Program Information

For decades Richard Evelyn Byrd was credited as being the first to fly over the North Pole. It was his lifetime dream but, in recent years, scholarly skepticism regarding his claim has begun to cast doubt on his achievement.

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Transcript

Lead: For decades Richard Evelyn Byrd was credited as being the first to fly over the North Pole. It was his lifetime dream but, in recent years, scholarly skepticism regarding his claim has begun to cast doubt on his achievement.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Born in 1888 in Winchester, Virginia, Richard Evelyn Byrd had aristocratic roots stretching back to the early days of Virginia and, if one considers his maternal ancestor Pocahontas, farther than that. His brother was Governor and Senator Harry Flood Byrd, who for four decades dominated state politics through his political creation, the Byrd Machine. An adventurous child, Byrd as a young man was captivated by the possibility of exploring the poles, among the few remaining virgin areas on the planet. He served as a Naval squadron commander during World War I and became a Naval aviator in 1918. In 1925 Byrd helped lead a scientific expedition to Greenland sponsored by the Navy and the National Geographic Society.

Released from active duty that year, Byrd turned his ambitions north to the Pole. He was able to raise considerable private funds for this expedition and arrived at Spitsbergen, Norway, a large island of the Svalbard Archipelago far north in the Arctic Ocean, on April 29, 1926. His goal was to be the first to fly over the North Pole and claim this honor for the United States. Upon his arrival celebrated Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, his chief competitor, was also there. After previous failed attempts to reach the pole, Amundsen’s plan was to fly over the pole in Norge, an Italian-made rigid airship, and land near Nome, Alaska.

If he were to beat Amundsen, Byrd would have to depart quickly--and did so just after midnight on May 9, 1926. His plan was to make a non-stop return flight in one day. Byrd’s co-pilot was famed American aviator Floyd Bennett. Their plane, a Fokker tri-motor with retrofitted skis, was christened Josephine Ford in honor of the young daughter of Edsel Ford, one of the expedition’s sponsors. Fifteen and one-half hours later, they were back and claimed they reached the pole in a round-trip of 1,330 nautical miles. This pioneering claim was initially met with some skeptics who claimed Byrd and Bennett could not have made the trip in the recorded time and that the plane must have turned around short of the pole. The National Geographic Society and the U.S. Navy verified the accuracy of Byrd’s calculations, and Byrd and Bennett were hailed as heroes in America and both received the Medal of Honor.

The claim has been debated throughout the twentieth century, and in recent years aviation experts and scientists have weighed in on the debate. In 1996 Byrd’s diary and flight notes of the North Pole expedition were discovered and his sextant recordings cast further doubts. Some experts assert that Byrd came to within 100-150 miles of the pole, but that an oil leak forced him and Bennett to return prematurely and that the first flight over the pole was probably made by Amundsen three days later.

Whatever might be the final determination of the outcome of that flight, it can do little to diminish the full effect of a lifetime of service to his country and to science. That Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole, a far more arduous feat over much more hostile terrain, is unchallenged.

Research by Ann Johnson, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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