Talk:Richard Evelyn Byrd

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[edit] Missing RADM Richard Cruzen Kudos

The third culminating expedition, Operation Highjump, was the largest Antarctic expedition to date.

Byrd also commanded Operation Deep Freeze,
which established permanent Antarctic bases at McMurdo Sound, the Bay of Whales and the South Pole in 1955

[edit] Re*Cycling RO/CS USCG Lessons Learned

geoWIZard for Prairie Pasage Flyways @
geoWIZard for Prairie Pasage Flyways @

"In March 1947 the icebreaker Eastwind was returning from Antarctica where it had
... ADM Cruzen, in charge of the ships of HIGHJUMP, reported ...
RJBurkhart 22:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The US Navy also strongly emphasised that Operation Highjump was going to be a ...
under the military command of Rear Admiral Richard Cruzen (above, left). ...

US Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Eastwind in Greenland waters (23 March 1945)
US Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Eastwind in Greenland waters (23 March 1945)

Eastwind and Southwind were the only two Wind Class icebreakers to see active service during the war. Both were involved with the capture of the German trawler Extersteine in Greenland.

Operation Nanook - On February 12, 1946, Congress approved Public Law 296 directing the chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau to establish "an international meteorological reporting network in the Arctic regions of the Western Hemisphere". The Weather Bureau turned to the army and navy and together, the three agencies came up with a plan to build reporting stations that summer at Thule, Greenland and at the southern tip of Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic.

The U.S. Atlantic Fleet commander, Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, selected a few ships, designated them Task Force 68, and appointed Captain Richard Cruzen as commander of "Operation Nanook". Admiral Curzen's first orders, issued May 31, 1946, called for a general plan whose second phase consisted "of operations to establish weather observation and reporting stations of the U.S. Weather Bureau" in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland.

Additionally, Cruzen ordered one icebreaker, the USCGC Eastwind, along with a seaplane tender, the Norton Sound, to operate "in the general vicinity of the southern limit of the ice pack which is expected to be encountered in the Baffin Bay area". This may have been a peaceful project to make weather observations in the Arctic, but an interesting argument could be made that these stations would be additionally used as intelligence gathering sites.

With these two projects the U.S. Navy began its effort to systematically expose men and machine to the rigors of polar life.);

  • atlantis part2 ... and Rear Admiral Richard Cruzen (fresh from Operation Frostbite ...
    Citing The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Project one more time:

He claimed pioneering experience guiding US Navy ships through the treacherous ...
Thomas, backed by the courage of Rear Admiral Richard Cruzen, made that ...
RJBurkhart 20:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing diary?

Perhaps some mention should be made of Byrd's purported "missing diary" detailing voyages to the inner earth? 153.104.16.114 04:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

With respect, can "a missing diary detailing voyages to the inner earth" be history? Even the leading "Hollow Earth" organisation considers it now to be a forgery. Geoffreybrooks 18 June 2006/20 August 2007

[edit] "Mysterious Events" References?

I'm all for asking reasonable, well-informed questions on the subject of potential supernatural phenomena, but it seems to me that the two paragraphs devoted to the discussion of unknown facts related to the Antarctic expeditions do nothing to even remotely answer any of the questions, thus being potentially problematic for a biographical article. I wonder whether the rest of you have similar reservations about keeping them in place. Badbilltucker 19:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I've no reservations about removing the UFO section from the article -- it reads as though someone else came along and tried to slip in a bit of writing on a totally different topic; the tone of content just doesn't match up with the rest. Also, if it's really necessary to keep some info. on UFOs and Byrd, it'd be best as a small piece of trivia, similar to the trivia section in the Operation Highjump article. Wallless 03:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the whole section should be excised. Jinian 21:23, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree. It's a fascinating tale, I enjoyed finally reading it after having seen it referred to many times among fringe science folklore, but if it can't be authenticated it doesn't belong here.Xot 10:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be removed, as it makes the article seem contradictory. Earlier in the article it says that Byrd was in the Antarctic as part of "Operation Highjump," which is on the opposite pole. They don't deserve to have their tidbit of hogwash in there if they can't even make their story agree with the real one.

-Anonymous 11:00, 1 October 2007 (EST)

I have added some further parts of the "El Mercurio" text for interest. I can Email a copy of the newspaper clipping if requested. I read Dr Bernard's book "The Hollow Earth" recently. Here Admiral Byrd is the central protagonist of the theory. Whereas the "El Mercurio" article is not mentioned, however, all other quotes attributed to Admiral Byrd, and the "missing diary" which even the leading Hollow Earth organisation nowadays dismisses as a fraud, cannot be substantiated because the reference given is always no more than "in a well-known newspaper article" or "in a well-reported broadcast" Geoffreybrooks 20 August 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Geoffreybrooks (talk • contribs) 14:57, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

[edit] North Pole controversy

A recent addition to the North Pole section of this article lead me to do some searches — on the two inline citation that were in place.

