Raimond Goerler, Archivist of the Byrd Polar Center Archives at Ohio State University, was interviewed in 1998 for the documentary Alone on the Ice.

Byrd's Physical Ability

Q: Was Byrd small for his age and wasn't he smaller than his younger brother and how does that shape his character?
RG: Byrd was slender all his life, extremely athletic, very well coordinated and this enabled him to compete very well, despite his size, with his brothers and one suspects that this early athletic ability was an opportunity for Byrd to move into areas that were distinctly his, as opposed to his brothers.

Q: Wasn't physical fitness kind of like a religion to Byrd? Didn't he really push himself physically and was that for a need to be competitive or be in control? What was that about?
RG: Well I believe that Byrd enjoyed athletic activity. He was a firm believer in working his body and even in the desperate moments of his life namely when he was alone at advance base, he still managed to drag himself outside on a daily, almost a daily basis and created a little hurricane deck as he called it , which was simply flags and ropes together that he could hang onto while walking in blizzards. 

Q: How competitive and driven was he and how much need did he have to be in control? Where do you think that came from?
RG: Well, I think that Byrd's athleticism, his constant training, even under the worst of conditions is evidence of a remarkable sense of discipline, and regiment and plan. This is a man who excelled at planning and making his ambitions come to reality and athletic ambition was part of it. He was constantly training and in all likelihood, based on what we know now, probably over-trained. So that at various critical moments in his life he suffered severe injuries, especially to that right foot that caused him to walk with a limp for much of his life. 

The Injury to Byrd's Foot

Q: Byrd broke his foot several times during his early career in the Navy. Didn't he start walking compulsively and wasn't that the beginning of him kind of walking that injury away.
RG: The injury that Byrd sustained in his gymnastic career, a special stunt on the rings is one that would plague him again and again. The injury, of course starts as a football injury, is aggravated by his being captain of the gymnastics team and wanting to win an important match and devises a special stunt and injures his right foot. It never completely heals properly and even when he's in military service, he has the unusual luck, if you will of falling through an open hatch and I can only help but wonder if his concern for walking on that right foot, trying to make it appear normal simply disrupted his coordination and fell into the open hatch with pretty much putting his Naval career in jeopardy.

Q: But he began to walk to try to correct that, right?
RG: Correct. Again it's remarkable self-discipline. He was determined to make a military career for himself and not to let his physical handicaps interfere with that objective, a very determined, a very driven man, with a plan to succeed and literally and figuratively hobbled by this athletic injury to which was the result of a of competition, a desire to win.

Q: Why did Byrd feel he had to retire from the Navy?
RG: Byrd thought that in 1916 he needed to retire from the Navy because he was having difficulty getting promotions. Others in his graduating class of 1912 had advanced further than he and my suspicion is that, as competitive as Byrd was, this bothered him intensively. Therefore, he sought an alternative to a military career retiring at three-quarter pension still meant an income. It also freed him to explore other things. His illustrious predecessor, Robert Peoria remained in the Navy with his Polar career but periodically had difficulty getting time away for doing non-Navy things, such as exploration.

Q: Why wasn't Byrd promoted in the Navy?
RG: One of the great hardships of being a professional Navy Officer is standing watch for long periods of time and that's necessary on ship, it's expected of officers, however with someone who has an injury to the foot it's extremely painful and very difficult. So, even though he was praised in his reports for his navigational skills nevertheless the problem of the foot was a handicap.

Q: What did Byrd learn in Pensacola and given what he saw, wasn't it amazing what he did with his life?
RG: Byrd goes to Pensacola in large part, out of the connection to Raymond Fosnick. Fosnick is very impressed by Byrd as an organizer, he's also very sympathetic to Byrd's desire to be on active duty, rather than desk duty, and Fosnick supports Byrd going to Pensacola. And at Pensacola, not only does he earn his wings as Naval aviator, but he's also kept there as an officer and one of his responsibilities is to investigate airplane crashes that take place with some frequency in Naval training. So his first significant exposure to the fledgling airplane industry is at the accident end which I think created in him a very healthy respect for the dangers of flying.

