Richard E. Byrd the rank of captain. After a further summer of exploration, the expedition returned to North America on June 18, 1930. A 19-year-old American Boy Scout, Paul Allman Siple, was chosen to accompany the expedition. Unlike the 1926 flight, this expedition was honored with the gold medal of the American Geographical Society. This was also seen in the film "With Byrd at the South Pole" (1930) which covered his trip there. Byrd, by then an internationally recognized, pioneering American polar explorer and aviator, served for a time as Honorary National President (1931–1935) of Pi Gamma Mu, the international honor society in
Richard E. Byrd Marie A. Byrd, the late wife of Admiral Byrd. His papers served as the nucleus for establishment of the BPRC Polar Archival Program in 1990. In 1958 the Richard Byrd library, part of the Fairfax County Public Library system opened in Springfield, Virginia. Richard E. Byrd Elementary School, a Department of Defense School located in Negishi (Yokohama, Japan) opened on September 20, 1948. The name was changed to R.E. Byrd Elementary School on April 5, 1960. Memorials to Byrd can be found in two cities in New Zealand (Wellington and Dunedin). Byrd used New Zealand as his departure point for