Bernt Balchen: Polar Aviator

He set polar flight records, organized a series of daring wartime air operations, and became a leader in Arctic aviation. But despite these achievements, Norwegian-American aviator Bernt Balchen saw his public image and military career repeatedly undermined by his one-time mentor, the famous and influential Admiral Richard Byrd.

In this new biography, Carroll Glines describes how Byrd's respect for Balchen's talents gradually eroded even as Balchen steadily gained a wider reputation for courage and technical skill. Glines contends that Byrd derailed Balchen's postwar promotion to brigadier general, forcing his retirement from the military in 1956. He also documents how Balchen's publisher bowed to pressure from Byrd's supporters to remove material from a 1958 autobiography. Balchen had argued that Byrd's claims to have been the first to fly across the North Pole in 1926 could not be supported by speed and distance calculations.

Glines offer a full and compelling portrait of Bernt Balchen, a leader in Arctic aviation, overshadowed in his lifetime by Admiral Richard Byrd but whose expertise and vision continue to guide trans-Arctic aviation.

Booknews

This biography of Bernt Balchen tells the story of an aviation ground-breaker, the first person to fly over both of the poles, whose reputation and military career were undermined by one of his peers. Glines, a retired Air Force colonel and curator of the Doolittle Military Aviation Library at the University of Texas, Dallas, argues that Richard Byrd, a onetime mentor of Balchen, almost single-handedly destroyed Balchen's chance for a promotion to brigadier general and forced his retirement from the Air Force in 1956 at the peak of his technical expertise. This book reestablishes some of the facts that Byrd forced Balchen's publisher to remove from his 1958 biography, and relates in detail the Arctic flights and World War II operations that Balchen flew. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Carroll V. Glines is a retired Air Force colonel and curator of the Doolittle Military Aviation Library at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is the author of thirty-one books, including Roscoe Turner: Aviation's Master Showman (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995).