Journalist Eugene Rogers was interviewed in 1998 for the documentary Alone on the Ice.

Raising Money for the First Expedition

Q: How did Byrd raise money for the first expedition, how good was he at it?
ER: Byrd was very good at raising money for his first expedition. And subsequent expeditions for that matter. His principal source of funds for the expedition was the advertising rights he sold to people like Skippy Peanut Butter and Crisco lard and things like that, companies whose products were used on the expedition. They were able to advertise that the Byrd expedition used our products. Byrd also got money from newspapers, from the lecture circuit, from magazines and so forth. And this money he put into his own bank account. He intended that to be his profit for running the expedition. As it turned out his donations from millionaires and from companies wasn't quite enough, more than quite -- he fell short by $120,000, I believe it was. Not enough to finance the expedition. So in the end he donated some of what he considered his personal funds to the expedition.

The expedition was a huge undertaking, financially and in every other way really. It was the biggest expedition ever to go to Antarctica. It cost in the end, $1.1 million dollars. And that was really a tremendous figure. We lose sight of it these days because we speak of the national debt as trillions of dollars. But back at that time the national budget was around $4 billion dollars. A subway ride in New York cost a nickel. A home in the close in suburbs to New York City cost $20,000. So money went a long way then. At one point one million dollars was really $1.1 million dollars, a lot of money. And Byrd had to raise it all himself, the government provided absolutely nothing.

Media Deals for the First Expedition

Q: Can you tell me something about the nature of the media deals Byrd arranged for the first expedition? This was personal money?
ER: Byrd arranged several media deals. The New York Times had him under contract. I believe they were paying him $60,000 for the rights to write the news stories and the feature stories about the first expedition. And yes, Byrd considered this to be his money. It went into his pocket. Byrd also had an arrangement with the National Geographic Society to write an article for their magazine about the expedition. He got a very generous contract with Putnam to publish the book about the expedition, 20 percent royalties, again all this went into Byrd's pocket. And he did this by making himself a media figure, a showman. He had an adventure story to tell and he told it like a pro.

Q: What kind of deals did he make with Paramount?
ER: Byrd had two men on the expedition who were Paramount photographers. And they made a documentary during the course of the expedition. And after the expedition this documentary won the academy award for best photography. It was a terrible documentary though, I must say that. It didn't really fit the history correct. It was made to show Byrd as a great hero, and to bring tears and sweat from the audience. It wasn't really historically true. 

The Idea of Scientific Study in Antarctica

Q: How did Byrd use of the promise of scientific discovery to sell his expedition? How real was that science?
ER: Science has played a major role in Antarctic exploration. And Byrd truly wanted to contribute to science. Antarctica was virgin territory. It still is in many ways. Virgin territory for scientists. Glaciologists had to study how much ice was there and how it moved. The weathermen had to study the air patterns, the geologists had to study the rocks down there. So gathering scientific knowledge about Antarctica was very important at the time. And Byrd truly wanted to make scientific contributions. So he gathered scientists and did scientific work down there. And it was truly important to obtaining the global picture of things. The Antarctic portion of the earth is huge, look at a globe, it's a huge portion of the earth. And at the time, especially in the 1920s, very little was known about it. So what data Byrd was able to gather, and his men were able to gather, enabled weather forecasters to make better predictions even for the United States, oceanographers to understand currents better and so forth. Scientifically although Byrd didn't do a lot of science in that first expedition, what science he did was very good and very worthwhile.

Q: He didn't just kind of use it as a carrot, as a way to sell the expedition, he really had a genuine interest in it. 
ER: At the time Byrd mounted his first Antarctic expedition, science was a very important part of expeditions. But it was also a way to raise money because scientists and science were very popular at the time. People were interested in educating themselves. They loved to read anything about science in the 1920s. So Byrd used science, not only as a means of contributing to humanity which he truly wanted to do, but also as a way of gaining attention to his expedition. So he hyped the expedition by claiming he would do great scientific things. He stretched the truth a little bit. He talked about possibly finding enclaves with maybe people like Eskimos and weird plants and animals, maybe something prehistoric. He was hinting that they might find dinosaurs down there. And there was, I suppose some possibility this might happen although scientists didn't think they'd find anything like that and in fact they didn't. They found rather routine things, but very important things to scientists. Byrd's expeditions contributed greatly to our scientific understanding of the polar regions. 

