[Book Review] Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure, by Adm. Richard E. Byrd

Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure

Adm. Richard E. Byrd

My husband, Jim Tedford, has been telling me about this book for years. He read it in high school back in the 1970s, and it is easy to see how formative it was for him. When I saw the book, which is an actual account rather than a novel, was available for download from the National Library Services for the Blind, I thought it was high time I read something that interests him uniquely. I am very glad I did.

In Alone, Byrd tells the story of his harrowing, nearly fatal months by himself in a tiny shack in an Antarctic winter. He was there in 1933, at 80 degrees 8 minutes to make meteorological observations. Bear in mind that the South Pole is 90 degrees. He was about as far from the pole as Detroit is from Kansas City. The original plan was for three men to work together, but for a number of reasons, Byrd, the expedition's commander, decided he should do it alone. This and other last minute decisions nearly ended his life. The book is his memoir of the months he spent at Advance Base.

I am one of those readers who is highly susceptible to events and situations in a book, so I absolutely froze while I read Alone. It is amazing how the temperature could range in one day in June or July, as much as from two degrees F below to more than 30. Byrd lived in a small shack with two tunnels for supplies and a shelter for the weather recording equipment outside. The shack was buried for insulation, but Byrd had to go outside several times a day to change the paper and so forth on the recording devices, to make any repairs, and to make visual observations of such phenomena as the Aurora Australis. At its coldest the thermometer read 82 degrees F below zero. At that point in July, he was already failing from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Byrd says that he chose to do this ordeal not just for the sake of science but also because he wanted to experience complete and utter solitude. He wanted to see what would happen away from the social interactions and demands of real life. He learned this in spades, coming to a spiritual awareness he had not foreseen. As you read, you learn what an earnest fellow he was, what warmth he could exude, his love for his colleagues and family, and his quiet modesty. More than that you learn what a man of true courage can endure.

I see so much of Jim in this book, his fascination not only with the extremes of geography and weather but his earnest desire to learn from everything around him. He, like Byrd, cares so deeply about those in his life, the world, the wonder of it all. I also see where his interest in simple liiving comes from. The one thing Jim and Byrd did not share is a love for radio technology. Jim adores it, Byrd hated it, though of course it saved his life.

The book has a highly informative afterword by another author, telling about the rest of Byrd's life, what discoveries were made after his expeditions, and more about the history of Antarctic exploration.

Byrd states early in the book that his diaries, which make up part of it, reveal little of his emotions during his weeks of isolation and hardship. I don't know what he thought emotions were, because I saw plenty of self reflection and thoughtful contemplation not only in his account but in those diaries. The result is a picture of a highly admirable human being. Just like Jim.