The primary achievement of Richard Byrd’s first expedition to Antarctica (1928–30), by far the biggest and most technologically advanced to have reached the southern continent, was that Byrd had flown to the South Pole and back, following the route previously mapped by Roald Amundsen. He had also made a short flight east, glimpsing an area that he named after his wife, but that was it. Except for Marie Byrd Land, and a mountain range within it seen from a distance, little was added to the map or the knowledge of Antarctica. (Byrd named the range the Rockefeller Mountains to acknowledge John D. Rockefeller, a major sponsor of his first Antarctic expedition.)
At the end of his expedition, more than ninety percent of Antarctica’s landmass remained unseen, while the main questions remained unanswered. What was beyond the threatening ice packs that guarded Antarctica? Was it one large continent, two smaller continents, or a series of islands? Did the mountains that stretched north along the Graham Land and Palmer Land until they almost touched South America continue in the opposite direction to reach the plateau that Shackleton had first climbed and that Scott and Amundsen had partially crossed to stand at the South Pole? By the beginning of the 1930s much was still unknown.
After his first trip to Antarctica, Byrd had been welcomed home as a hero again. He was promoted to Rear Admiral—the youngest in the U.S. Navy—and his belief in his own self-importance continued to climb unchecked, so that he considered himself above censure and reproach. Even Byrd’s most admiring biographer, Lisle A. Rose, (who, against all evidence, still claims that Byrd reached the North Pole in 1926) was forced to admit that after his first trip south Byrd enjoyed more adulation than any person should have. He had “mastered” the frozen continent, but it had also “mastered him.” Antarctica became the focus of all Byrd’s ambition and came to define him as a man trapped inside his own self-image as a heroic polar explorer. According to Rose, anyone who wished to succeed in Antarctica first needed Byrd’s permission to explore it. “Antarctica was his, he insisted; he was mayor of the place. That conceit became his curse and his burden.”1
It was inevitable that Byrd would want to return to Antarctica. He had tasted fame and become addicted. Only by returning to Antarctica could he hope to taste more. But the bubble known as the Roaring Twenties had burst and wealthy sponsors were scarce. Byrd, like most men who surrender to an addiction, attacked the problem with all the skill, cunning, charm, and deceit he could summon.
In the mood of gloom and despair that gripped the American people, Byrd cleverly made his proposed return to Antarctica appear like an effort to lift the nation from the doldrums. America was having a rough time of it, and so was he, he convinced the public, but together they could make the nation strong again, as long as everyone put their faith in Byrd. No one questioned why he wanted to go back. No one asked what could be achieved that could not have been achieved on the first expedition. Byrd had already been south, with three planes, two ships, and eighty men. No one asked why the scientific data collected on the first expedition languished unpublished. If it had been about science, then surely he should correlate and publish what had already cost a million dollars to secure. But of course, it wasn’t about science. It was about what Byrd unashamedly called the “hero business,” and he cleverly promoted himself as a struggling American trying to survive the Depression and haul America up by its bootstraps.
Naturally, Byrd couldn’t simply return to Antarctica and repeat his flight to the South Pole. He had to come up with something new and spectacular; something that would capture the public’s imagination and thrust him into the headlines once more. He needed something bold that would answer the question, “Why?”
Byrd decided he would be the first to cross Antarctica.
During June and July 1931, while Wilkins was coaxing the Nautilus north and Ellsworth was flying in the Graf Zeppelin, Byrd began secretly sounding out sponsors about a second expedition south. By August he had convinced himself it was possible and commenced the enormous task of bringing together another major polar undertaking. Throughout the latter half of 1931, the paranoid Byrd continued to plan, plot, and procure until he felt sufficiently confident of success to make public what he was doing. The official announcement was made on January 16, 1932.
At the time of the announcement, Ellsworth had still not revealed his plans. Byrd had heard rumors from Isaiah Bowman of the American Geographical Society, and wanted to know if he had a competitor. He wrote to Ellsworth, asking him what his intentions were. Ellsworth wrote a vague reply saying he was considering an expedition to Antarctica. On April 16, Byrd wrote again pleading, “Will you please let me know what you decide to do?”2 Ellsworth didn’t need to reply personally to the second inquiry. Two days after Byrd had typed his letter, the New York Times announced that Ellsworth would travel to the Ross Ice Shelf and from there, with a radical new plane, he and Bernt Balchen would fly to the Weddell Sea and back.
