Eagle Rock High School - Totem Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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RlC'HARD EVELYN BYRD, Rear Admiral, U. S. N. VA One day in l9l6 a young lieutenant of the United States Navy stood staring at what might have been the death warrant to all his hopes. The paper in his hand was a discharge from the navy due to physical disability. The young man was Richard Byrd. lvlagellan, Drake, Peary, these had been his heroes. Frail boy though he was he had dreamed of adventure and exploration, and always his dreams were linked with the sea. The North Pole, strange and mysterious waste land, had been penetrated by man. Some day he would go to the North Pole-and perhaps to the South Pole, too. Young Dick Byrd wasn't the type merely to talk or dream. With the vision of polar exploration before him he set out to train himself for the hardships he would have to endure. Knowing how bitterly cold the arctic and antarctic regions were, he prepared his body for them by discarding superfluous clothing. One winter he left off his overcoat, the next, his jacket, and the third winter he had discarded all but his lightest underwear, trousers, and shirt. At the age of fourteen he worked his way around the world and stopped to do some fighting in the Philippines en route. ln a few months he tired of the Islands and went to the Orient on an old tramp steamer. On this trip he learned the necessity of painstaking care. Because of the care- lessness of one of the mates the ship he was aboard lost its bearings and floundered into a storm that proved nearly fatal. Surely jin those long years of waiting for a chance at the Poles he must have whispered to himself, Easy, Dick. Better be slow, slow and careful. Better be careful. At the end of this trip he returned home to enter the Virginia Military institute in order to secure the educational siderof his pre-Arctic training. Here occurred the incident that shaped his future. Playing first string football, he broke a bone in his foot, andthough the accident seemed unimportant then, it changed the whole course of his career. Having graduated from the Institute, still follow- ing in the path of his dream, heientered the naval academy at Annapolis. ln his senior year he again injured his foot, this time in attempting to invent a new way of doing a certain dangerous bit of tumbling. He managed to build it up, however, in time to enter the navy as ensign, and during his period of service was commended for bravery several times. Trouble remained the constant attendant of Richard Byrd. One afternoon as he stood at the top of a gangway, his ankle collapsed, and the navy, with many expressions of sympathy, gave him the slip of paper that he considered the death warrant of his plans, And that day in l9l6 as he stared at the paper in his hands, the future admiral believed that as far as the navy was concerned, Richard Evelyn Byrd was through. ln order to ease the disappointment he felt at his discharge, he began to train the navalfreserve militia of Rhode Island. He soon found that this work, though successfully enough conducted to win him commendation from Washington, was not intense enough to use his great store of energy. The day after President Wilson and his congress declared war on Germany, Byrd joined the aviation school at Pensacola. He knew that in the air his foot could not handicap him. Therefore the airway was to be the path to his goal of adventure. lf his friends are to be believed, no more daring man than Byrd existed in the corps. How he kept from breaking his neck only his guardian angel knew. The TOTEM - page fourteen

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Snow and Ice Snow and ice Hard and cold Stretching on For time untold. Covering over Land and sea Building world Of fantasy. Surface with A glassy sheen Crystal top Smooth and clean Why deceive us- Whitened mass? We know well We cannot pass. Below, you are No path of gold 0 snow and ice Hard and cold! By Margaret Tepper

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The first plane he piloted crashed to smithereensg but Byrd simply took another plane and went up. He never reached France, chiefly because he was too valuable in America to risk losing. At the end of the war Byrd took advantage of 'his position in the air corps to urge a trans-atlantic flight by American planes. Finally the navy agreed,.but, because he had not seen foreign service, would not allow him to cross. Stimulated by the efforts of the men who had taken the trip he had planned, he proposed another flight. His proposition was accepted by the government, but, just as he was about to leave, his plane was wrecked by a storm. Sent abroad to inspect the ZR-2 with orders to command her voyage from England to America, he arrived in time to see her go up on a trial trip, and burst with forty-nine passen- gers aboard, four of whom escaped death. In i924 he was assigned to the dirigible Shenandoah -for the purpose of plan- ning and accompanying an expedition to the North Pole. Byrd set to work at once. Here was his heart's desire come true. But on its trial flight the Shenandoah, like the ZR-2, broke in two and fell, however, her passengers landed safely. That same year, Raold Amundsen invited the United States navy to send three planes and their pilots to the North Pole with him. Byrd applied promptly and was as promptly refused, not because of his foot this time, but because he was married. As if this were not enough, the navy decided that his usefulness in aviation was over, and he was once more retired. Then came the turning point in his career. Aided by such men as Ford, Astor, Rockefeller, and lvlorrow, Byrd equipped his own expedition to the North Pole, and this time he succeeded. The trip to the Pole was somewhat in the nature of a race. At the time he started, Captain George Wilkins was already leaving Nome with his dog team, and Amundsen was starting from Norway on his dirigible flight. With Floyd Bennett as co-pilot Byrd left Kings Bay on May tenth, and in about sixteen hours had flown to the pole and back. On his return to New York he received such an ovation as is granted to fewumen. But even in that moment of triumph he was planning his adventure to the South Pole. ln i927 he ,followed Lindbergh across the Atlantic, making a scientific investi- gation of weather conditions and wind velocities for the government. Finally, on August 25, l928, Byrd's dream started on its road to fulfillment. The good ship, the City of New York, left for Dunedin, New Zealand. On December second, Commander Byrd and forty-two picked men left Dunedin for the South Pole. At the Pole Byrd's careful preparations were to be tested. Buildings had to be erected, hangars for the planes built, aerial towers set up and lthe general prepara- tions for the long winter months of inactivity had to be completed. Yet on the morning of November 28, l929, Byrd had made his choice of a crew, the supplies and dogs were aboard ship, and the motors of the Floyd Bennett lnamed in honor of the man who had flown to the North Pole with him, and who now lay sleeping in Arlington cemeteryl had received their final test and been pronounced perfect. Late in the afternoon the last details were completed. Captain Ashley McKinley, aerial photographer, Bernt Balchen, chief pilot, H. I. june, pilot and mechanic, and Commander Byrd made up the crew. The four men entered the Floyd Bennett. Byrd gave the signal, and the giant motors of the tri-motored Fokker started. Young Dick Byrd was off to the completion of his boyhood dream. The strain and tensity of the trip that made him the first to fly over both ,poIes, the world knows. But only the man who has seen his heart's desire come true can know what Richard Evelyn Byrd felt as, in honor of Bennett, Amundsen, and his generous French friends, he dropped the flags of four nations-America, Norway, Great Britain, and France upon the land of the South Pole. By CLAIRE TETELMAN. page fifteen -The TOTEM