Hero's Return

Whistles shrilled, bands blared, crowds cheered, flags waved, aircraft soared, cannon boomed, lightning flashed from the heavens across the Potomac. The sun, which had been playing hide-&-seek all day, suddenly shone forth brilliantly. Down the gangplank of the barkentine icebreaker Bear of Oakland, leading his men in impressive single file, marched Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, retired, resplendent in white uniform, to revisit the U. S. for the first time in nearly two years.

Waiting on the cobblestones to greet him stood the President of the United States, who presently spoke into a national radio hook-up microphone: "It is no small thing to have filled in another large portion of the map of the world which had hitherto been a blank. It is an equally great achievement to have added valuable information in at least 22 separate branches of science." Then the President of the United States took off his hat and said: "Admiral, I salute you." Then Franklin Roosevelt grasped the Admiral's hand and said: "And let me add just one thing from the heart: Dick, I salute you!" Said Rear Admiral Byrd: "Mr. President, I am very glad that you have mentioned our old friendship, because if you had not, good taste would have prevented my doing so. . . . There certainly would be something wrong with me if I did not get a tremendous kick out of that." Also very much on hand was big, beefy Colonel Jacob Ruppert, ably pressagented brewer and baseball tycoon, who contributed $20,000 and some beer to the $1,500,000 Byrd Expedition and had his name put on the supply ship which the Government threw in for $1.

By the time Admiral Byrd had spent a night at the White House and week-ended with his mother in Virginia over Mother's Day, many a moppet knew that he had brought back from Antarctica these things:

1) Two cows and a 1,200-lb. Guernsey bull named Klondike Iceberg--first bull ever born in Little America; 15 emperor penguins, of which one was decidedly indisposed; the knowledge that seal meat looks like liver, but tastes different; indisputable proof that the common cold and other germs flourish in Antarctica; samples of unidentified bugs which live in snow and melted ice pools; the memory of four months alone in an ice hut, "lonely as hell," studying weather conditions, reading 85 books and letting his hair grow to shoulder-length.

2) Four times as much scientific data as on Byrd Antarctic Expedition I, including information on the air currents, meteorology, animal life, geology and general physical characteristics of Marie (his wife) Byrd Land, a hitherto unknown territory of 250,000 sq. mi. which he discovered and claimed for the U. S.; a mass of data on cosmic rays, Polar meteorology, astronomy, geology, hydrography, oceanography, terrestrial magnetism, glaciology, botany, bacteriology, biology.

3) Conclusive evidence that coal and other minerals exist in Antarctica; that the entire Antarctic Ice Barrier is not afloat, as was commonly supposed, but is partly grounded; that the ice at the South Pole varies in thickness from two feet to two miles; that more meteors strike the earth's atmosphere than was formerly suspected; that the Edsel Ford Mountain Range may be a continuation of the great Andean Range; that a hitherto unknown area of 250,000 sq. mi. is part of the Pacific Ocean; that the inland fauna of Antarctica consists solely of skua gulls which live on 50 kinds of moss; that Antarctica is all one continent, as large as the U. S., Mexico and part of Canada combined.*

4) Contracts for a year of lectures and a book; plans for Byrd Antarctic Expedition III.

*Next day Lincoln Ellsworth, No. 1 Byrd rival in South Polar exploration, sailed for Europe on his third transantarctic expedition, to determine "once and for all" if the so-called South Polar continent is really a single body of land or two or more gigantic islands. Said rich Explorer Ellsworth when asked about his financial backing: "I am an idealist--I don't care where the money comes from."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.