Harold June Harold Irving June ( 1895 – 1962 ) was a machinist , an aviator , a test pilot , and an explorer in Antarctica . He is best known for his 1928 - 1930 service in the first Antarctic expedition of Admiral Richard E . Byrd . Sitting in the co - pilot ' s seat with supplemental radio duties , he flew with Byrd , pilot Bernt Balchen , and photographer Ashley McKinley over the South Pole on November 29 , 1929 . Biography . Born in Stamford , Connecticut on February 12 , 1895 , he studied in the one - room schools of the day . Leaving Stamford High School after one year , he apprenticed in a machine shop in 1908 . After working as a repairman , salesman , and traveling repairman for his apprenticeship works , he signed in 1911 , at age 16 , to a berth as a steam engine engineer on a ferryboat that served Prudence Island in Narrangansett Bay . This , in turn , gave him the credentials to be hired in 1911 - 1912 as a full - fledged machinist at Herreshoff Boatyard in Bristol , Rhode Island . This credential , in turn , gave the teenager connections to Newport , Rhode Island ' s Vanderbilt family and in 1912 young June became an engineer for the steam pleasure yachts of railroad magnate Harold S . Vanderbilt . With the entry of the United States into World War I in 1917 , both Vanderbilt and June joined the colors , with June serving as Chief Machinist Mate and taking on duties of increasing responsibility throughout the Navy ' s Rhode Island infrastructure . After the war June turned to naval aviation , training in 1922 at Naval Air Station Pensacola . After getting his wings he rose quickly through the opportunities afforded by the technology of the time , piloting flying boat s and scout plane s launched from catapult s . He became a U . S . Navy test pilot in 1925 , and served out of Hampton Roads until selected , in 1928 , by U . S . Navy Commander Richard E . Byrd to be a junior officer on his 1928 - 1930 expedition to the Ross Ice Shelf . Byrd ' s exploration ship reached the ice shelf on December 25 , 1928 . The base camp , called Little America , was in operation within weeks , and the first ski - plane flight took off on January 10 , 1929 . The expedition , well - equipped with supplies purchased from donations from some of the principal U . S . magnates of the Roaring Twenties , was eager to explore the above - sea - level sectors of Antarctica that bordered the ice shelf . The Rockefeller Mountains were sighted from the air on January 27 . On March 8 June , Balchen , and geologist Larry Gould , aboard the expedition ' s Fokker Universal , flew from Little America to land as close as possible to the Rockefeller range to collect geological specimens . Rescue . Balchen , Gould , and June were supposed to collect specimens from the newly discovered icy mountain range and return to base , but their plane did not return and the missing field party maintained an ominous radio silence . After ten days , expedition leader Byrd flew a rescue mission in search of the lost threesome . On March 18 the three men were found clinging to life inside a shredded tent pitched at the foot of the mountain range . They had inadvertently landed in a site marked by exceptionally strong katabatic winds that vortexed down from the mountains . After the field party had spiked their plane down into the ice , set up a field meteorological station , pitched a field tent , did some triangulation survey work , and collected some rocks , hurricane - force winds had blown down the slope at a speed timed at 150 miles per hour . The Category 4 winds wrenched the Fokker off its moorings and the steel plane blew away , leaving the field party marooned . A series of rescue flights with a smaller plane , beginning on March 18 and ending on March 22 , slowly collected all three men and returned them safely to Little America . The shattered remains of the missing Fokker monoplane were discovered one - half mile ( 0 . 8 km ) away from the failed ground mooring . South Pole mission and other flights . With two remaining planes , the Byrd Expedition remained in base camp at Little America during the Antarctic winter of 1929 . Field work resumed in October and after several preparatory flights , the Ford Tri - Motor scheduled to fly over the South Pole took off southward on November 28 . While this was to be the first penetration by an aircraft over the Antarctic Plateau , the route itself was generally familiar to Byrd and his men , because they flew close to the pathway used by Roald Amundsen in his successful ground - level expedition to the South Pole in late 1911 . With difficulty , the Tri - Motor cleared the Queen Maud Mountains and attained the Pole . Aboard the plane , June keyed a radio signal : We have reached the vicinity of the South Pole . We can see an almost unlimited polar plateau . Relayed to the American press , this Morse code message announced the successful attainment of the expedition ' s principal goal . After the Tri - Motor ' s triumphant landing later on November 29 , June accompanied his newly promoted rear admiral as co - pilot on additional exploration flying work across an adjacent area of Antarctica . Byrd , as the flight crew ' s commanding officer and principal passenger , sketched the land from the air and named it Marie Byrd Land after his wife . The flights charted the Edsel Ford Range and Sulzberger Bay , geographic features named for additional key financial donors to the expedition . The expedition closed their Little America base ; their ship weighed anchor and sailed north from the Ross Ice Shelf on February 7 , 1930 , arriving in New York City on June 18 – 19 . Family and honors . Flier June was quickly honored by the community where he had been born . A triumphal medal , luncheon , and dinner of honor were proffered to him by leading citizens of Stamford on June 26 , 1930 . He returned to active service as a test pilot with the U . S . Navy , serving through World War II . When he retired in 1947 , he was chief test pilot at Naval Air Station Alameda . June had married May Foster in June 1914 , and fathered a daughter , Marguarite June , born in 1915 . The tri - motored South Polar plane co - piloted by June , named the " Floyd Bennett " after a deceased former flier with earlier Byrd expeditions , was returned to its donors , the Ford Motor Company , and preserved at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn , Michigan . Harold June died in Windsor , Connecticut in 1962 . June ' s polar papers were donated , with the Byrd archive , to Ohio State University . The June Nunatak , an Antarctic rocky outcropping of the Liv Glacier , was named in honor of co - pilot June in 1961 - 62 , three decades after the successful flight by the " Floyd Bennett " up and over the same glacier in 1929 .