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Show Me a Hero

Page 7

by Jeremy Scott


  Five months before this, when Amundsen and Ellsworth were sure of his father’s $85,000, Amundsen had cabled Riiser-Larsen in Norway inviting him to be chief pilot on the expedition. Though he had never flown in the high Arctic he had considerable experience in Norway; he and Amundsen knew each other well. Riiser-Larsen had chosen Lief Dietrichson, a fellow Naval officer to be the second pilot and, funded by James W. Ellsworth’s money, the two men had set off to visit several aircraft factories in Europe to select planes most suitable for the polar attempt. Both claimed to be happy with the two Dornier Wal amphibians which Hammer/Amundsen had ordered built in Pisa in 1923 (and which the factory had been trying to collect on ever since). Their hulls were made of metal rather than wood, so less liable to damage if the plane had to come down on rough or broken ice, and there were no wing-floats to be torn off in a forced landing. But the deciding factor was the shape of the aircraft’s nose. Other amphibians had bows pointed like a boat, the Dornier’s resembled a toboggan. Instead of pushing the snow aside, it crested it. The plane had three separate open cockpits, each protected only by a raked windshield. The observer sat in the nose, behind him the pilot, last the mechanic beneath the engine pod, directly above his head on the raised wing. The twin 450-horsepower Rolls Royce motors were mounted in tandem. Their props spun in contrary motion; one pulled, one pushed. The thrust they delivered was such that the aircraft could lift twice its own weight, and one engine alone could sustain it in level flight with a full load. Most crucially, it could take off from water even with one motor out of action.

  The Pisa plant had carried out a number of modifications on Amundsen’s and Riiser-Larsen’s instructions: the motors were insulated, a heater was installed to keep the engines warm when the planes were on the ground, runners were bolted along the bottom of the hull so the flying boats would steer straight on ice or snow. They were prepared as far as they could be for the extreme conditions in which they would have to operate.

  The intention of the Amundsen–Ellsworth expedition, which had been agreed with the Aero Club of Norway as a condition of their funding, was to fly to the North Pole, drop a national flag to claim the prize for Norway, then return to Kings Bay. The secret intention agreed between Amundsen and Ellsworth was different. Their plan was to land at the Pole and, after taking soundings and observations, to transfer the remaining fuel into one plane, then – abandoning the other – all six cram aboard her and fly on to Alaska. A Europe–America transcontinental flight of more than 3,000 miles: it was an ambitious plan.

  After taking off, the Dorniers flew above a fleecy sea of fog for two hours. ‘Two gnats in a void of sky and nether mist’, as Ellsworth describes the scene.

  Below each ship … travelled a double halo – two perfect wraith-like circles of rainbow with reversed colours – and in the very centre of them the sharp shadow of the plane leaped along the eddies and billows of the fog-roof. It was unreal, mystic, fraught with prophecy. Something ahead was hidden and we were going to find it … Now and then I saw down through holes in the fog to the sullen waters of the Arctic Ocean, foaming under a north-east breeze. We huddled down behind our shields, for the wind cut like a knife…

  The two amphibians flew abreast at a speed of 75 mph. They were near enough to communicate by hand signals, which was as well, for Ellsworth’s plane had no radio. It had failed to arrive in Kings Bay and they’d decided not to wait for one. Other technical equipment aboard the flying boats was, by modern standards primitive in the extreme, but state of the art in 1925, for as soon as the Amundsen–Ellsworth expedition had announced its plan they had been besieged by every instrument maker offering his latest inventions. They had gyroscopes for blind flying and specially adapted compasses for use near the magnetic pole, but their prime navigational tool was a sun compass invented by Goerz in Germany. This worked through a periscope in front of the pilot’s windshield, rotated by clockwork so it always kept pointing at the sun. Reflectors threw an image of the sun’s disc upon a ground-glass dial on the dashboard; so long as the image remained centred on the dial, the pilot was on course. But the instrument did not allow for drift; the aircraft might be merely paralleling its true course although the compass was registering correctly.

  After two hours the mist beneath the planes began to dissolve and Ellsworth looked down in awe.

  Abruptly the edge of the fog-bank slipped under our wings and ahead of us spread one of the most sublime spectacles the world could afford – the great frozen North itself … Ahead and to east and west as far as the eye could reach it spread … the sun drew a broad gleaming trail over it. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.

