Scout to Explorer: Back with Byrd in the Antarctic.

Siple, Paul. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1936.
  • 1933-35 Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Here is Siple’s account of his return to Antarctica on the Second Byrd Expedition. He’s lost a little of his Boy Scott adolescence but is still a young man filled with wonderment at his good fortune of being asked to return, and at the lack of wonder among some of his new colleagues.

Antarctica Sixty Years Ago: A Re-appraisal of the British Expedition 1934-1937.

Bertram, Colin. Polar Record 32 (181) April 1996, p. 98-183.
  • 1934-37 British Graham Land Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 151: Our reading matter, our library, was limited and exiguous. We had a pleasing special bookplate that may be a collector’s item one day. We had a good collection of Antarctic exploratory histories of past expeditions, a few basic reference books, to which each of us had added a personal collection limited, I think it was, to 10 volumes each. The voyage of the Beagle and Anson’s voyage I read while we sailed the Southern Ocean, and we compared the size and shape of Beagle with that of Penola. Darwin was a gentleman scientist; for him no hauling on the ropes watch by watch, by day and by night. Nor did Darwin nor Anson cook for the entire ship’s company, baking bread and washing up: times had changed, and they have changed again since. Darwin in Beagle started out at age 22, whereas I was already 23. The incredible genius of Darwin must astonish us all. Would that one could say with him in his biography: ‘My industry has been nearly as great as it could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my love of natural science has been steady and devout.’

Southern Lights: The Official Account of the British Graham Land Expedition 1934-1937, with Two Chapters by A. Stephenson, and an Historical Introduction by Hugh Robert Rymill.

Rymill, John. London: The Travel Book Club, 1939.
  • 1934-37 British Graham Land Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A rather lacklustre account of a scientific expedition aboard the Penola and on the Antarctic Peninsula, with solid accomplishment and little adventure. Apart from a few general remarks about reading in the evening, the only references to books are in the appendices. In the list of sledging equipment p. 279, a Nautical Almanac and Hints for Travellers Vol. I (RGS) are cited along with various notebooks needed for traverse and meteorological records. Personal equipment (p. 281) for sledging includes “1 book for reading.”

The Third Reich in Antarctica: The German Antarctic Expedition 1938-39.

Lüdecke, Cornelia and Colin Summerhayes. Bluntisham, Hunts. UK. Bluntisham Books, 2012.
  • 1938-39 German Antarctic Expedition (aboard Schwabenland).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Ignoring the potential onset of war, this German exploration involved study of whaling possibilities, the study of the usual scientific subjects, the search for raw materials and strategic military advantages, and land claims over what Norwegians had already claimed as Dronning Maud Land. It was a short trip during the Antarctic summer, and plans for subsequent expeditions were abandoned when WWII began. Its ship was the Schwabenland with Alfred Ritscher as leader of the expedition and Alfred Kottas as Captain of the ship. The book examines the accomplishments of the trip and debunks the various myths that had grown around this German initiative (secret bases, submarines, and UFOs) and dismisses them as fantasy.

Ice: The Antarctic Diary of Charles F. Passell.

Passell, Charles F. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 1995.
  • 1939-41 Third Byrd Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Passell was a paleontologist and geologist at the West Base of Byrd’s 3rd Antarctic expedition in 1939-41. Passell’s style is rather naïve (e.g., “Boy was it ever hot last night”), but he does mention a good deal of his reading:

In a Crystal Land: Canadian Explorers in Antarctica

Beeby, Dean. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
  • 1943-44 Canada Taberin Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Despite the common publicity gimmick of the blurb about “the first to set their feet” or eyes on some piece of godforsaken territory, this is still a sound collection of stories about Canadian involvement in Antarctic exploration. Although Canada never mounted an expedition of its own, its citizens were leaders of important expeditions starting in the 1890s.

Operation Tabarin: Britain’s Secret Wartime Expedition to Antarctica 1944-46.

