Joseph Hill, mechanic on Byrd's Antarctica Expedition, was interviewed in 1998 for the documentary Alone on the Ice.

His First Impression of Admiral Byrd

Q: What was your first meeting with him like?
JH: Now, see, I must answer the question on what he was like when I first met him. But I have to give you a little preliminary as to how I met him. Pursuant to my prior remarks about applying for the job, I wrote him a letter. And I lived at, my father was the President of a small school down in Texas, at Canyon, West Texas State. And every lunch he came home with the mail. And then about 1933, one day at lunch he asked, said, Joe, did you ever write to Byrd applying for a job on an expedition? And I said, yes sir. He flipped a card over in front of me. It was from Dr. Shiree, the personnel officer that was being instrumental in forming the new expedition, saying that if I could come to Boston for an interview they would be glad to -- if I could come to the Navy Yard, and I managed to get up there by chauffeuring Dr. Bachelor's car, the speech teacher, to Boston. I went in and interviewed Shiree. I went back to the Bangor, my hotel. The telephone was there, a telephone call. I returned it to Shiree, and he said that the Admiral wanted him, Dr. Shiree, and me to come to dinner that night. So we went to 9 Brimmer Street to dinner that night and that's when I met Admiral Byrd.

Q: What happened at that dinner? What was your impression of him?
JH: Even greater than I thought he was before I ever met him. Of course, at that time I was only 20 years old by one week. And to meet my idol under those circumstances in his home it was just simply beyond anything I could have dreamed of as a youngster.

Q: How did he treat you? How did he impress you? Was he very personable and friendly.
JH: Oh, most, most cordial, personable, made you feel at home immediately. Put you totally at ease. Under that relationship, as a punk kid, 20 years old, and a grown famous national flyer and so on, it would have been normal for me to be absolutely scared to death and shaking. But he put me at ease and we had a conversation over dinner and he asked me all about my history and, and things like that. It was just a marvelous, marvelous experience. 

Traveling to Antarctica

Q: Why was it so important for you to go to Antarctica with Byrd? Why did you want to go with him?
JH: Well, I wanted to go with Byrd, simply because [he] was Byrd. He had just flown the Atlantic and then had just flown over the South Pole, and lectured in a neighboring town, Amarillo, Texas. He had taken Paul Siple, our well known Boy Scout, and Byrd was pretty much my idol as were the Lindberghs and all the other famous flyers. After he said he was going to go on another expedition when he could get it together. And I applied for the job. That was in 1931, I think.

Q: Can you describe your trip down to Antarctica? What were you doing on the ride down to Antarctica? What was your role and your experience with Admiral Byrd.
JH: Well, my role on the two ships when the Bear of Oakland sailed from Boston Harbor Navy Yard, they needed a second cook. And so Dr. Shiree said, Joe, I ought to go back a minute and say that I was notified after that meeting with Byrd that I could come along as a member of the crew of the ships. Ice parties and so forth to be selected later. And of course I jumped at the chance. Well, when the Bear got ready to sail they needed a second cook. So Dr. Shiree said, Joe, why don't you go on the Bear as the second cook. So I signed on as a second cook, Lord help them. We got down off of Cape Hatteras, and we hit a hurricane and the Bear foundered, almost went down. We had to be towed in by the Coast Guard. We bailed water all night and so on, into Newport News. While we were waiting to be refitted, the Rupert came in to pick up supplies, and the airplanes and some things there at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The Admiral, through Shiree of course, sent word that I should come over and be his cabin boy, his mess boy, his aide, whatever you want to call it. So I jumped at that chance. Then for the next four months, of course, all the way on down to the Antarctic, which was the first week in January when we started unloading, I was intimately associated every day with, with the Admiral.