The MacMillan Expedition

Q: What was so frustrating at the MacMillan Expedition for Byrd. What kind of resolve did it give him and how did it prepare him for his own expeditions.
RG: The MacMillan Expedition of 1925 was an important event for Byrd. It of course frustrated him that he did not have as much flying time as he expected under Donald MacMillan. It frustrated him that he was third in command and in command only of the flying squadron, but nevertheless, there were several accomplishments. Number one was that he developed as a result of that MacMillan Expedition a strong connection with a National Geographic Society, which had backed the expedition. He also proved to his backers namely Ford and Rockefeller that Byrd was a comer, that he was a man who could accomplish things and basically set the stage for another attempt at the North Pole, in 1926. 

Q: Did he get a real polar experience, too?
RG: Oh, yes. One of the things that came out of the 1925 Expedition was the publicity in the National Geographic and also Byrd's article therein called "Flying in the Arctic", really established Byrd as an Arctic flyer and put him in some demand. 

The Challenge of the North Pole

Q: Why did Byrd take on the challenge of the North Pole? Was he drawn to conquering it? Why was he drawing to conquering it? In what way was it a greeting ground to zeros?
RG: The North Pole has always been a subject of fascination, especially in the 19th century. Several American heroes that Byrd had knowledge of as a child, Elisha Kane, Robert Peoria. These were people who got their fame in North Pole conquest. Byrd looked at the North Pole as an opportunity for the fame that others had also acquired but also as an opportunity to demonstrate this new invention, the airplane and to use the airplane to advance discovery that had of course always been hindered in the North Pole area by floating ice and leaves and the airplane was an opportunity for another instrument, in polar exploration.

Q: How did the North Pole create its share of heroes and legends?

RG: The North Pole is a subject that draws the fascination of the newspaper media especially in the post 1850's. By the 1880's, you actually have newspapers financing expeditions. People want to read about polar heroes. Newspapers also want exclusives and they want regular stories. The telegraph enables the stories to be broadcast to the printers and to be sold on the streets of America's cities. So the polar heroes are cult figures and certainly people like Robert Peary benefited from the cult. They benefited especially financially, maybe newspapers plowed the way for their lecture tours and created great public interest. So, it's not surprising that Byrd would have an interest in polar heroes.

Q: Can you briefly describe the contractual relationship Byrd entered into with David Lawrence over the North Pole flight and isn't this the beginning of Byrd's commoditization of a hero. 
RG: Byrd financed the North Pole Expedition privately. He got significant chunks of money from John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford. He got an extraordinary amount of money, a contract of approximately $60,000, in 1926, from current news features in exchange for the exclusive rights to sell stories about the North Pole flight to other news media. And it was a wonderful contract for Byrd in that David Lawrence, not only provided the famous advance, $5,000, upon signing, which enabled him to buy things for the Expedition but also it was a no lose contract because Lawrence would pay him per degrees of latitude accomplished, even if he didn't make it to the North Pole. And this contract also required that no one, no expeditionary member could release photos or stories without the permission of the leader, namely Byrd and current news features. That's very much the pattern for these later privately financed expeditions to seize upon the publicity as a commodity that is used to finance the expeditions.

The Competition Between Amundsen and Byrd

Q: Who was Amundsen and how did Byrd feel about him and about competing against him?
RG: Amundsen of course, is the premiere explorer of his time. He's the first man to reach the South Pole in 1911. He's the first to sail through the Northwest Passage. He's the senior of all Polar explorers and of course Amundsen fails, along with Lincoln Elsworth, in 1925 to fly to the North Pole, using an airplane. He decides on the basis of his 1925 experience that he's going to use the dirigible because he had such difficulty from the trend to land and than take off again, in the Arctic, after an emergency landing. Amundsen is determined to use a blimp and Byrd decides that the place that he wants to do his expedition from Spitsbergen, where Amundsen is. In Spitsbergen he has the advantage and it's closer to the Pole. It has a port that opens earlier in the spring and so there Amundsen and Byrd are competing to be the first to the North Pole and Byrd initially sends a wire. This is recorded in Byrd's diary to Amundsen offering to help and he's pretty miffed at Amundsen, for the difficulties that he experiences unloading his airplanes from his ship to the one dock because there's a Norwegian ship there blocking the harbor and will not move and so Byrd does the riskiest thing he's done in his entire career and that is to unload the plane, using pontoons. and risking the entire expedition because he is not, he has no idea of when this ship is going to move and he also knows that Amundsen is waiting for a ship to arrive from Italy and as soon as it arrives Amundsen is off first to the North Pole. So, there's in the diary, not publicly but in the diary there are entries that basically state that he doesn't think that Amundsen's playing all that fair, especially having done this dangerous maneuver of bringing his airplane across pontoon boats to the shore that the Norwegians object to his news people filming the event and he has a derogatory remark to make about that in the diary, that once again, lack of fair play amongst the Norwegians. 

