From Pole to Pole

by Garth James Cameron

  Gjøa and Fram are preserved in Norway as museum ships. The remains of Maude (renamed Bay Maude by the Hudson’s Bay Company) lie in the Canadian Arctic, and there are plans to return her to Norway and restore her. There is a Farman “Longhorn” of the type used by Amundsen for the test for his aviator’s certificate in 1914, preserved in the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in Oslo. N25 was sold in Great Britain, and then to Germany. She made many great flights, was donated to the Deutsches Museum in Munich in the early 1930s, and was destroyed in an allied bombing raid in 1944. On July 25, 2012, a reproduction N25 was unveiled in the Dornier Museum in Friedrichshafen.

  The mystery surrounding the time, place, and circumstances of Amundsen’s death after June 18, 1928, foreshadowed the mystery of the disappearance and death of Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan, which sprang to life on July 2, 1937, near a spot in the Pacific Ocean called Howland Island. They were heroes, celebrities, and role models in their own countries. They were both engaged in difficult and dangerous overwater flights. They had both taken chances and had failed to survive the risks. There is an enduring mystery in both cases. Many are interested in solving each mystery, and each mystery has developed a life its own.

  One hundred and forty-one years after his birth, and 85 years after his death, Amundsen continues to exert a strong force on our curiosity and emotions.

  Epilogue

  Bernt Balchen (1899–1973)

  After Norge had completed its flight to the North Pole and Alaska, Balchen was recruited by Richard Byrd, and traveled to the United States with him. Balchen was co-pilot to Floyd Bennett when he flew the Josephine Ford on a tour of more than 50 cities, after which they delivered the Fokker to the Henry Ford Museum. Recruited by Anthony Fokker as a test pilot, he flew in the Arctic repairing and maintaining the Fokker Universals used as bush planes. He was co-pilot to Bert Acosta on Richard Byrd’s flight in the Fokker America from New York to Paris on June 29–July 1, 1927, ditching on the Normandy coast when Paris was covered in fog. He went to Antarctica on Byrd’s first expedition of 1928–1930, and flew him to the South Pole on November 28, 1929. He was technical advisor to Amelia Earhart, and prepared her Lockheed Vega for her 1932 Atlantic flight. After spending time on aviation matters back in Norway and Finland he returned to North America. After the German occupation of Norway he negotiated the setting up of Little Norway in Canada. This was a base in Ontario where 2,500 air crew and ground crew were trained for the Free Norwegian Forces. He joined the United States Army Air Forces and set up bases in Greenland for use as staging posts for aircraft being ferried from the US to Europe. Later in WWII he set up organizations to fly Norwegians out of Sweden, and supplies and men into Norway. He stayed in the USAAF after the war, and reached the rank of colonel, although Richard Byrd blocked further promotion for personal reasons. When asked why Byrd did this he said “I know that he did not fly to the North Pole and he knows I know.” Assignments included the 10th rescue squadron operating across the far north of Alaska and Canada. In May 1949 he flew a Douglas C-54 from Fairbanks, Alaska to the North Pole, and on to Thule in Greenland which made him the first man to fly over both Poles. He retired from the USAF (which had come into being in 1947) in 1956. After retirement, he remained active in aviation working for, or with, organizations such as Hughes Aircraft, General Dynamics Canadair, and Electric Boat. He died in 1973 in New York, having received many honors including the Harmon Trophy, Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, and a Knighthood of The Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav.

  Floyd Bennett (1890–1928)

  Bennett had joined the USN in May 1917 and learned to fly. He flew on the Byrd-Macmillan Arctic expedition in 1925. After Byrd’s polar flight of 1926 he returned to the United States and was awarded the Medal of Honor. He flew the Josephine Ford (with Bernt Balchen as co-pilot) on a tour of more than 50 cities in America. He worked with Byrd on the proposed transatlantic flight in the Fokker tri-motor America. Badly injured during a practice flight, he was unable to make the flight to France. He developed pneumonia and died on April 15, 1928. Two airports and a USN destroyer were named in his honour. Richard Byrd named the Ford Tri-motor used in the first flight to the South Pole after him.

