WWilliam Robert Anderson was an officer in the United States Navy, and a U.S. Representative from Tennessee from 1965 to 1973.
WBernt Balchen was a Norwegian pioneer polar aviator, navigator, aircraft mechanical engineer and military leader. A Norwegian native, he later became a U.S. citizen, and was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
WLouise Arner Boyd was an American explorer of Greenland and the Arctic, who wrote extensively of her explorations, and in 1955 became the first woman to fly over the North Pole privately chartering a DC-4 and crew that included aviation pioneer Thor Solberg.
WDavid Legge Brainard was an arctic explorer and United States Army officer who fought in the American Indian Wars, the Spanish–American War, and World War I.
WRear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of the Antarctic Plateau. Byrd claimed that his expeditions had been the first to reach both the North Pole and the South Pole by air. His claim to have reached the North Pole is disputed. He is also known for discovering Mount Sidley, the largest dormant volcano in Antarctica.
WJames Francis Calvert served in the United States Navy, where he commanded USS Skate, the third nuclear submarine commissioned and the second submarine to reach the North Pole, which became the first to surface at the pole. Skate surfaced at the North Pole on 17 March 1959 to commit the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to the Arctic waste. He later served as the 46th superintendent of the United States Naval Academy.
WFrank Debenham, OBE was Emeritus Professor of Geography at the Department of Geography, Cambridge University and first director of the Scott Polar Research Institute.
WLincoln Ellsworth was a polar explorer from the United States and a major benefactor of the American Museum of Natural History.
WJoseph Otis Fletcher was an American Air Force pilot and polar explorer.
WLaurence McKinley Gould was an American geologist, educator, and polar explorer. He made expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic, and was chief scientist on Richard Evelyn Byrd's first Antarctic expedition, which Gould described in his 1931 book Cold: the Record of an Antarctic Sledge Journey. He served as president of Carleton College from 1945 to 1962, and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1964. His namesakes include the research vessel Laurence M. Gould as well as Antarctic features including Gould Bay, Gould Coast, and Mount Gould.
WWaldo Kampmeier Lyon was the founder and chief research scientist for the U.S. Navy of the Arctic Submarine Laboratory at the Naval Electronics Laboratory.
WThomas Charles Poulter was a scientist and antarctic explorer who worked at the Armour Institute of Technology and SRI International, where he was an associate director.
WFinn Ronne was a Norwegian-born U.S. citizen and Antarctic explorer.
WGraham Westbrook Rowley was an Arctic explorer, hailed as "one of the last true explorers of North America".
WPaul Allman Siple was an American Antarctic explorer and geographer who took part in six Antarctic expeditions, including the two Byrd expeditions of 1928–1930 and 1933–1935, representing the Boy Scouts of America as an Eagle Scout. In addition to being an Eagle Scout, Siple was also a Sea Scout. His first and third books covered these adventures. With Charles F. Passel he developed the wind chill factor, and Siple coined the term.
WVilhjalmur Stefansson was an Icelandic American Arctic explorer and ethnologist. He was born in Manitoba, Canada, and died at the age of 82.