From Pole to Pole

by Garth James Cameron

  Norge being walked backwards out of the Kings Bay hangar on the morning of May 11, 1926.

  In 1961 Nobile wrote this about the start of the flight:

  “I felt deeply happy: the malaise and weariness that had oppressed me on the previous evening and during the night had vanished as if by magic. How light I felt! A few hours previously I had been shivering with the cold; now I would have liked to take off my furs.”

  By 10:00 the sky had clouded over and they flew over Danes Island where Andrée, Fraenkel, and Strindberg had taken-off in 1897. The mystery of their disappearance would not be solved until 1930.

  There were 16 passengers and crew aboard Norge. There were eight Norwegians, six Italians, one American, and one Swede. Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth spent most of their time in the control car observing. The journalist Frederick Ramm also spent his time sitting in the control car writing his dispatches. During the early part of the flight he was able to file by having his reports sent by wireless. This was the first time a journalist had been able to report while a major aviation expedition was in progress. His newspapers published his stories while the airship was still in the air. A three day flight gives plenty of time for that kind of thing. Thirteen of the sixteen men took an active role in flying and navigating the airship. In the front of the control car, Emil Horgen was at the rudder wheel and Oscar Wisting at the elevator wheel. Umberto Nobile monitored the flight and gave orders as circumstances dictated. Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen worked at the navigation table. Birger Gottwaldt looked after the wireless set and helped the navigator by providing bearings to the wireless station at Kings Bay. Frithjof Storm-Johnsen operated sent and received messages in Morse code for as long as reception allowed. Finn Malmgren updated his weather forecasts with data received by wireless from time to time. Natale Cecioni worked in the keel supervising the operation of the engines and helped Ettore Arduino to regulate the distribution of the fuel. Attilio Caratti worked in the port engine car, Vincenzo Pomella in the starboard, and Ettore Arduino and Oscar Omdal took turns in the rear engine car.

  The rigger and helmsman Renato Alessandrini moved about inspecting every part of the airship. One of his jobs was to inspect the gas valves on top of the ship. It was essential that they be checked to make sure they were functioning and were properly seated. If they were damaged by ice, they would not seal cleanly and gas would vent continuously and destroy the airship’s buoyancy with fatal results. To get to the top of the ship, Alessandrini climbed to the top of the keel, which finished at the nose, out through a hatch, up steps on the outside of the nose, and along the top of the envelope checking each valve along the way. The top of the ship was soft. Anyone walking along the top had to time his steps to avoid producing a wave in the outer cover which might pitch him off. Gustav S. Amundsen wrote that one long step followed by two short steps damped out the movement of the gas in the envelope. Anyone outside on the envelope experienced the sub-zero air and the wind chill of the 40-plus kt. slipstream.

  By 10:35 they were over Amsterdam Island, and at 10:44 over the edge of the pack ice. The sky had been overcast for a time but now they left the clouds behind them. For the next few hours Nobile checked the groundspeed from time to time and changed altitude to benefit from the most favorable wind strength and direction. First he checked the ground speed by timing the passage of the airship’s shadow against a mark on the ice. Norge’s groundspeed was 29 kt. Nobile descended to 600 ft. and timed the shadow again. This time the groundspeed was just over 37 kt. On the ice below the crew saw a white fox and then bear tracks. A little later they saw some white fish in pools on the ice. The sun shone from a cloudless sky and reflected off the ice sheet. Nobile ordered a climb to just over 3,600 ft. and checked the groundspeed again. This time he used a Goerz drift-meter. If the surface was clearly visible and the airship was in stable flight, this instrument would give an accurate reading of drift, port or starboard of course, and groundspeed. The wind had changed and the groundspeed at this altitude was almost 45 kt. so he maintained this altitude for the next eight hours. The speed and the clear weather contributed to high morale aboard at this stage of the flight. In 83°N they saw bear tracks. This was the last sign of life for almost two days.

