by Alec Brew
Commandant de Bueger had the use of the armed trawler Vengeur, and the Belgian launches Mimi and Toutou, as well as the British launch Fifi. Kigoma was 165 miles away on the other side of the Lake to the north-east, and de Bueger planned to station the Vengeur about halfway across the lake in case of engine trouble. Lieutenant Orta was to make the attack in the first of the seaplanes, but unfortunately the next day he experienced engine trouble on a test flight and damaged his aircraft landing on Lake Tongwe, which was rather rough that day.
Lieutenant Behaeghe was assigned to fly the bombing attack in the second aircraft, on 6 June, but there was no wind and the heavily laden seaplane refused to leave the water. It was only in the evening of the 7th that the wind became suitable and the Vengeur was sent steaming into position. Behaeghe and his observer Lieutenant Colignon took off at 6 pm and set course, carrying two 65 lb bombs. They were almost in sight of the German base when the engine began to run rough. Behaeghe turned away and nursed his failing Sunbeam Crusader, but eventually had to land on the Lake, about 20 miles from Kigoma. Two hours later the Vengeur appeared and took them in tow. The long slow tow ended at 7 am next day when they emerged from the mist off the village of M’Toa.
11. Local labour launching one of the Short 827s into the Lake.
By 10 June Orta’s aircraft had been repaired and it was bombed up for another attempt to attack the Graf von Goetzen. With Lieutenant Ruschaert as his observer he took off at about 6 pm. In the Short Type 827 the pilot sat in the rear seat and the observer had a cockpit over the centre of gravity between the wings. In typical Short Bros’ fashion there was a large radiator block on top of the forward fuselage, which from most angles looked as if it would block their forward vision, but it was in fact made up of four vertical panels, through which they could see straight ahead perfectly well. Through this radiator they could soon see the dark outline of the eastern shore of the Lake.
Ten miles from Kigoma, Orta descended to about 500 feet, planning to make a low-level attack on the warship, to ensure that his two small bombs had every chance of striking home. He was still two miles out when the Germans heard him coming. Despite the shock of discovering that the enemy had an aircraft operating on the Lake, the gunners on the ship and the shore began opening fire.
It was a long two minutes as the little seaplane roared towards the harbour and over the ship, and the Short began to take a number of hits, but neither Orta or his observer were wounded. As he flashed over the gunboat he dropped his two 65 lb bombs and zoomed away, straining his neck round to see where they landed. One of the bombs exploded on the stern of the ship and one fell ten yards short.
Elated by their successful attack, Orta set course for M’Toa, but about 20 miles out over the Lake the Sunbeam engine began misfiring. He nursed it as best he could but it continued to cough and splutter, and the aircraft lost height quickly. Eventually, he had to bring it in for a landing on the choppy waters. The floats had been hit during the attack, and they began to take on water. The little seaplane began sinking slowly, and having no safety equipment there was nothing Orta and Ruschaert could do but sit there in the darkness as the Short bobbed about lower and lower on the Lake.
Only the wooden construction of the aircraft saved them, remaining buoyant enough to keep it from sinking. They were in the centre of Africa, 20 miles from the nearest shore of a lake swept clear of the normal ships of commerce by the tides of war. There was no way they could save themselves; they just had to sit and wait in the darkness, and hope the Vengeur came in time.
Once they were overdue the captain of the armed trawler set course for Kigoma, as he had for Behaeghe in the earlier raid. Eventually, he found the stricken seaplane and saved its desperate crew. The aircraft too was salvaged, and they arrived back at M’Toa twenty hours later.
The Graf von Goetzen had been badly damaged, but the Germans’ discovery that the Allies had aircraft on the Lake was a greater shock. Fearing that the bombing attack presaged a large operation, they pulled in some of their outlying garrisons, bringing relief to the hard pressed and scattered Belgians.
A brigade was organised to move round the Lake to attack Kigoma from the South and on 9 July Orta flew a reconnaissance mission over the town, his observer taking several photographs. These revealed that not only was the Graf von Goetzen still afloat, but the Germans were arming another steamer as a warship.
