Portrait of Bud Waite
Amory H. "Bud" Waite, Jr. was born near Boston on February 14, 1902 and died in Venice, Florida on January 15, 1985. A radio and electrical engineer, Waite participated in eleven expeditions to the Antarctic and twelve expeditions to the Arctic regions between 1933 and 1965. As a radio operator during the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition, Waite gained national recognition as one of the three men who rescued Admiral Richard E. Byrd from the Bolling Advanced Base during the Antarctic winter of 1934. His most notable achievement in polar exploration and research was the development during the 1950s and 1960s of a system to measure the depth of ice using radio waves. Waite patented this system, known as radio ice depth sounding.
Waite's career as a radio operator began in 1912 when, as a twelve-year-old Boy Scout, he obtained his first amateur radio license. Following graduation from high school in 1919, Waite joined the U.S. Navy and went through the Naval Radio School at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois. First stationed aboard the battleship U.S.S. Florida in the Atlantic Fleet, Waite eventually rose in rank to became the Flag Radio Operator for the fleet aboard the U.S.S. Arkansas. After leaving the U.S. Navy with an honorable discharge in 1923, Waite worked for a variety of companies installing radio equipment in naval vessels under construction in the Boston area. During this time he also took night classes at the Lowell Institute (present-day Massachusetts Institute of Technology), graduating in 1926 with a degree in radio and electrical engineering.
In 1929, Waite became the Assistant Electrical Officer aboard the M.S. Triumph, the world's first electrically driven cargo vessel. Waite traveled to the Philippines, Shanghai and Hong Kong and back through the Panama Canal during the ship's eight-month maiden voyage. Upon his return from the Orient, Waite worked for four years at the Shortwave and Television Corporation in Boston, where he eventually became the Chief Operator of New England's first television station. During this time period Waite also served as a Master Sergeant in the Massachusetts National Guard, working to develop some of the military's first mobile radio stations.
As an amateur radio operator during the 1920s, Waite spent many evenings monitoring the radio broadcasts sent by various polar explorers, including U.S. Navy Lieutenant Richard E. Byrd. In 1933, when Byrd called for volunteers for his second expedition to Antarctica, Waite applied and was accepted as an electrician aboard the expedition's ship, the S.S. Bear of Oakland. Waite eventually became the ship's chief radio operator and later was assigned to the shore party at Little America. While living at the Little America base Waite helped erect radio towers and became one of the expedition's radio operators. As such, Waite traveled on many of the expedition's exploratory tractor trips across the ice of the continent. In July and August of 1934, Waite participated in all three attempts to rescue Richard E. Byrd from his isolated position at the Bolling Advanced Base. Waite, along with Dr. Thomas Poulter and Peter Demas, finally reached Byrd on August 13th, after traveling 123 miles in seventy straight hours during the pitch darkness of the Antarctic winter at temperatures averaging minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The rescue party found Byrd alive, but too weak to travel due to carbon monoxide poisoning. The four men subsequently spent ten weeks together in the base's nine by thirteen foot hut until Byrd recovered from his sickness and weather conditions improved enough to allow Byrd to return to Little America by airplane.
Upon returning to Boston from his first trip to Antarctica, Waite resumed his work in television, but kept in contact with Richard E. Byrd. At Byrd's request, Waite began lecturing about his experiences in the Antarctic to various high school and college groups. Over the next four decades Waite gave more than 3,000 such lectures, expanding his talks to incorporate his experiences in the twenty-two subsequent trips he took to the polar regions.
Following the attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Waite became a civilian radio engineer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps based at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, a position he would keep until his retirement in 1965. During World War II, Waite helped design and install the radio relay system used to communicate between England and France in the days immediately following the Allied invasion at Normandy. He designed and installed similar systems in Saipan in the Pacific Theater of the war and in Japan after the war's end. From 1946 to 1953, Waite was part of a U.S. Army Signal Corps team monitoring the affects on radio communications during fourteen atomic bomb tests conducted in the Nevada desert and at islands in the South Pacific.
