Richard E. Byrd
Richard Evelyn Byrd ( born October 25, 1888 in Winchester, Virginia; † March 11, 1957 in Boston ) was an American polar explorer and rear admiral.
Flight to the North Pole
Byrd claimed that on May 9, 1926, together with Floyd Bennett was the first by plane, a three -engined Fokker, to have reached the North Pole by air, where he departed from Ny -Ålesund at Kings Bay on Spitsbergen. He would thus his compatriot Lincoln Ellsworth and the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen preempted by three days, which headed for the North Pole aboard the airship Norge under Airship Captain Umberto Nobile. Shortly after her return, however, was primarily due to the journalists Odd Arneson doubts that they were actually at the North Pole, the time was too short for it. Also, a technical inspection of the aircraft, performed by Bernt Balchen, raised doubts as to the veracity of the claim arise because Byrd could have never reached due to a navigational error the North Pole.
Floyd Bennett has later even stated: " Byrd and I never got the North Pole" (We have never reached the North Pole ). You would have noticed some time after the start of oil loss in the motors. Please be flown back to Spitsbergen. After a while the leak had stopped. They were then flown back and forth 14 hours near Spitsbergen and then returned to Kings Bay, where Amundsen was still busy with the preparations for his own flight.
1927 Byrd crossed the Atlantic non-stop flight in from Europe to America in 48 hours; he had to cancel due to bad weather and fuel shortages on July 1, 1927 near the coast of Normandy launched with its target Paris Departure.
The Antarctic
On his first Antarctic Expedition ( 1928-1930 ) succeeded him on 28-29. November 1929 with its three - engined aircraft Floyd Bennett, the first flyover and the circumnavigation of the South Pole, together with Bernt Balchen, Harold June and Ashley McKinley. Was financed by the journey, among others by John D. Rockefeller, Edsel Ford, the American Geographical Society, the National Geographic Society and the New York Times. The journalist Russell Owen of the New York Times reported the success of the Polfluges directly from Antarctica first.
Byrd led three more expeditions (1933-1935, 1939-1941 and 1946-1947) to Antarctica, where the research and recording was a success almost the entire coastline and large domestic parts. Byrd discovered this the Marie Byrd Land, the Thurston Island, the Edsel Ford Range and Rockefeller Plateau. (As of Quarter Little America on the Ross Ice Shelf ).
His last expedition, the U.S. Operation High Jump (1946-1947), was the largest ever in the history of Antarctica and at the same time a maneuver by the U.S. Navy with 4,000 men and thirteen civilian and combatant ships, the exploration and mapping of parts of the Antarctica should be used for military purposes, but was stopped early with the loss of several entrained aircraft.
Immediately before his death, it was Byrd nor the U.S. preparations for the forthcoming International Geophysical Year. Byrd was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Others
A lunar crater and a Martian crater named after Richard E. Byrd. Also, two ships of the United States Navy have been named after him:
- USS Richard E. Byrd (DDG -23 ), a guided missile destroyer of the Charles F. Adams Class, which has since been decommissioned
- A cargo ship, the USNS Richard E. Byrd (T- AKE 4).
The first expedition was featured in a documentary ( With Byrd at the South Pole, 1930).
In 1932, Byrd was the patron of the Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid.