Little America

by Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr.

  No thoroughbred went into a race more carefully, scrupulously groomed than was the Floyd Bennett before the polar flight. Responsibility for its performance rested with no single man. It lay on the shoulders of the whole camp. It was a sobering responsibility, and I think that every man felt it in his heart.

  We were done with these details shortly after three o’clock. At the last moment we decided to take aboard an additional 100 gallons of gasoline. There was no telling what kind of winds we would meet. If head winds, then the extra quantity of fuel would be invaluable. If not, we could dump it overboard before we reached the “Hump.”

  The total weight was approximately 15,000 pounds.

  Haines came up with a final report on the weather. “A twenty-mile wind from the south at 2,000 feet.” It meant clear skies to the south. I went into my office and picked up a flag weighted with a stone from Floyd Bennett’s grave. It seemed fitting that something connected with the spirit of this noble friend who stood with me over the North Pole, on May 9, 1926, should rest as long as stone endures at the bottom of the world.

  There were handshakes all around, and at 3:29 o’clock we were off. The skis were in the air after a run of 30 seconds—an excellent take-off. I was greatly relieved. A calm expectation took hold of my mind. Having started, we were certainly going to get somewhere.

  There was a flashing glimpse of the men clustered near the runway—those splendid fellows whose willing help and indestructible spirit have never faltered, no, not once—and we faced the south.

  The moment the Ford leveled off the impalpable haze with which we had contended so often confused the vision, and we lost several precious minutes before we found the trail. But if Haines’ predictions were correct, this would not last for long.

  Our course was laid along the meridian of the trail, which at that point was 143° 45’ W. Although the trail did not always follow that meridian, it would bring us finally to Axel Heiberg Glacier.

  The sky began to clear, under the sweeping movements of a southeasterly wind, and presently blue sky showed ahead. Haines was right, as always. Slowly gaining altitude, we passed 20 Mile Depot, then 44 Mile Depot.

  From time to time we lost the trail, as our altitude changed or our distance from it varied slightly. But invariably by steering a straight course with the Bumstead sun compass we picked it up again.

  Presently the northern edge of the crevasses was underneath. The trail then followed meridian 163° 42’ W. The wind was still from the east and it was necessary to nose the plane 10° to the left of the course, to make good a straight course to the south. Had there been any one below to see, he must have been surprised at the sight of a plane headed well to the east but flying steadily to the south. With this diagonal push tending to press us from our course it was necessary to check the course frequently with the drift indicator.

  Had you been there to glance over the cabin of this modern machine which has so revolutionized polar travel, I think you would have been impressed most of all—perhaps first of all—with the profusion of gear in the cabin. There was a small sledge, rolled masses of sleeping bags, bulky food sacks, two pressure gasoline stoves, rows of cans of gasoline packed about the main tank forward, funnels for draining gasoline and oil from the engine, mounds of clothing, tents and so on, ad infinitum. There was scarcely room in which to move.

  June had his radio in the after bulkhead on the port side. From time to time he flashed reports on our progress to the base. From the ear phones strapped to his helmet ran long cords, so that he might move freely about the cabin without being obliged to take them off. His duties were varied and important. He had to attend to the motion picture camera, the radio and the complicated valves of the six gasoline tanks. Every now and then he relieved Balchen at the wheel, or helped him to follow the elusive trail.

  McKinley had his mapping camera ready to go into action either on port or starboard side. It was for him and the camera he so sedulously served that the flight was made. The mapping of the corridor between Little America and the South Pole was one of the major objectives of the expedition.

  Balchen was forward, bulking large in the narrow compartment, his massive hands on the wheel, now appraising the engines with a critical eye, now the dozen flickering fingers on the dials on the instrument board. Balchen was in his element. His calm fine face bespoke his confidence and sureness. He was anticipating the struggle at the “Hump” almost with eagerness.