Commandant de Bueger decided to attack the town with a force of three of the seaplanes. They took off on the 12 July, but found mist obscuring the eastern side of the Lake and could not find Kigoma, and flew back to M’Toa. On landing back on Lake Tongwe Lieutenant Castiau crashed the third seaplane. As there were only three pilots the fourth seaplane had been left in its crates, and de Bueger postponed another attack on Kigoma until that was ready.
Meanwhile the other two seaplanes flew a series of bombing and reconnaissance missions against other targets around the Lake. On 23 July the two aircraft returned to the attack against Kigoma, and bombed the town from 300 feet. The Graf von Goetzen had been stripped of all armament, and the conversion of the other steamer had ceased. Three days later the Belgian Brigade marching up from the south launched an attack on the town, but Kigoma surrendered without a shot being fired. All the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika was in Allied hands.
On 18 August the three Belgian pilots flew their aircraft to Kigoma and landed in the harbour they had previously attacked. For several days they flew demonstration flights, to impress the natives and entertain the troops. The seaplanes were no longer needed in the continuing war against the Germans in Tanganyika, which continued into 1918, and were returned to the RNAS, No. 8219 at least surviving until 1918. The air and ground crew were sent back to Europe, where they were to operate French Schreck FBA flying boats from Calais for the rest of the war.
The four seaplanes had brought aviation to that part of Africa for the first time, and they had conducted a successful military operation without major loss. Twice, aircraft had force-landed in the middle of the Lake, and twice successful planning had saved both aircraft and crew.
CHAPTER 5
Down on the Ice Pack
Today an aircraft forced landing on the ice packs of the North Pole would still leave its crew in real peril. Even with satellite navigation systems and communications, the weather in the Arctic might well make rescue impossible for days, even using long-range helicopters. In the 1920s the crew of any aircraft forced down on the ice were usually left with only one option, to save themselves.
During the middle and late 1920s, with many of the oceans of the world having been conquered by the aeroplane, a number of people began to turn their attention to the challenge of a flight over the Arctic Sea, and over the North Pole. The Norwegian Roald Amundsen had been the leader of the first expedition to visit the South Pole. He had spent a quarter of a century on polar exploration, with notable expeditions looking for the North-West Passage and the North-East Passage, a seven-year odyssey by his ship Maud, which he was to leave to make an attempt to fly to the North Pole.
It was perhaps inevitable that he would be one of the first to take an interest in using aircraft to explore the polar regions. He had obtained the very first Norwegian civilian pilot’s licence in 1914, which opened his eyes to the speed of transit compared to the tortuous journey to the South Pole he had made with his dog-sled teams. He also knew the advantages of high altitude in any exploration.
In 1923 he had a trial flight in Alaska in a Junkers monoplane, but he was unsure at the time whether it would be better to use an aeroplane or an airship. He decided initially to use two Dornier Wal flying boats, and placed an order for them despite the fact that his personal finances were in a shocking state and he had just declared himself bankrupt. He journeyed to America to try to raise funds with lectures and other means, but without a great degree of success. Luckily, a rich American named Lincoln Ellsworth came to his assistance. Ellsworth was a young man who had tried to persuade his father to finance an
Arctic expedition of his own, but his father would not trust his son in the Arctic wilderness. However with an experienced man like Amundsen in charge he was prepared to relent. Ellsworth Snr. financed the expedition and the purchase of the aircraft, which were serialled N24 and N25, each powered by two 370 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle engines. Lincoln Ellsworth was happy to play a subordinate role and to allow the expedition to operate under the Norwegian flag.
12. Roald Amundsen, the veteran Norwegian explorer.
On 15 April 1925 the two aircraft were landed at King’s Bay, Svalbard. The flight to the North Pole began on 21 May with Norwegian pilots for each aircraft, Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen in N25 with Amundsen as navigator and a German mechanic, Carl Feucht, and Lief Dietrichson in N24 with Ellsworth as navigator and Norwegian Oskar Omdahl as mechanic. The normal maximum load of the Wal was two and a half tons, but N25 carried half a ton more than this. N24 was damaged slightly during the take-off, but they decided to press on.
