From Pole to Pole

by Garth James Cameron

  Riiser-Larsen’s sight gave latitude of 67° 5’ north confirming that they were near Kivalina. Nobile was on the elevator wheel, and Riiser-Larsen maintained a lookout out forward in the poor visibility. Riiser-Larsen saw that they were descending, and called out to Nobile to raise the nose. Nobile wrote that he and Riiser-Larsen were working as a team, and Riiser-Larsen called out and gestured towards the wheel simply to alert him to the proximity of the ground. Norge avoided diving into the surface by only a few feet.

  They cruised along at about 600 ft. Nobile noted that even the reliable Wisting closed his eyes from time to time while at the elevator wheel. Once Norge’s position had been fixed Nobile ordered a course that took the airship along the northern coast of the Seward Peninsula, and then south around Cape Prince of Wales in the general direction of Nome. Nobile was exhausted, and handed over the elevator wheel to the tireless Riiser-Larsen and sat down to rest.

  They wind was behind them as they flew westward along the coast. They reached Cape Prince of Wales at 03:30 on May 14, having averaged a ground speed of 65 kt. since leaving the Shishmaref Inlet. This was the highest groundspeed noted on the flight. The sky had blackened, and Norge was now making little headway into a headwind. The rest of the flight would have been comparatively straightforward, but they would have had to be awake and alert for hours more. Nobile and the rest of the crew were exhausted, and he elected to make a landing at the small settlement of Teller.

  The landing presented a great challenge as there was no trained ground crew to receive them. The problem was that, like all airships, Norge was at the mercy of the wind the moment it touched down. It took a trained crew to assist Norge to dock at a mast, and about 200 men to walk the airship in and out of a hangar. He discussed the landing with Riiser-Larsen. The airship was regarded as expendable, and Riiser-Larsen proposed getting the whole crew into the control, and cutting away the fabric, and leaving both sides open. As soon as they touched down, eight could jump out to port and eight to starboard. This was a sensible idea that would probably have worked although the airship would, relieved of their weight, then have risen and drifted off. Nobile decided to attempt a landing. He had selected the frozen lagoon as his landing place. The strong wind may have been an advantage, as there would be air flowing around the control surfaces even when his ground speed dropped to zero. He would maintain steerage way until he touched down. He ordered the landing bag readied. It was a fabric tube about 12 in. across and 23 ft. long, with anchors at one end, and a rope attaching it to the airship’s bow at the other. It was weighted with spare containers of food, and weighed about 275 kg. When it was dropped on to the surface, the weight kept it flat, and the anchors dug in and held the airship nose to wind. As he approached to land, he valved gas to make the ship heavy, and a small group of men grasped the rope. Norge touched, rear engine car first, and then control car, bounced a few feet, and settled. Nobile held the valves open and ordered all crew members to stand fast. He stood by the door of the control car so no crew member could exit until Norge was heavy. Holding the valves open, he ordered the crew to disembark one at a time. Nobile sent Alessandrini aloft to cut the rip panels, which let the gas out rapidly and avoided the wind blowing the airship around as if it was a sail. He had Cecioni sever the walkway from the keel to the port engine car so that it was not driven into the keel as Norge rolled on to its side. Norge settled onto its port side without further damage. It was 07:30 GMT on May 14, 1926 (8:30 p.m., May 13, 1926, local time). The landing is probably one of the most outstanding examples of airmanship of the airship era. The flight itself is one of the greatest ever made in an airship. The airship had been airborne for 70 hrs. 40 min. Nobile noted that Norge had flown 2,763 nm at an average ground speed of 39 kt. Amundsen wrote this of the landing:

  On the morning of May 14, 1926, Nobile made a perfect landing at Teller, Alaska. There was no trained ground crew, and he relied on a landing sack to act as a sort of sea anchor to keep Norge facing into wind while the airship touched down. He ordered the rip panels opened to spill the gas as quickly as possible. This photograph shows Norge deflating as planned.

  Another view of Norge deflating at Teller on May 14, 1926.

  “But for the bump against the air fender [below the control car] causing us to spring some meters in the air, we should scarcely have noticed the landing, so finely was it done.”

