JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Robert Johnson, who turned 100 on Tuesday, a hot and sunny Florida day, barely hesitated when asked what he’d do if given another chance to go to Antarctica, the land of eternal ice and snow that he first journeyed to as a teenager.“It would be very tempting, it would,” he said. “That place stays in your heart.
It really does.”At 19, Johnson was the youngest member of Adm. Richard Byrd’s 1939 expedition to Antarctica aboard the USS Bear, a 19th-century, thick-hulled wooden ship with sails and diesel.He went back with Byrd in 1946 for Operation Highjump, then joined another U.S.