The following is a story about two men... Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Colonel Bernt Balchen... each of them foremost in his field. Byrd was a master planner, organizer and fund-raiser; Balchen an ace pilot, navigator, cold weather expert and mathematician.
After his effort to reach the North Pole by plane in 1926, Byrd flew across the Atlantic in 1927 with Balchen as copilot. He then organized and raised funds for what was maybe his biggest triumph: a flight to the South Pole in 1929, with Balchen as pilot.
After that expedition the two went their separate ways until Byrd called Balchen to his office in Washington, D.C. in 1949?
