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Ocean but the expedition would not be
over until they had a successful landing.
The most difficult part of the flight now
began. A gale picked up and the airship
was carried westwards over the Bering
Strait and even the engines at full power
could not correct the course. At 6 pm on
13 May, they were probably not far from
Cape Serdze Kamen on the Siberian coast
but by 11 pm, they were back near the
Alaskan coast. The weather and winds
grew worse and caused the sideways drift
of the Norge. The airship passed over
Cape Prince of Wales at 3:30 pm but it
was being buffeted and driven backwards
and then forwards by the strong winds.
At this point, the crew did not know
their exact location but a decision was
made to land as soon as possible. For
a bit, the weather cleared and an ice-
covered bay near the small settlement of
Teller was spotted and this was a bit less
than 100 miles from the larger settlement
at Nome. Bad weather could be seen in
the distance and as soon as the landing
lines were secured, Nobile ordered that
the gasbag be deflated. On 14 May, aThe flight
continued on to
Alaska but the
airship was now
over completely
unknown
territory.
Amundsen went
to the nose of
the cabin to look
for any land
but they soon
ran into a thick
fog, which made looking for anything
impossible. The fog seemed to wrap
around the airship and this led to a layer
of ice forming. The propellers began to
throw chunks of ice into the fragile fabric
covering. This could, of course, lead to
the puncturing of the hydrogen cells and
the crew ran back and forth on the keel
with rubber patches and glue, making
repairs as rapidly as possible. Even more
disturbing was the fact the ship’s aerial
and small propeller that powered the
generator had frozen solid. With no
power, the radio was completely out. If
the airship was forced down onto the
ice, there was no way the crew could let
rescuers know their position.
On 13 May at 0645 GMT, they
spotted land below and a short time
later overflew Wainwright where
Amundsen and Oskar Omdal had built
a small cabin during 1922/23. They
could even look down at the cabin and
see the new inhabitants waving at the
airship from the roof.
The crew had achieved the goal of
flying over the North Pole and the Arcticunreliable and the airship had to be
steered by using a sextant that measured
the position of the sun (which was up
all night that time of year) against the
horizon. Because the surface below was
totally covered, using this instrument was
vital. At one point, the crewman in charge
of the instrument got distracted by other
duties and failed to keep the mechanism
aligned properly with the axis of earth.
This caused Nobile to accidently fly the
airship in a circle, costing valuable time
and fuel.
At midnight, the tension was broken
a bit for a small celebration. It was
Ellsworth’s 46th birthday. “It isn’t often,”
remarked Amundsen, “that you can fly
over the North Pole on your birthday.”
On 12 May at 0125 GMT (Greenwich
Mean Time), the Norge reached the
North Pole and Norwegian, American,
and Italian flags were dropped onto
the ice. However, trouble was brewing.
Relations between Amundsen and
Nobile, which had been lukewarm at best,
were further strained by the freezing and
noisy conditions in the airship’s cramped
control car and they became even worse
when Amundsen noted that the dropped
Italian flag was larger than the other two.
Amundsen would later recall, with some
scorn, that under Nobile the Norge had
become a “circus wagon of the skies.”
Nobile would claim that Amundsen
greatly exaggerated the situation. The
arrival over the North Pole meant that
Amundsen and his fellow explorer Oskar
Wisting (working as rudder operator on
the airship) were the first men to reach
the North and South Poles.
BY NORGE TO THE POLE
(continued from page 44)The sight of the airship stunned natives who had never seen
any form of flying machine.When Italia (which was pretty much identical to Norge but with
minor improvements) disappeared with Nobile and crew, a massive
international search was launched.