"A Jolly Place"

The South Pole, as everyone knows, was discovered many years ago (Dec. 14, 1911, Amundsen).

The avowed purpose of Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd's expedition to Antarctica is to increase man's knowledge of the South Pole and its surroundings. Thorough, the expedition has only begun a two-year plan of attack by boat, plane, sled, foot. Never before has an expedition been so carefully, so richly equipped. Never before has the leader been in such efficient communication with the rest of the world. Day by day, month by month, five men at wireless stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, have been and will be receiving messages from Little America, Bay of Whales, Antarctica--the copyrighted property of the New York Times and associated newspapers. Some of the messages are signed by Commander Byrd himself; but most of them are signed by Russell Owen, a crack reporter who distinguished himself during and after the Lindbergh flight to Paris by the accuracy, color and vigor of his stories.

Last week, in the two-year story of Byrd in Antarctica, came an event and an exciting episode. Probably without realizing it, Reporter Owen transformed the episode, and not the event, into a climax--a high-pitched part of the Byrd epic to which, stay-at-home editors feared, he would not soon again be able to lift the Byrd epic.

The Event was Commander Byrd's successful flight to inspect some 10,000 square miles of Antarctica in a Fairchild monoplane with Pilot Bernt Balchen and Radioman Harold I. June. They saw some mountain peaks no one had seen before and decided to name them for John D. Rockefeller Jr.,* one of the heavy contributors to the expedition's fund. They named one peak for the expedition's cook, George Tennant, and seeing a bay in the ice barrier, "said Commander Byrd, "to name it Hal Flood Bay, after my mother's brother."

Commander Byrd himself wrote the account of this flight, making it as exciting and important as he modestly and scientifically could. But after all the polar flights that there have been and in view of the highly technical, if not nebulous, value of the Byrd observations, the aerial discovery of the Rockefeller Jr. Mountains, Cook Tennant's Peak and Hal Flood Bay did not make a sensational newspaper story. Pure science is seldom sensational, and Commander Byrd's report clung to the phrase: "Another river crossed."

The Exciting Episode occurred soon after the eventful flight. A bit of the ice barrier, to which the Byrd ships were moored, cracked off. The ships lurched violently. Benjamin Roth, aviation mechanic, was thrown into the water. He drifted away from the ship among cakes of ice. Commander Byrd himself jumped overboard to rescue him. After ten minutes, during which Byrd failed to reach Roth, three other men in a boat fished first Roth, then Byrd, out of the water.

To Crack Reporter Owen of the Byrd Expedition this seemed more than an exciting episode. He wrote it up for the civilized world as a spectacular Heroism, with the following ingredients:

1) Good fellowship: "The wardroom of the bark City of New York was a jolly place last night. The men of the Byrd expedition were writing their last letters home. . . ."

2) Sudden excitement: "There was a crunching jar which shook the ship . . . with a sickening lurch."

3) Greater excitement: "On deck, men were calling 'Commander! Commander!' ':

4) Enter-the-hero: "It was Commander Byrd, anguished . . . 'I'm coming, Bennie!' he shouted. Two of his men grabbed Commander Byrd and refused to let him jump. . . ."

5) Self-sacrifice: " 'He can't swim. I can get him. Let go,' pleaded Commander Byrd."

6) Do or die: "Commander Byrd is a strong man, an athlete, but for the next

ten minutes he fought the fight of his life. . . .

7) Heroic, happy ending: "Yes. he is all right. Commander."

" 'Thank God,' he said, and relaxed for the first time."

Burlesque. Three weeks before this smashing climax in the Byrd Expedition, Funnyman Robert Benchley had done a piece for The New Yorker, burlesquing crack Reporter Owen. Excerpts:

"HAIL FELLOW, THAR SHE BLOWS! Correspondence from our reporter covering the Staten Island Expedition, with special attention to good fellowship and all the jolly things one sees--By wireless to The New Yorker Times Company and by wireless right back to the correspondent collect. Copyright by The New Yorker Times Company, as if anybody cared.--On board the Naphtha Launch City of Over Ten Thousand, in sight of Staten Island, Jan. 10. (Via Ferryboat Irma. Same date) . . . I wish I could tell you something of the spirit that prevails on board. No sacrifice is too great for the boys to make, and they do it with a grin a mile long on their faces, too. Well, perhaps not quite a mile, but an awfully long grin, anyway. Just to show you what I mean, Old Lummy ("Arthur") Welsbach the cook is, at this moment, sticking toothpicks into potatoes to make little men out of them, little men which he will stand on the table as a joke to the crew when they come down to "grub," and the laugh that will greet this prank is as good as given, written up, and wirelessed already. Such a laugh as it will be! Yesterday we saw some gulls, but we just laughed it off. 'All in the day's work,' the Captain said, and he was given a rousing cheer with nine skyrockets on the end for his plucky statement. The men would do anything for the Captain, and the Captain would do anything for the men, and the men would do anything for the men, and the Captain would do anything for the Captain. There, that about cleans that up! And what a relief, you may be sure!"

*Because "his real austere life is as little known generally as those peaks," explained Commander Byrd.