Airship To The Arctic

"GRIPPING. ... One of the greatest polar rescue efforts ever mounted." —Wall Street Journal The riveting true story of the largest polar rescue mission in history: the desperate race to find the survivors of the glamorous Arctic airship Italia, which crashed near the North Pole in 1928. Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24, 1928, the world-famous exploring airship Italia—code-named N-4—was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the Arctic ice, triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search was Roald Amundsen, the poles’ greatest explorer, who himself soon went missing in the frozen wastes. Amundsen’s body has never been found, the last victim of one of the Arctic’s most enduring mysteries . . . During the Roaring Twenties, zeppelin travel embodied the exuberant spirit of the age. Germany’s luxurious Graf Zeppelin would run passenger service from Germany to Brazil; Britain’s Imperial Airship was launched to connect an empire; in America, the iconic spire of the rising Empire State Building was designed as a docking tower for airships. But the novel mode of transport offered something else, too: a new frontier of exploration. Whereas previous Arctic and Antarctic explorers had subjected themselves to horrific—often deadly—conditions in their attempts to reach uncharted lands, airships held out the possibility of speedily soaring over the hazards. In 1926, the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen—the first man to reach the South Pole—partnered with the Italian airship designer General Umberto Nobile to pioneer flight over the North Pole. As Mark Piesing uncovers in this masterful account, while that mission was thought of as a great success, it was in fact riddled with near disasters and political pitfalls. In May 1928, his relationship with Amundsen corroded beyond the point of collaboration, Nobile, his dog, and a crew of fourteen Italians, one Swede, and one Czech, set off on their own in the airship Italia to discover new lands in the Arctic Circle and to become the first airship to land men on the pole. But near the North Pole they hit a terrible storm and crashed onto the ice. Six crew members were never seen again; the injured (including Nobile) took refuge on ice flows,unprepared for the wretched conditions and with little hope for survival. Coincidentally, in Oslo a gathering of famous Arctic explorers had assembled for a celebration of the first successful flight from Alaska to Norway. Hearing of the accident, Amundsen set off on his own desperate attempt to find Nobile and his men. As the weeks passed and the largest international polar rescue expedition mobilized, the survivors engaged in a last-ditch struggle against weather, polar bears, and despair. When they were spotted at last, the search plane landed—but the pilot announced that there was room for only one passenger. . . . Braiding together the gripping accounts of the survivors and their heroic rescuers, N-4 Down tells the unforgettable true story of what happened when the glamour and restless daring of the zeppelin age collided with the harsh reality of earth’s extremes.

The first two attempts to reach this remote and frigid outpost by air are examined, starting with a failed balloon attempt by a Swedish engineer in 1897. 31 illustrations.

Umberto Nobile was an airship designer and pilot who became an Arctic explorer. In 1926 he flew the airship 'Norge' from Rome to Teller in Alaska, by way of the North Pole. He returned to the Arctic in 1928 with the airship 'Italia', and disappeared on 25 May of the same year. This is the story of the 'Italia', put into the context of the airship

The fifth book in a series about scientific wonder. Dreaming, daring, thinking, and doing. For researchers ages 6 years and up. Early twentieth century. Roald Amundsen plans to travel to the northernmost point of the globe. But after experiencing difficulties with ships and airplanes in polar regions, he needs a new method of travel. For many years, people had flown in airships. Could an airship take him to the North Pole? Would it work in such brutal cold? Eventually, Roald became the first person ever to reach both poles, but it took the work of many people--and some animals!--to make his journey possible . . .

From the first lighter-than-air ascent in the Arctic in 1799 to the flight of the Graf Zeppelin in 1931, this book describes the early plans and endeavours, including flights by Walter Wellman in 1907 and 1909, as well as the Nobile flights across the Pole in 1926 and 1928. It addresses many questions: Why did Amundsen launch such a vicious attack on Nobile in the wake of the flight of the Norge across the Arctic Sea to Alaska? What was the truth behind the dramatic happenings following the crash of the Italia on its return from the North Pole? What lay behind the rumour that the Graf Zeppelin was to have been constructed outside Germany? What was the role of Dr. Schutte? Was it true that Eckener had never really intended to have the Graf Zeppelin fly to the Pole? Why did the crew of the Graf Zeppelin refuse to fly to the Pole in 1931?

By the time it was over, eight of the crew and nine rescuers were dead and scores more had been put in harm’s way. The disappearance and search for the airship Italia was headline news, all over the world, for months after its last radio message on 25 May 1928. It had reported being to the north-east of its base at Kings Bay, on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, returning from a long flight to Greenland and the North Pole. Ships, aircraft and men from many countries converged on Kings Bay to participate in the rescue effort. The Italian airship designer and pilot Umberto Nobile had flown to the North Pole and beyond in 1926. He resolved to return to the Arctic with a new airship in 1928. The expedition had geographical and scientific aims, but the political environment was also an important motivator. Benito Mussolini and his fascist party had come to power in 1922 and a successful expedition to the Arctic would be excellent propaganda.

"Artic Mission recounts two concurrent Navy Department penetrations of the Arctic in 1958, one an unclassified project, the other absolutely secret. Sailing under the direct orders of the Commander in Chief, the nuclear submarine Nautilus would, if successful, reaffirm U.S. technological prowess with a stupendous demonstration; an under-ice transit of the Arctic Basin via the North Pole. The airships unclassified mission was an Office of Naval Research project, with the objective to assess the suitability of non-rigid airships for support of field parties deployed throughout the North, ashore and afloat. That August, BUNO 126719 crossed the Arctic Circle, the sole military airship ever to do so, en route to rendezvous with a U.S. Air Force ice-rafted camp in the Arctic Ocean. As 719 pressed north, Nautilus pierced the geographic pole, then without changing course logged the first-ever transit of the deep-ocean Arctic, Pacific to Atlantic. Based on interviews and correspondence with dozens of participants, and on Navy Department reports, the work presents first-hand material throughout, and is a distinct contribution to naval literature."--Amazon.

In 1928, defying Italy's Mussolini and the entire fascist party, aviator Umberto Nobile, undertook a daring expedition to the North Pole in Italia, one of several successful airships he had designed. The tragic crash of the airship on the ice and search for survivors was the most extensive in Arctic history, involving seven nations. Although Nobile and eight crew members survived, those lost included not only their tragic companions but searchers, including the famous explorer, Roald Amundsen. The Italia tragedy was described by The New York Times as "one of the most astonishing episodes in the history of aviation."