Commander Byrd of the United States Navy has done much 

 that is notable in the field of air navigation. He accompanied 

 D. B. MacMillan on his Arctic expedition to Ellesmere Island in 

 1925 as commanding officer of the naval aviation unit, flying al- 

 most 6000 miles on this expedition (see "Flying over the Arctic," 

 Natl. Geogr. Mag., Vol. 48, 1925). On May 9, 1926, he made the 

 first successful flight to the north pole, flying from Kings Bay, 

 Spitsbergen, to the pole and back ("The First Flight to the North 

 Pole," Natl. Geogr. Mag., Vol. 50, 1926.) In June, 1927, he flew 

 across the Atlantic from New York to Ver-sur-Mer, France ("Our 

 Transatlantic Flight," Natl. Geogr. Mag., Vol. 52, 1927). He is also 

 the author of "Flying over the Polar Sea" {U. S. Naval Inst. Proc, 

 Vol. 51, 1925). Prior to his own flights he had charge of naviga- 

 tional preparations for the transatlantic flight of the Navy NC 

 boats in 1919, the proposed transatlantic flight of the airship ZR-2 

 from England to the United States, and the flight of the airship 

 C-5 from Long Island to St. John's, Newfoundland. 



