Richard E. Byrd

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Lore & Background

Following a 45-day fitting out period at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, Richard E. Byrd steamed for her homeport of Norfolk, Virginia, via the Panama Canal, arriving 14 June 1964. She deployed to the Mediterranean on 6 January 1965 as a unit of Destroyer Division 182. Late January 1967, while serving as rescue destroyer for the aircraft carrier Lexington, she rescued Lt. (jg) John F. Dickinson, whose A-4E aircraft crashed during a landing approach. In May 1967, Richard E. Byrd was at sea as part of the screen of the carrier USS America, which force rendezvoused with the damaged USS Liberty on 9 June. On 6 October 1969, the ship and crew participated together with Senator Harry F. Byrd and Virginia Gov. Mills E. Godwin in the dedication of Richard Evelyn Byrd Hall at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point, Virginia. On 26 January 1975, an advance party landing party of two ship officers were mobbed by an angry demonstration of 4,000 Greeks on the island of Corfu. After being stoned, attempts were made to set their car on fire and lynch the occupants. One Greek was killed in the incident, but police and fire trucks successfully escorted the two back to their ship off shore. Over the next hours the protest demonstration regarding the Cypriot War swelled to 10,000, and Richard E. Byrd ended her port visit. Early 1985, the start of a six-month North Atlantic cruise involved a port visit to Lisbon, Portugal. At the end of the visit on 28 January about 3 a.m. local GMT, five other NATO ships and Richard E. Byrd at Alcantara dock came under mortar fire from the terrorist group Forças Populares 25 de Abril without damage.

Reader's Guide

Richard E. Byrd served as a guided missile destroyer from her commissioning on 7 March 1964 until decommissioning on 27 April 1990. She was struck from the Navy list on 1 October 1992 and officially transferred to the Hellenic Navy on 26 August 1993. The hulk was towed to Salamis, Greece, on 12 October 1993 where she was used for spare parts for the other four Charles F. Adams destroyers in Greek service. Key moments include the rescue of Lt. (jg) John F. Dickinson in January 1967, participation in the USS Liberty rendezvous on 9 June 1967, the dedication of Richard Evelyn Byrd Hall on 6 October 1969, the Corfu incident on 26 January 1975 where a demonstration of 4,000 Greeks mobbed two officers, and the mortar attack by Forças Populares 25 de Abril on 28 January 1985 which caused no damage.

Did You Know?

• The ship was sponsored by Mrs. Richard E. Byrd, with her daughter Mrs. Robert G. Breyer acting as proxy sponsor.
• On 26 January 1975, a demonstration of 4,000 Greeks on Corfu mobbed two officers, with one Greek killed in the incident.
• On 28 January 1985, Richard E. Byrd and five other NATO ships came under mortar fire from the terrorist group Forças Populares 25 de Abril without damage.
• After decommissioning, the hulk was towed to Salamis, Greece, on 12 October 1993 for use as spare parts for Greek Charles F. Adams destroyers.
• The ship was sunk as a target on 19 June 2003.

A Continent Named for a Wife

In the early twentieth century, American naval officer Richard E. Marie Byrd Land stretches across roughly 1,610,000 square kilometers—about 620,000 square miles—making it the single largest unclaimed territory anywhere on the planet. Its longitudinal span runs from 158°W to 103°24'W. The rest remains, by and large, unclaimed by any sovereign state—a remarkable geopolitical anomaly in an age of territorial consolidation.

Three Expeditions That Drew the Map

Byrd's exploration of what would become Marie Byrd Land unfolded across three major campaigns. It was on this trip that Byrd bestowed the region's name in honor of his wife. The third expedition, the United States Antarctic Service Expedition of 1939–1941, was the most ambitious.

A Continent Without a Master

The political status of Marie Byrd Land has remained one of the most unusual in modern geography. Given how isolated the region is, even by the standards of Antarctica, the portion east of 150°W has never been formally claimed by any nation. Roosevelt ordered the United States Antarctic Service Expedition team to pursue a territorial claim over portions of the continent on behalf of the United States. Nevertheless, some American publications during the intervening years depicted the territory as U.S. land, and the U.S. Department of Defense has maintained that the country holds a solid basis for an Antarctic claim rooted in its pre-1959 activities. The result is a vast, sovereign-less expanse whose legal character continues to be shaped more by treaty frameworks than by any single nation's flag.

The Scientific Architecture Built on Byrd's Footprints

The groundwork Byrd laid in the 1920s and 1930s became the foundation for decades of subsequent Antarctic science. Between 1946 and 1959, the U.S. Charles R. The U.S. Geological Survey followed with land surveys establishing benchmarks across the region from 1966 to 1968, and F. A.