  • The Rawlins reference. The Wikipedia article on Rawlins is currently POV and points to "his website". If the DOI journal is his website, this leads one to wonder about it. Self-published works are not generally considered to be reliable sources. I've yet to find any credentials for Rawlins.
  • The Joseph Portney "Polar Flap" citation is on a website that provides credentials for Portney, which seem quite credible.

The "fact" of Byrd's missing the pole is certainly not established. See

I think it important that Wikipedia not portray this dispute as factually established.

— ERcheck (talk) 12:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

1. The Rawlins reference was co-published with the Scott Polar Research Institute, so the claim of self-published work is dubious at best.

2. Portney's website appears to be down or unavailable via Google search at this writing. DIO, the International Journal of Scientific History, of which Rawlins is publisher, has on its board a number of well known scholars, including E. Myles Standish of Caltech, Charles Kowal of Johns Hopkins, and Robert Headlund of the SPRI. Rawlins seems at least as credible a source as Portney if not more so.

3. Byrd took a sextant reading of the Sun at 7:07:10 GCT. His erased diary record shows the solar altitude to be 19°22'34", while his later official typewritten report shows the same 7:07:10 altitude to be 18°15'32". (See Goerler 1998, compare pages 84-85 to page 154.) The bottom line is that Byrd knowingly falsified the navigational record of his flight and then tried to cover it up. If there is an innocent explanation for this, I have yet to hear it, from Portney or anyone else. Until then, the case against Byrd's 1926 claim should be considered to be factually established. I have indicated as such in the main article.

--Keithpickering (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a link to the Portney footnote in the article, which was accessible yesterday and today. Saying he "knowingly falsified" takes absolute proof — it implies one can read his intentions/thoughts. Certainly there is controversy about the claim that he reached the North Pole, and that can be captured in a NPOV. — ERcheck (talk) 00:29, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
This article — The North Pole Flight of Richard E. Byrd: An Overview of the Controversy. Polar Archival Program, Ohio State University. Retrieved on 2007-11-19. — by a reliable source, presents both sides of the controversy. The article shows that Rawlins' interpretation is not incontrovertible, i.e. not factually established. — ERcheck (talk) 02:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

But we have absolute proof that Byrd knowingly falsified his report. It is the original sextant observations in Byrd's diary, which do not agree with the report. What more could anyone ask in the way of proof? Once again, I await an innocent explanation for this, and once again it has not been forthcoming from any source. I am aware that there are a lot of Byrd apologists out there in academia and elsewhere. What I am not aware of is how anyone gets around the evidence in Byrd's own hand of deceit at least, and outright fraud at worst. You have not provided an innocent explanation, Portney has not, and OSU has not. As encyclopedists we must state what we know is true, and not what we hope or wish were true. That's what NPOV is all about. Perhaps you hope or wish that the evidence were equivocal. But it's not. Byrd's own hand condemns him. --Keithpickering (talk) 07:09, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Byrd's diary

From the article:

The discovery of Byrd's diary of the flight in 1996 revealed erased (but still legible) numbers. Dennis Rawlins interpreted these numbers to be sextant readings, and concluded that that Byrd did travel most of the way to the Pole before turning back. These erased numbers have also been viewed as being the "serial numbers of Peary's chronometer watches."

The source given (http://www.pearyhenson.org/polarcontroversy/rawlins.htm) doesn't even mention Byrd. It's defending Peary's claim, and the reference is to numbers in Peary's diary, not Byrd's. Is this paragraph getting confused or am I? Matt 02:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC).

About that, could someone make an abstract of it? It's a bit long. Peacekeeper II, too lazy to log on since -06 12:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Byrd at Virginia Military Institute

Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd attended the Virginia Military Institute where he was class of 1908. I am not certain as to whether or not he attended UVA or not, but this article fails to mention this fact.

http://www4.vmi.edu/museum/byrd.html

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Byrd.png

Image:Byrd.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 15:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Book reference: Beyond the Barrier

I've added to the References section a book, Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's First Expedition to Antarctica, that I've read and which seems to me to be a good reference on Byrd's first expedition. I haven't used information from the book to edit the article, however. Wdfarmer (talk) 10:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Insane asylum?

Did Byrd end his days in an insane asylum, as I just read elsewhere on the web? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.170.173 (talk) 13:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)