  Nobile wrote:

  “Everyone was excited at the thought that in a few hours we would reach the Pole. The sunlight on the vast ice-field gave it a semblance of life, so that no-one on board felt that we were flying over a desert, no one was oppressed by that enormous desolation. Why, then, was it simple and easy as this to go to the Pole?”

  At 18:45 the port engine stopped due to icing, but was soon started again. The sky clouded over, cleared for a time in 88° north and then, at 22:15 Norge flew into snow and then fog. Ice formed all over the ship in minutes. Nobile had been flying low but climbed to 2,000 ft. and then 3,000 ft. to get out of the icing. When the sun was visible, sextant sights were taken to determine the latitude. The bright clear sky and shining ice was far behind them, and everything in sight was a “pearly gray shade” and looked “sad and solemn.” At 89°N the temperature was 14°F outside and 24.8°F inside the control car. The temperature in the control car was below freezing for the entire flight.

  Throughout the flight, Riiser-Larsen had been working at his chart table on the navigation. Conditions inside the control car were infinitely better than in the open cockpit or crowded cabin of most aeroplanes. The navigator had a large chart table, plenty of room for his instruments, and no slipstream to freeze or distract him. As well as logbooks, charts, pencil, protractor, parallel rule, sextant, sight reduction tables, chronometers, and magnetic compasses Norge was equipped with a sun compass, Goerz drift sight, and with radio direction finding. The radio equipment was also used to receive time signals to check the chronometers, which were an essential aid in determining longitude.

  As the airship neared the Pole, Riiser-Larsen took sun-sights at frequent intervals. At 00:50 GMT on May 12, Nobile started to lose height, and had the national flags readied for dropping. At 01:30 GMT on May 12, 1926, Riiser-Larsen shot the sun and confirmed that they were at the North Pole. Nobile had the engines throttled back, and Norge drifted quietly over the ice at 600 ft. The flags of Norway, United States and Italy were dropped on the spot. They had reached the spot which had exercised the imaginations of geographers and explorers for centuries, although, in truth, there was nothing to distinguish that spot from any other on the vast ice field covering the Polar Ocean. Cooke, Peary, and Byrd had all claimed to have reached the North Pole but careful review of the evidence confirms beyond reasonable doubt that Amundsen and his companions were the first to reach the spot. The careful navigation possible on an airship meant that the logbooks and other records of the flight provided clear and unchallengeable evidence that Amundsen, Nobile, and the others had reached the Pole. Oscar Wisting had been with Amundsen’s party when they reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911, so there were now two men who had been to both Poles.

  Amundsen sitting in the control car of Norge during the flight to the North Pole and Teller on the northwestern coast of Alaska which took place May 11–14, 1926, and took 70 hrs. 40 min. Amundsen was the expedition leader and joined the airship at Kings Bay. The flight would not have taken place without his prestige and his acceptance of the risk inherent in a long flight over the Arctic Ocean.

  Amundsen’s role was an observer during the flight. The agreement made before the flight was that Nobile would be consulted if any major deviation from flight plan was being discussed, but Amundsen, Ellsworth, and Riiser-Larsen would have the final say.

  Without Amundsen’s hard-earned prestige there would have been no flight, and if the airship had been forced to land on the ice he would have become leader in reality and not just name. He was open about his role on the flight:

  “Naturally I had the easiest task of all on board. The others did the work of keeping the ship going, and going to the right objective. My function was solely that of the explorer, watching the ter
rain below, studying its geographical character, and especially keeping an alert eye out for any signs of a possible arctic continent.”

  Amundsen sat in the cabin wearing enormous overshoes stuffed with sennegrass as insulation, divers’ gaiters, and red and white gloves.