Byrd's Motivation to Fly Over Antarctica

Q: Why do you think Byrd wanted to be the first to fly over the South Pole? First of all he would have gotten his place in history being the first over the North Pole, but can you tell us that, and then go on?
ER: I think Byrd wanted to fly over the South Pole to make a statement about aviation. We must remember that back in these days, aviation was just getting started. It was the high tech industry of the day. It was to the 1920s what computers and the Internet are today. Byrd was trying to prove that aviation could work to the betterment of mankind. People then mostly remembered aviation as a tool of World War I, and they thought airplanes were for destruction and they couldn't contribute to mankind. Byrd thought otherwise. He passionately believed in this. And he would speak for hours to friends about the impact of aviation on civilization. He wanted to prove that aviation could do great things. One way that Byrd and other aviators of the time did this was to show, to get publicity for aviation by showing how airplanes could travel from a place here to a place a thousand miles away without stopping or cross an ocean or cross a Pole. So Byrd flew to the North Pole, or tried to, that's controversial. And got headlines and publicized aviation. And then ah, he decided to fly to the South Pole. Now we've got to remember that at this time polar exploration was still a big thing. The days of Peary who discovered the North Pole, Amundsen who discovered the South Pole were only a few years really away. So people remembered the, the tragedies and the heartbreak and the injuries that happened from people trying to discover the Poles. How long it took them, the hardships they underwent. Byrd reasoned that if he could fly to the South Pole and back in one day in relative comfort and accomplish what the old explorers had taken weeks or months to do that this would gain great publicity for aviation and incidentally for himself. So this was the reason for the South Polar flight. Today we say, oh, everybody flies to the Pole. You go over the Pole when you're on your way to Japan, for example. What's the big deal about flying over a Pole? But in those rickety airplanes of the 1920s it was a very big deal. Flying over the South Pole was a tremendous accomplishment. 

The Journey to Antarctica

Q: What was the trip down to Antarctica like?
ER: The trip down to Antarctica from the United States took much longer than it does today. Nowadays, Antarctic explorers get on an airplane and they're down there in relatively few hours. Back then Byrd had to take ships from New York through the Panama Canal to the South Pacific and then to New Zealand, it took months. One of Byrd's ships was an old sailing ship. So the transportation is quite a bit different than it is today.

Q: So once they got to the ice pack and he had these two ships, right, what kind of tension was there?
ER: In order to get to Antarctica, Byrd had to travel from New Zealand halfway down, and then he would meet an, what's called the Antarctic Ice Pack. And this is a rim of ice that entirely circles the Antarctic continent. There are ice floes, which is frozen sea ice, and icebergs which are big masses of, of fresh water ice that break off the Antarctic ice shells which is around the continent. This is very dangerous for a ship to go through. Because while you're going through the ice pack which is many miles thick, if a wind comes up and starts banging these floes against your ship a ship can be sunk, and ships have been sunk in the ice pack, especially back in those days when the ships were much less strong than they are now. And Byrd had a wooden ship that was especially vulnerable to these things. So it was quite a dicey experience. Byrd had to get through the ice pack with his ships intact, and his men and himself intact. And it took several days. They were guided through the ice pack and in fact towed through the ice pack by a commercial whaling ship. And Byrd and his men breathed a sigh of relief when they got to the other side and only clear water separated them from their goal.

Q: And what was their goal at the time and what did it look like?
ER: Byrd's goal, once he got through the ice pack was to go to a place called the Barrier. There is a massive ice shelf that covers the southern part of the Ross Sea, and this shelf of ice is about the size of Great Britain. It's an enormous floating sheet of ice attached on all sides, but the northern side to the land. Sailors in the old days when they were trying to reach the South Pole and would come down from New Zealand, going straight south, would come to this mass of ice, and they would see from their ships a great wall of white ice floating in the ocean, stretching from east to west, that barred their way to the South Pole. So they called this the Barrier. So Byrd's goal was to go to the barrier, to get on top of it, and to make his camp there on the Barrier. To find a stable part of the Barrier where he could stay for a year and a half. 