Q: So, he did this incredibly risky unloading because?
RG: Byrd undertook this very dangerous unloading on pontoons of his airplane to the Josephine Ford to shore because he was very frustrated by his competition with Amundsen and no doubt he was probably thinking a year ago, 1925 when he was very frustrated at not being able to do all the flying that he wanted to do because of Donald MacMillan's being in charge of the expedition and now he's being frustrated by Amundsen. So, in this incredible risky maneuver in which one cake of ice , one particularly dangerous wave could have knocked his airplane, his tri-motor into the water, he decided to do it anyway, despite his crew because he was bound and determined that this was his time, that this was his opportunity to make it to the North Pole. 

Q: What were the pressures? Was it kind of a make or break moment for him? 
RG: The North Pole flight from Spitsbergen was pivotal in Byrd's career. He'd gotten some success in Greenland with the MacMillan Expedition, but now he had all the backing, the Ford, the Rockefeller, the very lucrative contracts with the news media. This was his moment. And you know the Norge was expected any day and as luck would have it, the blimp reached the North Pole three days after Byrd did. So, it was very tight timing indeed.

Q: What's motivating Byrd here. Does he want to be first, does he want to be a hero, does he have patriotic feelings? What's going on?
RG: Well, in this competition, there are lots of different factors. One factor, of course, is that Byrd sees this as a competition, as a competitive game and he is very much an athlete and he wants to be number one. It's a perfectly natural circumstance. Of course wrapped up in being number one is also the nationalism. Peary's claim for example, when Peary reached the North Pole his statement was, I nailed the flag to the Pole. Again appealing to nationalism. So, that's part of the quest for the North Pole to demonstrate American initiative. 

Bernt Balchen's Contributions

Q: Can you describe Bernt Balchen? and what role did he plan in the North Pole flight and why would he held his competitor? 
RG: Bernt Balchen is an extremely able aviator, he's an officer in the Norwegian Air Corps. He has familial connection to Amundsen. And is helpful to Amundsen in 1925, helping with the rescue operation. He's also, I think, disappointed because it's decided that Balchen is not to go on the Norge with Amundsen. Balchen proves to be very helpful to Byrd. They have problems with their skis, that is of making the skis strong enough. Balchen has lots of experience with airplanes with skis in the Norwegian Air Air Force and he provides this expertise to Byrd. Amundsen publicly is saying you know we're not competitors we are all partners in this quest. And then however, Byrd's diary records that Amundsen is telling Balchen not to come near Byrd and one can only suspect that Byrd has that information from Balchen. 

Q: What's happening with the skis when they're trying to take off? Before Balchen comes in and helps, it looks like he's not going to make it.
RG: There are problems with the Josephine Ford's landing gear from the very beginning. First the plane is overloaded, it crashes, Byrd lightens the load, it's still not enough, he still has problems with the skis. Balchen and the ship's carpenter help to fashion special skis using the oars of the life boats, after all there's not a lot of wood in that area. And they strengthen the skis enough so that there's a successful takeoff. Balchen also advises Byrd that the best time to take off is late at night when the temperatures are cold, the runway that they've created out of this pounded snow is iced over and is slicker. Because if it warms up during the day, you get the sunlight creates slush and he'll have problems, it will be a slower takeoff than they want.

The North Pole Flight

Q: What's the biggest fear about the North Pole flight? Isn't landing a big problem and why? Didn't Byrd encounter some major difficulty when he was on flight?
RG: The North Pole flight had some unexpected adventures to it. Based on their experience with the skis, there is not a desire to do emergency landings. However, near the Pole, they detect an oil leak in one of their motors and Byrd asks the pilot, Floyd Bennett, who'd been with Byrd on the 1925 Expedition whether they can in fact make it back all the way back on two motors. That's the drama. As it turned out, the oil leak was caused by a malfunctioning rivet and as soon as the oil dropped below the loose rivet, the leak disappeared. But, it caused of course great consternation.

