USS Bear: Over 60 Years of Polar Service

By Elijah Palmer
HRNM Educator

USS Bear was originally built for use as a sealing ship by a commercial shipyard in Scotland. After a decade of service in that venture, Bear was purchased by the US Navy in 1884 as part of a plan to rescue the Greely Expedition in northern Canada. The Greely scientific expedition was run by the Army Signal Corps and had been in the Arctic since 1881. Through a mixture of poor planning, mishaps, and lack of funding, however, by 1884 there was a dire need for rescue of the expedition as the men starved through the fall of 1883 and the first half of 1884. Of course, the extent of this was not known until later, but it was known that Greely's team would definitely need supplies and transport in the summer of 1884.

Ships of the Greely Relief Expedition in Greenland, 1884. Left to Right: USS Alert, USS Bear, and USS Thetis.

The Navy was asked to coordinate a relief mission, which fell under the command of Commander Winfield Schley, who would later command the "Flying Squadron" out of Hampton Roads during the Spanish-American War. Besides Bear, two other ships suitable for the Arctic (due to their reinforced hulls) joined the mission: HMS/USS Alert, on loan from the British, and the recently purchased Thetis. The expedition eventually found the remnants of the Greely Expedition, but only a handful of the original twenty five members survived as starvation had taken its toll. Later investigations found evidence of cannibalism on some of the corpses.  

Rescuers and survivors of the Greely Expedition. Commander Winfield Schley is marked "1". First Lieutenant Adolphus Greely is seated next to him (marked as "22") . The other survivors are seated in the foreground.

USS Bear was decommissioned shortly after the successful rescue mission. From 1885-1926, the ship operated in Alaska as a United States Revenue Cutter (until 1915 a separate service from the Coast Guard). During this time, the crew looked for illegal activity, offered assistance and rescue, and even brought reindeer from Siberia to help revitalize herds in Alaska. In the late 1920s, Bear was sold to the city of Oakland, California, and it was renamed Bear of Oakland. A few years later, famed polar explorer Rear Admiral Richard Byrd purchased the ship for use in his Second Antarctic Expedition, which lasted from 1933-1935. The Navy purchased the vessel from Byrd in 1939 and it was commissioned USS Bear (AG 29). Byrd then used the ship again for his third Antarctic mission that same year, which was called the United States Antarctic Service Expedition. Leaving out of Hampton Roads, the expedition spent much time doing scientific work near "Little America" in Antarctica. The team stayed in Antarctica until the spring of 1941, when the the prudent decision was made to evacuate given the global situation. 

USS Bear in 1884 (left) and 1939 (right). Note the airplane onboard in the right photograph.

When the United States entered World War II, USS Bear was modernized and used as part of the Northeast Greenland Patrol, as other ships were not available. As the war progressed, the vessel was eventually replaced and was decommissioned in 1944. USS Bear had a remarkably long, useful, and varied life in the period of polar exploration. It is a poignant reminder that ships of all sorts can have a role in the Navy.

Announcing our First Artifact of the Month: "Admiral Byrd's Bird"

The new Artifact of the Month display debuts this week at the front of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM) gallery in an initiative to give visitors the chance to discover rarely-seen items from the museum's collection that for various reasons are not part of the permanent exhibit.  This inaugural display commemorates the little-known role played by a veteran U.S. Navy explorer in countering Nazi rivals as they attempted to claim territory for the Third Reich at the bottom of the world during the prelude to World War II.  

In 1939, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd (seen at left as a commander in 1926 wearing a cold-weather mask developed for flying over the arctic), was appointed head of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS) by President Franklin Roosevelt and given orders to halt Nazi exploration in Antarctica and establish permanent bases there.  Among the biological specimens brought back by USAS members in 1941 was the Gentoo Penguin now featured in the museum's "Artifact of the Month" display (Charles Nusbaum Collection/ Hampton Roads Naval Museum)  

Alarmed by reports that Nazi explorers had staked claim over more than 200,000 square miles of Antarctica during the "German Antarctic Expedition of 1938-39," the Third Reich's first conquest of territory outside Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought a way to stem Hitler’s expansionism by mounting the first official U.S. government expedition to the continent.    

Although other American explorers were preparing for their own private expeditions, retired Navy Rear Admiral Richard Byrd, already world famous for his Arctic and Antarctic exploits, stood out from the rest.  Roosevelt called the admiral for a private White House meeting to inform him of his intention to establish a permanent American presence on the continent, and on July 7, 1939, designated Byrd commanding officer of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS), which was supported by the Navy, Interior, State, and Treasury Departments.  

Original photographs from the expedition, including the bark USS Bear with penguins in the foreground, grace the Artifact of the Month display at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in downtown Norfolk, Virginia (Charles Nusbaum Collection, HRNM). 