Byrd's Tendency to be Secretive

Q: Byrd was often very secretive about his plans. That, with the men fostered some rivalry?
ER: Byrd was a very secretive person. He liked to keep his plans to himself for the most part, especially regarding how he used personnel. For example, he had four pilots with him on the expedition. Only one, obviously, could be the pilot to fly to the South Pole, which was a big glamorous part of the expedition. The pilot of the South Polar flight would get all of the attention. So each of the four pilots, to begin with, ah, was vying for the honor of being number one. Who would fly Byrd to the South Pole? Byrd couldn't fly himself because he was a poor pilot. Soon, one pilot dropped out of the competition, Harold June. He decided to take the second seat on every flight and take himself out of the competition. That left three vying for the spot. And Byrd kind of strung it along. He wouldn't tell any of them who he had chosen for the flight. In fact, it wasn't until the, almost the eve of the South Polar flight that he turned, turned to Berndt Balchen and said, you're my man, you'll fly me to the South Pole.

Q: Did that cause a lot of tension between him and Balchen?
ER: Berndt Balchen, I think, resented Byrd's manipulation of his people as he saw it. He didn't think that the pilots should be strung along. He felt that Byrd should have told the pilots early on who was going to fly him to the South Pole. Balchen had his own ego. I'm sure he felt certain that he was the man that Byrd had to turn to. But nevertheless, Byrd did try to string them along, or at least, I shouldn't say that. Berndt Balchen felt that Byrd was stringing him along. Byrd was a very cautious man, a very cautious polar leader. This is one of the great advantages he has over other leaders. One of his great strengths was the, the caution with which he approached his exploration. Part of this caution was to wait until the very last minute to make major decisions. He had to have all the data he needed. Certainly his choice of people for important assignments was a decision that was major. When he made it a second in command, his first second in command had mental problems and had to be relieved before Byrd actually went down to Antarctica. He chose the second in command on the voyage down to Antarctica. But he didn't tell anyone about this until the very last minute when he had to choose someone to make a decision. That's when he announced who it would be. So Byrd liked to keep his options open as long as he could. He did this for his second in command of the expedition, he did this for his pilot to the South Pole. He did it in other cases.

Little America

Q: How difficult was it to set up Little America when they got down to the ice?
ER: When Byrd got down to the ice, and the ice is what Antarctic explorers call Antarctica, Byrd's first chore was to set up the base that he eventually called Little America. And this was really a great undertaking because Byrd had to anchor his ships against frozen sea ice, I believe it was eight miles from the location where his base was. So he had to get his supplies from his ship to the base eight miles away over sea ice. And he did this by dog sled teams. They'd run back and forth between the base and the ship. And having to build a base for 42 men that would last them for a year and a half, he was really building a tiny little city, with nothing there. He had to carry everything himself. So bringing his stuff to the base, erecting it under awful conditions of sub-zero temperatures and fierce winds and snow storms and ice that was as hard as concrete to dig into, it was a great undertaking. And the Byrd had to do it in just a few weeks before winter set in. And he did it. He and his men did, really one of the accomplishments of the expedition was building Little America in the short time that they did.

Q: And what about unloading? Just tell me how difficult the unloading process was?
ER: The unloading process was very difficult because of the, the ships were several miles from the base. And dog teams had to go from the ships to the base hauling the supplies. Byrd only had one professional dog driver. The rest were all amateurs, so they were learning as they were going along. The boy scout, Paul Siple, who was with Byrd was one of the dog drivers. But they learned fast, and managed to get the, the supplies to the base. Sometimes they had difficulty doing so. I remember one story where one of these novice dog drivers had left the ship carrying a load of supplies. And then several minutes later the sledge came back with all the supplies and no driver. The dogs had just turned around and come back and dumped the driver somewhere. So there were incidents like these. It was very tough. It was summertime when Byrd was unloading so the ice was cracking up while they were loading. And Byrd knew they had to hurry and get it done because the ice would soon crack up enough that they couldn't be on it. So it was dangerous, it was arduous. It was really an ordeal.

