A short, but useful online bibliography is available at PolarFlight Books: http://polarflight.tripod.com/books.htm
Polar Aviation Surveys / History
- The most comprehensive single volume history of polar exploration by air is John Grierson’s Challenge to the Poles
- Polar Flight by Basil Clarke also provides an excellent overview of the expeditions, attempts and background of polar flights.
- An account of early fixed wing flights is in Oceans, Poles and Airmen by Richard Montague
Airships:
- A good survey is available in the Arctic journal paper: Airships in the Arctic
- The definitive work on airships is John Duggan’s 2006 book: Airships in the Arctic
- Nobile’s Italia expedition is the subject of The Red Tent
- P.J. Capelotti’s work on Wellman: The Wellman Polar Airship Expeditions at Virgohamna, Danskoya, Svalbard
- Some airship material is included in Althoff’s Arctic Mission
Military:
- An account of specific WWII activity in Spitsbergen by the RAF is in Schofield & Roy Conyers Nesbit’s Arctic Airmen – The RAF in Spitsbergen and North Russia, 1942
- Additional information is available in this site’s sister website The Military in the Arctic
Byrd:
- Byrd’s flights in 1925, 1926 & 1927 are recorded in his diaries and notebooks documented in Raimund Goerler’s To The Pole
- Sheldon Bart’s Race to the Top of the World tells story of Byrd’s race with Amundsen to fly to the North Pole.
- Further information can be found in Carroll Glines’s Bernt Balchen