Q: How did you find out you were going to stay on the ice, and what was your reaction?
JH: Most of the ice party had been selected before the departure from, as the expedition was forming. All the scientific crew and so on. But there were some of us in the support functions that didn't know until the last week that we had or had not been selected to stay on the ice party and winter over the winter night. And it was during that last week, during the unloading that I knew I was finally selected. However, about three weeks or so, and the memory is getting a little skinny now, but it was a few weeks before we landed, Admiral Byrd told me one day. He says, Joe, I'm thinking of keeping you on the ice party. And of course again I was just in heaven. 

Transporting Supplies to Little America

Q: What was so dangerous and difficult about transporting supplies from the ships to Little America when you got there?
JH: The straight forward simple dangers were, simply that of unloading the supplies on the edge of the ice. It was Bay ice, not very thick. And it tended to break away under your load, and you might lose the things down along the edge. We did not lose much there. But we had to negotiate a few miles to get to Little America. And where bay ice meets barrier ice, there is a pressure ridge formed due to the fact that bay ice is floating and moves with the tides, the storms and so forth. And this is, the barrier ice is anchored to land. In this case it happened, we learned later, sitting on Roosevelt Island. So along that point, along that seam, pressure ice, pressure ridge formed, great ice chunks, 50 to 60 feet high were thrust up into the air. We were able to build a trail up to that and then with cross ties and telephone poles and so forth we were able to build a bridge across that pressure ridge, crack, crevasse. It would last a few hours and then it would be moved by the action. We would have to go back down and put the thing back in place. And it became known as the Bridge of Sighs. We established on the trail in an intermediate cache. So we would move our supplies from the ship at the edge of the ice across that and establish it at an intermediate cache. And then move the supplies in a second stage into Little America.

Q: How far was it?
JH: The distance from the ship to the cache was about three miles and then as I remember it was about three miles farther on into the Little America.

Q: What was the name they gave the trail and why? 
JH: The trail was named Misery Trail simply because of the, it was brutal hard work, moving the supplies time and time again, 55 gallon drums of gasoline, building materials, 150 tons of coal, and so on and so on. It was just several weeks of very difficult hard work. And rebuilding that bridge across the pressure ridge alone was a discouraging process. The crew, many of us, had not operated in cold weather. Now it was summertime down there, it was always below freezing. Some of us had never been on a pair of skis in our lives. And we got our initiation in it and it all was learning at that time.

Q: Wasn't Little America in some kind of danger and didn't you have to create an emergency cache?
JH: Little America was in danger at one time, yes. A crack formed. I explained a while ago about the pressure ridge. Farther up, next to the barrier, back of Little America about a mile or a mile and a half, as I remember it, we noted a crack, a crevasse opening up and growing a little. And it became apparent that Little America might float out to sea. And so we felt, the Admiral and the executive crew elected that we had to establish a cache of emergency supplies beyond that crack on the barrier side, on the stable side of that ice crack. So that if we sensed, if we found that Little America might float out we would have a supplies for the winter night because we were stuck. Ships would be going on back or had gone back at that time. 

His Job on the Expedition

Q: What was your job on the trip?
JH: My job on the trip was a tractor driver and mechanic. My first machine assigned was the old cleat track, and that was a big tremendous monster that hauled twice as much load as any one of the other tractors. We had the cleat track, we had three French Citroens, and we had two Ford snowmobiles. The Citroens could each haul about half of what the cleat track could. 

Q: Can you describe to me briefly how you would start a tractor in the cold?
JH: Starting a tractor in the cold was a process depending on how you shut it down. We would drive [it] because of the difficulties of handling the tractor, if we let it stop. We would drive for eight, ten, 12, maybe 24 hours at times. We would try to shift drivers and things like that as best we could. But we hesitated to let them stop. The process was, was straight forward in a sense. We had to stop the engine, dig a pit under the crank case under the engine, about two, three feet deep. Drain the oil and drain the radiator fluid. We would take those into, in camp, we'd take it into the cook stove and put it on the cook stove to keep it warm. On the trail you had to keep that stuff warm over little promise burners. Cooking, little cooking promise burners. We would at the time of the stop, we would throw a canvas that the sailmaker had designed and built, made for us, that went up over the hood and around the treads. And then we'd bank snow up on it, and so in case a blizzard and so on that would stay, the snow would stay out of the engine and things like that. 

