Explorer: The Life of Richard E. Byrd

by Lisle A. Rose

“Danger was all that thrilled him,” Dick Byrd’s mother once remarked, and from his first pioneering aviation adventures in Greenland in 1925, through his daring flights to the top and bottom of the world and across the Atlantic, Richard E. Byrd dominated the American consciousness during the tumultuous decades between the world wars. He was revered more than Charles Lindbergh, deliberately exploiting the public’s hunger for vicarious adventure. Yet some suspected him of being a poseur, and a handful reviled him as a charlatan who claimed great deeds he never really accomplished. Then he overreached himself, foolishly choosing to endure a blizzard-lashed six-month polar night alone at an advance weather observation post more than one hundred long miles down a massive Antarctic ice shelf. His ordeal proved soul-shattering, his rescue one of the great epics of polar history. As his star began to wane, enemies grew bolder, and he struggled to maintain his popularity and political influence, while polar exploration became progressively bureaucratized and militarized. Yet he chose to return again and again to the beautiful, hateful, haunted secret land at the bottom of the earth, claiming, not without justification, that he was “Mayor of this place.” Lisle A. Rose has delved into Byrd’s recently available papers together with those of his supporters and detractors to present the first complete, balanced biography of one of recent history’s most dynamic figures. Explorer covers the breadth of Byrd’s astonishing life, from the early days of naval aviation through his years of political activism to his final efforts to dominate Washington’s growing interest in Antarctica.   Rose recounts with particular care Byrd’s two privately mounted South Polar expeditions, bringing to bear new research that adds considerable depth to what we already know. He offers views of Byrd’s adventures that challenge earlier criticism of him—including the controversy over his claim to being the first to have flown over the North Pole in 1926—and shows that the critics’ arguments do not always mesh with historical evidence. Throughout this compelling narrative, Rose offers a balanced view of an ambitious individual who was willing to exaggerate but always adhered to his principles—a man with a vision of himself and the world that inspired others, who cultivated the rich and famous, and who used his notoriety to espouse causes such as world peace. Explorer paints a vivid picture of a brilliant but flawed egoist, offering the definitive biography of the man and armchair adventure of the highest order.

Genres: Biography, Travel

544 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Lisle A. Rose grew up in Champaign, Illinois where his father was on the faculty of the University of Illinois. Rose enlisted in the U.S. Navy in July 1954 and served on three ships making cruises to the Far East, Latin America, and the polar regions. Aboard the icebreaker Staten Island he participated in Operation Deepfreeze II to Antarctica between November 1956 and April 1957. He was honorably discharged from the service in September of that year and obtained a BA in history from Illinois in 1961 and a PHd in American History from the University of California-Berkeley in 1966. Following teaching at various universities between 1966-72, Rose joined the U.S. Department of State's Historical Office from 1972-78 where he was one of a team of professional historians editing the ongoing official series Foreign Relations of the United States. Transferring to the Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs, Rose was Polar Affairs Officer from 1978 to 1982 where he prepared an Arctic policy statement, negotiated the annual U.S. scientific program in Greenland with the Government of Denmark, and helped form an Interagency Arctic Policy Group to formulate official U.S. policy on that region. In 1980, he was a member of the United States Delegation to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. In 1982 Rose transferred to the Office of Advanced Technology Affairs where he specialized in the international aspects of the U.S. Landsat earth remote sensing satellite program and was part of a two person negotiating team that with representatives from the Soviet Union, France, and Canada completed the COSPAS-SARSAT intenational search and rescue sattelite system. Rose retired from the Department of State in 1989 in order to resume an active writing career in Cold War, naval, and polar history.

Rose currently resides in Edmonds, Washington with his wife, historian Harriet Dashiell Schwar, and is Library Coordinator and member of the Board of Governors of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society. Rose's professional memberships include the American Polar Society, North American Society of Oceanic Historians, U.S. Naval Institute, other organizations.

Reviews

[Dave Hoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Bio of Byrd, The author balances Byrd's Self-Promotion and manipulations of the truth, with achievements of a Polar Explorer. Quoting Roger Launius, editor: " Rose captured Byrd's sense of adventure and egotism, chivalry and charlatanism, public hucksterism, and power-brokering," While giving Byrd more leeway in his feud with Bernt Balchen than I would, Rose was on Operation Deep-Freeze Two, I was on DF-1 with Byrd.

[Wayne Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book and very detailed.