(Bernt Balchen's autobiography. If ever there was a modern...)
Bernt Balchen's autobiography. If ever there was a modern day Viking in spirit and deed. The story opens in 1926 in Spitsbergen, where under the command of the famed Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian-American-Italian expedition is preparing for the first flight over the North Pole in a dirigible.
Bernt Balchen was a Norwegian pioneer polar aviator, navigator, aircraft mechanical engineer and military leader.
Background
Bernt Balchen was born on October 23, 1899, in Tveit, Norway, the son of Lauritz Balchen, a physician, and Dagny Dietrichson. When Balchen was four years old, his mother divorced his father and left Tveit. Balchen was raised by his father, and then by other relatives after his father's death when Balchen was eight years old, in the small village in the Topdal valley, where he developed a lifelong love of the outdoors. At age 12, he went to live with his mother and stepfather in Kristiansand.
Education
An indifferent student but accomplished athlete, he graduated from high school in 1915, then spent a year at the forestry school in Moseby before finding employment in lumber camps.
Career
In search of adventure, Balchen joined the French foreign legion in the summer of 1918. Soon recalled home to serve in the Norwegian army, he volunteered during the winter of 1918-1919 to fight with the White Army of Finland, which was battling for Finnish independence against the Russian Bolsheviks. After recovering from a severe bayonet wound received during a battle near Sortavala, he returned to duty with the Norwegian army. In 1921 he transferred to the Royal Norwegian Naval Air Force, where he learned to fly.
Balchen's first trip to the Arctic came in 1925, when he went to Spitsbergen on a planned search-and-rescue mission for Roald Amundsen, the famed Norwegian explorer who was reported lost while attempting a flight over the North Pole. Although the aerial rescue proved unnecessary when Amundsen was found by a Norwegian sealing ship, Balchen had time to form an attachment to the northern regions that would shape his life. In 1926, Balchen returned to Spitsbergen as an engineer and standby crew member for the dirigible Norge, which Amundsen planned to use on another attempt to be the first to fly over the North Pole. On May 9, however, two days before Amundsen left (without Balchen) for a successful flight over the North Pole to Alaska, Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claimed the honor of the first polar flight in a trimotored Ford transport. Balchen, who helped Byrd redesign and rebuild the skis for the Ford, later had cause to doubt that Byrd actually had reached the Pole. Although the two men eventually became estranged, Byrd was instrumental in persuading Balchen to obtain a leave of absence from the Norwegian air force and go to the United States.
Balchen found employment with the Fokker Aircraft Company, an association that would last from 1926 until 1933. While employed by Fokker, Balchen took frequent leaves of absence for special assignments. In 1927, for example, he flew with Western Canada Airways, moving eight tons of equipment from Cache Lake to Fort Churchill on Hudson Bay, the planned terminus for the Hudson Bay Railways. A delighted Canadian government reported: "There has been no more brilliant operation in the history of commercial aviation. " Also in 1927, Balchen flew as pilot for Byrd's transatlantic flight in the Ford trimotor America. When bad weather forced the aircraft down off Vers-sur-Mer on the coast of France, Balchen's airmanship enabled the crew to escape without injury. Balchen went on to serve as chief pilot for Byrd's Antarctic expedition of 1928-1930. He was at the controls when the Ford trimotor Floyd Bennett carried Byrd over the South Pole for the first time on November 29, 1929.
Balchen became a naturalized citizen of the United States on November 5, 1931. After flying as chief pilot for the Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition from 1933 to 1935, Balchen returned to Norway and helped establish the country's first commercial airline, Det Norsk Luftfartselskap (DNL). In 1936, he negotiated the first bilateral air agreement between Norway and the United States. However, plans for a transatlantic service via Iceland in partnership with Pan American Airways failed to materialize after the British government pressured Pan American to cancel the arrangement with DNL. Balchen was in the United States when Germany invaded Norway in April 1940. Called to duty with the Norwegian air force, he was assigned to the RAF Ferry Command.
On September 5, 1941, he was transferred to the United States Army Air Corps at the special request of General H. H. Arnold. Balchen headed Task Force Eight, charged with constructing an air base at Greenland. Known as Bluie West-8, the base served as a key facility on the North Atlantic ferry route.
In January 1944 Balchen was transferred to the United States Army Air Force in Europe as chief of the Allied Air Transport Command for Scandinavia, Finland, and the USSR. Stationed in the United Kingdom, he commanded a number of special projects under the code names of SONNIE, BALL, WHEN AND WHERE, and SEPALS that supported resistance groups in Scandinavia. In February 1946 Balchen rejoined DNL and served as president and managing director of the airline. He played a major role in the negotiations that led to the formation of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). He also developed a polar air route between Scandinavia and the United States. At the same time, he assisted the American government by establishing intelligence networks along the Soviet border and by expanding facilities at Sola airport in Norway to be used by bombers of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command in the event of war.
Recalled to active duty as a colonel with the United States Air Force on October 11, 1948, Balchen took command of the Tenth Rescue Squadron at Fort Richardson, Alaska, where he pioneered Arctic rescue techniques. In February 1951, he became project officer for Operation Blue Jay, engaged in the construction of a giant air base at Thule, Greenland, 930 miles from the North Pole. Failing to receive a promotion to brigadier general, which he blamed on the political machinations of Admiral Byrd, who was angry after Balchen challenged his claim to have flown over the North Pole in 1926, he retired from the air force on October 31, 1956.
He died in suburban Mt. Kisco and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on his seventy-fourth birthday.
Achievements
His service in the U. S. Army Air Forces during World War II made use of his Arctic exploration expertise to help the Allies over Scandinavia and Northern Europe. After the war, Balchen continued to be an influential leader with the U. S. Air Force, as well as a highly regarded private consultant in projects involving the Arctic and aviation.
Balchen was a winner of the Harmon Trophy in aviation. The annual "International Aviation Snow Symposium", sponsored by the Northeast (U. S. ) Chapter of the American Association of Airport Executives, created the Bernt Balchen Award in his memory in 1976 to recognize airports excelling in snow and ice control.