Q: The main thing about flying over the North Pole, you don't want to be in a position to have to land and take off because it's floating ice, it's not land, is it?
RG: The North Pole is a very difficult place to land. Keep in mind, in 1925, Lincoln Ellsworth and Amundsen had the experience of doing emergency landing in the Arctic and they spend 30 days on the ice trying to do an emergency takeoff. And it is an extremely risky business and it's one of the reasons why Byrd wants a three engine airplane. He's desperate for a tri-motor, which is in it's infancy in this period, simply because he believes it gives him more flying range and less dependence. Witness Amundsen on one motor and in fact all of his exploration flying is done with three motor aircraft. 

An American Hero

Q: Why did Byrd get such a huge reception when he returned to the United States? What did his victory represent to Americans in the '20s? 
RG: His victory once again represented the superiority of American technology, American ambition and Byrd entered the growing pantheon of American heroes in the 1920's. Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, Richard Byrd. People named their children after Richard Byrd because he was such a heroic figure and in this era of motion pictures, he looked good on camera. A very dashing figure and the news media just absolutely fell in love with this very athletic, good looking officer and to make it even better, he's from a very distinguished family. So just an absolute prize as a heroic icon.

Q: Byrd said he entered the hero business with the North flight. What did he mean by this and do you think he expected it? 
RG: Byrd has a curious chapter in "Skyward", entitled "the hero business". And he talks in that chapter about all the parades and the lecture tours, the news media, etc., and it's a telling phrase because he refers to it as a business. He recognizes that this is a business that he needs to cultivate and he cultivates it very well. He cultivates it in terms of creating a public image that makes people want to buy stories and this cash is the foundation, along with donations, for the next expeditions. That's really the whole history of private polar exploration. You draw some publicity, you gather the cash, lecture tours, whatever, Byrd was able to do it on a scale never achieved before, in large part because of the nature of the mass media. 

Q: Why does he get such a big reception?
RG: Despite the inglorious ending of the transatlantic in the water, the flight is still viewed as a significant accomplishment. After all, it had a very happy ending. The drama was there for all the newspapers to pick up. The National Geographic published an article in its popular magazine about the flight and everybody comes back safely, that certainly is a trade mark of Byrd's expedition. So, even though coming in third, it really hasn't lost any luster and he also can make the case that after all, he's the first to fly a three engine aircraft and make the point that this is where aviation will go, not the one engine plane. 

The Transatlantic Flight of 1927

Q: How did the public rate Byrd as one of the competitors in the transatlantic race? Was he expected to win or confident that he would?
RG: The transatlantic flight of 1927 proved to be a rather controversial, to some extent, disappointing one. Byrd was, in fact, the favorite, he had a brand new airplane, he had his own runway, he had a meteorological service to make weather forecasts. He had all the advantages of and more that Charles Lindbergh did not. Lindbergh flew on a one motor aircraft and he was the first and Byrd was heavily criticized for being overly cautious and he was very cautious. He insisted that it was not really a race that what he wanted to do was to demonstrate the safety and reliability of the tri-motor, which he saw as the future of aviation rather than the single engine airplane - not everybody believed that story. 

Q: What do we learn about Byrd's stature from the public reaction to his transatlantic flight? You were talking about a cult figure, now a celebrity.
RG: Despite coming in third in that transatlantic competition Byrd did so with a real splash. He lands in the ocean off the coast of France, does so because it is safer to land in the ocean than it is to land in a house or tree tops and they row the raft to the small French village and so despite being a loser in the competition, he still does this in a heroic fashion and gets a ticker tape parade, the first American to receive two ticker tape parades in New York City and boasted he's the toasted, I should say as the quintessential American hero. He did it, he wasn't first but he did it with a flair.

Q: Briefly how hairy was the transatlantic flight?
RG: The transatlantic flight was a terrible flight. It was a horror for Byrd who was a foremost navigator. It flew through clouds, through fog, rain and the diary of that flight are simply with messages that are impossible to navigate, impossible to navigate. It was much more drama than Byrd would have wanted. 

Byrd's Ambition

Q: Why was the expedition to Antarctica inevitably Byrd's next move? Didn't he want to be the first?
RG: Byrd's ambition early on stretched to both the North and the South Pole as early as 1925. After the Greenland Expedition, he predicts an article in the National Geographic that the airplane will conquer the Arctic and the Antarctic. And, in his contract with the North Pole flight with Current News features, the final clause in that contract gives Current News the first option to negotiate with Byrd about a South Pole flight. So this is all part of the mix very early on.

