Little America

by Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr.

  The flight proved what I already knew to be true. Carmen Land does not exist. McKinley photographed the Barrier where Amundsen believed it lay, and we then turned westward, looking for the base.

  Soon after we turned I became puzzled by the unfamiliar aspects of the mountains in the port beam. They appeared to be unlike any that we had seen. Yet my calculations placed us eastward of Ruth Gade. Could it be that we were off the course? Surely it did not seem possible that we could have gone so far astray in such a short time. I stared at the mountains and racked my brain. Where in the world, I asked myself, is Ruth Gade? All four of us conferred for a moment. My companions, who evidently had not been watching the course carefully, were unanimously of the opinion that the base was still farther to eastward. For a few frightful seconds I was uncertain as to the validity of my course. If the base were really to the east of us, then I was the world’s worst navigator. For my calculations showed that it was to the west.

  As I unrolled my charts, my eye caught on a penciled notation in the corner of one. It said: “Remember that the appearances of mountains change according to the position from which viewed.” Amundsen had been misled on a number of occasions by this illusion, and my experience on the base-laying flight had caused me to take this warning as a controlling principle. The night before the start of the polar flight I wrote the warning on the chart.

  While I watched these strange mountains, the peaks began to change their shapes. This unfamiliar eminence—why, it was Ruth Gade in a new attitude. There was Nansen. And there, of course, were Nansen’s foothills.

  With these points established, finding the cache itself was a matter of a few minutes. We edged over to Liv’s Glacier, made several turns at lower altitudes, and finally spotted it. June, who had been a member of the base-laying party and therefore knew the character of the surface, brought the plane down smoothly. The skis touched the surface at 4:47 o’clock.

  Taking the fuel aboard was quite a problem. Each can had to be broken open and poured, one by one, into the wing tanks, and we soon tired of lifting them to June, who was doing the pouring. It was six o’clock before we rose from the Barrier and headed north, on the last leg of the flight. By that time the out-riders of the storm clouds were creeping over the mountain rim to the east. They were too far away to be troublesome.

  We steered a straight course for Little America, and made no attempt to pick up the trail, which was to the east. But our course converged with the trail a few miles north of Little America. We flew by sun compass and drift indicator and made a perfect land fall. Again the sun compass had done its job.

  We had Little America’s radio spires in sight at ten o’clock. A few minutes later we were over the administration building, swinging west to come in for a landing. A last survey showed that the Bay of Whales was still choked with ice, the northern edge of which extended almost to West Cape. At 10:08 o’clock, November 29th, the Ford’s skis touched snow, and the flight was over.

  Sunday

  November 29th

  Well, it’s done. We have seen the Pole and the American flag has been advanced to the South Pole. McKinley, Balchen and June have delivered the goods. They took the Pole in their stride, neatly, expeditiously, and undismayed. If I had searched the world I doubt if I could have found a better team. Theirs was the actual doing. But there is not a man in this camp who did not assist in the preparations for the flight. Whatever merit accrues to the accomplishment must be shared with them. They are splendid.

  Footnote

  1 These heights will be established, however, after the necessary and involved mathematical processes have been applied to McKinley’s photographs.

  CHAPTER XV

  EASTWARD BEYOND THE HORIZON

  THE completion of the polar flight left the expedition as far as operations were concerned with only three major objectives unachieved—(i) the geological and geographical survey of Gould’s party, (2)—an accurate ground survey of the Bay of Whales, and (3)—the further investigation of the new land to the eastward. The first of these was on the threshold of accomplishment. Sunday, December 1st, Dr. Gould notified the base by radio that his party was camped at the foot of Liv’s Glacier, having spent the previous day in negotiating crevasses which “made the memory of those back between 81° and 82° seem like playthings for children.” Dr. Coman and Quin Blackburn, who had had considerable surveying experience, had been detached to do the second. As for the third, we were already in preparation for an extended flight.

  Apart from the attraction which any unknown area holds for an inquiring mind, the land to the eastward drew us, as it had drawn many before us, with a magnetism peculiar to itself. It is the central mystery in a continent of mysteries. For many years a school of geologists and geographers has held the theory that the Antarctic is not one continent, but two; perhaps not a continent at all, but a series of epicontinental islands which, to borrow a phrase from Sir Douglas Mawson, may have been “overwhelmed and united by a flood of glacier ice and between which the sea would flow were the ice to melt.”1 There were many bases for this supposition. The almost identical indentations cut into the continental structure by the arms of Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea are looked upon by some authorities as evidence of separation. Is there a low-depression channel underneath the glacier cap through which the sea flows between them? Geological investigations have shown certain wide dissimilarities between East and West Antarctica, which would seemingly support the assumption. There is, on the other hand, circumstantial evidence on which it is argued to the contrary. The question stood posed, and the answer, it was believed, might be found in the vast unexplored area between King Edward VII Land and Graham Land.

  Hence, our desire to get over there, in spite of the fact we had been driven back thrice by sea and twice by air.

  Monday

  December 2nd

  Warm today, 15° above zero, with a gentle southwest wind. The higher temperatures are causing havoc to the old tunnel systems, which we no longer use. An incautious traveller who passes over them is liable to find himself dumped with scant ceremony into the basement.

