctic is in winter and sunlight does not reach the North Pole so that it would have been impossible for Byrd to see something, like a wooly mammoth, from the air. Furthermore, Giannini quotes directly from the 1937 movie Lost Horizon ^[29] in the dialog of the humanoid Byrd allegedly encountered. Some Hollow Earth theorists believe that The Worlds Beyond the Poles was published by in order to discredit the Hollow Earth theory.

Another theory is that Operation Highjump was an expedition to find Nazis who had fled to Antarctica at the end of World War II and had established a secret base with submarines, aircraft and flying saucers.^{[citation needed]} No credible evidence has ever been found to support this theory.

Awards, decorations, honors[edit]

By the time he died, he had amassed twenty-two citations and special commendations, nine of which were for bravery and two for extraordinary heroism in saving the lives of others. In addition, he received the Medal of Honor, the SilverLifesaving Medal, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Navy Cross, and had three ticker-tape parades. He preferred to dwell on the substance of his global adventures, and the stories of those that had gone awry as lessons learned.

Byrd was one of only four Americans in history entitled to wear a medal with their own image on it. The others were Admiral George Dewey, General John J. Pershing and Admiral William T. Sampson. As Byrd’s image is on both the 1st and 2nd Byrd Antarctic Expedition medals he was the only American entitled to wear two medals with his own image on them.

In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Byrd an Honorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was given to “American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys…”. The other eighteen who were awarded this distinction were: Roy Chapman Andrews; Robert Bartlett; Frederick Russell Burnham; George Kruck Cherrie; James L. Clark; Merian C. Cooper; Lincoln Ellsworth; Louis Agassiz Fuertes; George Bird Grinnell; Charles A. Lindbergh; Donald Baxter MacMillan; Clifford H. Pope; George P. Putnam; Kermit Roosevelt; Carl Rungius; Stewart Edward White; Orville Wright.^[30]

Also in 1927, the City of Richmond dedicated the Richard Evelyn Byrd Flying Field, now Richmond International Airport, in Henrico County, Virginia. Byrd’s Fairchild FC-2W2, NX8006, “Stars And Stripes” is on display at the Virginia Aviation Museum located on the north side of the airport, on loan from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. He was a 1929 recipient of the Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1931 Byrd joined the Tennessee Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Lunar crater Byrd is named after him, as was the United States Navy dry cargo ship USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE-4) and the now decommissioned Charles F. Adams-class guided missile destroyer USS Richard E. Byrd (DDG-23)

In Glen Rock, New Jersey Richard E. Byrd School was dedicated in 1931. . On March 31, 1934, during a regularly scheduled broadcast, Admiral Richard E. Byrd was awarded the CBS Medal for Distinguished Contribution to Radio. Byrd’s short wave relay broadcasts, from his second Antarctic expedition, established a new chapter of communication history. Byrd was the sixth individual to receive this award.^[31] The Institute of Polar Studies at The Ohio State University officially changed its name to the Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) on January 21, 1987 after it acquired Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s expeditionary records, personal papers and other memorabilia in 1985 from the estate of Marie A. Byrd, the late wife of Admiral Byrd. His papers served as the nucleus for establishment of the BPRC Polar Archival Program in 1990. In 1958 the Richard Byrd library, part of the Fairfax County Public Library system opened in Springfield, Virginia. Admiral Richard E. Byrd Middle School, located in Frederick County, Virginia, was opened in 2005, and is decorated with pictures and letters from Byrd’s life and career.

Richard E. Byrd Elementary School, a Department of Defense School located in Negishi (Yokohama, Japan) opened on September 20, 1948. The name was changed to R.E. Byrd Elementary School on April 5, 1960.

Memorials to Byrd can be found in two cities in New Zealand (Wellington and Dunedin). Byrd used New Zealand as his departure point for several of his Antarctic flights.

The fiftieth anniversary of Byrd’s first flight over the South Pole was commemorated in a set of two postage stamps by Australian Antarctic Territory in 1979.

The long-range shortwave voice transmissions from Byrd’s Antarctic expedition in 1934 was named an IEEE Milestone in 2001.^[32]

Medal of Honor citation[edit]

Rank and organization: Commander, United States Navy. Born: 25 October 1888, Winchester, Va. Appointed from: Virginia. Other Navy awards: Navy Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit with gold star, Distinguished Flying Cross.

Citation

For distinguishing himself conspicuously by courage and intrepidity at the risk of his life, in demonstrating that it is possible for aircraft to travel in continuous flight from a now inhabited portion of the earth over the North Pole and return.

Distinguished Flying Cross citation[edit]

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Commander Richard Evenly Byrd, Jr. (NSN: 0-7918), United States Navy, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight; in recognition of his courage, resourcefulness and skill as Commander of the expedition which flew the airplane “America” from New York City to France from 29 June to 1 July 1927, across the Atlantic Ocean under extremely adverse weather conditions which made a landing in Paris impossible; and finally for his discernment and courage in directing his plane to a landing at Ver sur Mer, France, without serious injury to his personnel, after a flight of 39 hours and 56 minutes. Action Date: June 29 – July 1, 1927

Awards and decorations[edit]

^[35]

Note – Admiral Byrd was posthumously eligible for the Antarctic Service Medal which was established in 1960.

Dates of rank[edit]

 United States Naval Academy Midshipman - 28 May 1908 (Class of 1912.)