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
Harry F. Byrd Corotoman, and Pocahontas. One younger brother was Naval aviator and Polar explorer Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957). His other younger brother, Thomas Bolling Byrd (1890–1968) became an infantry captain during World War I. His uncle Henry De La Warr Flood served in the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress from Appomattox County, Virginia, (1901 to 1921). Another uncle from Appomattox County, Joel West Flood, served as that county's Commonwealth Attorney (1919 to 1932), in the U.S. Congress (beginning in 1932 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry St. George Tucker), as a Federal appellate Judge (of