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^ , They brought Back
The
^ Proof
f, -Luck Was With Van Der Veec
And Rucker, Byrd's Cameramen
By HERBERT CRUIKSHANK
FOR four hundred years mighty men from many lands have sought to solve the sombre mysteries of world's end. Brave hearts remain forever frozen in the glacial wilderness of ice that caps the sphere's extremities. Those who have returned from the sinister glades of Death, have brought with them only tales of failure.
"We couldn't find the Pole because the barber'd moved away," laughed one of yesteryear's lyrics. But Americans, who make a habit of greeting grimmest Fate with levity, have at last accomplished the impossible. The Stars and Stripes are nailed securely to the South Pole. And the last land this side of Hades is forever christened "Little America."
Not only may you see by the early light of the Antarctic dawn that the flag still waves — but the boys have brought back motion pictures of the very Pole itself. The boys are Joe Rucker and Bill Van der Veer, movie cameramen of the perilous expedition commanded by Admiral Richard Byrd. Their accomplishment is unparalleled in history, and their tali true tales eclipse with fact the fiction of a Munchausen.
Thousands of tons of ice, thrust toward the Antarctic sky to the height of New York's topless towers by the frigid fingers of an unseen Titan. Ripping polar winds, devastating in their hundred-mile-an-hour velocity. A temperature attaining to seventy degrees below zero. Never-ending nights. Flesh frozen to camera metal. Wolf-dogs for pets. Birds that walk like.men. Whales with halitosis. Two years of these things. The chill breath of Death always on their necks.
At top, Joseph Rucker (left) and Willard Van Der Veer, as they looked when icebergs nearly ended two good careers ; above, safe in a studio
A Tilt With Nature
I MANAGED to hoist my seventy-five pound earner outfit onto a high plateau of ice," says Willard Va der Veer, "and just about got set to shoot, when the entir table-top, weighing a dozen tons, tilted, and began slidin — with me sprawled on it. You see, the plateau was badl undercut and finely balanced. My weight was just enoug to throw it off."
"Yes," cuts in Joseph Rucker, "I sort of figured tha was the blow-ofF for Van. The plateau coasted down with KH^^^BMMBKMBB an ca t-spH tt ing crash, and he
was buried in ice and snow."
"But," continues Van der Veer, "for some fool reason I wasn't scratched. But, Joe here, — ha-ha — Joe came running to help, and tumbled into a crevasse. Gee, I thought it was curtains that time. It was a tough job to dig him out."
"Then there were those times when we went to shoot out in the Bay ice just as it was breaking up — and do you remember Braathen and that big crabeater seal.'' That was funny."
"Yeah, that was funny," says the other. "We were lying out in the slush ice around the seal holes, waiting to see what we could shoot. Braathen was peering down into one, when a big crab-eater pops up right in his face. The two of 'em rubbed noses like a couple of Eskimo lovers!"
"Van had a pet whale, too. A school of 'em had worked through the ice into a small expanse of clear water. It was so small that they were forced (Continued on page 94)
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