  It was quite warm forward, behind the engines. But a cold wind swept aft through the cabin, causing one to be thankful for the protection of heavy clothes. When the skies cleared, the cabin was flooded with a golden light. The sound of the engines and propellers filled it. One had to shout to make oneself heard. From the navigation table aft, where my charts were spread out, a trolley ran to the control cabin. Over it I shot to Balchen the necessary messages and courses. On receiving them, he turned and smiled his understanding.

  That, briefly, is the picture, and a startling one it makes in contrast with that of Amundsen’s party which had pressed along this same course eighteen years before. A wing, pistons and flashing propellers had taken the place of runners, dogs and legs. Amundsen was delighted to make 25 miles per day. We had to average 90 miles per hour to accomplish our mission. We had the advantages of swiftness and comfort, but we had as well an enlarged fallibility. A flaw in a piece of steel, a bit of dirt in the fuel lines or carburetor jets, a few hours of strong head winds, fog or storm—these things, remotely beyond our control, could destroy our carefully laid plans and nullify our most determined efforts.

  Still, it was not these things that entered our minds. Rather it was the thought of the ‘’Hump,” and how we should fare with it.

  Soon after passing the crevasses we picked up again the vast escarpment to the right. More clearly than before we saw the white-blue streams of many glaciers discharging into the Barrier, and several of the inner and higher snow-clad peaks glistened so brightly in the sun as to seem like volcanoes in eruption.

  Our altitude was then about 1500 feet.

  Now the Queen Maud Range loomed ahead. I searched again for the “appearance of land” to the east. Still the rolling Barrier—nothing else.

  The quartering wind from the southeast blew with fluctuating direction and velocity, imparting an angle of drift as high as 20° at times.

  At 8:15 o’clock we had the Geological Party in sight—a cluster of little beetles about two dark topped tents. Balchen dropped to an altitude of about 750 feet, and McKinley put overboard the photographs of the Queen Maud Range and the other things we had promised to bring. The parachute canopy to which they were attached fluttered open and fell in gentle oscillations, and we saw two or three figures rush out to catch it. We waved to them, and then prepared for a settlement of the issue at the “Hump.”

  Up to this time the engines had operated continuously at cruising revolutions—1580 R.P.M.’s for the big center engine, 1600 for the smaller engines outboard. Now Balchen opened them full throttle—1750 R.P.M.’s for the center engine, 1700 for the two outboard—and the Ford girded its loins for the long, hard, fighting pull over the “Hump.” We rose steadily. We were then about 60 miles north of the western portal of Axel Heiberg, and holding our course steadily on meridian 163° 45’ W. with the sun compass.

  I watched the altimeters, of which there were two in the navigation compartment. The fingers marched with little jumps across the face of the dial—3000 feet, 3500, 4000, 4500. The Ford had her toes in, and was climbing fast.

  Drawing nearer, we had edged 30° to the west of South, to bring not only Axel Heiberg but also Liv’s into view. This was a critical period. I was by no means certain which I should choose. I went forward and took a position behind Balchen. We would figure this thing out together.

  The schemes and hopes of the next few minutes were beset by many probabilities. Which would it be—Axel Heiberg or Liv’s Glacier?

  There was this significant difference between flying a
nd sledging: we could not pause long for decision or investigation. Minutes stood for gasoline, and gasoline was precious. The waste of so little as half an hour of fuel in a fruitless experiment might well overturn the mathematical balance on which the success of the flight depended. The execution of the plan hung on the proper judgment of the route over the “Hump.”

  True, we had a 40 percent safety factor over fuel needs to the Pole and back. This, of course, was a theoretical margin. It was a precaution against depletion resulting from head winds, and its value could not be weakened by a mistake in judgment. In fact, head winds had already exhausted some of this reserve.

  Yet how well, after all, could judgment forecast the ultimate result? There were few facts on which we might base a wise decision. We knew, for example, that the highest point of the pass of Axel Heiberg Glacier which Amundsen reported was 10,500 feet. We would know, in a very few minutes, after June had calculated the gasoline consumption, the weight of the plane. From that we could determine, according to the tables which we had worked out and were then before me, the approximate ceiling we would have. We would know, too, whether or not we should be able to complete the flight, other conditions being favorable.