Haddelsey, Stephen. By Stephen Haddelsey, with Alan Carroll. Stroud, UK: History Press, 2014.
  • 1944-46 British Covert FIDS Expedition (leaders James Marr and Andrew Taylor).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A thorough account of the British Secret Operation Tabarin by FIDS attempting to preempt any American or Argentine territorial claims in the Antarctic Peninsula region.This description has only a few indications of reading experiences during a hastily prepared and accident-prone mission.

Two Years in the Antarctic.

Walton, Eric W. Kevin. London: Panther Books, 1957. First published London: Lutterworth, 1955, and New York: Philosophical Library, 1955.
  • 1945-46 Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, Stonington Island, Base E. (Commander E. W. Bingham).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A personal account of two years spent in British Antarctica; in the second year they were joined by an American expedition [Finn Ronne; see 1946-48] and later combined to complete an extensive survey of the East Coast of the Graham Land peninsula. Includes details on how the expedition actually lived in Antarctica, how they organized their base, trained their dog teams, and carried out their work.

My Antarctic Honeymoon: A Year at the Bottom of the World.

Darlington, Jennie. By Jennie Darlington as told to Jane McIlvaine. New York, Doubleday, 1957.
  • 1946-48 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

One of two women on Finn Ronne’s 1947-48 Weddell Sea expedition, the other being Edith Ronne, his wife. A rather unflattering portrayal of Ronne as well as Ronne’s wife, the other woman.

Antarctica’s First Lady.

Ronne, Edith M. (Jackie). Beaumont, TX: Clifton Seaport Museum, 2004.
  • 1946-48 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Primarily an account of the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition of 1947-48 in which she accompanied her husband. Based largely on her diaries of that period, she is a staunch defender of Ronne’s leadership, dismissing his critics as merely bitching about his more disciplined Norwegian regimen. The complaints are taken as inevitable and nothing was done to contain them, here or on his later IGY expedition. There is nothing here about reading, even in her chapter on the long winter night where one usually finds some mention of antidotes to boredom. What a contrast to Walton’s book below.

Interview

Ronne, Edith M. (Jackie). From her Interview with Brian Shoemaker, 20 July 2000.
  • 1946-48 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This is Jackie describing Harry Darlington's mother: She was trying to convey something to us and we just didn't realize it at the time [that she disapproved of Harry and Jennie going to Antarctica]. She later sent money. I think she sent $250 worth of books for our library on the trip and asked us not to mention it to Harry. Harry was estranged from his mother at the time, which we did not know.

Strong Men South.

Menster, William J. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1949.
  • 1946-48 US Operation Highjump, Byrd’s Fourth Expedition to Little America (aboard USS Mount Olympus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A charming if a bit sanctimonious account of Operation Highjump by the chaplain of that 1947 expedition aboard USS Mount Olympus.

Assault on Eternity: Richard Byrd and the Exploration of Antarctica, 1946-47.

Rose, Lisle Abbott. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980.
  • 1946-48 US Operation Highjump, Byrd’s Fourth Expedition to Little America (aboard USS Mount Olympus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This is a true tale of daring and romance, of tedium and tragedy, of folly and heroism, of adventure enjoyed and adventure endured one-third of a century ago by some forty-seven hundred men in thirteen ships at the bottom of the earth.

Fourteen Men: The Story of the Antarctic Expedition to Heard Island

Scholes, Arthur. New York: Dutton, 1952.
  • 1947-49 Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (Heard Island and Macquarie Island).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An expedition of scientific research, chiefly meteorological and magnetic, but with an interest in Australian claims in Antarctica. Stokes was a radioman but also one of the “mets.” The Captain of the ship was Lt. Cmd. George Dixon; the leader of the shore party for Heard Island was Stuart Campbell. The ship was Ellsworth’s Wyatt Earp, where the officers and men were separated even for the alternate night movies. The trip to Heard Island (4000 kilometers southwest of Australia) was so full of weather-related dangers that references to reading do not occur until one third of the way into the book, and then not very many. Most winterover books have a central winter chapter (July/August) that discusses what the men did to pass the time. This lacks such a chapter, never talks about what the author himself read, and mainly recounts weather-related adventures during that period. Most of the last 150 pages deals with the fauna of Heard Island.