Q: Can you paint a picture for us of life during the winter at Little America?
ER: The winter on any Antarctic expedition, even today is a harsh, very trying time for the people involved. I mean you've got to picture to yourself that here is a land of perpetual darkness during the winter. It's like midnight for, where Byrd was about four months out of the year. Extremely cold, it got down to a minus, almost minus 75 in Little America at one point. Winds howling, men cooped up in very small cabins. It was a very trying time. They had little to do except plan for the next year. So people get on each other's nerves. They get depressed. People tended not to be able to concentrate. They, they slept long hours. They blew up at each other. They tended to get what they call, the big eye, in Antarctica, even today, where they just stare because they were depressed and had little stimulation. It was a very trying time. Byrd had been warned about this by other polar explorers who told him, watch out for the winter. It's a very dangerous time in Antarctica. It fed Byrd's basic fears of mutiny. 

The Mission to Rescue Gould

Q: Can you tell us how Byrd behaved before and during the mission to rescue Gould?
ER: The geologist on the expedition, Lawrence Gould, had flown out to the Rockefeller Mountains to stay for a few days and collect rocks and draw geological maps and do other geological studies. And while he was there the plane that he had flown there in was swept away by a windstorm and demolished. With it the radio that was on the plane. The radio they had in the tent with them didn't work. So there was no way to tell Byrd what had happened. So back at Little America, all Byrd and his people back there knew was that they hadn't heard from this field party in days. And they grew worried that some accident, some terrible accident had befallen the men. So they had to go rescue the men. Byrd had another airplane ready, the airplane could hold only five people, but there had to be a pilot and a radio man. And Byrd who could not pilot himself because he was a poor pilot had to go along because he was the leader. So that left only two men. So ah, they would have had to fly two planes to rescue the party. It was very awkward that Byrd couldn't fly himself. Besides being a poor pilot it was obvious from this instant that Byrd himself was afraid to fly. 

Dean Smith recalls getting ready to make that flight. He would be the pilot. And sitting in the plane with the engines revving up and the propellers going and no Byrd, when the point of time came for the take-off, no Byrd. So he went to Byrd's room and Byrd was in his room with the door locked. And he said to the doctor, what's the matter? And the doctor said, well, Byrd is in there praying. And after a while Byrd asked Dean Smith to send the doctor back again. So the doctor came back, Dean Smith says, carrying some brandy for Byrd. So Dean Smith said that Byrd was getting a little drunk even as a lot of people do now who are white knuckle flyers. Finally Byrd went out to the plane and Dean described his face as white as snow, and Byrd looking almost like a dead man just walking like a zombie toward the plane. Byrd was afraid to fly. Others on the expedition have said this too. Henry Harrison who was the meteorologist on the expedition told me that he thought Byrd was afraid to fly. Balchen thought he was afraid to fly. Dean Smith said he was afraid to fly. But the important thing to remember is that although Byrd was terrified of flying, he flew, he made these dangerous flights in these dangerous airplanes. And all the people who told me that Byrd was afraid to fly also say, but the fact that he did fly showed what guts the man had.

Q: What happened when he landed with Gould?
ER: On the rescue flight to the Rockefeller Mountains when Byrd went to rescue Gould, the airplane approached the Rockefellers, and they weren't sure exactly where Gould and his party were. So they went to the most likely spot, didn't see anybody, started to turn the plane around. And when the pilot Dean Smith, saw a flash of light. And he looked down and there on the ground were flares set out and a T marked out on the ice. And there were three men standing by the T. The T was a landing site. The men had found the best place to land in the area. So Dean Smith decided to land. Well, Byrd wasn't sure they should land. And in fact he was terrified about what might happen if they tried to land on the rough ice, the unknown ice. So he said, you're not going to land are you? And Dean Smith said, yes I am. And according to Smith, Byrd then leaned over him and grabbed him and tried to pull him away from the controls. And he and Dean Smith had a fight in this plane as the plane was landing. And Smith, who was a big man, turned, got the seatbelt off, and turned around and shoved Byrd into the back of the plane. Told the radioman to hold Byrd, and then turned around and was able to grab the controls just before the plane would have crashed, leveled off and landed. The plane landed with a big slap of the skis and the plane shook and trembled and then came to a stop. Byrd got out of the plane, threw down his sleeping bag and knelt down for a few moments in thankful prayer. So it was an incident that showed how afraid Byrd was of flying and how panicky he got. But also how religious the man was. He was a very religious person.