Waite's second trip to Antarctica occurred in 1946-47 when, as an observer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, he participated in Operation Highjump. He next returned to the region as a member of the expedition aboard the icebreaker U.S.S. Atka, which circumnavigated the Antarctic Continent in 1954-55. The following year, Waite participated in Operation Deep Freeze I (1955-56) and returned to the Antarctic seven more times between 1956 and 1965 during subsequent Operation Deep Freeze expeditions. In addition, Waite traveled to the Arctic region twelve times from 1946 until his retirement in 1965, alternating his summers in the Arctic and his winters in the Antarctic. Most of his early Arctic research took place in Alaska and in the Hudson's Bay area near Fort Churchill, Manitoba in Canada. During the 1960s, Waite's research took him to Camps Tuto and Century in Greenland.
During the 1950s, Waite became curious about aircraft crashes that occurred during flights over Greenland, which reports attributed to errors in altimeter readings. Waite speculated that the faulty readings were caused by the radar waves used by altimeters to measure an aircraft's height penetrating, rather than bouncing off, the deep ice covering the Greenland landmass. If this was true, Waite thought a system could be developed to use radio or radar waves to measure the thickness of the ice covering the polar regions. Waite first tested his theory on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica during the winter of 1955-56, where he successfully recorded the long-distance transmission of radio waves through ice. In January 1957, he recorded the first bottom echo from the base of the Ross Ice Shelf and in the following year successfully measured the ground beneath 500 feet of ice at Wilkes Station. Following these initial experiments, over the next eight years Waite made more than fifty flights by aircraft and helicopter measuring ice depths over hundreds of miles of the polar regions. In the summers of 1963 and 1964, Waite organized the International Cooperative Field Experiment in Glacier Sounding, in which teams from a number of countries compared the measurements of ice depth obtained along the same sounding lines using radar, seismic, gravimetric and electrical systems.
Waite continued to lecture about the polar regions after his retirement in 1965. He also pursued his interests in genealogy, publishing a book on his maternal ancestors in 1982. Waite was an avid collector of polar philately and in 1983 designed the cache for the postal cover commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition. A Life Member of the Pioneer Wireless Association, Waite held an amateur radio operator's license throughout his life with the call letters of W2ZK.
The Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection consists of approximately twenty-five cubic feet of documents, artifacts, photographs and other audiovisual materials dating from the 1790s to the 1980s, though the bulk of the materials in the collection date from the 1930s to the 1960s. A radio and electrical engineer, Waite was a member of eleven expeditions to Antarctica beginning with the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1933-35. In addition, Waite made twelve trips into the Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada and Greenland between 1946 and his retirement in 1965 as a civilian engineer in the Institute for Exploratory Research of the U.S. Army Signal Corps based in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
Further information on the scope and content of the collection is located at the series level.
Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection is arranged into the following series and sub-series.
Jeff Thomas processed the Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection in 2007. Efforts were made during processing to keep materials within the collection in the order in which they were received. However, the disorder found in much of the collection necessitated the arrangement of many items into logical files and subject headings.
The Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection is open to public research under the
The Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection is available for use in the reading room of The Ohio State University Archives Building, 2700 Kenny Road, Columbus, Ohio 43210. The reading room is open to the public, 9-noon and 1-4:30 p.m., M-F. Appointments are preferred. Please contact the polar curator at 614-688-8173 or e-mail kissel.4@osu.edu.
[Box number, folder number], Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection, Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program, The Ohio State University.
The Ohio State University's Institute for Polar Studies (forerunner of the present-day Byrd Polar Research Center) obtained the Amory H. "Bud" Waite Collection in 1984 and 1985 through the efforts of Peter J. Anderson, the Institute's assistant director during this time period.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
The Expeditions Series consists of two and one-half cubic feet of materials dating from the 1930s to the 1980s, though the bulk of the items date from 1933 to 1965. The series documents the twenty-three polar expeditions in which Amory H. "Bud" Waite participated from 1933 to 1965. The series is divided into six sub-series by expedition name.
The Byrd Antarctic Expedition II Sub-series contains one-half cubic foot of materials dating from 1933 to 1983. Highlighting these materials is a series of diaries kept by Waite as a radio operator during Richard E. Byrd's second expedition to the Antarctic from 1933 to 1935. The sub-series also contains copies of the radio messages sent and received by the expedition, including those to and from the Bolling Advanced Base, from which Waite helped rescue Byrd in August 1934. Also included are six issues of "The Barrier Bull" newsletter published in Little America from May to July 1934, along with copies of various newspaper and magazine articles about the expedition published from the 1930s to the 1970s. Also of note are files concerning the 50th anniversary reunion of members of the expedition, which Waite helped organized in 1983.
