| Summary: | The legendary naval aviator and polar explorer Admiral Robert E. Byrd undertook eleven expeditions from 1928 until 1955. His success in the first flight over the North Pole in 1926 stimulated a great deal of support as well as financial assistance from the American public for his later flight explorations of Antarctica. In later life he led government expeditions for the U.S. Navy. Australian explorer and aviator, George H. Wilkins, spent his lifetime involved in or leading arctic and antarctic expeditions. In 1926 to 1928, he and Ben Eielson attempted three times to fly across the arctic from Point Barrow, Alaska to Svalbard (Spitzbergen), Norway. The successful third attempt in 1928 was the first trans-arctic flight which resulted in Wilkins being knighted by the King George V of England for this accomplishment. In the 1940s until his death in 1958, he worked for the government mostly as a consultant to the U.S. Army. In this 1946 photo, Admiral Robert E. Byrd and Sir Hubert Wilkins are being rowed from a float plane presumably on one of Seattle's lakes. It was in this year that Byrd led the largest U.S. Navy expedition at the time to Antarctica in 1946 and Wilkins was working as a consultant for the U.S. Army. Handwritten on image: Byrd. Caption information sources: South-Pole.com, European Sport Pilot Association Records, Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program, The Detroit News, The Explorers Club. Date photograph was filed at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (date of photograph and file date may differ by a month or more): May 28, 1946. 1 glass negative: b&w; 4 x 5 in.
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