When we got ready to start the tractor engines then, after the shut down, we would put a large Von Prag torch in that pit that I referred to. And let that play up around or up underneath the crank case of the engine, until we felt that the engine was losing a little of its cool. And then we would bring the warm oil and the warm radiator fluid from its heat source, put that in, and get out and start to crank the engines. And remember this was by hand crank. For instance, the old cleat track had a magneto ignition system, it had no batteries. And batteries are no good in those temperatures anyway. If you were lucky you would get a start. And therefore since that process alone, preparing to start would take an average of about a half a day, to do all the heating, get the engine warm, and so on. So it was no easy project to let a tractor stop and then have to start it again.

Q: Was it a brutal trip? Did people get frostbite and were the tractors breaking down? Was it very cold going out there to set up advance base?
JH: We didn't have any of that problem on a clean run. But we did have that problem because my own cleat track lost a pin bearing, and we had to stop and replace that about 57, 47 below zero. Demas and I stayed behind. The other two tractors, Citroens, went on ahead with all of the advance base supplies, but lacking a lot of the house parts. Since the old cleat track could haul twice the load or three times the load of the Citroens, it had the major parts of the house. Demas and I stayed and worked on the cleat track, trying to get it started after we overhauled it. But these troubles with these temperatures, we just couldn't get the thing warm enough to start after it cooled down and we had replaced the parts. June and Skinner and I've forgotten who else came back from advance base, the 20 or so miles and picked up the tractor, the cleat track loads and Demas and me, and we went on back to Advance base to finish establishing that base. 

Byrd's Decision to go to Advance Base Alone

Q: When did you first learn about advance base and what did you think the original plan was for it?
JH: Well, I first heard about it on the ship in the Admiral's cabin boy role. But it was simply talked about as an advance base to do weather research and observe the heavens and the aurora and so on. And was always at that point thought of as a three man base, as far as I know. You've got to remember I was low man on the totem pole, and only heard the, had no specific conversations about it, other than that we had to get that done.

Q: Why do you think Byrd decided to go alone?
JH: Well, I think that Byrd decided to go alone simply because of the necessity to do so. I talked about the dangers of Little America floating out and we had to establish a relief supply base, and that just kept cutting down on the time that we had to establish advance base. It had to be done before the winter night set in. So it just became apparent I believe, that it was impossible to transport enough supplies and enough distance that we had to transport it. Remember it was originally planned to go down at the, clear down to the Queen Maud range. And as it was we had to abandon that plan and establish it a little over a 100 miles due, right down the Meridian from Little America. 

Q: Were you surprised by his decision to go alone? Do you think it was responsible for him to go alone, or do you think he was the best candidate for this type of mission to go alone?
JH: I don't remember a great deal of discussion in my conversations about whether it was a good idea or not. Those decisions were made at the executive group level, the Novell, the June's, the Poulter's, the Murphy's and so on made those decisions. And the Admiral always made the final one. I am sure, but I don't remember it much, I'm sure there must have been some discussion about whether he should go alone or not. Because they had had that discussion in the executive committee where the decisions were being made. But it was not a divisive subject.

Q: Do you think he was well prepared? What kind of skills did he have as a radio man for instance? Do you think he was well prepared to spend six months alone in the winter nights down in the cabin?
JH: I think that the skills of most importance to undertake that task he was very well skilled. As far as you ask about his radio ability, he took a cram course just a short time before going down there, and learned to use the, the key, and things like that. He was no expert radioman by a long shot. But I think he was better equipped than any other man in camp, by far. Particularly I think he was psychologically equipped to assume the challenge and do the job.