The Operation Highjump Sub-series contains the diary, flight log, and journal Waite kept during this Antarctic expedition from December 1946 through February 1947. Also included is a report on the expedition Waite submitted as an observer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, along with various newspaper clippings and ephemera.
The U.S.S. Atka Sub-series contains the calendars and journal kept by Waite prior to, during, and after this expedition. Based on the U.S. Navy icebreaker U.S.S. Atka, the expedition circumnavigated the Antarctic Continent in a trip lasting from December 1954 to March 1955.
The Operation Deep Freeze Sub-series contains one and one-half cubic feet of materials dating from 1955 to 1985, though the bulk of the records date from 1955 to 1965. The sub-series contains the records compiled by Waite from numerous Operation Deep Freeze expeditions in which he participated from 1955 to 1965, arranged in chronological order by expedition name. Types of records located within the sub-series include the diaries, notebooks, and flight logs kept by Waite, along with some of the data he recorded during flights to measure the ice depths of various locations in Antarctica using the radio wave sounding system he invented. The sub-series also includes an assortment of correspondence, memoranda, and reports about the various Operation Deep Freeze expeditions dating from 1955 to 1985.
The Operation Icecap Sub-series contains the journal and notebook kept by Waite from June to July 1965 during this expedition based at Camp Tuto, Greenland.
The Greenland Expeditions Sub-series contains one-quarter cubic foot of records complied by Waite during expeditions from 1960 to 1965 to measure the ice depth at various locations in Greenland. Included in the sub-series are the notebooks, logs, and data kept by Waite during these trips, along with correspondence and memoranda pertaining to the expeditions.
The Personal Series contains nine and one-half cubic feet of materials dating from the 1790s to the 1980s, though the bulk of the materials date from the 1930s to the 1970s. The series provides further documentation on Waite's experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, but also contains materials pertaining to his family and personal interests outside of the polar expeditions in which he participated. The series is divided into nine sub-series reflecting either record types or Waite's areas of interest.
The Amateur Radio Sub-series contains one cubic foot of records dating from 1938 to 1984. These records document the amateur radio station, W2ZK, maintained by Waite and his involvement in amateur or "ham" radio as a hobby throughout his life. Records within the sub-series include alphabetically arranged files on the numerous amateur radio organizations in which Waite was a member, along with various certificates pertaining to his radio station. In addition, the sub-series contains chronologically arranged files of correspondence between Waite and other individuals involved in amateur radio. Also included are the station logs maintained by Waite from 1938 to 1984 for station W2ZK and for the various mobile stations he used during his lifetime.
The Biographical Sub-series contains one cubic foot of published and unpublished articles about the life of Amory H. "Bud" Waite dating from the 1930s to the 1980s. Most of the unpublished articles are autobiographical sketches written by Waite from 1965 to 1983 for inclusion in various publications, such as his seventy-eight page, typescript draft entitled "Flashes from de Sout, or the 30 Year Long Adventure of an Antarctic Radio Operator." Most published articles are from amateur radio newsletters and publications, though the sub-series does include files of newspaper articles written about Waite from the 1930s to the 1980s. Also included in the sub-series are flyers, advertisements, and some correspondence pertaining to the lectures on polar exploration Waite gave from the 1930s into the 1970s.
The one-quarter cubic foot of files in the Boating Sub-series date from 1968 to 1984 and document Waite's membership in various U.S. Powerboat Squadrons in both New Jersey and Florida. Much of the correspondence in the sub-series pertains to radio antennas designed by Waite for use in powerboats and the safety issues involved in the use of radio antennas.
The Correspondence Sub-series consists of one and three-quarters cubic feet of letters sent or received by Amory H. "Bud" Waite or his family from 1907 to 1985. Most of the correspondence is arranged alphabetically by author and includes letters between Waite and many members of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition dating from the 1930s to the 1980s. Other letters are filed under the name of the various organizations and institutions to which Waite corresponded, such as the Antarctican Society and the National Geographic Magazine. Another series of files contain the letters of appreciation and commendation Waite received during his career. In addition, the sub-series contains many letters written between Waite and his parents, his wife, and other family members.