 Byrd's Drinking Habits

Q: What's the significance of Byrd's drinking and what effect do you think it had on his ability to get the job done?
ER: Byrd liked to drink. He often apologized to his wife, Marie, through letters, which is how I knew about it, about drinking too much. At Antarctica he drank on the way down. There was a birthday party for him on the ship on the way down, and he got drunk. At Little America he and the rest of the men drank laboratory alcohol which is 200 proof. They had to water it down, but it was still potent stuff. And they all got drunk, Byrd included. This happened frequently. However, I don't see Byrd ever getting so drunk that he couldn't do, that he couldn't perform his mission. He got drunk at parties. I don't think he drank alone. He drank too much. He drank at inappropriate times. He'd drink on flights, but not where he was actually doing anything, where he was essentially a passenger. So there's some question about whether Byrd could be regarded as an alcoholic or not. He had problems with drink but I'll leave that diagnosis to somebody else. 

Byrd's Leadership Qualities

Q: How is Byrd shaping up as a leader in the eyes of his men? Some people loved him, some people hated him. 
ER: As a leader, Byrd was greatly admired by the lesser ranking men on his expedition. His expedition was a democratic one. They weren't officers and men -- they were just plain men. But the people who would have been enlisted men on other expeditions. The people who did the roustabout work -- who did the labor and so forth -- tended to really admire Byrd and to love him as a leader. However, Byrd's peers, the scientists, the other professional men, tend to see Byrd as another human being and a person who had his ambitions. So they weren't in love with Byrd. In fact, Larry Gould by the end of the expedition, Larry Gould was the chief scientist and the second in command. He was very disappointed in Byrd, felt he'd been let down by Byrd. Berndt Balchen who was the chief of the aviation part of the expedition and the pilot to the South Pole, had no respect for Byrd. Felt he wasn't a good leader, wasn't really the type of man Balchen thought should lead an Antarctic expedition. So there were these two views of Byrd, the uncompromising love for Byrd by the lesser ranking men and the more clear eyed view of Byrd, perhaps prejudiced by their own ambitions, the views of the senior people. 

The Loyal Legion

Q: Tell me about the loyal legion and what does it tell us about Byrd?
ER: One of the most fantastic things I ran into in my own research was a document in which Byrd abducted people into a secret society that he called the Loyal Legion. Byrd was so afraid of mutiny that he wanted to make sure that he had a corps of people who were loyal to him. All the lesser ranking men on the expedition who were, had undying loyalty to him. So I think on the basis of his Masonic background, he was a member of the Mason's fraternal order, I think he used that as a model to form his own secret society down there that he called the Loyal Legion, the people incredibly loyal to him. And he got several of the lesser ranking men on the expedition, the younger men, and actually put them through a secret ceremony in which he read to them the purpose of the Loyal Legion which was to protect Byrd against mutiny in Antarctica, to protect Byrd's reputation even when they got back to the United States and made them swear an oath of fealty to him. And he swore his own oath of loyalty to them. He talked about even having a secret pin these people would wear. I don't know whether that actually took place or not but that was his plan. 

The Race to the South Pole

Q: How much of a threat was Wilkens to Byrd on the South Pole flight, and how much did it prompt him to get in the air quickly? 
ER: When Byrd was preparing to go to fly to the South Pole, he learned that Eubert Wilkens, Sir Eubert Wilkens was also making an airplane expedition to Antarctica, and just might fly to the South Pole. Byrd had heard that Hearst had offered Wilkens $50,000 to beat Byrd to the South Pole. So Byrd was under a tremendous amount of pressure not only to get to the Pole in the first place, but to beat Wilkens to the Pole. I mean after all, the first man to fly to the South Pole would be the one to get all the honors. If Byrd were second, he would get nothing.

So Byrd felt he had to beat Wilkens. And as the time approached for the South Polar flight, Byrd kept careful track of what Wilkens was doing. And he realized that Wilkens was about to fly. So Byrd felt that I'd better fly as soon as I can. So although Byrd was normally cautious and very conservative about when he flew, taking the utmost precautions and not flying until the weather was almost perfect, he realized that this time he had to take some chance or he'd be the loser. He'd be like Amundsen, like Scott was when Amundsen reached the North Pole. Scott was second. Scott did not get credit for the discovery. Byrd did not want to be second, he wanted to be first. So yes, he felt under great pressure and took off for the South Pole sooner than he would have liked under conditions that weren't ideal. 