  They flew on for seven hours over the same vast shining view, which stretched sixty or seventy miles in every direction. Ellsworth’s ‘shaky observations’ with the sextant told him they had reached ‘a very high latitude’. They were near to the Pole and very soon must land – but where? Beneath them lay humped and broken ice split by channels of water filled with floating floes.

  Suddenly Ellsworth saw the N25 bank and start to spiral down, Amundsen signalling them to follow with a wave of his arm. Dietrichson did so, and from the N24 Ellsworth watched Amundsen’s plane descend into a precipitous wasteland:

  I have never looked down upon a more terrifying place in which to land an aeroplane … Great blocks of ice were upended or piled one upon another. Pressure-ridges stood up like fortress walls. The leads that had looked so innocent from aloft proved to be gulches and miniature canyons. In them, amid a chaos of floes and slush ice, floated veritable bergs of old blue Arctic ice.

  Amundsen’s plane disappeared from sight among the canyons and for another ten minutes Dietrichson flew on, looking for open water. He spotted a lead, but it was choked with ice. Ahead it widened into a small lagoon. He cut the motors. The aircraft lost speed, stalled, and pancaked down hard onto the surface, surging forward on its own wave. In the craft’s nose, Ellsworth saw an ice-floe rear up before him. He was flung forward as the bows of the flying boat smashed into it and rode up onto the ice.

  In the sudden stillness that followed Ellsworth was aware of a muffled shouting, he was deaf from the roar of the motors. It was Dietrichson yanking on the bell-cord and yelling back to the mechanic, ‘Omdal, Omdal, the plane is leaking like hell!’ Dazed by the suddenness of what had happened, Ellsworth clambered out of his seat and jumped down onto the ice…

  7.

  THE FINE ART OF UPSTAGING

  Richard Byrd is seated restless and ill at ease in his study in Boston, listening to the radio for news on Amundsen and Ellsworth’s polar flight, whose result is crucial to his career. If they succeed in reaching the Pole his years of preparation and the carefully laid plans for his life are rendered valueless, his future is wiped out in that instant.

  The Byrds’ large family home on Brimmer Street is fashionably stylish; the word people tend to use when describing it is ‘elegant’. The American colonial furniture, polished wood floors and fine rugs convey a restrained good taste. Back Bay is one of the best residential areas in Boston, a neighbourhood of substantial well-spaced houses with established gardens and tall trees. Those living here – whose dinner parties the Byrds regularly attend – are bankers, doctors, the partners in family law firms and other well-to-do people who entertain regularly, live comfortable civilised unshowy lives, and mostly go to church on Sundays.

  Byrd had grown up in a gracious house; as an adult he’d bought another. This one employs fewer servants – and those Irish rather than black – and unlike his childhood home is equipped with vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, washing machine, refrigerator and every available household appliance. Despite the antique furniture, the place is a showcase of prosperous modernity. Marie has been raised to expect the same high standard of living as himself. ‘Elegant’ is a word people applied to her as well as to the home she decorated with the full approval of her husband, whose tastes, political views and social attitudes harmoniously twin her own. It is a happy mar
riage, blessed by three healthy children who all attend private schools. The Byrds’ looks to be an enviable family situation of comfortable affluence but, invisible to the eye, the financial basis it rests on is shaky. Even when supplemented by Marie’s private income, his service pay is inadequate to sustain this lifestyle and keep up appearances. Aged thirty-seven, he is still only a lieutenant-commander, unlikely ever to gain command of his own ship. Effectively, he waved goodbye to promotion in the Navy when he bypassed his superiors to go directly to the Secretary for authorisation of his previous Arctic expedition; he’d burnt his boats. Yet if the expedition he is about to start on now – particularly the polar flight – is successful, his reputation is made. Success will take care of everything, the future is solved at a stroke.

  The two ships of his new MacMillan–Byrd expedition are almost ready to set sail… but yesterday Amundsen and Ellsworth took off from Spitsbergen. If they make it to the Pole Byrd’s plan is a wash-out.