  These were the known elements. The unknown were burdened with equally important consequences. The structural nature of the head of the pass was of prime importance. We knew from Amundsen’s descriptions and from what we could see with our own eyes, that the pass was surrounded by towering peaks on each side, extending much higher than the maximum altitude of the heavily loaded plane. But whether the pass was wide or narrow; whether it would allow us room to maneuver in case we could not rise above it; whether it would be narrow and running with a torrent of down-pressing wind which would dash a plane, already hovering at its peak of maximum efficiency, to the glacier floor—these were things, naturally, we could not possibly know until the issue was directly at hand.

  I stood beside Balchen, carefully studying the looming fortress, still wondering by what means we should attempt to carry it. With a gesture of the hand Balchen pointed to fog vapor rising from the black rock of the foothills which were Nansen’s high priests—caused no doubt by the condensation of warm currents of air radiated from the sun-heated rocks. A thin layer of cloud seemed to cap Axel Heiberg’s pass, and extended almost to Liv’s Glacier. But of this we were not certain. Perhaps it was the surface of the snow. If cloud, then our difficulties were at hand. Even high clouds would be resting on the floor of the uplifted plateau.

  There was, then, a gamble in the decision. Doubtless a flip of the coin would have served as well. In the end, we decided to choose Liv’s Glacier, the unknown pass to the right, which Amundsen had seen far in the distance and named after Dr. Nansen’s daughter. It seemed to be wider than Axel Heiberg, and the pass not quite as high.

  A few minutes after nine o’clock we passed near the intermediate base, which of course we could not see. Our altitude was then about 9000 feet. At 9:15 o’clock we had the eastern portal on our left, and were ready to tackle the “Hump.” We had discussed the “Hump” so often, had anticipated and maligned it so much, that now that it was in front of us and waiting in the flesh—in rock-ribbed glaciated reality—we felt that we were meeting an old acquaintance. But we approached it warily, respectfully, climbing steadily all the while with our maximum power, to get a better view of its none too friendly visage.

  June, wholly unaffected by the immediate perplexities, went about his job of getting the plane in fighting trim. He ripped open the last of the fuel cans, and poured the contents into the main tank. The empty tins he dropped overboard, through the trap door. Every tin weighed two pounds; and every pound dropped was to our advantage. The fumes filled the cabin, offending one’s stomach and eyes. June examined the gauges of the five wing tanks, then measured with a graduated stick the amount of fuel in the main tank. He jotted the figures on a pad, made a few calculations and handed me the results. Consumption had thus far averaged between 55 and 60 gallons per hour. It had taken us longer to reach the mountains than we had expected, owing to head winds. However, the extra fuel taken aboard just before we left had absorbed this loss and we actually had a credit balance. We had, then, enough gasoline to take us to the Pole and back.

  With that doubt disposed of, we went at the “Hump” confidently.

  We were still rising, and the engines were pulling wonderfully well. The wind was about abeam, and, according to my calculations, not materially affecting the speed.

  Liv’s Glacier was before us almost in its full sweeping entirety—a Niagric torrent doomed to rigidity, with frozen whirlpools and waterfalls. Far ahead it bent in a wide curve to the west of south. About thirty-five miles away it disappeared into a vague white surface—could it be the plateau? We then had nearly the whole of Nansen’s foothills on the left. One of these formed the eastern portal of Liv’s Glacier. When we first saw them on the base-laying flight, they had seemed to be high and imposing mountains; but now they were obscure and small. Nansen was on the left, to the southeast, and filled the horizon. The marbled walls of Fisher Mountain, with its company of stalwart foothills, was on the right, crowding into the horizon on the southwest. The ice line of the glacier, where it met the Barrier, was quite distinct; but the immense crevasses which we had seen before were softened and subdued by the difference in altitude, and now resembled the fluted surface of a washing board.