Q: Wouldn't that insure his place in history for all time - why?
RG: Byrd would have the remarkable distinction of being the first man and perhaps at that time, even the only man to fly across both Poles, a unique place in history and become if you will, perhaps the most stellar of the Byrd family. So, it was a tremendous opportunity for lasting fame and accomplish. Someone who had been since 1916, on the retired list of the U.S. Navy, remarkable good fortune. 

The South Pole Expedition

Q: What was the American public feeling about the mythology about exploration in the South Pole, prior to Byrd?
RG: Well, the South Pole prior to Byrd had been the setting for a tragic drama namely the Amundsen reaching the South Pole and then the story of Bernt Balchen, Scott reaching the South Pole and dying on the way back and leaving a journal that was widely read, especially by Byrd, himself about losing one's life in the Antarctica. So, it was a place of high drama as well as mystery.

Q: Why did Byrd reveal who would be the pilot on the South Pole flight until the last minute and how did Balchen feel about it?
RG: Well Balchen judging from his ah autobiography was extremely resentful about Byrd for a number of reasons and that included the South Pole flight. Byrd Byrd kept Balchen in mystery as to whether Balchen was actually going to go on the South Pole flight. This had to be a great disappointment to Balchen, after all he had been left behind on the Norge and now he was not going to be on the South Pole flight and he only in the last minute was on the 1927 transatlantic flight. I think that this was Byrd's style of leadership to basically not make a commitment until the very end to keep people guessing.

Q: Can you tell me about the most dangerous moment in the South Pole flight? How did they get out of potential disaster?
RG: The weight of the plane was always critical and they had to fly over mountains to reach the South Pole. At one point they are facing an obstacle that they need to get more lift out of the plane and a decision is made to throw survival gear out of the plane, especially food that they would need if they had to crash land and wait for a rescue party. That helps with a lift. Balchen claims that he found an up draft that enabled the plane to go over. So even there there's dispute as to who gets the credit for the successful piloting of the plane. 

Q: How close did they come to almost crashing? This is a really scary moment, isn't it?
RG: It was a very dangerous moment. The last few seconds they did manage to climb above the mountain and reach safety. But it was very careful, the planes are really quite delicate instruments, even back then.

Q: What unique skills and vision did Byrd have to be able to pull off an expedition of this size? 
RG: Byrd as early as 1916, when he was organizing the naval reserve militia in Rhode Island, demonstrated unusual administrative ability. And administrative ability that executive ability was put to the test in all the details of planning for a two year stay in Antarctica. This was the largest expedition to visit Antarctica at that time to stay the longest and he involved himself in all the planing. The laboratories for the scientists, the airplanes, the base plans, it was a remarkable testament to Byrd's ability to involve himself in all the details from boots to gloves to planes. 

The Relationship Between Balchen and Byrd

Q: Why doesn't Byrd like Balchen and why doesn't Balchen like Byrd, yet how are they each dependent on each other. 
RG: The relationship between Byrd and Balchen is one of real drama. Balchen appears on the scene in Spitsbergen, in Norway as a very resourceful and helpful individual to Byrd, helpful because of his expertise in flying in polar environments. At the same time, Balchen is somebody whom Byrd has not selected. He appears on the scene. He has expertise that Byrd doesn't have and at various times he's quite dependent upon Balchen's great expertise in matters of flying and aviation and this dependence upon somebody who really is an outsider -- he's Norwegian, he's part of Amundsen's expedition I think makes Byrd feel very uncomfortable, especially since his own inclination of leadership is to demand absolute loyalty. And here he is an outsider that you know Byrd finds difficult to part with because of all the expertise that Balchen has. Balchen can fly by instrument, that's critical in the transatlantic flight in 1927 and he's so good in flying in the Arctic that he needs Balchen's expertise in the South Pole. and yet, he from you know, Byrd's sense he's still an outsider and makes Byrd quite uncomfortable. At various points Byrd says, I know of no one more competent than Balchen and I'm not only sure that it was a compliment because Byrd preferred loyalty as much as competence. 

Q: Why does Byrd get so angry at Balchen at their walk?
RG: There's a there's an episode at Little America where Byrd sees Balchen working on some calculations and Byrd of course assumes that this has to do with the expedition, Balchen explains no that he has an interest in the Josephine Ford's performance fuel, speed and Byrd absolutely blows up at this because his reasoning of course isn't spelled out. He must see this as a breach of loyalty why is it that an expeditionary member wants to go back and re-examine Byrd's past accomplishments when he is on board to do this expeditionary, not the past one. So Byrd is very angry at this and I think it really raises questions of loyalty. 

