Richard E. Byrd

Richard E. Byrd. Self: With Byrd at the South Pole. Intelligent and handsome, Richard Evelyn Byrd was born in 1888, the son of an influential Virginia lawyer. He entered the United States Naval Academy at age 20 and was commissioned in 1912. Interested in polar exploration as a boy, he was appointed navigator for the proposed transpolar flight of the Navy's dirigible "Shenandoah" from Alaska to Spitzbergen in 1924. When...