Take-off was at 17.00 hrs and for the first part of the journey they flew above a layer of fog, having climbed to 3000 feet to be clear of it. After two hours there was a break in the grey expanse and they could see the ice pack below them. Despite expecting the ice to be smooth enough to land the Dorniers if need be, they could see that the ice was very broken up and not at all suitable for landing; but confident in the reliability of their Rolls-Royce engines they pressed on.
Given the difficulty of navigating in a region where at the Pole itself every direction is south, at about 20.00 hrs, they were able to decide, by using their sun compass, that they were west of their preferred track. By 1 am on 22 May they had reached latitude 87 degrees 43 minutes. Then N25 began to have trouble with one of its engines, which was misfiring. Riiser-Larsen happily saw a clear strip on the ice pack and managed to bring the aircraft down in a neat forced landing. Dietrichson brought the second Wal down for a landing alongside his compatriot, but was not so successful and landed away from the clear strip, damaging the aircraft.
The crew members scrambled unhurt from the wreckage of N24 and made their way to N25. They were able to work out their position exactly, and decided they were only 136 miles from the Pole. The six men then began the arduous task of salvaging the remaining petrol from N24 and carrying it across the ice to N25. They had only the scantiest supplies, and no communication with the outside world, as at the last moment before the flight the radio equipment had been discarded in favour of more fuel. Fighting for survival against the Arctic weather, they struggled to solve the misfiring problem of the Rolls-Royce Eagle in N25, and then had to create a runway for take-off as there was not enough room on the small strip.
They had to clear a runway about a mile long, and wide enough for the wing tips to clear the jagged points of ice forced up on all sides. The only available tools they had were two small axes, three small knives which they lashed to ski poles, a boy scout hatchet and a camera tripod. After nearly clearing and levelling a strip long enough, the ice moved and the pressure cracked up the surface into a jagged maze once more. They were forced to start again from scratch.
For a second and third time they cleared runways, across the ice, almost starving from the lack of sustenance, combined with the arduous work in the cold climate. Each time the ice moved again, ruining their efforts. They then dragged the Wal to another point and started again, but once more when they had nearly finished the new runway, the ice moved. This time the ice threatened to close in and crush the hull of the flying boat itself. Omdahl, the only member of the party wearing rubber boots, jumped on and broke off the jagged points of ice as they threatened to pierce the thin metal skin of the hull, piling them under the aircraft. He continued to do this for hours until the broken ice that had been pushed underneath lifted the flying boat above the walls of ice that were closing inwards.
Back in Norway, search efforts had been organised to try and find the missing aircraft. Two ships, Hobby and Fram patrolled the edge of the ice barrier, and the Government began to organise the dispatch of two naval seaplanes to the North Cape. A French vessel, the Pourquoi Pas, was placed at the disposal of the search organisers by its commander Dr Charcot, while in America the Macmillan Expedition offered to assist in the search with its aircraft.
For a fifth time the six men lost on the ice moved N25 to a new situation and began a runway, but this too was destroyed by the movement of the ice. Finally, they began their sixth and last runway, and this time they had good luck. They trampled down soft snow which had fallen, and the snow froze to create a smooth slippery runway. They all climbed aboard the Wal and started the engines. They had lightened the aircraft by throwing off everything that was not essential to the flight back to Svalbard. The hull slid easily over the slippery ice and the aircraft lifted off. They had spent three weeks stranded on the ice, knowing that rescue was unlikely to come, and that therefore salvation was in their own hands. They set course for Svalbard and were very glad to reach it without further distress.