Byrd's Diary
RG: Byrd's diary represents his Greenland expedition, '25, transatlantic flight and the North Pole flight, and it was both a diary and also a notebook. Byrd would record daily events and then there are also many pages where the diary simply becomes a message pad between Byrd and his pilot, and it also becomes a scratch pad in doing some navigational calculations. So it's a very casual document and it serves multiple purposes. The one thing it doesn't serve is as a public document. It was not intended for Byrd to publish, but rather he drew upon this diary for passages in some of his books.

Q: Why does Byrd's diary about the North Pole flight seem to support opposing points of view? Some people believe that it confirms that he didn't make it, others like yourself, that he believed he did make it.
RG: Like much of Byrd, the diary itself is prone to different readings about the North Pole flight. There's a progression of statements from Byrd to the pilot that you know we're "x" miles away from the Pole, now we're 20 miles away from the Pole, and then finally, he says, we're at the Pole, make a circle. These are messages from Byrd's pilot Floyd Bennett because they cannot talk on the plane, the three motors are simply too loud. On the other hand, there are also calculations in the notebook that Byrd was using to record on his chart and there are several erasures there and some readers of the erasures maintain that this was Byrd's true position and are different from his reported position. We've also had people look at the erasures and say that the erasures are erasures because they're mistakes. And so that's an issue that's still up for resolution. 

Q: You do believe he made it to the Pole, why don't you think he was lying about that? You think he thought he made it.
RG: I believe that at the time of the flight that Byrd thought that he made it. The messages to the pilot are certainly very clear in the notebook. It also puzzles me that if the erasures were that critical why the erasures were not done better and why the notebook itself survived if there was something to be hidden. It just doesn't make any sense that someone who's trying to cover up a major faux pas or major lie, if you will,would not you know, be more careful. 

Financing the Second Expedition

Q: What does Byrd have to do to raise money for the next expedition? It's gone beyond exploration now, isn't he kind of the ultimate commodity?
RG: The second expedition is a lot more challenging than the first. It takes place in the worst of the Great Depression. He comes back in 1930. The second expedition begins in 1933. He's got tremendous problems raising donations and worse. He has the problem of his own success because well Paramount Pictures helped with the financing of the first expedition. They're extremely reluctant to do a second picture in advance money for the expedition. The problems of the classic Hollywood Tale - we've done it once, it can't be done better so we don't want to invest our money. Paramount is like everybody else, in the Great Depression and they're very concerned about not wasting money and the need for an attention grabber is absolutely critical.

Q: So, what does he do about that? Why does he feel compelled to go back there - is he on a hero treadmill or is it his job? Does he want to discover more territory?
RG: Well, Byrd wants to go back for his Second Expedition because he has become like Peary, before him a professional explorer. This is his mission in life, this is what he's good at and this is an arena of continuing accomplishments. One of the rationales for the Second Expedition is that they could do a lot more science, on the Second Expedition, than they could on the first. They already have an established base and so science is always a good reason for the polar exploration but science usually is not very dramatic and the South Pole flight had already been done. Lincoln Ellsworth had already proposed and was in the process of trying to accomplish a Trans-Continental flight across Antarctica. And Paramount was very skeptical that an investment with Byrd at this time would pay off financially.

Q: So, what does he have to do in order to get this thing off the ground?
RG: Well, what he does is he manages to persuade Paramount to invest. He also continues a contract with Current News for exclusives. He also does something extremely unusual, he makes an arrangement with a U.S. Post Office to sell postal covers from Little America, and eventually raised more than $30,000 selling stamps. But all the contracts for media coverage are very important. He promises Paramount that there's going to be drama at Advance Base by having a base in the interior of Antarctica to do meteorological observations. No one had ever wintered in the interior of Antarctica before. This would have been a first, with some scientific results and this is presented to Paramount as a perspective drama. Most revealingly he tells Paramount that he's planning two people in Advance Base. In his book about the experience alone, Byrd maintains that two was never the thought, that it was always planned for three but that for logistical reasons, problems of weather, of moving supplies out that the hut could only accommodate one and he as the leader of the expedition had to accept and wanted to accept that responsibility. 