  On the radio the sound of jazz comes to an end and Byrd leans forward to the freestanding wireless cabinet, tense. A weather report follows, and then the news… the sports news… a market report, cheerfully upbeat. Then another announcer’s voice more measured in tone, followed by a concert relayed by NBC from New York. Byrd’s attention relaxes. But abruptly the lush music is interrupted for a news flash. The two aircraft of the Amundsen–Ellsworth expedition have failed to make it back to Spitsbergen. They and their crews are down somewhere on the Arctic ice.

  Nowhere in his several books does Byrd hint of his reaction at that moment. Concern for his fellow aviators down, perhaps injured, in a perilous situation must have formed part of it – although surely as a secondary response – but he confides nothing of the relief which must have flooded through him on hearing the news. A rush of exhilaration that the race is still open… and then, a moment later, a further thought, the realisation that in this event fate has dealt him a wild card.

  The stature of a hero – call to mind any action adventure movie familiar to you – is defined by the magnitude and difficulty he or she must overcome to win. And in life, which seldom goes quite like a movie, these heroic opportunities (together with the media interest they command) are rare. It is vital to seize them. Byrd can still be first to claim the Pole – but a prior challenge lies to hand.

  He calls Professor MacMillan, who has already heard the news. There is, Byrd tells him, only one possible way for them to act now. They must at once load equipment and stores on board their ships and make ready to depart. Ever the consummate PR man, he proposes to issue an immediate press release announcing that the MacMillan–Byrd Expedition is setting aside its own plans and with its three aircraft sailing to the rescue of Amundsen and Ellsworth down somewhere on the Arctic ice…

  8.

  THE SHOW FOLDS

  The prospect is ice, an infinity of heaped slabs of ice, a hostile wilderness of white in the glare of endless day.

  For five days after Ellsworth’s plane, piloted by Dietrichson with its mechanic Omdal, had come down on it, they remained separated from Amundsen and the other flying boat. Their first action on clambering from the aircraft was to check their position with the sextant. They were disgusted to learn they had flown 22 degrees off course and were still 160 miles from the Pole and down in the middle of nowhere.

  While Omdal pumped water from the sinking plane, Ellsworth and Dietrichson climbed an ice hummock and looked for the other plane, but could see no sign of it. Returning to the aircraft they learned from the mechanic that the crash had disabled the front engine, and that he could find no way to repair the leaking hull. Unloading the supplies and equipment aboard, they pitched the tent they’d brought with them, sat on their rolled sleeping-bags and discussed what to do.

  Meanwhile, Amundsen and the two with him were less than three miles away in that chaotic wilderness of mangled ice. The afternoon of their second day there Amundsen spotted Ellsworth’s group through binoculars. The two parties communicated by semaphoring with flags and over the next three days Amundsen watched their slow and painful progress across the ice to join him. The three started on skis, wearing heavy backpacks and dragging a sledge loaded with a canoe and supplies, but it took them an hour to travel fifty yards. Hauling the sledge through deep snow and over mountainous sharp ridges of ice proved impossible, and they abandoned it, together with its load. Taking what they could carry, they continued on skis. The piled blocks of ice were separated by channels of frozen water; the surface bent under their weight. It split and gave way beneath Dietrichson. From a half-mile away Amundsen heard his scream as he fell into the freezing sea. Then Omdal went through the ice as well. Only the heads of the two men were showing as they clung to the jagged edge while the current swept their bodies beneath the ice. ‘I’m gone! I’m gone!’ Omdal was shouting hoarsely.

  These were fellow Norwegians, men Amundsen knew well and who were his responsibility. Unable to help, he could only watch through field-glasses as Ellsworth crawled over the sagging ice toward them, pushing his skis ahead of him. Dietrichson grabbed one and Ellsworth pulled him to safety then slithered over to Omdal, cut off his pack and hauled him out the water. But the mechanic’s hands were lacerated and streaming blood; both men were soaked, freezing and in a bad way when they finally stumbled into Amundsen’s camp.