  Richard Byrd (1888–1957)

  After the North Pole flight of 1926, Byrd flew the Atlantic as navigator of the Fokker America on June 29–July 1, 1927. He then turned his attention to Antarctica and navigated the Ford Tri-motor Floyd Bennett to the South Pole on November 28, 1929. He made five expeditions to Antarctica; 1928–30, 1933–35, 1939–40, 1946–47, and 1955–56. He died a retired Rear Admiral in 1957.

  Odd Dahl (1898–1994)

  After the Maude expedition Dahl went on to a long and distinguished career as a physicist in the United States and Norway, where he was a pioneer in the use of nuclear energy. When he died in 1994, he was the last survivor of Amundsen’s men.

  Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen (1890–1965)

  Riiser-Larsen was promoted to Captain after the Norge expedition, and went on to have an outstandingly eventful and successful life. He flew a Hansa-Brandenburg seaplane from Svalbard on searches for the Italia survivors, and then joined the search for Amundsen. He led the Louise Boyd search aboard the Hobby, which spent 10 weeks and steamed 10,000 nm looking for Amundsen and his companions. He flew a Hansa-Brandenburg and a Lockheed Vega in Antarctica in 1929–1930 while using the ship Norvegia as a base. He returned to Antarctica in 1933–1934 to make some surface explorations. In 1933, he became director of the aviation company DNL. He stayed in this job, gradually expanding the airline network, until he returned to the Navy in 1939. After the Germans occupied Norway, he went to North America becoming a Rear-Admiral and head of the Norwegian Air Forces joint command. He later became a Major-General in command of the Air Force when the naval and army aviation was merged in 1944. After the war he was forced to resign from the air force because of allegations that he was an alcoholic. He played a big part in arranging the merger of all Scandinavian airlines into SAS, and was regional director until his retirement in 1955. He received many honors from many countries, and died in Copenhagen in 1965.

  Lincoln Ellsworth (1880–1951)

  In 1928 Ellsworth was awarded a gold medal by Congress for his 1925 and 1926 polar flights. He made four expeditions to Antarctica between 1933 and 1939 using his ship Wyatt Earp, and made a Trans-Antarctic flight in 1935. He was awarded a second gold medal by Congress in 1936 for his Antarctic flight, and is said to be the only person to receive the award twice. He wrote his auto-biography, Beyond Horizons, in 1937.

  Trygge Gran (1888–1980)

  Gran had been a Major in the RFC and RAF in World War I, and was awarded the MC and DFC. During World War II, Gran collaborated with the Quisling regime, and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment after a trial in 1948. He devoted the rest of his life to writing.

  Umberto Nobile (1885–1978)

  Nobile returned to Italy from Svalbard to a hero’s welcome, but received official blame for the loss of members of Italia’s crew, and for abandoning them on the ice. He resigned his commission in protest. He spent 1931–36 in the Soviet Union designing airships. He returned to Italy, then spent time in the United States, teaching aeronautics at Lewis University in Illinois. After World War II he was restored to rank, given back pay from 1928, and promoted to Lieutenant General. He spent much of his life after 1928 justifying his actions of that year. He died in 1978. His story has been told in books, the film The Red Tent, and in a permanent exhibition in the Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna de Valle.

  Oscar Wisting (1871–1936)

  Wisting had been first mate and then first officer of Amundsen’s Maude for most of 1918–1925. For much of the voyaging he had been acting captain. After going to the North Pole in Norge, he spent much time working on Fram to preserve her as a museum ship. He often spent nights aboard Fram after a day’s work, and died in his old bunk on the night of December 3/4, 1936, only a few days before
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrival at the South Pole. Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen gave the speech that Wisting had intended to give on the anniversary. Mount Wisting, at the head of the Amundsen Glacier in the Queen Maude Mountains in Antarctica, is named after him.

  A Note on Sources

  The most important sources for Amundsen’s career in aviation are his account of the North Pole flight of 1925, My Polar Flight (1925), and of the Norge flight to the North Pole and Alaska, First Flight Across the Polar Sea (1926). Each book was written soon after the events, when events were fresh in his mind, and each include material from other participants. They were written and published so rapidly that they were not proofread carefully, and the dates and times are not always consistent and it is not always clear whether local time or Greenwich Mean Time is being used. Nobile’s books My Polar Flights (1961) and With Italia to the North Pole (1930) provide useful narratives of the Norge and Italia flights that are particularly valuable as they are from the pen of the man who designed both airships and was captain on both flights. My Polar Flights includes measured responses to accusations by Amundsen and Riiser-Larsen that Nobile performed badly when preparing the Norge flight and towards the end of that flight.

