Byrd Antarctic Expedition
The Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1928-1930 year was the first Antarctica - expedition led by the American Richard E. Byrd . As part of the expedition, the first flight over the South Pole was successful .
In December 1928, the expedition reached the Ross Ice Shelf on board the ships City of New York and Eleanor Bolling . Byrd's men set up Little America Station near the Bay of Whales , where they spent the winter of 1929. Byrd's expedition was the second expedition to use aircraft on the Antarctic continent after Hubert Wilkins ' Antarctic expedition of 1928 . This enabled large areas of the continent around the Ross Ice Shelf to be explored and mapped in a short time. Among other things, the Rockefeller Mountains and Marie-Byrd-Land (named after Byrd's wife) were discovered.
On November 29, 1929, Floyd Bennett Bernt Balchen , Richard E. Byrd, Harold I. June and Ashley McKinley were the first people to fly over the South Pole on board the aircraft . In February 1930, the expedition left Antarctica and returned to the USA.
literature
- Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X .
- Paul A. Carter: Little America: Town at the End of the World . Columbia University Press, New York 1979, ISBN 0-231-04682-0 .