Byrd was furious. Not only was Ellsworth going to make the flight he desperately wanted to make first, but Ellsworth had hired Bernt Balchen, the man who had been Byrd’s pilot on the South Pole flight and clearly the most experienced and capable man for the task. To Byrd, it was a betrayal of trust. He wrote to Ellsworth, querying why he was out to “undercut” him, and explaining tersely that it had always been his intention to return to Antarctica:
All during the winter night [of 1929] the members of my expedition [which included Balchen] knew that I was going back and that my main objective was the flight to the Weddell Sea from Little America, and this fact became very widespread.3
But Ellsworth never bothered to respond to the letter.
Byrd, who was still in debt to the tune of $100,000 from his first expedition, signed agreements with Paramount Pictures promising his second expedition would, “face more ice, do more flying, and create more news than the first.”4 To create the headlines he was under contract to produce, Byrd understood he would not only have to fly across Antarctica, but he would have to do it before Ellsworth. He wrote to Ellsworth again, pleading, “Regardless of the way other explorers have hated each other, cut each other’s throats and messed up each other’s lives, let’s you and I play the game.”5
Still Ellsworth’s replies were vague or nonexistent. He let Wilkins sort out the details, while he prepared for married life. Desperate, Byrd tried again:
This letter will reach you somewhere abroad. I really wish now that I had seen you before your departure. I wanted to tell you that I dislike very greatly to attempt to do something that you want to do. I want to emphasize this point. What I would like to have done would be to explain why, on account of the past and for the future, it is absolutely necessary for me to attempt to do this.
It goes mightily against the grain to be in this competition with you. I have racked my mind to find some way out of it, but so far without success. I must attempt to do this thing or give up entirely any further trip to the Antarctic. My job from Little America is only half finished. I cannot go into all my reasons for the necessity of my doing this in a letter. I just want to get this point over to you and want you to remember it.
The Depression has got us all by the throat and our going is most doubtful. I have not even yet selected a plane. The value of a dollar is so great now it seems a pity to have to spend money on this expedition at this time. Unless you have been able to collect some money from outside sources, I am afraid you are going to find your expenses are going to be terribly high. Ships are frightfully costly, as I have always found, and the Bear is costing me a pretty penny.
But warnings about expenses had no effect on the super-wealthy Ellsworth. What people thought of him did, however, and the devious Byrd even managed to imply the public would not look kindly on Ellsworth’s expedition: “I doubt if the public will approve of any single expedition going down now and, if two go together, I don’t know what the result is going to be.”6
Ellsworth still wasn’t bothered. He had all the money he needed and didn’t have to send out letters begging for donations. He had Sir Hubert Wilkins, a man experienced in organizing polar expeditions, who had flown across the Arctic Ocean and in the Antarctic. He had Bernt Balchen, the best pilot for the job, and to top it all off, Ellsworth had a long-range airplane ideally suited to polar flying. It soon dawned on Byrd that there was nothing he could say to dissuade Ellsworth. His only chance was to beat him across Antarctica, or upstage him, so Byrd set out to do just that.
Byrd’s first problem was an airplane. Ellsworth could afford $37,000 for a new Northrop Gamma. Byrd could not. Unlike five years earlier, manufacturers were not lining up to sponsor polar expeditions. Byrd wrote of his attempts to acquire supplies for his second expedition south:
We proved ourselves, if nothing else, the world’s hardest working beggars. We wrote innumerable times and called up manufacturers and firms specializing in things the expedition required. Approximately 30,000 [letters] were despatched hither and yon, having for their theme, “Please sir, would you be so kind . . .” And there were almost as many replies saying, in a word, “Sorry, gentlemen, but business conditions are such . . .”7
Finally, a wealthy businessman, William Horlick, paid for a Curtiss Condor which, with a full load of fuel, was capable of flying approximately 1,300 miles. It wasn’t ideal because its range was insufficient to fly from the far side of the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, but it was the best that Byrd could get. Realizing he had an inferior airplane, Byrd studied maps of the known coastlines of Antarctica and concocted a plan. His expedition ships, Bear of Oakland (generally referred to simply as Bear) and Jacob Ruppert (usually Ruppert), would leave New York and enter the Pacific Ocean via the Panama Canal, before sailing down the west coast of South America, from where Byrd would reach Peter I Island in the Bellingshausen Sea. Byrd would fit his plane with floats, so it could take off from water, then fly to the Ross Ice Shelf. Byrd would then wait at Little America, in the base he had abandoned three years earlier, for the Bear and the Ruppert to arrive. It wasn’t a complete crossing of Antarctica, but it would cover an unexplored section of Ellsworth’s intended route and certainly diminish the news value of his flight.