  They had completed the first flight to the North Pole, the first journey of any kind across the Polar Ocean, and the first flight from Europe to the Americas by way of the Pole. Although Byrd’s claim to have made the first flight to the North Pole denied Amundsen, Ellsworth, and Nobile that particular honor in their lifetimes, the other achievements brought them fame, publicity, and, in Amundsen’s case, renewed recognition as a successful explorer of the Arctic.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Enough Credit for Everyone

  Teller–Nome–Seattle–Rome–Oslo 1926

  A journalist made a very accurate and acute observation. He wrote that at the moment of the landing everyone on board deserved, and would be given, the appropriate credit for the achievements of the flight. Any squabbling between them over who had contributed the most could only diminish the respect and affection given to them. It was not a zero-sum game, although that term was not known in 1926. Credit to one participant did not reduce the credit given to another.

  The whole population of Teller came to welcome them, although they showed no particular surprise at being visited by the first airship to fly to Alaska. In his autobiography Ellsworth wrote:

  “For two days we had been reduced to gnawing at blocks of chocolate and frozen bricks of pemmican for food. We were even suffering pangs of thirst, since long ago the coffee and tea in our thermos flasks had frozen solid . . . the good women of Teller had rushed to their cook stoves . . . hot dinners were ready for us. Too exhausted to do more than mumble our thanks, we gorged and then tumbled into beds to sleep, most of us, for 20 hours or more.”

  Amundsen recorded a more spiritual moment after arriving at Teller with the journey complete, and all the participants on American soil, alive and well:

  “Honor be given to whom honor is due. Let us then be of one mind in giving to Him the honor Who on several occasions on this venture clearly and distinctly held His Hand over us and protected us. Let there be no disputed as to who amongst us was the best. We are all so pitifully small, if God the almighty does not help us.”

  Teller was an outpost on the Alaskan frontier. There had been settlements in the area for some time, but Teller was established in 1900 after the discovery of gold at the Bluestone Placer Mine, about 25 km to the south. At the height of the gold rush, Teller had a population of about 5,000 and, was a major trading center. In 1926, the population was about 250, over 90 percent of whom were Native American. The main activities in 1926, and in 2009 were subsistence hunting and fishing.

  Nobile and crew spent 18 days dismantling Norge so that it could be transported by ship back to Italy. Disagreements surfaced almost immediately. Nobile complained about some events soon after the arrival. One of the Norwegians saw him watching the others at work on the airship and told him he should be working not just supervising. He chose to take offence, and said that he had been insulted. Ellsworth advised him to ‘forget about the supposed insult’.

  Amundsen and Ellsworth looked at their writing contracts for the first time, and realised it committed them to write 75,000 words total for the New York Times. An exchange of telegrams confirmed that the newspaper held them to their contracts. They left the others behind and traveled to Nome where they hired a room and got down to work. In three weeks Amundsen, Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Malmgren, and Ramm wrote a total of 80,000 words. They sold tins of petrol for $10 each (for use and for souvenirs), and swatches of fabric from the envelope of Norge were taken (rather than purchased) for souvenirs. Ellsworth wrote about anything local that was interesting and sent the stories to the Times. He visited several of the mining camps an
d wrote about them.

  President Calvin Coolidge sent this telegram to King Haakon VII:

  “I desire to offer your Majesty and the people of Norway my congratulations on the success which has attended the bold undertaking of this hardy and intrepid descendant of the Vikings. It is a matter of great satisfaction that one of my countrymen should be associated with him in this daring and courageous exploit.”

  A similar one was sent to the Italian King who had had flown in Norge and listened to a lecture by Riiser-Larsen on the proposed flight.

  Amundsen would also be honored by Congress of the United States. Congress ordered a silver medal struck to mark the flight and awarded to Amundsen. The obverse showed a radiant North Star with a female face over a map of the edge of the Arctic Ocean. Around its edge were the words:

  “For his courage sagacity and perseverance in the transpolar flight in the dirigible Norge May 1926.”

  The reverse of the medal showed Norge flying over the North Pole with these words around its edge:

  “Awarded by the Congress of the United States to Roald Amundsen.”

  Nobile had intended to travel to Japan from the United States to supervise the assembly and flight testing of one of his airships which had been sold to the Japanese government. Mussolini (air minister as well as prime minister of Italy) saw the propaganda value of the flight. It could, if handled the right way, enhance the reputation of fascist Italy amongst Italians living abroad and the world in general. He promoted Nobile to General and instructed him to embark on a long tour of the United States. Interest in the flight was high and Nobile received “an avalanche of telegrams.” Nobile spent much of his time at Nome writing articles for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

  Riiser-Larsen and Amundsen at Nome, Alaska after landing at Teller on May 14, 1926.

