Ice Man

摘要

In this thoroughly researched, balanced, and vigorously argued biography of Arctic and Antarctic explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd, Lisle A. Rose, a polar veteran and author of a series of books on sea power, separates the man from the myth, the adulation, and the occasional bitter criticism that have attended him. Byrd, who was from a distinguished Virginia family, traveled around the world as an adolescent, attended military school, and won appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. As a junior officer, he risked his life on two occasions to save sailors who otherwise would have drowned. His impulsive athleticism, however, left him with permanent injuries; with little prospect of reaching high command, he retired on disability in 1916. His second act began with the U.S. entry into the First World War. Through his own lobbying and some sympathetic naval physicians, he reentered the Navy, going to flight school in Pensacola, Florida, and earning his wings. He narrowly missed a chance to be among the first to fly across the north Atlantic in 1919, and did fly across it in 1927 (after Charles Lindbergh), though he was forced to land in the surf of Normandy, off Ver-sur-Mer, France.