Evening Star Newspaper, August 14, 1935, Page 9

BYRD'S ACCOUNT OF VIGIL 1S TOLD _Dia!'y Bares Hardships in ley Hut and Importance of Little Things. i Alone for sevea months at the bot- | § tom of the world in a shack not much bigger than an apartment Kitchenette, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd fretted over a missing cookbook and sleepless- ness produced by detective stories. “The small things are important” and “my greatest trouble is getting to bed at a reasonable hour,” Byrd wrote in his diary of a vigil probably un- | matched for loneliness and hardships. First installments of the diary, cov- ering Admiral Byrd's experience from | the day last March when he was left alone in a hut 123 miles from his base | at Little America to a nearly fatal oc- | casion when he was knocked out by | stove fumes, will be published tomor- row in the American Magazine. They are accompdnied by comment from | Charles J. V. Murphy. a member of | the Byrd Antarctic Expedition. Mr. | Murphy fills in the blanks in the nar- rative. Byrd is so ill at this writing from the effects of more than 200 days in his icy isolation that it is feared his exploring days are over. His diary describes how he was poisoned by car- | bon monoxide escaping from his stove | and how he faced temperatures of more than 70 below zero. | Two Reasons Given. There were two reasons, according to Arthur Murphy, for Byrd's sepa- rating himself from his expedition to live alone in the stormswept outpost. One was the necessity for an inland base to get important meteorological data. The breakdown of one of the | expedition's tractors, ageravated by other difficulties, made it impossible to equip a distant base with supplies for three men. “It's got to be two men or one” Byrd told Murphy. “So it's got to be one.” The admiral explained that to put two men “out there” would be to in- vite a tragedy. “Anybody who knows Arctic his- tory knows that.” he said. “A third man in a crowded shack is alwi an equalizing force, a neutral point of man, a court of appeal, the man outside the quarrel. After a couple of months two men might be at each | other’s throats.” | The other reason, Murphy writes, | was that Byrd “welcomed the chance to come face to face with himself in & time of pure and dangerous loneli- ness.” After Byrd had been established in & specially constructed hut. built to| withstand temperatures of 90 degrees below 7ero, the men and tractors that helped him “dig in" vanished across the snow wastes toward Little America, 123 miles away on the seacoast. Byrd was left to a loneliness so superlative that even his own description falters. “It is unnatural,” he jotted in his | diary, “to be so utterly alone. Not a blade of grass, not a handful of ehrth, nor even a rock to remind you of living things. A shipwrecked sailor has the movement of the sea, the birds flying, to comfort him. A man lost in the woods possesses the reassuring presence of trees and the life that moves among them. Lifeless for Centuries. “Here no life has moved for cen- turies It is the heart of inertness, the dark memory of the Ice Age. “And the utter silence, too, is un- natural. It fills the air with its mood of soundlessness. It lulls and hypno- tizes you, as a steady familiar Writer of Vigil REAR ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD. like the roar of a waterfall; and even the tiny, irregular noises of my shack—the ticking of the clocks and the hiss of the stove—merge with and become part of the silence. But the silence is always there, real, perma- nent, solid as sound: and no thought will wander so far as not to be! brought up hard by its suddenly re- curring reality.” Byrd was handicapped from the start iy an injured shoulder, wrenched in unloading the tractors. He was forced to do much of the work of straightening out his hut and building fuel and escape tunnels with one hand, he wrote. Constantly there was the threat of fire trom the crude oil | stove and most of glass chemical bombs brought along as fire extin- guishers had been smashed by the fierce cold On March 28, 1934, Hbrd made his first diary entry shortly after “dig- ging in.” “I've searched conscientiously for | the alarm clock and the cook book, and the suspicion is growing that I left them at Little America.” he wrote. “It would be an ironic joke if, in the pretentious planning for every con- | . y o ’ tingency, we forgot these most com- ’f monplace and vital necessities.” | Cook Book Brings Joy . K L ) & b (LY ; When Byrd finally dL<CO\’C;'Pd the cook book—he never found the alarm S S S S THE FIVE- BILLION-DOLLAR GOVERNMENT LOBBY Philip H. Gadsden, Chairman of the Com- mittee of Public Utility Executives, presents facts vitally affecting consumers and inves- tors in the electric and gas industries of the natien. An N.B.C. Broadcast (Red Network) | and affiliated groups Station WMAL Tune in 6:30 to 6:45 P.M. (ES.T.) Wednesday, August 