The South Polar Flight

Q: What was the most dangerous point in the flight to the South Pole and how did Balchen contribute to the success of the flight?
ER: The South Polar flight was almost routine if you can speak about any Antarctic flight in those days as routine. Up until the time they got to the mountains that lay halfway between Little America and the South Pole, and these mountains were quite high, they were higher than the plane could fly. The rickety planes of those days had very little altitude. So the plane had to get over the peaks. And Balchen had tried to calculate the weight of the plane to make sure that it could get over the peaks. Well, they got into a narrow mountain defile and approached the Polar Plateau. And the polar plateau is a vast plateau like the Tibetan plateau. And the mountains were on the border of the plateau. He had to get over the mountains then on top of the plateau. As he approached the plateau he realized the plane was too heavy. It just would not go as high as it had to go to get over the mountains. They were in a narrow defile, they couldn't turn around. The ice below them was glacial ice, too rough to land on. They had to go ahead, they had to get over the mountains but the plane couldn't go high enough. So Balchen yelled, dump out some food. They had big bags of emergency food, that weighed over 100 pounds, I believe. So they dumped that one bag, the plane went up but not quite enough. Balchen yells dump out another bag, they threw out another bag, it was still not enough. They were really in danger of crashing into a mountain peak that lay directly ahead of them. 

Experienced pilot that he was, Berndt Balchen knew that there was a cold mass of air pouring over the polar plateau, and there was probably an updraft somewhere if he could find it. So he flew over to a mountain wall, to his right, I believe it was. And lo and behold there was an updraft there. He got just enough of an updraft to boost the plane high, high enough to get over the peak. They flew over the mountain and they were home safe. The flight from there to the South Pole was a piece of cake.

Q: It seemed like Balchen saved the day in that flight. But how was Byrd's role reported in the South Pole flight?
ER: Byrd had to be seen as the leader, not only of the expedition but of all the important parts of the expedition, particularly the South Pole flight which was the gemstone of the expedition. So he tried to tell the world that he was the navigator who showed Balchen how to get to the South Pole. He talked about having a trolley wire in the plane. He'd relay instructions to Balchen and Balchen would get the instructions, read them and turn around and smile at Byrd. Balchen must have thrown up when he read this account in Byrd's book. Because as best as I can determine, Balchen really did most of the navigating himself, by dead reckoning, keeping track of his speeds and the directions he was flying. Byrd, I don't think really had any role at all in the flight. 

Being Stranded on the Ice

Q: How close did the expedition come to staying on the ice and why and how panicked was Byrd about that?
ER: Byrd's expedition was due to be picked up by his ships and taken back to civilization in the spring of 1930. The ships had to get through the ice pack that surrounded Antarctica. And that year the ice pack was stronger and thicker and wider than usual. The ships had a hard time getting through. In fact, even the whalers in their big steel ships weren't sure they could get through. At least one whaler was sunk in the pack ice. So it really looked for a while as if Byrd's ships couldn't get through to pick him up and he would have to spend another winter there. Of course for Byrd this was disastrous. That it would diminish the impact of his expedition and he was counting on a big impact to make the big bucks to pay off the expedition and to make his own profit and to finance future expeditions. He had things to do. Other men had their lives to live. And they didn't want to spend another year there. And without a strong goal like the science, and particularly the flight to the South Pole and the flights of geographical discovery they had no mission. Byrd had all these young men with nothing to do. He knew and others knew that it would be a rough time. There would be fights, there would be boredom, there might be mutiny. Byrd did not want to stay another winter. And he begged the whalers to pick them up in their ships. When they finally got through he said you must come and get to Little America because we have sick men here who need to be picked up. Well there weren't men that were, that were that sick but he said that to entice the whalers there. He got his people back home to put political pressure on the whaling companies to order their ships down there. Finally the man who ran Byrd's stateside office found millionaires and other people who were willing to foot the bill to pay the whalers the money that they would lose by rescuing Byrd. So when the whalers did finally get through the pack ice they agreed to pick up Byrd's expedition. And Byrd did finally get out. But it was touch and go for a while. There was a big national story at the time. Byrd's Antarctic expedition stranded on the ice, a big story.

