and showed them over again. You can be sure that the Penguin Theater had the most appreciative audience in the Americas — North, South, and Little.
“When daylight finally arrived, we were anxious to get moving. The first few days of twilight were devoted to digging out from the snow drifts. There was a lot of shoveling to be done and everyone had to pitch in.” After five airplanes were dug out of their igloo ice hangars, the work of aerial exploration began. The expedition brought three of the planes to the Bay of Whales, the other two having been left buried in the ice by the previous Byrd expedition. Before the long night descended on the little colony the hangars were dug into the snow. Rectangular snow blocks were cut and used for constructing the walls high enough to clear the top of the wings. The blocks froze in position. When the planes were towed into place by tractors, the front and rear walls were erected. Bamboo poles were placed over the hangars and covered with tarpaulin to form the roof. Blizzards delayed the work twice, and after the storms the men had to dig the planes out from under the snow. Through the long Polar night, the ships rested snugly under a blanket of snow while the mechanics overhauled the engines in a subterranean shop and installed instruments in the ships. When the sun finally rose again, the planes were dug out. Buried for five years under tons of snow and ice, the Fairchild and Ford ships, abandoned by the previous expedition, were found to be in fairly good condition after excavation.
After the planes were dug out of their hangars, the photographers spent a great deal of their time in the air. The two men made 26 flights for pictures. In fourteen months, under the direction of Admiral Byrd and Chief Pilot Harold June, the planes made 142 flights and flew a total of 12,900 miles, using more than 6,000 gallons of fuel and 500 gallons of oil. The fliers, accompanied by scientific members of the expedition, explored more than 100,000 square miles of territory.
In addition to obtaining a photographic record of the terrain for study and mapping purposes and carrying instruments for scientific data, the planes themselves were used to determine the topography of the barren continent of Antarctica. Contour lines were obtained by bringing the planes down every twenty miles until their skids touched the snow and surface altitude checked by reading the altimeter.
Peterson had his closest escape from death during a trip through Marie Byrd land en ‘ route to the Edsel Ford range by tractor. With three men he had set out to record pictures of the journey. Suddenly, after several days journey, a blizzard sprang up. The wind was suffocating in intensity.
As the blizzard grew worse the men pitched a tent next to the tractor, one of them staying in the cab of the latter. The storm grew worse and lasted for a week. The wind blew so hard that it was impossible to venture outside and the man in the tractor cab had to remain in the cab for a week, while the other three took turns holding up the tent. After it was all over, the difficult task then began of digging out from the snow drifts.
Herrmann had his one dangerous experience when he broke the camp rules and ventured off alone in the spring twilight. The haze obliterates everything and without a horizon it is very easy to become lost. Herrmann went down to view the seals, and thought he was returning in the right direction. He wore a wool shirt and a windproof —a very light but warm bit of clothing which largely replaced furs for warmth. It was 22 below zero. For nine hours he tried to find his way back. Finally he began back tracking and reached camp utterly exhausted with one foot partly frozen.
“Both of us were on the scene when the big Fokker high wing monoplane crashed shortly after taking off,” Herrmann said. “I had to pick up my camera and run for fear of being hit, but the shots we got were both close up and distant. The big ship wobbled as it took off. We had our cameras set to take scenes of general activity. When the Fokker began wobbling, w