Byrd continued to scheme. He knew there was no guarantee he could get airborne from near Peter I Island. He needed more than just the flight on which to build the publicity for the Byrd Antarctic Expedition II (BAE II). He wanted adventure to keep an audience enthralled. Ever the canny publicist, Byrd knew improvements had been made in radio transmissions in the five years since his previous trip to Antarctica. Families in America were gathering around their radio sets in the same nightly ritual that, thirty years later, families would devote to their televisions. Byrd wanted to be able to transmit weekly broadcasts that brought the excitement of his heroics into American living rooms. Early in the planning of BAE II he had an inspired idea. He would have his men transport a small hut to the interior of Antarctica. Then, with the hut stocked with enough food for the winter, Byrd would do what no one else had done before. He would spend the winter, not on the edge of Antarctica, but in the heart of it: on the plateau close to the Pole. To heighten the drama, he would spend the winter alone, sending out radio broadcasts, via Little America and Buenos Aires, to Big America.
Let Lincoln Ellsworth go south and fly across Antarctica. By the time he had, Byrd would have already flown much of the route and found anything worth discovering. Then, while Ellsworth was returning to America to claim whatever crumbs of glory could be salvaged from his flight, Americans would be listening to their hero, Admiral Richard Byrd, battling the cold, alone in a hut, high on the Antarctic Plateau, bravely making scientific observations for the good of humanity everywhere. It was a masterstroke of self-promotion.
Ellsworth and Mary Louise were married on May 23, 1933. A few days later, Ellsworth cabled Wilkins that the ship’s name should be changed from Fanefjord to Wyatt Earp, and it was thus registered, after duly being inspected by authorities, at Ålesund on June 26. Ellsworth, on the advice of Harold Clark, who always kept a steady eye on his whimsical client’s affairs, deemed it necessary to keep his private interests separate from the expedition and form a Norwegian company. On July 1, Wyatt Earp A/S Limited was formed in Norway. (A/S denotes Aksjeselskap, a Norwegian business entity requiring a minimum level of capital and limiting liability.) Ten thousand shares were issued at a price of one kroner per share. The law required a Norwegian national to hold the majority shareholding in any Norwegian company and so Aksel Holm, a local shipping agent, held 6,000 shares, Ellsworth 3,000, and Wilkins 1,000. Ellsworth had still not seen his ship nor, with the exception of Wilkins and Balchen, met any of his crew. Yet, of the yearlong preparations he would boast:
I finally selected a staunch single-deck, motor-driven Norwegian fishing boat of 400 tons. She was built of Norwegian pine and oak in 1919. I sheathed her with oak and armor-plate for service in the pack ice. Her engine was of the semi-Diesel type, and I installed tanks for fuel sufficient for cruising 11,000 miles at a speed of seven to eight knots.8
Having ensured he would protect his business interests, Ellsworth needed to ensure he also protected his place in the history books. While the Wyatt Earp was still in Norway, every member of the crew, including Wilkins and Balchen, signed an agreement that stipulated they would not make any broadcasts, grant any interviews, distribute any photographs, or write any articles without Ellsworth’s consent. Wilkins signed an additional agreement that he would write, “detailed articles while on the vessel Wyatt Earp; said articles to appear only under the name Lincoln Ellsworth.” Nor, when Ellsworth returned to the United States in triumph, did he want Wilkins to be seen or photographed with him. The victory was to be his alone. The additional agreement signed by Wilkins also stated, “Sir Hubert Wilkins will remain with the Wyatt Earp after her return from Antarctica . . . and will not return to the United States until two months after Mr. Ellsworth.” Ellsworth would have imposed the same condition on Bernt Balchen to keep him out of the spotlight, except that he needed Balchen to fly the Polar Star on a promotional tour, so Balchen’s contract included the stipulation that Ellsworth would return to America alone, and Balchen “will then join him to make the flight to either Washington or New York.”9 Ellsworth expected a successful flight across Antarctica would have him summoned to Washington to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor on the White House lawn, just as Byrd had been honored.
Two days after Balchen, Wilkins, and the crew had signed their agreements the Wyatt Earp was ready to sail.