by Jeremy Scott
Tidens Tegn (Norwegian newspaper) 1
Times Square (New York) 1, 2
Tintina (dog) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1999
Trojani 1, 2
Ulmer, Mary Louise 1, 2
US Postal Air Service 1
US Weather Bureau 1
Vallini, Engineer 1
Victoria (ship) 1
Waldorf Astoria Hotel (New York) 1, 2, 3, 4
Wall Street 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Wall Street Journal (newspaper) 1, 2
Wanamaker, Rodman 1, 2
Wanamaker’s (store) 1, 2
Washington Post (newspaper) 1
Watkins, Gino 1
Weddell Sea 1, 2
Wilbur, Curtis D. 1, 2, 3, 4
Wilkins, Sir Hubert Arctic rim expedition 1, 2
banquet of honour 1
joins ‘race to the Pole’ 1
at Point Barrow 1, 2
submarine expedition 1
and trans-Antarctic expedition 1, 2, 3
Wilson, President Woodrow 1, 2, 3, 4
Winchell, Walter 1
women’s independence (US) 1, 2
Wright brothers 1, 2
Wyatt Earp (ship) 1
Zappi 1, 2, 3, 4
Zeppelin, Count 1
Zeppelin airships 1, 2, 3, 4
Ensign Byrd. Raised in wealth and privilege, from infancy he has been expected to achieve. What drives him now is a consuming desire for fame.
Millionaire’s son Lincoln Ellsworth beside the busted Amundsen. ‘I’ll buy the aircraft and stoke you if I can fly with you.’
Byrd’s rival, Amundsen, Captain Scott’s South Pole nemesis. Now bankrupt, dishonoured and hounded by creditors, this race is his last chance to recover his fortune and reputation.
Flight symbolised modernity; a plane was the image of the now. There was a plan to build an airport on top of a skyscraper block in mid-town Manhattan.
The River Rouge assembly line.
The Twenties. Autos, jazz, movies and mass communication reinvented America. People looked different to how they had before – especially women. They plucked their eyebrows and cropped their hair as short as a boy’s. The truly fashionable appeared to be without breasts or waist, to have neither thighs, hips or buttocks.
First attempt, 1925. Amundsen and Ellsworth down on the ice 130 miles short of the Pole with one plane wrecked and the other trapped in the ice.
The race, 1926. Byrd’s tri-motor, largest and most advanced aircraft in the world, paid for by Edsel Ford and named after his daughter. Behind it the hangar for the rival Norge.
Colonel Nobile, Amundsen, Mussolini and Ellsworth at the hand-over ceremony in Rome.
Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett just before take-off for the Pole.
Amundsen in the control room of the Norge.
Losers. Amundsen, Ellsworth and Nobile posing at the end of their transpolar flight of 3,400 miles. By now they are not even on speaking terms – and it will get worse.
Fords father and son.
Floyd Bennett and Balchen.
La Pas, Canada. The bars, gambling-joints and dance halls of this honky-tonk outpost were throbbing in the hectic fever of a goldrush. Balchen and Bennett relaxed here awhile, as best friends may in such circumstances if they happen to be male.
The start and the end of Colonel Nobile’s inglorious over-the-Pole adventure.
Done it! Bennett and Byrd, winners of the race. Byrd becomes the most famous man in America, going on to an acclaimed career. But did he really get to the Pole or was his eminent life built on a fraud that proved fatal to others?
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Biteback Publishing Ltd
Westminster Tower
3 Albert Embankment
London
SE1 7SP
Copyright © Jeremy Scott 2011
Jeremy Scott has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN 978–1–84954–283–8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