  Photographs of Amundsen, Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, and Nobile taken at Nome shortly after the completion of the flight show four relaxed and happy individuals. Amundsen in particular looks like a man who has done what he intended to do and now intends to enjoy himself. They are the only photographs which the author has seen showing Amundsen smiling broadly. In 1927 Amundsen wrote:

  “For I am here confiding to the reader that I consider my career as an explorer closed. It has been granted to me to achieve what I set out to do. That is honor enough for one man.”

  It reflects credit on Amundsen that in the autobiography he took pains to praise his old comrade Oscar Wisting, and to write how much pleasure he took from having Wisting with him at both the South and North Poles.

  On June 17, the expedition members boarded the Victoria bound for Seattle. After two days delay caused by ice, a stop on at Falsepasse in the Aleutian Islands, and some unpleasant weather they arrived in Seattle on June 27. Nobile was greeted by a boat flying the Italian flag and crowded with men and women singing in Italian. Ellsworth watched Nobile wearing the uniform of a General in the Royal Italian Air Force, giving the fascist salute, and acknowledging the applause. The expedition broke up with Ellsworth staying in America, Amundsen going home to Norway, and Nobile going on tour in America as ordered. Nobile summed up the expedition in these words:

  “Our names were henceforward linked together in the history of Polar exploration. Together we had crossed the Arctic; together our flags had dropped upon the Pole. Each of us had contributed his own share to the success of the enterprise. Amundsen, who had first thought of it, had brought the prestige of his past exploits; Ellsworth had made it a practical possibility by putting up his share of the expenses; I had born the responsibility of preparing the ship and superintending the flight from Rome to America. Our widely divergent life-paths had run together for a while; but know at Seattle they branched off again . . . I was never to see Amundsen again, though once more his name was to be linked with mine.”

  At each stop on Nobile’s tour of America he gave speeches and lectures to large crowds of Italian immigrants. In Washington, Nobile was invited to meet President Calvin Coolidge. He took his dog, Titina, who proceeded to misbehave on the Presidential carpet. Coolidge laughed the incident off and treated it as an ice-breaker.

  Nobile was treated like a hero, and the press coverage of these events irritated Amundsen and Ellsworth. They saw the speeches and the coverage as Nobile claiming a priority for himself and the Italian members of the crew to which they were not entitled. To Amundsen, Nobile was a hired pilot and all kudos was due to Amundsen, Ellsworth, and to Norway. Amundsen and Ellsworth felt that the more credit that Nobile and the Italians got, the less was due to them. In the expedition book, First Flight across the Polar Sea, published in late 1926, he did not use the official title of the expedition which was the ‘Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile Polar Flight’. Nobile’s contract allowed him to contribute a section on technical and aeronautical matters to the book, but this did not happen. Amundsen, Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Gottwaldt, Hover, Gustav S. Amundsen, and Finn Malmgren all contributed.

  Amundsen and the other Norwegian crew members arrived back in Norway on July 12. They were guests of the town of Bergen, and found that every house was flying the Norwegian flag, the steamships were sounding their whistles and were dressed overall with flags, and the officials of the town were there to greet them. There was a formal dinner and a ball. There were flowers, cheers, and speeches. When they set sail in the Stavangerfjord for Oslo they traveled as guests to the steamship company. As they passed Haugersand, the locals “sent out a large fleet of all kinds of craft with music and cheering,” wrote Amundsen. The ship stopped at Stavanger for a few hours, and there were banners depicting Amundsen’s achievements from the Northwest Passage in Gjøa to the flight of the Norge.

  At Christiansund they were woken and welcomed by Leif Dietrichsen with a huge bouquet of roses. Aircraft from the army and navy flew over their ship. At Oslo the weather was clear and sunny, with flags flying and streets crowded as Amundsen and the others were driven through the capital in open limousines. Speeches were made and acknowledged, and the reception was concluded by an audience with the King and Queen. Members of the expedition had decorations conferred on them, and the naval officers received promotions.

  Back in February 1926, Amundsen had signed a book contract with a publisher in New York. The book was to be an autobiography, and was appropriate because he had made it known that the 1926 expedition was his last. His career over, Amundsen set to writing his autobiography. Amundsen was an experienced and successful author. His books included a two volume account of the Gjøa expedition through the Northwest Passage in 1903–1907, a two-volume account of the Antarctic expedition of 1910–1912, which had included the attainment of the South Pole and the 1925 Polar Flight. He had also written countless magazine articles and scripts for his lecture tours. The book emerged as My Life as an Explorer and was published in 1927 in a number of languages.