  From the North Pole all directions are south. Norge headed south following the 158° meridian west of Greenwich which would take them to the northern coast of Alaska at about Point Barrow. From the Pole onwards the sun was often obscured, and the surface and the sky were gray with yellowish gleams as the sun tried to shine through the overcast. The wan light showed up irregularities in the pack. At 08:30 on May 12 Nobile noted that the sky had been blue for some hours, and he noted from time to time how morale was always higher when the sun was out and shining on the ice. They had been airborne for just short of 24 hours and had almost 48 hours to go. The radio was not operating, and if they had gone down on the pack they would have been on their own in every sense of the word. Even if radio communication was available, they could not expect rescue as there were no facilities for rescue from the unknown reaches of the Arctic Ocean.

  By 09:00 Norge was at 85° north and in a fog that persisted until 82° 40’. In the fog the airship iced up and “ice projectiles were thrown against the sides of the ship.” Fortunately the ice caused rents in the fabric covering the keel rather than the envelope containing the hydrogen. The crew were busy sticking patches on the damaged sections using a special adhesive called emaillite. The fog not only caused anxiety about damage to the airship, but meant that the surface was out of sight for long periods of time. This meant that they could not be sure what was or was not below. Finding land, or confirming that it was not there, was a major goal of the expedition, and it was disappointing that they did not have a continuous view of the surface. Gottwaldt showed Nobile the radio antenna which was sheathed in ice and could not send or receive even if all the equipment was functioning.

  By 15:37 the ship was in equilibrium in spite of having used 2½ tons of petrol and oil. Norge may have lost some hydrogen, but this probably meant that the ship was carrying about that weight of ice. There was no way to de-ice the ship, and about this time Alessandrini, the rigger, could not inspect the gas valves on the top of the ship because it was coated in ice and anyone walking on top would have slipped off. The airship flew out of the fog and the ice started to melt. Some of the pieces fell into the propellers and were thrown against the ship. Rents were torn in the side of the ballonets that Alessandrini could not reach to patch. Nobile ordered the side engines throttled back to limit the damage. Norge was driven on by the rear engine which could operate at normal revs because it was below the center line and was out of the way of the falling ice.

  The crew must have been anxious that ice would cause major rents in the envelope. If they lost gas they could compensate for some of the lost static lift by flying dynamically. They would lose some airspeed and range doing that, and there was a limit to how much lift could be produced that way. There was also a real risk that the propellers would be damaged. Falling ice could chip them, and the out-of-balance forces could tear them from the engines. Ice forming directly on the blades could have the same effect. They flew on hour after hour with their fates in the balance.

  Between 80° and 79° north, the fog opened out and they could see the surface from time to time. For the first time in hours they could calculate the groundspeed and estimate the drift. The wind had freshened and changed direction, and they were drifting 13° to port. Dr. R. A. Harris, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, had predicted that large land masses would be found in the zone that Norge was traversing. Although they had no continuous view of the surface, they could see enough to be sure that no large landmasses were in the area. From 21:15 onwards, fog was encountered and Nobile climbed to 3,500 ft. to stay out of it and the associated icing.

  Nobile described the scene when they flew out of the fog and in sight of the surface:

  “Magnificent scenery, the Polar regions, just as I imagined them. The surface of the limitless sea of ice-all white-seems veiled in a transparent whitish mist. Here and there the whiteness is streaked with blue-that tenuous shade of blue, so characteristic of the ice.

  “The vast expanse of frozen sea, with its shadows, dark patches, and embroidery, of blue, was truly fascinating. From time to time there appeared long serpentine channels, dark grey in colour and once, what looked like a wide black river, its banks formed by layer on layer of blue-sprinkled ice.”

  The ice on the airship decorated it so that it “toned into the arctic landscape.” The engine cars, solar compass, drift meter, the metal rings of the mooring-ropes, and every other part were picked out in ice. A piece of ice cut a rent three feet long in the envelope, and Cecioni told Nobile that they were almost out of emaillite glue.

