Richard E. Byrd

Richard E. Byrd (born October 25, 1888, Winchester, Virginia, U.S.—died March 11, 1957, Boston, Massachusetts) was a U.S. naval officer, pioneer aviator, and polar explorer best known for his explorations of Antarctica using airplanes and other modern technical resources.

Life

After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1912, Byrd was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy. He learned flying at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, and served in the navy with distinction until the end of World War I. After the war he developed navigational methods and equipment for NC flying boats, one of which made the navy’s first transatlantic airplane flight in 1919. He also assisted with dirigibles built for transatlantic crossings. His polar career began in 1924 when he had command of a small naval aviation detachment with Commander D.B. MacMillan’s Arctic expedition to western Greenland, based at Etah.

The experience of flying over sea ice and glaciers in western Greenland had fired Byrd with the ambition to fly over the North Pole. On May 9, 1926, Byrd, acting as navigator, and Floyd Bennett as pilot made what they claimed to be the first airplane journey over the North Pole, flying from King’s Bay, Spitsbergen, Norway, to the Pole and back. The flight lasted 151/2 hours, with no mishaps beyond an oil leak from the starboard engine of their Fokker trimotor airplane. For this feat they were both awarded the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor and were acclaimed as national heroes. Some doubt always lingered over whether their plane had actually reached the North Pole, and one of Byrd’s early associates, Bernt Balchen, even claimed after Byrd’s death that the flight to the North Pole had been a hoax. The discovery in 1996 of the diary that Byrd had kept on his famous flight shed new light on this question. Byrd’s diary entries suggest that the airplane was still about 150 miles (240 km) short of the North Pole when Byrd decided to turn back because of his concern over the oil leak. (If this is true, then credit for the first flight over the North Pole actually belongs to Roald Amundsen of Norway, Lincoln Ellsworth of the United States, and Umberto Nobile of Italy, who made a well-documented flight over the Pole in a dirigible three days after Byrd’s flight.)

Byrd next aided the American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh with navigational training and the use of the specially extended runway for Lindbergh’s transatlantic solo flight in May 1927. Byrd then decided to make an attempt to fly the Atlantic from west to east; and in June 1927, with three companions, he made the flight in 42 hours, crash-landing in bad weather at Ver-sur-Mer on the coast of Brittany, France. For this successful flight he was made a Commandant of the French Legion of Honour.

In 1928 he announced his decision to explore the unknown regions of the Antarctic from the air. With large financial backing from such wealthy Americans as Edsel Ford and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., his fame was such that he could inspire the American public to contribute liberally to the estimated cost of the venture, which was about $400,000.

Britannica Quiz

History of Flight Quiz

Antarctic expeditions

Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition (1928–30), the largest and best-equipped that had ever set out for that continent, sailed south in October 1928. A substantial and well-supplied base, called Little America, was built on the face of the Ross Ice Shelf, a wide plain of shelf ice fronting the Ross Sea near an indentation in the ice cliff named the Bay of Whales. Flights were made from this base over the Antarctic continent. A range of high mountains, named the Rockefeller Mountains, was discovered, and a large tract of hitherto unknown territory beyond them was named Marie Byrd Land, after Byrd’s wife. On November 29, 1929, Byrd, as navigator, and three companions made the first flight over the South Pole, flying from Little America to the Pole and back in 19 hours with no mishap. Byrd was afterward promoted to rear admiral for this achievement.

In 1933–35 a second Byrd expedition visited Little America with the aim of mapping and claiming land around the Pole; he extended the exploration of Marie Byrd Land and continued his scientific observations. During the winter of 1934 (from March to August) Byrd spent five months alone in a hut at a weather station named Bolling Advance Base, buried beneath the ice shelf face 123 miles (196 km) south of Little America, enduring temperatures between −58° and −76° F (−50° and −60° C) and sometimes much lower. He was finally rescued in a desperately sick condition, suffering from frostbite and carbon monoxide poisoning. This was perhaps his most controversial exploit.

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

At the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Byrd took command of the U.S. Antarctic service and led a third expedition to Antarctica in 1939–41, this one financed and sponsored by the U.S. government. Bases were located at Little America and Stonington Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. Byrd’s discovery of Thurston Island greatly decreased the length of unexplored coast of the continent.

During World War II Byrd served on the staff of the chief of naval operations and, among other duties, evaluated Pacific islands as operational sites. After World War II Byrd was placed in charge of the U.S. Navy’s Operation High Jump. This Antarctic expedition, his fourth, was the largest and most ambitious exploration of that continent yet attempted and involved 4,700 men, 13 ships (including an aircraft carrier), and 25 airplanes. Operation High Jump’s ship- and land-based aircraft mapped and photographed some 537,000 square miles (1,390,000 square km) of the Antarctic coastline and interior, much of it never seen before. Byrd flew into Little America from the deck of the aircraft carrier Philippine Sea north of the ice pack, about 700 miles (1,100 km) from the camp. He made a second flight over the South Pole and took part in several other flights.

In 1955 Byrd was made officer in charge of the United States’ Antarctic programs and became the senior authority for government Antarctic matters. In this capacity he helped supervise Operation Deep Freeze, a major scientific and exploratory expedition sent to the Antarctic under navy auspices as part of the program of the International Geophysical Year (1957–58). Byrd accompanied the expedition aboard the icebreaker Glacier and took his last exploratory flight over the South Pole on January 8, 1956.