  Bowman-Larsen’s quirky and revealing biography, Roald Amundsen (2006), is my favorite Amundsen biography. He has the advantage of being Norwegian and able to read the sources not yet translated from that language. Amundsen’s My Life as an Explorer (1927) is useful and revealing in a way that was unintended. Harald Sverdrup’s biographical article is particularly useful as the author spent several years with Amundsen aboard Maude.

  I have pieced together Amundsen’s aviation activities 1909–1924 from various sources including internet pages, which have been carefully compared with published sources, and I have used those that seem to be consistent. Newspapers have been used sparingly and carefully, as they are often unreliable as to the spelling of place-names and names of people. They also often contradict each other on facts; for example, the Junkers F13 crash in April 1922 is variously ascribed as being caused by a hail storm, engine failure, or running out of petrol, and the list of persons on board the aircraft is incomplete and names are misspelled.

  National Geographic Society maps have been useful. The Arctic map published by the Society in February 1984 was particularly useful as it used a polar projection and included all places relevant to the story on one sheet.

  DVDs containing flawless copies of the 1925 and 1926 flight documentaries, Roald Amundsen-Lincoln Ellsworth’s Polar Flight (1925) and The Airship Norge’s Flight across the Arctic Ocean (1926) were a delight to watch and provided much detail not in the books.

  For navigational details I have relied on Monte Duane Wright’s Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941 and whatever skills and experience I have acquired in 3,000 plus hours flying as a commercial pilot and flying instructor.

  French Aircraft of World War One by Davilla & Soltan provided technical details of the Farman aircraft in which Amundsen passed the flight test for his aviator’s certificate in 1914. Van Der Mays’s Dornier Wal: A Light Coming over the Sea is a useful and interesting account of the aircraft used in the 1925 expedition. The Van Dyke Collection of airship plans provided useful details of Norge. Maynard’s Wings of Ice includes important quotes from the suppressed parts of Balchen’s autobiography in which he explained why he knew that Byrd had not flown to the North Pole as he had claimed.

  Grierson’s Challenge to the Poles: Highlights of Arctic and Antarctic Aviation (1961) is still essential reading, and the best account of aviation in high latitudes 1897–1954.

  Annotated Bibliography

  Part One: Books & Journal Articles

  Allen, Richard S. ‘Amundsen’s Aircraft 1922–1925’ Skyways: The Journal of the Early Airplane 1920–1940, No. 70, April 2004. pp 49–52

  This article provides details of the Curtiss Oriole biplane and the two Junkers F 13 monoplanes used by Amundsen.

  Allen, Richard S ‘Fokker’s JOSEPHINE FORD Part 2’ Skyways: The Journal of the Early Airplane 1920–1940, No. 67, April 2003. pp 37–46.

  The biography of the Fokker F VII 3/m monoplane used by Richard Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett on their attempt to fly from Spitsbergen to the North Pole and return on April 9, 1926.

  Amundsen, Roald Engelbregt Gravning, My Life as an Explorer, London: Heinemann, 1927 (281pp, ill).

  Amundsen, Roald Engelbregt Gravning (With contributions by Hjalmar J. Riiser-Larsen, Lief Dietrichson, Friedrich Ramm, and Lincoln Ellsworth) My Polar Flight, London, Hutchinson, nd (c1925), 292pp, ill.

  Account of the 1925 Amundsen-Ellsworth North Pole Expedition. Written within two months of the end of the expedition and rich in detail and anecdotes. Contributions by all the major participants. Not always reliable on details such as times and distances. The American edition was entitled Our Polar Flight to recognise Ellsworth’s contribution.

  Amundsen, Roald Engelbregt Gravning (With contributions by Lincoln Ellsworth, Joh Hover, Hiljmar J. Riiser-Larsen, Gustav Amundsen, Finn Malmgren and B L Gottwaldt) The First Flight Across the Polar Sea, London, Hutchinson, nd (c1927), 274p, ill, charts.

  A detailed account of the Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile airship expedition to the North Pole and beyond. Contributions by all the major participants except Nobile.

  Andrée, S A. Andrée’s Story: The Complete Record of His Polar Flight 1897. From The Diaries and Journals of S.A. Andrée, Nils Strindberg, and K Fraenkel, Found on White Island in the summer of 1930, New York, Viking Press, 1930 (xvi + 389pp, ill, plans, maps).