Q: Take us back to the moment where the tractor's leaving him alone at advance base. What are you thinking? Are you worried about him?
JH: Worry is not in the vocabulary much in those circumstances, simply because a job has to be done and, and all the preparation work possible had been done to make it a safe venture. And the risk was, kind of went with the territory. Yes, we were concerned. But and the ultimate faith we just knew that it would be successful.

Q: Can you describe Byrd's cabin? What was it like.
JH: The advance base was a cubicle. I've forgotten the dimensions. It was about 10 x 12 x 7 or 8 or something like that. Entered the entrance from a hatch door up through the surface. The house was put down in it, sunk down in a pit about four feet deep. Foundation was made of cross-ties. The house was erected in sections that had been built state side for ease of assembly under our cold harsh conditions. Able to assemble the house after we got started in about a day and a half, something like that as I recall. Well insulated of course. Had a small cooking stove, heating stove. Had generators for electric power supply.

 Byrd's Illness at Advance Base

Q: How were those at Little America updated about Byrd's stay at advance base? How did you know how he was doing?
JH: While he was at advance base, Byrd had regular appointed contact times. And bulletins were posted all the time on the results of that contact. So we were kept up to date on what had gone on, and, and so on. 

Q: When did you first realize Byrd was sick and what did you learn about it? Do you remember?
JH: Well, we began the suspicion that something was wrong with him when he would miss a contact, or have trouble staying on the air very long. And as time went on this became so frequent and the bulletins became so terse, short and so on that we decided that something was really wrong and something had to be done.

Q: What was the cause of what happened to Byrd? What happened to Byrd out there?
JH: In short, the vents from the generator and from his cooking stove plugged up due to condensation in the exhausts and moisture in the air, and plugged off the vents, and he was poisoned with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Q: How sick did he become?
JH: That's a hard question to answer. I know that he very nearly died. 

Rescuing Admiral Byrd

Q: Byrd never issued a direct order to Little America to come rescue him or he claims he didn't. Why didn't he? What do you think of Byrd's decision to do that. He never said, come get me, very explicitly.
JH: Well, Byrd didn't ask to be rescued in my opinion because it simply was not in his character to even think of asking for his men to risk their lives to rescue him. I just don't think he even thought of it, or never would.

Q: What were the dangers of a tractor trip to advance base in the winter night. I mean how would they have to proceed in these conditions? 
JH: In the winter night with the conditions existent over a trail that marked with red trail frags about every 100 or 2 or 3 or 400 yards, some of which may have been blown down or gone or disappeared, difficult to find at night, although it isn't black night, it's starlight, they are hard to see. And then the ever present danger of a crevasse giving way under your tractor and losing it. The simple process of a tractor just plain refusing to run. And the crew being stranded right there and having to wake, make their way back to camp at night over that trail on foot, at temperatures ranging 65 to 70 below zero. It was a very dangerous program. 

Q: How would the tractors, the rescue team make their way out to advance base? How did they?
JH: The tractors, any navigation at night, was simply from one trailer flag to the other, trying to retrace a trail. Little orange flags that had been set at the 100 yard, 200, 300, 400 yards apart, may have blown away, may have just disappeared. So frequently somebody had to get down on the skis in front of the tractor and travel along by hand and wave them on, and direct them. Other times and this happened on the final trip out to get him with, we were able to get with a spotlight up on the cab of a tractor, and spot the flags ahead with a spotlight. It seemed to be pretty successful. 

Q: Can you tell us the story of the three attempts made to rescue him?
JH: I know there were three attempts made to reach him. The first one as I remember something went wrong with the tractor. The second one they had trouble with the navigation, finding the way, and the third one they were able to take it through. 

Byrd's Motivation

Q: Do you think Advance Base was a success or a failure for Byrd?
JH: I think that we can classify the advance base adventure as a success. It did not take three men to the base of the Queen Maud range, but Byrd did do his thing, and it was always planned as just one of the other scientific ventures that had been planned for the expedition and there were several. I think that his sickness, his decision to go alone produced a reaction in the press looking back that blew it out of the era or the area of a scientific venture and made it look like and sound like possibly a stunt. And some people back here took it that way. It was not intended to be that. It was merely another part of the scientific work that we were down there to do.