14th LET'S GET THE RECORD STRAIGHT THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1935. clock—he gave “a whoop of joy,” he told Murphy later. , + “Then I remembered, with a queer self-consciousness,” he said, “that it was the first word I had uttered in more than a week.” Byrd’s only thread to the world of living men was his wireless, and sometimes this was a very thin thread, the article reveals. Messages crackled from the snow-buried hut to the colony at Little America several times a week, but often there were long stretches of silence which caused fear for their leader to clutch at the hearts of the others. They had been ordered by Byrd not to attempt a relief ex- pedition during the Antarctic Winter night. “Suppose we lose radio contact?” Murphy said he asked Byrd. “You probably will,” Byrd was said | to have replied. “I'm the world's | worst radio operator. Any attempt to relieve me in Mid-winter is almost | certain Yo cause a loss of life, perhaps | many lives. I cannot permit the risk of several lives in an effort to save one.” On May 3, 1934, Byrd wrote in his diary: “My greatest trouble is getting to bed at a reasonable hour. It was 2:30 before I blew out the light last night. Reading, of course, and a very poor detective story, at that. That's the insidious thing about a detective story; no matter how bad it is, curi- osity won't let you put it down until you've finished it.” T & An observation so commonplace that it might have been written by a Washington “cliff dweller” in the com- fort of a six-room suite, but for what follows: “The temperature in the shack was only 12 degrees above when I worked Little America on the radio today. A glass of water from which I was drinking froze hard on the table be- | fore I got through. However, cold is a blessing. The foods I wish to stay frozen ‘very hard’ I leave on the deck, ‘just ordinary hard’ on the lowest shelf and ‘partly frozen’ on the top shelves. * * * I have to break vege- tables out of the can with a hammer DEMAND qualily ICE CREAM Ice cream—to be absolutely safe for your children—must be made of real sugar, and pure, natural flavorings ... NOT substitute ingredients, artificial favors and “fillers.” That's why it's so important that you know where your children buy their ice cream. Insist that they go to a dealer who sells quality ice cream. Breyers Ice Cream is made of the finest and purest ingredients that money can buy. PRODUCED UNDER THE Seallesl SYSTEM @ummmnm and chisel and a cold chisel makes a fine butter knife.” Trail Marked With Sticks, Byrd used to take daily walks for exercise and scientific observations. He marked out his trail with bamboo sticks, since his hut was invisible under the snow drifts and the terrain was so desolate that there was no gauge of distance or direction. Once he strayed beyond his markers and was lost for some time. He built a enow beacon and walked away from it on radial lines, each time returning to the center when he failed to find the hut. Finally, he found his bam- boo markers and returned safely. “Feeling too rotten lately to do much writing,” Byrd wrote on May 28. “Something is sapping my| strength. I'm convinced the fumes from the stoves and possibly from | the pressure lamps are getting into my system. I'm doing everything within my power to lick this problem | and I'm not discouraged.” | on May 29, Murphy recounts, | | Byrd's diary told of hearing many ] snow quakes, sounding like great can- non in the distance. There was no entty for May 30. “Even now,” Murphy writes, “he is | not wholly sure of what happened on that day. It was like being slugged from behind.” Byrd told ,later of how he had gone to repair the engine which | powered his radio set. The engine | | had been skipping. | “My last conscious act,” he said, !"was to try to:close the switch. | | Then things went black before my eves. I'm not sure that I was| knocked out. I remember there was | a long mental struggle, and a lovely drowsiness. I was on my knees, and I suppose I was freezing. “It was hell for a long time after- | wards.” i Tunnel Dug in Snow. After an avalanche had fallen re- cently on the road leading to the Great St. Bemard Pass in Switzerland | a tunnel over 150 feet long was dug through the snow. real cream, ICE CREAM NOT A PENNY DOWN UP TO 3 YEARS TO PAY UNDER N.H A. TERMS A MONTH GENUINE DELCO-HEAT AUTOMATIC OIL BURNER .. . A PRODUCT OF GENERAL MOTORS Thousands Now Enjoying Completely Automatic ON'T confuse this oil burner with those hastily assembled to sell at a price. It is a genuine Delco-Heat in every detail—quality built as always to the exacting specifications of General Motors engineers. Delco-Heat Oil Burner is now available at the lowest price in Delco-Heat history. This price includes com- plete installation—made under the supervision of factory trained experts. Not a penny’s worth of “extras” to buy. 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