  A complete account of the first attempt to fly to the North Pole.

  Balchen, Bernt Come North with Me: An Autobiography, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1959, 318pp, ill, maps.

  Balchen was a leading Arctic aviator who was connected to both Byrd and Amundsen and has useful insights into the veracity of Byrd’s claims to have reached the North Pole on April 9, 1926.

  Barr, William, ‘Imperial Russia’s Pioneers in Arctic Aviation’, Arctic, Vol 38 no. 3 (September 1985) pp 219–230.

  Bomann-Larsen, Tor. Roald Amundsen Brimscombe Port, History Press, 2006 (xvi & 384 pp, ill, bibliog, index).

  Originally published in Norwegian in 1995, and particularly useful as it draws on archival material not available to earlier biographers.

  Bowen, Stephen. The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen, Conqueror of the South Pole, London, Aurum Press, 2012 (xxii + 357pp, ill, maps, index).

  A recent biography which concentrates on Amundsen’s surface expeditions.

  Bowers, Peter. ‘Dr Dornier’s Flying Whales’, Wings June 1973 pp 50–65.

  Byrd, Richard E. Skyward, New York, Jeremy P. Tharcher/Putnam, 2000 (xviii & 331pp, ill).

  An autobiography (originally published in 1928) of the American naval officer who claimed to have flown from Svalbard to the North Pole and return on May 9, 1926.

  Capelotti, P J. The Wellman Polar Airship Expeditions at Virgohamna, Danskoya, Svalbard, Oslo, 1997, Norsk Polarinstitutt (101 pp, ill, index, bibliog).

  Corn, Joseph P. The Winged Gospel: America’s Romance with Aviation, 1900–1950, New York, Oxford University Press, 1983 (x & 177pp, ill, index, bibliog).

  An insightful book about the popularity and significance of aviation and aviators in the first 50 years of aviation in the United States.

  Dear, I C B & Peter Kemp (Editors). The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea (2nd Edition), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.

  This book provides much valuable information on the ships which supported Amundsen’s aerial expeditions.

  Ellsworth, Lincoln. Beyond Horizons New York, Doubleday, 1937.

  The autobiography of the man who helped to finance the Amundsen flights of 1925 and 1926 and who participated in them.

  Ferguson, William Paul. ‘The Canadian Junkers: An Arctic Odyssey’. Air Enthusiast Quarterly, Number Three, nd. pp 109–112.

  Grierson, John Challenge to the Poles: Highl
ights of Arctic and Antarctic Aviation: 1897–1954, London, Foulis, 1964 (695pp, ill, maps, bibliography).

  This book is a detailed survey of the first 57 years of aviation in the Arctic and Antarctic. There is little on Russian and Soviet activity because it was written at the height of the Cold War and the Soviet Union would not release the information.

  Grierson, John. Sir Hubert Wilkins: Enigma of Exploration, London, Robert Hale Ltd, 1960 (224pp, ill, maps).

  A biography of the explorer who tried but failed to fly to the North Pole before Richard Byrd and Roald Amundsen, but achieved notable firsts later in his career.

  Davilla, James J. & Arthur M Soltan. French Aircraft of the First World War, Stratford, Flying Machines Press, 1997 (vi & 618 pp, ill, maps, bibliog, index).

  Gunston, Bill. The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002 (741pp).

  This book is the best modern technical dictionary of aviation in English.

  Hayes, Derek. Historical Atlas of the Arctic, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2003.

  Huntford, Roland. The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole, London, Abacus, 2000 (528pp, ill, maps).

  Originally published as Scott & Amundsen, this is a good biography of Amundsen down to 1912 with many insights into his background and personality.

  Khoury, G. A & J D Gillett (editors). Airship Technology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999 (xiii & 545pp, ill, bibliography).

  This is the only modern book on the subject. The chapter on airship piloting by David Burns is particularly valuable.

  Mabley, Edward. The Motor Balloon “America”, Brattleboro, Stephen Greene Press, 1969 (95pp, ill).

  A well-written account of Walter Wellman’s airship expeditions including the 1906, 1907 & 1909 polar attempts.

  Maynard, Jeff. Wings of Ice, Sydney, Vintage Books, 2010 (viii & 296 pp, ill).