Richard E. Byrd

 Despite having risen to the rank of Rear Admiral, Richard E. Byrd (1888-1957) had one of the most unique careers of any officer in the United States Navy.  He only served on active duty for 22 years, and most of that was on detached duty.  Yet he was a pioneering aviator and leading polar explorer.  He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1912.  Soon thereafter he was assigned to the Navy’s new flying school.  During World War I, he commanded an air station in Nova Scotia.  In 1925, he was the head of a Navy air unit on an expedition to Greenland.  In 1926, he and Floyd Bennett (one of the leading aviators of the era) attempted to make the first flight over the North Pole.  They departed from Spitsbergen on May 9, 1926, and returned many hours later claiming success.  For this feat, Byrd was awarded the Medal of Honor.  From the beginning, detractors have challenged the claim and most people today are of the opinion that the actual first flight to the North Pole was by the airship Norge (carrying Roald Amundsen and others) later in May 1926 on a trip from Spitsbergen to Alaska.  Regardless, Byrd kept the Medal, but left active duty with the Navy.  In 1927, he planned to make the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, but Charles Lindberg accomplished the feat first.  Regardless, Byrd and three others departed from Roosevelt Field, Long Island on June 29, 1927.  When they got to France, it was too cloudy to land in Paris.  The airplane eventually crashed on the French coast, without fatalities.  In 1928, Byrd organized and led a privately-financed expedition to Antarctica.  The expedition consisted to two ships, carrying three airplanes and did not return until 1930.  Byrd established a base camp, called “Little America” on the Ross Ice Shelf.  On November 28, 1929, at the beginning of the Antarctic summer, Byrd and three others flew their Ford Trimotor airplane from Little America to the South Pole and back, achieving the first flight to the bottom of the world.  Byrd returned to the United States as a national hero.  The expedition was honored with a gold medal from the American Geophysical Society.  Byrd led four more expeditions to the Antarctic.  During his second expedition, he spent five months by himself wintering over at an isolated meteorological station, nearly succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning in the process.  Byrd returned to active duty in the Navy in 1940.  During World War II, he led surveys of remote islands in the Pacific to locate suitable sites for airfields.  In 1946, Byrd led the largest Antarctic expedition to date, which included the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea.  He retired in 1947, having achieved the rank of Rear Admiral.  In 1955-56, he led his last expedition to the Antarctic.  He died at home in Boston on March 11, 1957.