Richard Evelyn Byrd III was born on February 19, 1920[1] to famed naval aviator and explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. and his wife, Marie Donaldson Ames.

The younger Richard was a graduate of Milton Academy and Harvard College.

[2] During World War II he was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve on April 6, 1942 and was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on January 1, 1944.

He had gone missing on September 13, 1988, after being placed on a train in Boston bound for Washington, D.C. Byrd was supposed to attend a National Geographic Society event honoring the 100th anniversary of his father's birth, but never arrived.

[2] The cause of his death was dehydration and malnutrition which resulted from Alzheimer's disease.