  The Geological Party reports that it attempted to climb Liv’s Glacier, but was forced back by crevasses and ice falls. They have now decided to attempt the ascent via Axel Heiberg. Today they march to the eastward.

  Tuesday

  December 3rd

  Still warm, partly cloudy. No word from the Geological Party.

  Camp very quiet.

  Wednesday

  December 4th

  Real summer weather, 27° above zero.

  Gould reports that he is unable to find our mountain airplane base, despite the photographs which we dropped to them on the polar flight. He said; “Never saw a place where distances so deceptive. Much worse than desert.” He explained that the fine last day’s march to the mountains, when they covered 35 (geographical) miles, was due to the fact that they thought the distance was only 15 miles. They are now camped at the foot of Axel Heiberg Glacier.

  Dr. Gould added a special news item: “Freddy Crockett’s appetite has now been eclipsed by those of Mike Thorne and Norman Vaughan. That is news.”

  Thursday

  December 5th

  Later

  I think we shall make the eastern flight tomorrow. Haines believes that weather conditions are improving. No announcement will be made, however, until we are absolutely certain. The false starts before the polar flight almost broke the heart of the personnel.

  Parker will be the pilot, and June and McKinley will go in their accustomed capacities. We will use the Floyd Bennett.

  This flight may be the most important flight of all.

  On the morning of the 5th, Haines made a series of balloon runs which showed a slight southerly drift up to 10,000. feet. The day was clear and warm, with a light southwesterly wind on the surface. The plane was ready, and at 10:50 o’clock in the morning we took off. In the tanks was fuel for 12 hours flying. I laid a course which would bring us ab
out five miles to the north of Scott’s Nunatak.

  We climbed to an altitude of approximately 2000 feet.

  The Ross Sea was open, except for scattered pieces of pack and a few icebergs in the distance. During the previous weeks the wind had blown rather steadily from the south, and this no doubt had driven the pack farther north. It was a perfect time to send a ship through, but the City, alas, was still in New Zealand.

  We were surprised to note how little the shape of the Barrier had changed since our last flights. We carried, of course, the survey photographs which McKinley had made the previous summer, and what change there was, was almost imperceptible. For example, a V-shaped bay which I had noticed before and remarked would probably be gone when we returned, was still in position, unchanged.

  Hal Flood Bay was underneath at 11:40 o’clock. We were then at an altitude of 4500 feet, and visibility was approximately 80 miles. While the horizon was not as distinct as we had hoped for, neither was it obscure. Conditions of visibility were far better than on the previous flights, indeed they were splendid, and we went forward with keen confidence. The Ford was making more than 100 miles per hour at cruising revolutions.

  A little before noon we had the Rockefellers abeam. We were cutting across Cape Colbeck’s hump on a Great Circle course. Here we observed the crevasses which Prestrud described, and they appeared to be very extensive and disturbed. South of Colbeck the continental ice sheet was very roughened and undulating. Far to the north the fine, glittering clarity of the snow’s edge met the burnished copper of the sea. The water was slightly ruffled, and here and there an iceberg floated suspiciously near a jagged break in the Barrier, suggesting recent “calving.”

  Not long after we had the Rockefellers abeam we sighted the Matterhorn. Now it stood out perfectly, whereas before it had been partially masked by clouds. It was off the starboard bow, and made a brave and compelling sight on the snow pedestal on which he stood. This time we saw what we had not seen before—that high land lay in rolling swales about the Matterhorn.

  Parker continued to climb, and at 12:27 o’clock we were 5000 feet above and about 5 miles north of Scott’s Nunatak, with a splendid bird’s panorama of this unknown area spread beneath.

  To the north the continental ice sheet ended in a most unusual formation of ice tongues, which licked into an outer band of shelf ice. From our great height it was difficult to believe that these out-jutting tongues rose probably 200 feet above sea level. Under the vast pressures exerted from the hinterland they had pushed out over the sea, and huge pieces had broken off, forming ice islands, some of which were grounded and others imprisoned in the layer of shelf ice which was anchored to the coast line. These islands were terribly crevassed and split.

  Beyond the rim of shelf ice a consolidated mass of pack ice was pressed. The pack was much broken up and seemed to be held in position by the long arm of Cape Colbeck.

  We then had the whole chain of the Alexandra Mountains below us and to the right. They were far smaller and less extensive than we had expected. None of them appeared to be more than 2000 feet high.

  We could now see into the great blank space on the chart which I had studied hundreds of times and wondered about.

  About 12:40 o’clock the thing we were looking for emerged grudgingly from the translucent horizon—first a mountainous mass a few degrees to the right of our course, which at the moment was 55° right of north. It was a considerable distance to the eastward. As we drew nearer other peaks loomed up, and there was the suggestion of a long range. It was, we knew, a first class discovery.

  Even the charted areas that were then ending were quite inaccurately placed on the map, for at this point the ice line continued more to the northeast than north, as shown on the charts. In fact, between the plane and the new land was a stretch of open water. A straight line course recommended itself at once, although it did seem a risky venture to take a land plane over this pack-strewn area. A forced landing could have had only one ending. However, to have followed the circuitous route along the coast line would have taken much too long, so we held on to the course that took us across the sea.