Dean Smith's Diary

Q: What happened with Dean Smith's diary?
ER: During the winter at Little America the men had time on their hands. One way Dean Smith filled this time was to write a diary, a voluminous diary by all accounts. He'd write down apparently everything that happened on the expedition, write down his opinions of what happened. Byrd knew that Dean Smith was not devoted to him. Dean Smith did not got the piloting assignments that he felt he deserved, that he felt he had bargained for with Byrd. He felt Byrd hadn't been entirely square with him. He was a bit resentful. So Byrd wondered what was going to be in his diary and what it might do to his own image. After the expedition on the plane the ship voyage from Panama to New York City Dean Smith was on board. And he kept his diary in his locker, and he kept it in a case. And one day he went to his locker and found the locker door had been jimmied open. And he rummaged inside and saw the diary case empty. Someone had broken into his locker and stolen the diary pages. He reported this immediately to Byrd. And Byrd says, well, I'll mount a search and try to find it. But the diary was never found. Dean Smith admitted later to me that the Hearst Corporation had offered him money for this diary, after he composed it. He said he hadn't done the diary with publication in mind or at least sale to Hearst in mind. But certainly that was the motive later on. And Byrd was always afraid of Hearst getting something like this and turning it against Byrd. Smith felt that the culprit behind the theft was Byrd himself. Smith claims that he heard from others afterwards that Byrd indeed had stolen the diary. He said, Harold June admitted to him later on that he, June, had stolen the diary on Byrd's orders. This is what Dean Smith says. 

Understanding Byrd's Character

Q: Why do you think it's so difficult to get a handle on Byrd? 
ER: Byrd is a very complex man. He dared great things and people who dare great things have many sides to them. Ah, he had to chisel his image, he had to step on people sometimes. Um, he was a, a shy man I think, but he had to be in the public eye all the time. He did things, and I was constantly surprised by Byrd, I'd, I think he had some... a motive for doing something, and I find out later he had a separate motive. He was a man of many motives. He wanted to contribute to history and science, he wanted to make money, he wanted to become a hero. And all these forces were churning in him constantly. And which one won out depended on the circumstances. It was hard to know which Byrd you were talking to at one time. The man with the hero mask on? The genuine Byrd. Who was it.

Q: When you say Byrd created a "barrier of illusion" in your book, what did you mean?
ER: Yeah, my book is called, "Beyond the Barrier," and it tells about Byrd's actual flights beyond the barrier, the great wall of ice. And also it goes beyond the barriers of illusion that Byrd created because he was so conscious about his image. And he tried to project himself as the perfect man, doing great things alone and almost unaided by other people. The people he worked with are kind of in the shadows in the books he wrote and in the publicity about them. So Byrd in a way erected illusions. He, he did make mistakes, he did have flaws. This is certainly not to say that Byrd was not a great man. I mean after all, in my book, I place Byrd under a great microscope. I don't think any other person in history, certainly none I know about, has ever been examined in such detail. Forty-two men living closely together in confined spaces writing about one another. And they're all writing about Byrd in particular. And later on, some of them wrote books in which they wrote about this experience. So every facet of Byrd was examined and brought out. And I can't think of any other man that could withstand this and come through as well as Byrd did. He drank a bit. He lied sometimes. Stepped on people sometimes, but what great man hasn't.

The Controversy of the North Pole Flight

Q: What do you believe happened on the North Pole flight? Do you believe it was in his character to have lied about it?
ER: The North Pole flight of course is one of great controversy. Did Byrd make it to the North Pole or not? Did he lie about it or not? There are people who say Byrd was of such sterling characters that he would never lie. Well, I think my research shows that he would lie and he did lie sometimes to advance his image, to advance his aims. So I think he could have lied, yes. Whether he did or not, I don't know. My impression is that Byrd did not make it to the North Pole. Weather records tend to show that he did not. I found an interesting letter from Paul Siple to Berndt Balchen when I was doing my research, and this concerned the first expedition. And Siple wrote to Balchen. Balchen was just writing his book about this time in which he originally planned to reveal some things about Byrd that hadn't been revealed before. And particularly that in Balchen's opinion he hadn't made it to the North Pole. And Siple said to Balchen in his letter maybe Byrd did not make it to the North Pole, but he certainly thought he did. And in those days, navigational equipment wasn't good enough to tell precisely where you were. So Siple, who was otherwise a great defender of Byrd is saying, maybe Byrd didn't make it to the North Pole, but he thought he did. 