The one and one-half cubic feet of materials in the Genealogy Sub-series date from 1796 to 1983 and document the ancestry of Amory H. "Bud" Waite. An amateur genealogist, Waite published a book on his maternal ancestors in 1982 based for the most part on the documents in these files. In addition to the Waite or Wade family, the sub-series contains genealogical information on the Breyfogle/Lemmon families and the Broughton/Glover families of New England, of which General John Glover of Revolutionary War fame was a member. Many of the resources in the sub-series are photocopies of documents, though the collection does contain original letters of the Broughton family dating from the 1840s and original Waite family documents dating back to the 1870s. In addition, the sub-series contains a number of published genealogies, mostly on the Waite and Glover families. Located in Box 23 are various family charts and other oversized family documents.
The Patents Sub-series consists of one-half cubic foot of records dating from 1941 to 1973. The records document the various patents Amory H. "Bud" Waite applied for or received during this time period. Most of the patents pertain to radio or electrical devices, such as a coaxial cable coupling, a sequential safety circuit, and various antenna designs. However, the majority of the records pertain to an icebreaking, submarine oil tanker Waite and Marcel J.E. Golay designed in the late 1960s to transport oil from the Arctic regions. While Waite and Golay received a patent for their design, a prototype of the submarine was never built.
The Polar Philately Sub-series consists of three-quarters cubic foot of materials dating from 1930 to 1984. An avid collector of polar philately, Amory H. "Bud" Waite compiled the polar stamps and postal covers from both the Arctic and Antarctic found within the collection. The sub-series also contains files of correspondence concerning polar philately dating from the 1940s to the 1980s, mostly notably with the American Society of Polar Philatelists and with fellow collector, John J. Herguth. Also included is a history of polar philately written by Waite in 1972.
The Publications and Papers Sub-series contains two and one-quarter cubic feet of materials pertaining to the published and unpublished scientific papers written by Amory H. "Bud" Waite from the 1940s to the 1980s. Most of these papers are on the use of radio echo sounding to measure the depth of ice in the polar regions. Much of the sub-series consists of the resources compiled by Waite to research and write an unpublished paper in 1980 titled "Thoughts Relative to the Origin of Radio Echo Sounding."
The Audiovisual Series contains approximately nine and one-half cubic feet of photographs and other audiovisual materials dating from the 1880s to the 1980s. The series provides visual images and sound recordings documenting the polar expeditions in which Amory H. "Bud" Waite participated from 1933 to 1965. The series also includes audiovisual materials on Waite's interests outside of polar exploration and on the Waite family. The series is arranged by format into nine sub-series.
The Photographs Sub-series consists of four and one-half cubic feet of photographs and photograph albums dating from the 1880s to the 1980s. Materials within the sub-series are arranged into the subject headings of personal, expeditions, people, photograph albums and publications.
The personal files contain photographs pertaining to Waite's hobbies and interests outside of polar exploration, such as amateur radio, boating and genealogy. These files also contain portraits of Waite and photographs taken during his various stints within the military.
The expeditions files contain photographs taken by Waite or others during his twenty-three trips to the Arctic and Antarctic. The files are arranged in chronological order by expedition name, and may be further divided by subject, event or place within a particular expedition.
Included within the sub-series are a small number of people files containing portraits or candid shots of noted polar explorers, scientists, or military officers.
Twenty-four photograph albums compiled by Waite from the 1950s to the 1980s comprise the bulk of the photographs sub-series. The albums are arranged in numeric order by the number originally assigned to them by Waite. However, the photographs originally located within each album were removed during processing, numbered by album page, and placed into file folders for preservation purposes. Waite titled the first photograph album "Life of Amory H. Waite, Jr." when he put the album together in 1974 for his family. This album provides a good overview of his life up to that year. With a few exceptions, the remaining albums each contain a mixture of subjects that may range from genealogy to a specific polar expedition. A listing of the major topics or events found within each album is located within the box and folder inventory. Single subject albums include number 10, which contains photographs from Waite's visit to the Soviet Antarctic base at Mirny in 1958; number 11, which contains photographs from the Antarctican Society meeting in Washington, DC on May 1, 1980; and number 23, which contains photographs from Operation Deep Freeze I in 1955-1956. Two additional, non-numbered albums contain photographs of Waite family members dating from the 1880s to the 1910s.