As they were approaching the North Cape of the island, after 8 hours 35 minutes flying, Dietrichson began to have trouble with the ailerons, and then one jammed. Dietrichson managed to make a safe landing on the squally sea, near to a sealing vessel, and soon they were safely on board it. The vessel was the Sjoeliv and it attempted to take the Dornier in tow, but a gale was beginning to blow up. The flying boat was therefore moored against the land-ice, and the crew were transported to King’s Bay.
When the weather improved, Amundsen’s vessel Heimdal took the two pilots and mechanics back to N25 and they flew it safely back to King’s Bay. The other Wal, N24, was left on the Arctic ice pack, above an area where the sea bottom was believed to be 12,300 feet.
Amundsen and his men had been forced down in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. By their own efforts they had survived, but he knew how close it had been. He had become very impressed at the dangers of using a heavier than air aircraft for polar flying. The absence of suitable places to land in the event of engine failure was obvious, but another peril was fog. The airship offered the simple expedient of hovering until fog cleared, and in the event of engine failure, it was often possible to repair it in the air. As soon as he reached civilisation, Amundesn established contact with General Umberto Nobile, the Italian airship constructor, and began negotiations for the purchase of his airship N1.
This airship was of the semi-rigid type, that is an envelope strengthened by a keel. Built in 1923, she was 348 feet long with a gas capacity of 672,000 cubic feet, and was powered by three 260 hp Maybach engines. It was soon apparent that the Italian Government, with the full support of Mussolini, was prepared to sell the N1 to Amundsen, and his colleague Riiser-Larsen went to Rome to negotiate. Amundsen went to America to raise money by lectures and other means, and his friend Lincoln Ellsworth continued to support him.
World interest was heightened when it became known that the American aviators Richard Evelyn Byrd and Floyd Bennett were making preparations for a flight from Svalbard to the North Pole and back in a Fokker Monoplane.
Special alterations were made to the airship N1, and it was renamed Norge. Nobile was made commander but a Norwegian crew was sent to Italy to be trained to fly it. Ellsworth had contributed about $25,000 towards the cost of purchasing the airship.
Norge was ready for her first test flight on 27 February 1926, and further trials went on into March. On 26 March Amundesn and Ellsworth arrived in Rome, and three days later Norge was formally handed over to them. Amundsen and Ellsworth headed for Svalbard while the crew flew the airship north. On 10 April the airship left on its long voyage to the northernmost tip of Europe and beyond.
They flew across the Mediterranean and reached the French coast by 6 pm, and at 10 pm they were at Bordeaux. They continued to fly on through the night, using only two of the three engines, and averaging 50 mph. At 7 am Norge left the French coast near Caen and crossed the English Channel. At 3 pm they were over Pulham, where they had to fly around for some time because
of atmospheric conditions. At 5 pm they landed and were housed in Pulham’s hangar next to the gigantic bulk of R-33.
At 11 pm on 13 April Norge set off on the flight to Oslo, where she was moored to the airship mast at 3 pm the following day. They took off again late in the evening, in a hurry because of cyclonic conditions approaching from England, and flew south of Stockholm and Helsinki to Leningrad. There was no airship hangar in Norway, and it had been arranged for them to use the one at Gatchina, where they could wait in the northernmost airship hangar on continental Europe, until weather conditions were favourable to head further north. The interest in the airship from the Russians was immense. On the first Sunday they spent in Russia about 10,000 people filed through the airship hangar to see Norge.
They spent three weeks at Gatchina and then began the voyage north to Svalbard on 5 May. By 5.30 am on 6 May Norge was moored at the mast at Vadsø, the most northern point in Norway. After six hours stay for refuelling the airship continued its journey north, arriving at the South Cape of Svalbard at 2 am on 7 May. Five hours later they were at King’s Bay, despite the failure of one of the engines, which was repaired in flight.
A canvas-sided airship hangar had been built to house Norge, as well as a mooring mast. This had been a titanic task, begun the previous autumn, and completed through the Arctic winter working entirely by artificial light. While heading for this they could clearly see two ships in the bay, Heimdal, Amundsen’s own depot ship, and Chantier, the ship that had brought Commander Byrd’s expedition to Svalbard.