The Dangers of Antarctica

Q: Byrd seems to have been down there, he claims they never lost a man. But it seems that at every turn they could have. I mean it was incredibly, incredible luck that they survived. There were crevasses, there was frostbite, people got lost. It was incredibly dangerous. And quite miraculous that people didn't die there.
ER: Antarctica is a very inhospitable place. I think it's something like Mars, it's as close to another planet as we can get on earth. It's the driest place on earth, the coldest, the windiest. There are no plants there, no animals to live off of. It's desolate, desolate with a capital D, and dangerous. Antarctica has killed men. They've fallen off mountains, fallen into the sea and drown, froze to death, gone mad. It's a terrible place to live. And yes, Byrd was very lucky. Certainly one of the great accomplishments is the planning and the preparation that went into his expeditions. He tried to make sure that he didn't lose a man, and he didn't. But there's some luck to this. On the first expedition to Antarctica, the men were unloaded the parts to the big Ford airplane that Byrd intended to fly to the South Pole in, and the ice cracked as the big plane got on the ice, and the floes teetered, the men were in danger of falling off the ice floe. But they didn't, everyone survived, the plane survived. But later on, Byrd had one of his two ships tied up to this vast ice cliff, that towered higher than the ship. And suddenly part of the cliff collapsed, it collapsed right onto the ship, and almost turned it over. The ship went way over, it's, it's keel almost came out of the water. It was roped to the other ship so it didn't quite go all the way, and then it, then it righted itself. Byrd could have lost all that, many men. In fact, on that incident one man did wind up in the water who couldn't swim. The water was much colder than water around here, and you could freeze to death in minutes. So the man was either going to freeze to death or, or drown. Byrd saw this and immediately plunged in after the man. Byrd was personally a very brave man. And they rescued this man, Byrd and others. Byrd never lost a man or even had anyone seriously injured, and avoided any of the mental strains that caused others to go stir crazy during the winter.

Q: How much of a risk of frostbite and how much experience with frostbite did these men have? They had to work outside in killer conditions. They were off on expeditions in tents.
ER: Frostbite was a constant danger to Byrd's explorers, as it is today. You have to be very careful down there. And the men on Byrd's expedition would watch one another. As the subfreezing air struck your skin it tended to freeze. And frostbite is nothing but frozen skin. And when it freezes it forms a white patch. So men were constantly looking at each other's faces and hands to see if they could detect white, white patches. And if your friend said hey, you've got a white patch on your cheek then you'd go up and you'd rub it and make sure you didn't get frostbitten. Otherwise gangrene would follow, so it was a constant threat.

Q: And what about crevasses?
ER: Crevasses are a great danger in Antarctica in some areas. Wherever there's land under ice and the ice has to flow over land it sometimes bends and cracks. And that's what crevasses are. There was submerged land just south of Byrd's base, and this formed big crevasses there. So the field parties, during the summer had to cross over these crevasses. And you can do it, I mean ice bridges over the crevasses and provided it's strong enough a dog team and a man can go over it. But you're never quite sure whether it's going to hold up or not. So they're very dangerous. At one point a sled did go into a crack. This was on sea ice, when the sea ice started to crack up during the summer. And Byrd's supplies were still on the ice and he had to get it to Little America. And the ice started to crack and open. And sleds did start to fall down. And men had to run out and help the drivers pull the sled back up. So yes, it was very dangerous. Men were always living on the edge of death. And they had to be very careful all the time. There's no doubt about it, Byrd was very lucky that he didn't lose anybody.

Q: Why did these men put up with it? Do you think they got down there and said, they're trapped? I mean it seems like such an ordeal to go through day after day. I mean particularly out on the geological parties when they're exposed outside for three months.
ER: It was a very tough life down there. Particularly the men on the field parties, the geological parties who were out for three months driving dog sleds. But don't forget, these were young men, adventurous. They don't think about the details of how bad it's going to be. They think about the, the, how, how good they'll seem to people back home. They'll think about the advancement of their careers, they'll think about the sheer fun of it all. And they went through hell but they were young and they could take it. They survived.