Commander Byrd Tells the Story of His Life

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 364, 26 May 1928, Page 26

Commander Byrd Tells the Story of His Life

Scientist in Aviation is a Bom Adventurer... He Was Roving Round the World at an Age When Most Boys Are at School

it might be forgiven one to suspect that while Byrd flies for science he flies even more for the joy of going over strange places in the air. His book, interesting as it is, tells only a part of the story of his 39 years. Long before he became an aviator he had an adventurous career —a trip around the world at an age when most boys are still in grammar school, revolutions in the West Indies, instances of personal bravery and initiative which won him many citations and a few medals, says a reviewer in the “New York Times.” His contributions to aviation have been as many as his disappointments in connection with his profession, lie wanted to fly across the ocean alone in 1921, but was refused permission; he wanted to make the trip on one of the NC boats, the first to get across, but was barred, although he aided in the preparations for that trip; he had the opportunity to go ori a small dirigible, but the dirigible blew out to sta and was lost; he was to have been an officer on the ZR2. the great English dirigible that exploded over England, and his life was snved because he missed a train. But during this time Byrd had been working energetically, and he had either brought about changes in the naval aviation service or improved instruments for aerial navigation, which put him at the forefront of the younger officers in the air corps. Jt was largely because of his effort* that the Bureau of Aeronautics in the Navy Department was formed, and he started the naval aviation reserve w'ith no money or departmental support. And in his special field he made the first efficient bubble sextant, improved drift indicators and was the inspiration of the Bumstead sun compass.

Byrd was a sick man when he got his chance to go to Pensacola. He had been retired because of an injury to his foot in the gymnasium, and fretted away at a desk in Washington after the war started, until he persuaded physicians to let him have a chance to enter aviation. After he learned to fly he served for a time on the “Crash Board,” which investigated those disheartening accidents in which flying men were killed every day during war training, learning to fly in those days, in < lumsy planes and with tricky motors,

was an hazardous task. Byrd himself had one narrow escape during tins period. “I believe that the high point in my Pensacola training period came when I rammed another plane going 60 miles an hour. I had just got off the water and was intent on gaining speed sc I could zoom upward. The first thing I knew I saw almost directly ahead of me a plane plunging down on the water out of the sky. ?ts pilot was a beginner. He had been intent, f think, on ganging his distance from the water, so as to make as perfect a landing as possible. “The crash was deafening. We were just enough out of line to make our wings lock. As a result both planes flung around with violent centrifugal force that was the result of the 120 miles an hour aggregate speed we were travelling at the moment. “Both planes were demolished. I fell dazed and bruised into the water. A few minutes later the rescue party hauled us into the speed boat, safe and sound, but very much crestfallen at th«j damage we had done to our planes.” He joined MacMillan’s expedition to Greenland in the summer of 1925, the trip on which he met the late Floyd Bennett, then an obscure aviation mechanic. Their desperate attempts at exploring in amphibian planes over a territory’ where there was no possible landing place, rank among the most spectacular in aviation. “About half an hour before midnight there was an effect of twilight among the fjords. I wonder if any . human being had ever witnessed such a weird, mysterious, desolate scene. There was a sense of great loneliness and the plane seemed very small indeed. Once when we flew down into one of the black chasms in the dimness we lost, track of Nold alone in the NA-3. He evidently had missed us also, for finally we located him, just a speck in the distance, and apparently headed for the North Pole. We gave our motor all the power she had, and after a good race overhauled him. What Nold’s compass was doing, or what he was about, I never have

found out. Nold told me he had felt very lonely indeed when he got lost.” The next day they started for Grin nell Land. “There followed for Bennett and me one of the greatest battles of our lives. We looked down on an unex plored part of Grinnell Land into areas cut jagged by ages of ice into pinnacles and precipitous cliffs. The view was awful in its magnificence, and the air was the roughest I have ever experienced. We were tossed about like a leaf in a storm, and often it locked as if we would certainly be dashed down on the irregular ice of the

glaciers beneath us. Bennett showed there the stuff he was made of. Ahead of us were higher snow-covered mountain peaks that disappeared Into the clouds. We made a desperate effort to get through, but there was no opening in the clouds. Most reluctantly we turned back, fighting every inch of the way.” It was on this expedition that Byrd first showed his remarkable qualities of leadership, without which he would never have been able to overcome the obstacles of getting away from Spitzbergen.on his polar flight. In a difficult and dangerous situation he never loses his temper or indulges in useless criticism, and as a result men work their heads off for him for days on end. It is the sort of leadership most necessary in Arctic or Antarctic work, where nerves are frayed by constant discomfort and weariness. It is this same capacity for keeping his feet on the ground which makes Byrd philosophical about “This Hero Business,” as he calls one chapter in his book. He hadn’t thought much about heroics when he came back from the North Pole, he says, but soon found out that they could not be avoided. “I had been human in my homecoming. The grand public welcome had moved me, though I felt humble and more or less undeserving of such recognition. I had had to pinch myself every now and then to see if it were all true. I had felt like a man who had unexpectedly reached a mountain top and finds a gorgeous panorama spread out below his eyes. I had wanted to throw my hat in the air and shout, ‘Gosh, but this is great!’ ” Inasmuch as Byrd’s flights have been of the most spectacular sort, it is natural that he should discuss That aspect of aviation, particularly in view of his coming expedition to the South Polar Continent, the most dangerous he has yet attempted. He feels That such flights are a part of all progress, a yielding to the desire of civilisation to progress, push forward in every way. “Spectacular flights are more than just circus stunts made to satisfy a morbid appetite for excitement, or to make money, for expeditions have nearly all developed fair deficits. The urge to go adventuring, to try that which has never been done before, appears to be not just a product of blind chance, but has its meaning—is a part of the scheme of things—and is entwined in the roots of progress. “Spectacular flights accelerate progress, for when the flight is decided upon, then necessity in some cases produces inventions and developments which, in the ordinary course of events, would tend to be very slow and uncertain. Man needs this spur of necessity—a powerful impetus due to the risk of life involved. The deep instinct of self-preservation comes into action. The material and instruments arc therefore improved and <he science of aviation is benefited.” There are chapters in the book devoted to the proposed South Pole trip and the difficulties which attend every roan who attempts a large expedition, difficulties chiefly financial, -which j cause him more worry 'ihan the carry- | ing on of the expedition itself.