The USAS expedition of 1940-41 would be the first official American mission to establish a permanent presence in Antarctica, but it would be Byrd’s third expedition to the continent.  His first expedition in 1928 and a long-duration stay from 1933 to 1935, five months of it spent alone, had been the largest undertakings of their kind up to that point.  Before President Roosevelt put the might of the Federal Government at his disposal, Byrd had been preparing yet another large privately funded expedition.  Because his private journey of discovery had become a government operation, the native Virginian actually sold his own flagship, the former whaler USS Bear (AG-29), to the Navy for a dollar before sailing from Norfolk.  The cutter USMS North Star, based in Seattle, was the Department of the Interior’s contribution to the mission.  The 59 USAS members wintering over also had three aircraft, two light Army tanks, two light tractors, and 130 dogs for transportation. 

Within the new Artifact of the Month display at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, an optimistically-rendered promotional illustration of the experimental mobile base Snow Cruiser is shown with an actual photograph from the expedition showing the behemoth vehicle being unloaded from USMS North Star upon reaching the Antarctic  (Charles Nusbaum Collection, HRNM). 

The technological marvel of the expedition was supposed to be the 55-foot-long, 33.5-ton multi-wheeled mobile base and laboratory called the Snow Cruiser that had been custom made for the USAS.  Unfortunately, its weight and lack of power proved too much for the vehicle to be of any practical use to the USAS team and the one-of-a-kind vehicle was soon abandoned.    

HRNM Exhibit Specialist Marta Joiner arranges the new Artifact of the Month display on Monday, September 14, 2015, at the front of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, on the second level of Nauticus (Photo by Public Information Officer Susanne Greene, HRNM).

Although the USAS only undertook one season of research and exploration out of the two that were planned (possibly in part because their Nazi rivals never came back to defend their Antarctic “colony”), they established two bases, one of which became the oldest permanent U.S. research station in Antarctica.  Lessons learned during the USAS expedition also laid the groundwork for Operation Deep Freeze, which ensured a year-round Navy presence in Antarctica that lasted from 1955 until 1997.    

Despite the political and even military overtones of the USAS expedition, its chief accomplishments were scientific.  Among the specimens collected by USAS staff biologists were bird eggs and the skeletons of Wedell Seals.  Chief Mess Specialist Charles Nusbaum of Portsmouth, Virginia, accompanied Byrd on his historic mission to deny the Nazis a foothold in Antarctica, bringing back the intriguing artifacts, including the Gentoo Penguin, featured in HRNM's first Artifact of the Month exhibit. 

"Museum staff members are eager to share individual pieces from our collection that can tell a story on their own," said Hampton Roads Naval Museum Director Elizabeth Poulliot.  "We also want visitors to examine our new accessions.  The Artifact of the Month display gives people a chance to go behind the scenes to discover individual treasures not normally on exhibit," continued Poulliot.  "As is the case with most museums, our institution does not have enough space to exhibit everything.  Artifact of the Month ensures visitors see something new every return visit." 

Byrd’s USAS expedition to the Antarctic stands as the largest undertaking of its kind against fascism.  His next expedition in 1946, intended to both counter Soviet designs on Antarctica and train for a possible polar war with this new adversary, was known as Operation Highjump and still holds the record as the largest single expedition to Antarctica ever conducted, with 4,700 personnel and 13 ships involved. 

Indiana Jones, eat your heart out. 

Prepping for Byrd Expedition III- USS Bear at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 1939

The USS Bear is shown here at Norfolk Naval Shipyard loading up for Admiral Richard Byrd's third expedition to the southern polar region. Bear was an ex-19th century whaling ship that had been reconstructed for polar service. Even though this was Byrd's third trip to the southern polar region, it was the first under official U.S. Government sponsorship. With the sponsorship came access to the Norfolk Navy Yard. A photojournalist from the Norfolk Ledger-Star took these pictures and was particularly fond of the ninety Greenland Dogs and Canadian Eskimo Sled Dogs that Byrd's team brought with them. Read more about the other photos and artifacts of Byrd Expedition III that the museum recently received in our recent blog post. 


Pictured here holding two Eskimo Sled Dog puppies is Hollis "Pop" Richardson.  He

served as Byrd's lead sled dog trainer/driver/musher for the expedition.

The bow ornament of USS Bear-Originally built in 1874 as a civilian whaler, the ship served in
 the Revenue Service, the Navy, and the Coast Guard until being decommissioned in 1944.
The ship in the background is the airship tender USS Patoka (AO-9).

Men working aloft on USS Bear while at Norfolk Navy Yard. 
Even though the ship was made of wood, the hull was
 built strong enough to resist ice flows from cracking the hull.
She is  considered to be America's first icebreaker.

Three more of Richardson's Eskimo Sled Dog puppy brigade that came along on the Expedition.

Three Greenland Dogs on the deck of USS Bear. First used by the Inuit people for both hunting and
sled pulling, Greenland Dogs are considered to be among the oldest dog breed in the world.

Eskimo Sled dogs take a snooze on the deck of USS Bear.