The publications files contain numbered photographs Waite selected for two of his unpublished manuscripts, "Flashes from de Sout" and "Thoughts Relative to the Origin of Radio Echo Sounding." Other publications files contain charts and illustrations used for various scientific papers and presentations from the 1960s on radio ice-depth sounding.
In addition, boxes 16 and 17 contain oversized photographs arranged within the general subject headings of expeditions and personal.
The Negatives Sub-series contains one-half cubic foot of 35mm or larger sized negatives dating from 1929 to 1965. The majority of the negatives in the collection are for the photographs located within the Photographs Sub-series. Like the photographs, the negatives are arranged by subject headings into personal and expeditions files.
The Slides Sub-series contains one and one-half cubic feet of 35mm film slides or 3 by 4 inch glass lantern slides dating from the 1930s to the 1960s. Like the photographs, the slides are arranged by subject headings into personal and expeditions files. Amory H. "Bud" Waite carried a 35mm camera on most of his trips to the polar regions, so many of the expedition slides are of images not found within the Photographs and Negatives Sub-series. In addition, the sub-series contains two 35mm slide shows and one lantern slide show assembled by Waite to illustrate lectures he gave on his polar experiences and on the development of radio ice-depth sounding. Another lantern slide show in the collection was compiled for use at an event celebrating Waite's retirement from the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1965.
The Scrapbooks Sub-series contains one scrapbook compiled by a friend and admirer of Waite named Barbara Jecevius. It dates from the late 1970s to the early 1980s and contains newspaper clippings about Waite and polar exploration in general, a few polar philatelic covers, and some correspondence.
The Certificates Sub-series contains one-half cubic foot of oversized documents dating from 1927 to 1971. These documents consist of various membership certificates, awards and commendations presented to Amory H. "Bud" Waite during this time period. Other certificates mark a particular event in Waite's life, such as crossing the Equator by ship or airplane.
The Maps Sub-series contains eighteen oversized maps and charts dating from circa 1913 to 1971. Most are general maps of the Arctic and Antarctic regions published by the National Geographic Society or by the hydrographic offices of the U.S. Navy and the Canadian government. A few of the maps contain charts of the radio ice-depth sounding flights Waite conducted in Antarctica and Greenland. Also of note is a map of Little Americas I through V and associated trails hand-drawn by Waite in 1984.
Housed within the Paintings and Drawings Sub-series are fourteen oversized items dating from 1955 to 1980. Most of the paintings in the sub-series are scenes of Antarctica or atomic bomb blasts done by Amory H. "Bud" Waite, who took up painting during the last years of his life. The sub-series also contains three sketches of Waite drawn in 1955 and 1956 during Operation Deep Freeze I and II.
The Audio Tapes Sub-series contains thirty-seven recordings on reel to reel or cassette tape dating from 1933 to 1984. Most of the recordings pertain to the various polar expeditions in which Amory H. "Bud" Waite participated. Other recordings relate to Waite's interest in amateur radio and boating. Four of the reel to reel tapes contain excerpts from the original aluminum disc recordings made from 1933 to 1935 by John Dyer during the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition. Another tape contains a circa 1934 recording of the Knights of the Gray Underwear singing "Penguins Parade." Also of note is a 1976 recording of Waite giving his "Polar Adventure" lecture and some 1984 recordings of Waite talking to Peter J. Anderson about his trips to the polar regions.
The Films Sub-series contains a short 16mm film clip of Admiral Richard E. Byrd's address to the crew of the U.S. Navy icebreaker, U.S.S. Atka, prior to the ship leaving Boston in 1954. The other film in the sub-series is a set of 35mm film strips containing radio ice-depth sounding images taken during flights over Greenland in June and July 1965.
The Artifacts Series contains forty-three, three-dimensional objects dating from the 1920s to the 1980s. Included are various lapel pins, shoulder patches, logo stickers, flags, clothing and other mementos collected by Amory H. "Bud" Waite from his various trips to the polar regions. Also included are the medals, decorations and other awards presented to Waite during his career, along with a cap and jacket he wore during most of his polar expeditions. Of note are pieces of the propeller blades from the windmill used at Little America II in 1933-35 and a "Camp Cold Bottom" sign used in 1956-57 during Operation Deep Freeze II.