Early life 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 and yachtsman
Harold S. Vanderbilt.
World War I With the entry of the United States into World War I in 1917, both Vanderbilt and June joined the U.S. Navy, with June serving as a
Chief Machinist's Mate and taking on duties of increasing responsibility throughout the Navy's Rhode Island infrastructure. After earning his pilot wings June received the rating of Chief Aviation Pilot when the rate was established in 1924. (Prior to 1947, Navy enlisted men were eligible for training as pilots. The Navy's last enlisted pilot retired in 1981.) June developed quickly through the opportunities afforded by the technology of the time by piloting
flying boats and
scout planes launched from
catapults. June became a U.S. Navy test pilot in 1925, and served out of Hampton Roads until selected, in 1928, by Commander
Richard E. Byrd to be a pilot on his 1928-1930 expedition to the
Ross Ice Shelf. June was one of the few enlisted pilots of that era.
Byrd Antarctic Expedition 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. Relayed to the American press, this Morse code message announced the successful attainment of the expedition's principal goal.
Second Byrd Expedition June was selected to serve as chief pilot on Admiral Byrd's second Antarctic expedition from 1933 to 1935. June's contributions to the expedition were invaluable. June, along with Admiral Byrd, departed
Bayonne, New Jersey for Antarctica on October 13, 1933 on board the ship
Jacob Ruppert. From September 27 to October 20, 1934 June led four men on an exploration mission in a snow tractor which discovered a large plateau in the Edsel Ford Range with an elevation of 2,160 feet. Early in November he flew missions to help an exploration party with a snow tractor find a way back to base when they became surrounded by ice crevasses. On November 22 he piloted the biplane
William Horlick on a long range reconnaissance mission into the unexplored area to the southeast of Little America which covered 1,150 miles. In early December he piloted an emergency mission to land fuel supplies to replenish two of the expedition's snow tractors which had run low on fuel. June stopped in New Zealand on his return to the United States in April 1935 and reported that the 2nd Byrd Expedition had surveyed more of Antarctica than any expedition since the
Scott expeditions.
Later career After returning to the United States, June served as a test pilot with the U.S. Navy, and continued to serve through World War II. In 1941 he was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. He was promoted to the
warrant officer rank of machinist on 21 March 1942 and was commissioned as a lieutenant on 4 May 1943. After the war, he was the chief test pilot at
Naval Air Station Alameda.
Retirement and death Lieutenant Harold I. June retired from the Navy in 1947 after 30 years of service. He lived the rest of his life in his home state of Connecticut and died in
Windsor, Connecticut in 1962. ==Family==