  As we moved out and away from the coast line we could see with surprising clearness how the belt of water-borne shelf ice was attached to the seaward-moving masses of continental ice. This shelf ice appeared to be a miniature barrier half way in size between old bay ice and barrier. The fringe was, for the most part, from 25 to 50 miles wide; here and there the ruptured rounded dome of an ice-island showed in the shelf ice to the right. The land ice terminated in a barrier-like formation, with chalk-white cliffs 200 to 250 feet high in places. Behind these the ice sheet rose and fell undulating to the east and south. Matterhorn gradually disappeared on our right.

  As the Ford moved farther on, we could see where the pack behind us was jammed in a mass of debris against the foreshore of Cape Colbeck. The new ice skirting the shelf ice on the seaward side was quite broken and shallow in places, and the darker shadow of the water was visible underneath it. The pack littered the sea like paper scraps; there were a few fairly extensive floes; but for the most part the loose ice appeared to be granulated and fine.

  Steadily we bore away from the coast. When we were 20 miles out, June, looking down at the open sea, turned and went through a series of gestures which plainly indicated swimming. True, there had been little enough bathing in Little America during the winter; but the suggestion left the rest of us cold. The engines sang without a break, and their music was the sweetest and most satisfying sound that we wanted to hear.

  We saw one immense floe standing out to sea, a cemented piece of old thick sea ice and new thin ice which had apparently separated from the main sheet at the same time. It was at least twenty-five miles long and ten miles wide, a very substantial recruit to the pack. It was badly cracked, and along the lines of cleavage one could see where it was beginning to disintegrate.

  There were 35 miles of open water in the direction of our line of flight. This we crossed.

  A few minutes after one o’clock, we reached the edge of the shelf ice and soon afterwards were over the 150th meridian, the eastern boundary of the British claims. We were advancing at the rate of 100 miles per hour over an area which had been unseen before, unknown and unclaimed. Here was the romance of geographical exploration; and seeing this land at last, after so much hoping and trying, brought deep satisfaction. The mystery to the eastward was beginning to yield. Aviation was doing what surface craft had for many years been failing to do. Best of all, every foot of this area was being recorded precisely and in its full perspective by McKinley’s camera.

  The Ford’s altitude was then about 5,000 feet. Wisps of cloud vapor swept underneath, and their shadows were like dirty finger marks on the ice.

  We changed course more to the northward at 1:13 o’clock, to enable McKinley to keep the coast line in his survey photographs, a most important consideration in the discovery and mapping of a new area.

  The mountain masses to the eastward had been steadily enlarging. Against the horizon they extended north and south as far as the eye could see, an irregular steel-gray bulwark. The nearest peak was at least 60 miles away, but at our altitude could be seen quite distinctly. The mountains were large and I could not repress a feeling of joy over the discovery.

  Most important of all, what I took to be the white elevated floor of a plateau showed behind the range. In this new land, then, there was perhaps a counterpart of the mighty plateau in South Victoria Land and about the Pole.

  The coast line now bore sharply to the eastward for 20 or 30 miles, but its general direction was northeasterly. Our northerly course took us approximately parallel to the mountain range, which runs north and south, and we continued on it for about 60 miles, then changed course again to the eastward, to bring the mountains nearer.

  McKinley’s delight was beyond words. Everything of which an aerial surveyor dreams were before his camera in one grand profusion—a new and undiscovered land, excellent
visibility, a well marked coast line which would give him a fixed altitude (sea level) for scientific determination and a scenery unlike any other known to man.

  After we had flown to the east for a few minutes we saw a peak emerging from what we took to be shelf ice. It was a great distance off. We headed in its general direction, but it did not draw appreciably nearer although we flew towards it about 20 miles. It was too far away to be investigated without the sacrifice of considerable time, which we could not give without jeopardizing the larger purposes of the mission.

  At 2:10 o’clock we swung to the southward and flew again approximately parallel to the mountains. Just as we made the turn, June was certain that he saw the sea to the northward of us turn sharply to the eastward. If it did, I failed to see it. The mountain range continued on to the northward and some of the mountains curved to the eastward as far as I could see with the glasses, and that was at least about 70 miles. It was undoubtedly a large range. Though we were still a great distance from these mountains they stood out clearly and beautifully. The peaks of some of them were surely 10,000 feet high. Bursting through this rampart was a superb glacier. Cold and blue, it lay between two gray-black walls, and in the center of the stream stood a high black peak. Actually, it must have been about feet. The glacier itself was about 15 miles across its mouth and it was like a great white river flowing between smooth black cliffs.

  After paralleling the coast line for about 60 miles, we steered various courses to investigate and photograph a number of ice islands and rock islands which we thought we saw in the Ross Sea. But they were too far off and we desisted. What they are I do not pretend to know. So many explorers more experienced than I have made mistakes in the claiming of lands that I was determined to claim discovery only of those things which could be and were recorded by the unforgetting and unassailable memory of the camera.