  Amundsen found it difficult to settle down and seems to have written the autobiography in a state of mild depression as is suggested by his ungenerous descriptions of some of his fellow adventurers. He had never married, but had enjoyed the company of a number of women over the years, including some who were still married at the time. His career, which took him away for years at a time and also required a great deal of traveling to lecture and raise funds, had made him a glamorous, but difficult man to have a relationship with. There was to be a final relationship, and he would have married but for the events of mid-1928 in the Arctic near Svalbard. The American woman he was to marry arrived in Norway just a few days after he departed on what would prove to be his final expedition.

  He covered an extremely rich and complex life in a book of only 282 pages. It was notable that he referred to, but did not name, the leader of the 1897–1899 expedition, which had given him his first taste of exploration in high latitudes. He did write warmly of the men, mostly Norwegian, who had been with him and made his achievements possible.

  Amundsen had been lukewarm towards Nobile in First Flight across the Polar Sea, but was
positively hostile in his autobiography. When Amundsen came to write his autobiography in 1927, the events were fresh in his mind and the wounds still raw. Amundsen’s career had lasted 30 years, and yet he devoted 103 out of 282 pages in My Life as an Explorer to the Norge expedition. He even had Riiser-Larsen contribute an appendix in the autobiography devoted to corroborating his criticisms of Nobile. He alleged a number of events in the flight which portrayed Nobile as a hysterical incompetent, saved only by the intervention of the Norwegian Riiser-Larsen.

  The controversy emerged soon after the landing of the Norge in 1926, and was still alive when Nobile’s My Polar Flights was published in 1961. The criticisms varied from the deeply relevant to the slightly childish. For example, the Amundsen faction noted that the Norwegian and American flags dropped at the North Pole on May 12, 1926, were small and purely symbolic, while the Italian flag was huge, and so big it was difficult to handle in the confines of the control car. Amundsen wrote that Nobile had stood by idly while Riiser-Larsen and Horgen directed the ground crew as they walked the Norge out of the hangar at Kings Bay of the morning of May 11, 1926. Nobile’s very credible comment was that since the ground crew spoke Norwegian, it was sensible of him to give the orders to the two Norwegian officers and let them get on with it. Film of the airship being walked out shows Nobile watching it happen. Nobile wrote that the inexcusable delay by Amundsen and the others caused an operational issue. Although it was daylight 24 hours of the day at Kings Bay, the temperature varied. The lowest temperature was at about 01:00 every morning. That was the time when the air was coldest and most dense. An airship’s lift (buoyancy) is greatest at that time. In an ideal world, the take-off would be made at that moment because the greatest load, including fuel and passengers, could be lifted then. Winds prevented walking out and take-off then, but Nobile requested the ground crew for 04:00 and Amundsen and the others for 05:00. Nobile says that there was an unnecessary delay of several hours. During the delay Nobile had to valve off gas three times as the temperature rose and the gas expanded. The lift lost was equivalent to the weight of two heavy men. Bernt Balchen and Gustav S. Amundsen, who had contributed so much time, energy, and expertise to the expedition, could have flown but for the delay. It seems that Nobile’s point is a valid one. There is also the matter of the warm flying suits and helmets delivered to Ciampino just before take-off on April 10, 1926. They had been made-to-meas at some trouble and expense in Germany. Nobile sent them by ship to Kings Bay, leaving the Norwegians to make long flights of many hours in inadequate clothing. The reason was that they weighed too much, and there was not enough lift for them. Nobile took his dog, who weighed only a few kilograms, with him on the flights. The dog’s weight is not important, but the symbolic significance of it was. It was poor leadership to insist on carrying dead weight and yet refuse to take the flying suits that would add much to the efficiency and comfort of the crew. When Ernest Shackleton abandoned Endurance in the ice off Antarctica in November 21, 1915, he insisted that no unnecessary items be carried on the long and dangerous journey across the ice dragging the boats and supplies they needed to survive. He made his instruction so much more salient by taking out his gold pocket watch and leaving it on the ice. That is leadership, one of the most important skills an explorer should possess. Nobile’s virtues did not include the insight required to be a great leader of men. The dog and its symbolic significance were lost on Nobile, and it would come back to haunt him in 1928.