  At 06:45 on May 13, the coast of Alaska was sighted, and at 07:35 Norge crossed the ice edge, the strip of water between ice and coast, and was over land after almost two days flying of the ice of the Polar Ocean. The rocky hills were coated with ice and snow, with occasional outcrops of rock showing darkly. Nobile order a turn to starboard, and Norge followed the coast. At 08:40 they came to Wainwright, which was familiar to at least two of the airship’s crew. Amundsen’s second Junkers F13 had been stored there, with Omdal looking after it, in the winter of 1922–23. Flight trials had ended in an accident, and a dose of reality had caused Amundsen and Omdal to give up their planned flight to the North Pole and on to Svalbard. Amundsen told Nobile where they were and, working back, it was clear that the landfall had been made just west of Point Barrow. They had passed so close to Nome that they had been seen from there, and word of Norge’s arrival had been telegraphed south. A note was dropped at Wainwright, and this was duly reported in the New York Times. Nome was just under 400 nm away by a great circle course, and a direct flight would have taken about 9 hours with no wind, but circumstances dictated that they follow the coast and be airborne for almost another day before landing. The mountains between Wainwright and Nome were high and not well mapped, visibility was poor, and the weather deteriorating, so there was only one way to proceed.

  As Norge flew southwest along the Alaskan coast the weather deteriorated, and Nobile described what followed as the most difficult and dangerous part of the flight. Norge carried all the charts that they had been able to locate, and the one for this part of the flight was not detailed or particularly accurate on the positions and heights of the mountains of northwestern Alaska. Poor visibility over the sea was not a great problem, but flying closely over land, they could encounter high ground unexpectedly if their navigation was inaccurate. Without sight of the surface, the wind speed and direction could change and they would not know it. Without a view of the sun the sextant could not be used to provide a line of position. High winds over rugged terrain caused turbulence. The airship pitched and rolled, and gained and lost 150 ft. at a time in the turbulence. Above all everyone on board was very tired after days of little sleep and great mental strain. Nobile’s logbook of the flight had little detail for this part of the flight because he was preoccupied with the demands of flying minute-to-minute in poor visibility and being uncertain of Norge’s position. He reconstructed the flight from memories and brief notes. Norge entered fog for a time and was over land when it emerged, but it was featureless and no one knew where they were but guessed near Kukpuk.

  Chart of Norge’s flight from Svalbard to Alaska by way of the North Pole May 11–14, 1926. The flight took 70 hrs. 40 min., and was the first undisputed journey to the North Pole and the first journey across the Polar Ocean by any means. The dotted line is the 1925 flight in the Dornier Wal flying boats N24 and N25 towards the Pole on May 21–22, 1925 and the return of N25 on June 15–16, 1926.

  Fog rolled in again, and Nobile climbed to pressure height in an attempt to out-climb it. He was still in fog at 3,500 ft. and didn’t dare to go higher because gas would have to be valved-off and ice might form on the valve
seals, which would have jammed the valves open. When they flew out of the fog and in sight of the surface they saw frozen sea. A little later they saw the ice turn into a white capped ocean, and Nobile estimated that they were north of the Bering Strait over the Chukchi Sea and close to the Russian shore. Nobile ordered a course of just north of east to take them back to the Alaskan side, and in due course they sighted the settlement of Kivalina. Riiser-Larsen asked Nobile to climb above the clouds so that he could get a sun-sight with his sextant, and Nobile complied. The sun was so high Riiser-Larsen could not take his sextant observation from the control car window. He climbed into the keel, walked to the nose, and went out the hatch and up the ladder to the top of the ship. After the sight had been taken, the airship would not descend and at 5,400 ft., Norge kept climbing in spite of gas being valved-off continuously. The ship was trimmed nose up, and had to be level or nose down before the engines and elevator would do the job. Nobile ordered three crew members, including Gottwaldt, into the nose to trim the airship nose down. They did so after some initial confusion, and Nobile was able to descend flying dynamically to overcome the excess lift. Ellsworth wrote in Beyond Horizons that all crew members except Nobile and the helmsmen on the rudder and elevator had to go into the nose and take petrol tins and boxes of pemmican with them before the nose would go down and they could descend dynamically, although he was writing 10 years after the event and probably had the details wrong.