Science: Polar Pilgrims: May 17, 1926

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Amundsen and Ellsworth stood a little apart, on the hillside above the hangar, as the weird invader nosed through the dawn into the Bay, frowned upon by towering Three Crowns and a 200-foot glacier before whose vast age the works of man looked puny yet miraculous. Guided by a streaming red wind-pennant at the mooring masthead, the grey shape hovered inland, wheeled, returned and shot down a twisting rope, upon which a gang of shouting Italians and Spitzbergen coal miners flung themselves, to heave amain and flounder in the snow. In the monster's snout, hydrogen valves hissed open and the arrested bag sank swiftly, being checked by a discharge of water ballast, pink with anti-freeze solution. As the gondola touched ground, Amundsen and Ellsworth hurried over to grip their Italian partner by the hand and rejoice that the most-feared leg of the Norge's epic travels had been safely, excellently covered—some 1,400 miles in 38 hours' flying time, with great fuel economy and no harm from fierce winds.

Byrd. Several furlongs downhill from where the Norge was cushioned behind green curtains, Explorer Byrd's wide-winged Fokker monoplane, the Josephine Ford, sat out on the snow, while hearties from the S. S. Chantier shoveled and tamped down a white esplanade half a mile long—the takeoff from which Byrd and his aide, Pilot Bennett, hoped daily to spring into the air for their first flight, direct to the Pole instead of via Peary Land as planned earlier. A blizzard delayed matters for a few days. A landing-ski crumpled. Then the huge craft, whose three thunderous motors had run perfectly during a two-hour trial flight, refused to rise when a start was actually tried. Commander Byrd readjusted his impedimenta and watched the weather.

The commanders of the Norge were fast asleep when Byrd and Bennett went to the Josephine one midnight, whirled the huge propellers and soared gracefully aloft, heading north. Kings Bay slept on. Morning came and the news spread that Byrd had gone forth to "try it." The long day began to wane; excitement waxed. At 4:20 in the afternoon, a whizzing speck came down the twelfth Eastern meridian, landed superbly, and Byrd and Bennett stepped out to receive a ringing ovation that was echoed all over the world. They had reached the Pole, circled it three times, dropped a box of "certification" papers, unfurled a U. S. flag and returned some 1,600 miles in 15½ hours. Their sealed instruments would, they hoped, bear out their testimony that they had circled within a very few miles of Earth's upper hub.