Admiral Richard Byrd
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No.88-56. Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd made his first trip to Antarctica in 1928. A commander in the U.S. Navy, Byrd would become the most famous of all the Antarctic explorers. Braving the hardships of the frozen tundra, Byrd and his men landed and set up base on the Ross Barrier at the Bay of Whales. They named it Little America. The base included a photography lab, an observatory, a machine shop and a library. By radio, the crew kept in touch with the rest of the world during the fourteen months they were there. From Little America, Byrd and three others took off in a tri-motored airplane--the Floyd Bennett--on an historic flight which carried them over the South Pole. On that flight of November, 1929, Admiral Byrd carried the American flag some one thousand miles farther south than it had ever been before. On other trips, Byrd continued the study of this fascinating land, commanding the photographic and scientific study of some 450,000 square miles of Antarctica, much of it never before seen by man |