  The floor of the glacier rose sharply, in a series of ice falls and terraces, some of which were well above the (then) altitude of the plane. These glacial waterfalls, some of which were from 200 to 400 feet high, seemed more beautiful than any precipitous stream I have ever seen. Beautiful yes, but how rudely and with what finality they would deal with steel and duralumin that was fated to collide with them at 100 miles per hour.

  About ten miles up, the glacier was given over to terrific crevasses, where the weight of the flow carried it against solid rock.

  At this point the stream of air pouring down the pass roughened perceptibly. The great wing shivered and teetered as it balanced itself against the changing pressures. The wind from the left flowed against Fisher’s steep flanks, and the constant, hammering bumps made footing uncertain. But McKinley steadily trained his 50-pound camera on the mountains to the left. The uncertainties of load and ceiling were not his concern. His only concern was photographs—photographs over which students and geographers might pore in the calm quiet of their studies. Had we gone down in a tailspin, I am sure that McKinley would have operated his camera all the way down.

  The altimeters showed a height of 9600 feet, but the figure was not necessarily exact. More likely than not, the barometric principle on which it operated was influenced by local changes in pressure. Nevertheless there were indications we were near the service ceiling of the plane.

  The roughness of the air increased and became so violent that we were forced to swing slightly to the left, in search of calmer air. This brought us over a frightfully crevassed slope which ran up and toward Mount Nansen. We thus escaped the turbulent swirl about Fisher, but the down-surging currents here damped our climb. To the left we had the “blind” mountain glacier of Nansen in full view; and when we looked ahead we saw the plateau—a smooth, level plain of snow between Nansen and Fisher. The pass rose up to meet it.

  In the center of the pass was a massive outcropping of snow-covered rock, resembling an island, which protruded above and separated the descending stream of ice. Perhaps it was a peak or the highest eminence of a ridge connecting Fisher and Nansen which had managed through the ages to hold its head above the glacial torrent pouring down from the plateau. But its particular structure or relationship was of small moment then. I watched it only with reference to the climb of the plane; and realized, with some disgust and more consternation, that the nose of the plane, in spite of the fact that Balchen had steepened the angle of attack, did not rise materially above the outcropping. We were still climbing, but at a rapidly diminishing rate of speed. In th
e rarefied air the heavy plane responded to the controls with marked sluggishness.

  It was an awesome thing, creeping (so it seemed) through the narrow pass, with the black walls of Nansen and Fisher on either side, higher than the level of the wings, watching the nose of the ship bob up and down across the face of that lone chunk of rock. It would move up, then slide down. Then move up, and fall off again. For perhaps a minute or two we deferred the decision; but there was no escaping it. If we were to risk a passage through the pass, we needed greater maneuverability than we had at that moment. The pass was uncomfortably narrow. Once we entered it there would be no retreat. It offered no room for turn. If power was lost momentarily or if the air became excessively rough, we could only go ahead, or down. We needed power, and there was only one way in which to get it.

  June, anticipating the command, left the radio and put his hand on the dump valve of the main tank. A pressure of the fingers—that was all that was necessary—and in two minutes 600 gallons of gasoline would gush out. I signalled to wait.

  Balchen held to the climb to the last degree of safety. But it was clear to both of us that he could not hold it long enough. Balchen began to yell and gesticulate, and it was hard to catch the words in the roar of the engines echoing from the cliffs on either side. But the meaning was manifest. “Overboard—overboard—200 pounds!”

  Which would it be—gasoline or food?

  If gasoline, I thought, we might as well stop there and turn back. We could never get back to the base from the Pole. If food, the lives of all of us would be jeopardized in the event of a forced landing. Was that fair to McKinley, Balchen and June? It really took only a moment to reach the decision. The Pole, after all, was our objective. I knew the character of the three men. They were not so lightly to be turned aside. McKinley, in fact, had already hauled one of the food bags to the trap door. It weighed 125 pounds.