Q: And do you think he was trying to do something to get some attention back home for his expedition so that he could go out and--?
JH: I don't think that was in his mind at all. No, I think the proof is in the history. That his plans were made months and months and months ahead, to establish an advance base for three men to make meteorological studies and so on. It was always in the plan. It was not a stunt. But we have to remember that in the era that this took place, aviation and communications were exploding. Every time you turned the page of a paper somebody established a new speed record, or somebody flew another long distance flight. It was in an age of stunts. And also it was in the midst of the Depression. People needed something to look to at that time. And therefore, it was the environment in which it happened that contributed a great deal to the way it was interpreted I think. 

Admiral Byrd's Legacy

Q: What do you think Byrd's legacy was? What do you think his major accomplishments were?
JH: Well, I think you can just go run right down the line. He had a heck of a life prior to any of his exploration work or record-establishing flights. His trip as a kid to the east and so on. He was just a remarkable young man. I think he had great visions of what he wanted to do from a very early age. And was a magnificent planner, and he just had a way of accomplishing his ends. I think he was a very sensitive man. He was a very loyal man. In one of his books he said about his planning. I believe he said something to the effect that he let planning take the place of worry, advance planning would take the place of worry. And I think the evidence of all of his expeditions, all of his trips and so on proved that point.

Q: What do you think the legacy of the expedition that you were on with Byrd was?
JH: Looking back after these many years we all have to wonder whether or not the contribution was as great as we thought it was at the time. But I think it speaks well to the fact that of the many scientists that we had, almost every one of them went on in life and became an eminent scientist in his field. The Al Lindsay's and so on, just great scientists in their own right. Take the advance base case alone, probably in judging that, I'm not sure what the psychiatrists and the psychologists and the so forth would judge with respect to his experiences, maybe not much now. I'm not sure that the weather observations and the astronomical observations and the aurora australius observations really amounted to much in hindsight. At the time though they really did. And remember that we were the first, he was a great visionary. He was the first that set up an expedition to study a large unexplored area from many scientific viewpoints. It was not a stunt in any sense. It was simply that way. It was to open up new territory and to study the flora, the fauna and so on. It was his visionary work, his vision for that kind of work bore fruit in what you see down at the Antarctic today, of the many, many bases manned by many scientists doing work around the clock and around the calendar. So I guess you can say that was our legacy because we were the first expedition that really took a group of scientists down there to do that job.

Q: There's a wide range of opinion about Byrd. Some people loved him and were with him from the North Pole flight. How do you account for the fact that many people adored him and found him a man of great integrity and others didn't?
JH: I've thought of that some. I don't know why anybody would dislike him, other than he did make the final decisions. Under certain circumstances that I wouldn't even know about, I don't know why any individual would not like him, but, I guess most all of us at one time or another incur a little enmity in someone. And I can't answer the question as to why some people so violently disagreed with him over some of his things.

The Lasting Impression of the Expedition

Q: What moves you so about it, what moves you so now?
JH: Well, a great deal of memory and I feel a little sadness. A great deal of pride. I'm glad I did it. I'd do it again. I loved it. Great comrades, great friendships. Lasting relations. I think that about does it.

Q: In what way did Antarctica change your life and what was your feeling about the place that you carried away from there?
JH: The expedition impacted my life. It was a turning point. Just from a practical viewpoint it gave me an entree to every circumstance thereafter, including some of the jobs that I had to do, some of the technical work that I had to do, cold weather work on airplanes, during World War II up at Ladd Field Alaska. It humbled me. I don't think there's a man alive that can go through a winter night down there, walk the barrier, feel the immensity, the magnitude, the magnificence of the place. Their words don't fit. 600 times as many stars as you can see on a clear mountain top in the United States, hear your breath crack and hear only the sound of your steps in the snow as you walk if you're out there alone. It's a magnificent humbling feeling