Byrd's Condition at Advance Base

Q: Does he make a note about his condition in his weather diary? How bad does it get for him and why?
RG: The conditions are very brutal in Advance Base. You're looking at outside temperatures sometimes minus 70, the temperatures in the shack are quite uncomfortable. They're made even more uncomfortable when Byrd discovers or thinks he discovers that he's being poisoned from the stove and has to reduce the amount of heat from the stove, shut off the stove at night and suffer the severe cold because he realizes that he's going to die of poisoning. If he keeps the heat on, he also reduces the light for the same reason to try to keep carbon monoxide fumes out of his shelter and we do have a meteorological log that Byrd kept daily and in the period, May 30th to June 4th, there's an apology in that log, in which Byrd states that "my physical is quite desperate" and in this case he was apologizing for the lack of a daily entry in that period.

Q: He's floating in and out of consciousness and calls himself a fool on a fool's errand, do you think he was?
RG: I don't think Advance Base was a fool's errand at all. Byrd new exactly what he was doing and needed to do so to make the Second Expedition viable. Keep in mind that Second Expedition is not financed fully at first. He's dependent on revenues after the expedition so you know that expedition needs to have a public success, a public drama. Knowing what we know of Byrd, he was not a person to put himself foolishly at risk. This was a circumstance that developed unexpectedly and one that almost cost him his life. 

Rescuing Byrd

Q: To what extent did Byrd ask to be rescued?
RG: The rescue of Byrd is itself a drama. Byrd could not and did not want to order a rescue because to do so would have meant that a party of men would have had to travel through the Antarctica night, risk their lives on crevices, get lost trying to rescue him. Byrd had on three occasions risked his own life rescuing people from sea. He was not the kind of person who willingly ordered others to try to rescue him. By the same token, he was deeply attached to his family and to the objectives of the expedition, that of course he had personalized into all these personal loyalty oaths and recognized that if he did die, then things would very likely unravel,the financial things, the leadership of the expedition. So he's very much torn. He can't put men at risk but they're at risk. So, it's a delicate maneuvering to stage a rescue to get others to develop the idea of a rescue for him. And that's really how it transpires.

Q: So, he asked not specifically for the rescue but he encourages the trip, right?

RG: Yes, Byrd encourages Thomas Poulter, his second in command to make an expedition in the Antarctica winter for meteorological and aurora observations and to make that field trip in the vicinity of his cabin. This he freely confesses would enable him to get back early and that you know he needed to get, he wanted to get back because of expedition problems, finances, etc., but did not clearly state to Poulter that his health was in jeopardy. 

Q: What kind of pressure did it put on Murphy to know how serious the situation was and why was he indirect about ordering the others to rescue Byrd?
RG: Charles Murphy was Byrd's radio link and probably knew more than anybody the circumstances at Advance Base. Murphy too, knew that Byrd did not want to put anybody's life at risk. But, by the same token, wanted Byrd back. So it's a very awkward situation for Murphy. Murphy's also in communication with Byrd's wife. So this ah this is an extremely stressful time for him as well. 

Q: What does Murphy do to finally change the mixed...
RG: Well, Murphy orchestrates meetings with the senior staff including Peter Demas who becomes one of the rescue members. Demas has been involved with Byrd for a long time, all the way back from the North Pole flight. Demas quite shrewdly interprets this as really a message from Byrd to please rescue me but I can't quite call for a rescue. It wouldn't be right of me to do so. And, I think that is the telling line that Demas has read through Byrd's non-communication, if you will to the whole team that this is really a rescue mission and it's needed. 

Byrd's Legacy

Q: What is Byrd's legacy, do you think?
RG: Byrd's legacy, in my opinion is the continued American presence in Antarctica, the scientific presence, the military logistical support, it's the Navy that still continues to supply the American scientists in Antarctica and especially Byrd's legacy is the generations of scientists who followed those who went with Byrd. So, there's a continuing effort to link knowledge of Antarctica with the global environment and to continue to advance man's knowledge of the universe. 

Q: Do you think that Byrd was a real hero and if so, why isn't he remembered on the same scale as Lindbergh.
RG: It is odd that Lindbergh you know continues to remain a hero more so than Byrd whether that's true or not I think it's you know, not deservedly so. Byrd left behind many accomplishments that Lindbergh did not. How many of us for example have ever tried to fly across the Atlantic in a one engine airplane. Whereas Byrd left a legacy of continued American and scientific involvement, in Antarctica, who can explain the whims of the public. It may be that even before his death that polar exploration, like space exploration now had become such a matter of routine, that other interests captured the public.