  He and his crew were living in the lightless cargo hull of the N25, and the new arrivals moved in to share their cramped quarters. The Dornier had come down here not because Amundsen thought they’d reached the Pole, but because one of the engines had cut out. The mechanic Feucht had now repaired this and the motor was functioning, but the flying boat was frozen immovably into the ice. Five days had effected a shocking change in Amundsen. His manner remained calm and confident as ever but the strain showed in his face; to Ellsworth, he seemed to have aged ten years. The situation was grave. The radio was out of action and, even if they could report their position, there was no hope of rescue for no one could reach them. They were down on a vast broken mass of floating ice and the nearest land was 400 miles away. And even if they did make it to the desolate, uninhabited coast of north Greenland, what then? No one cared to raise that point.

  Each of the downed aircraft carried a collapsible canoe, a sledge, tent, skis, rucksacks, cooking equipment, maps, firearms (a shotgun, rifle and automatic pistol) and a month’s supply of food. But that food would barely be sufficient for the long journey, and only if they started on it very soon. On the other hand, if they remained with the aircraft a lead might open in the ice which would allow it to take off; they might find a strip of smooth ice or frozen snow, or they might just be able to level and clear a runway. Stay or go – that was the choice.

  By the day Ellsworth and the crew of the N24 succeeded in joining up with him, Amundsen had imposed an orderly routine on the camp, with fixed hours for meals, work and sleep. Now he put everyone on a ration of half a pound of food per day and announced that they would make every effort to free the Dornier and get it into the air. If they didn’t succeed by 15 June each man could decide for himself whether to stay with the plane or attempt to walk to Greenland. ‘It will be a strenuous trip but it can be done,’ he noted in his diary.

  Amundsen’s fierce will broke the apathy that had fallen on them with the understanding of their situation. Under his command they set to work. Lashing knives to their ski poles and with a small axe they chipped away the ice gripping the plane and rocked it free. Riiser-Larsen started the motors and, with the others pushing and heaving, managed to urge the flying boat out of the water onto a floe. They rested, crushed in a human mound in the cargo hold. Next day they tried to take off on a newly frozen lead, but the aircraft broke through the surface. They tried to clear the way ahead with their wretched tools but as soon as they did so the floes drifted back to obstruct it. Retreating to the aircraft, they grouped around it, continually breaking up the ice as it formed about the hull to prevent it becoming trapped.

  The work continued for three
weeks. Driven on by Amundsen, they became automatons. They laboured, bolted a few mouthfuls of food, slept, woke and resumed working in the unending daylight of Arctic summer. They had no sense of time, nothing marked the transition of one day to the next. They were ‘pocketed like rats in a trap’, Ellsworth noted. He confessed to feeling ‘a sort of blessed apathy’ about their situation, but Feucht the mechanic succumbed to it and fell into a mood of black despondency. In a state almost of catatonia he stood leaning on his ski pole and watched the others while they worked, the very image of defeat. They became furiously irritated by him, and with each other. The work made them thirsty, but Amundsen refused to drink water and thus infuriated the rest. Amundsen complained Ellsworth’s deep sighing while he slept kept him awake. They lived in their clothes day and night, their hair became matted, they never bathed, didn’t shave and seldom washed. When Feucht developed an abscessed tooth and swollen jaw they could muster little sympathy until they found the poor fellow leaning against the plane’s hull while he tried to extract it with a monkey wrench. Then one man held him and another grasped his head while Riiser-Larsen took the tool in his enormous hands and tore the tooth out.

  They located a large relatively level floe half a mile away, but the route was barred by a fifteen-foot pressure ridge of solid ice. On hands and knees, in vile weather, with only a single axe, knives and an ice-anchor they chopped a way through it. Amundsen calculated that, during the whole period they were there, they moved 300 tons of ice and snow. In the following days they stamped down the snow to construct a runway 450 yards long. They made two attempts to take off from it but each time the plane sank down into the surface. On the morning of 15 June, their twenty-fifth day on the ice, Amundsen and Riiser-Larsen got up early to inspect the runway. They found the surface frozen hard, a tractor would not have dented it. Hurrying back to the aircraft they woke everyone up, and Riiser-Larsen started the primus to boil chocolate. On Amundsen’s orders they off-loaded the plane, dumping half their remaining food, canoes, sledges, skis, two expensive movie cameras, firearms, binoculars, heavy clothes and even their boots. Wearing only moccasins, they manhandled the plane to face the wind and piled aboard. Amundsen took the co-pilot’s seat next to Riiser-Larsen.

 

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