“His skill as a flyer is recognised by all. His bravery and resolution will stand out clearly . . . With his light outlook on life, his glad smile and happy nature, he was an invaluable comrade on the flight.’
A third naval aviator was appointed although he flew as a mechanic and reserve pilot. This was Oskar Omdal, who had been with Amundsen in the United States and Alaska during the expedition of 1922–23. And Amundsen wrote:
“If things went with him or against him it was all the same. Nothing seemed to depress him. He stood beside me in my two unhappy attempts in 1923 and 1924, and you can believe that it took a real man to show courage and keenness in a third attempt, but Omdal did not disappoint me. ‘So long as you don’t give in,’ he said to me, ‘you shall always find me ready.’ He is a marvellous being; he seems to have several limbs more than the rest of us. He moves slicker and thinks quicker. It is impossible to depress him.”
In the book Amundsen wrote (with contributions from other members of the expedition) in 1925 he defined the expedition’s aim as being to:
“Trek in as far as possible over the unknown stretch between Spitsbergen and the Pole to find out what is there or what isn’t there.”
Harald Sverdrup was still aboard the Maude in the summer of 1924, and he had sent a telegram to Amundsen indicating that his tidal observations indicated that it was unlikely that there were any large tracts of land north of Alaska.
It is reasonable to assume that before the flight a major aim was to make the first flight to the Pole as well as put a swath of the Polar Ocean on the map. If, as seemed likely, there was no land to be discovered, they could at least confirm its absence.
Amundsen meet up with Riiser-Larsen at Marina di Pisa where Riiser-Larsen oversaw the preparation of the aircraft for the flight. One of Amundsen’s biographers wrote that:
“The lieutenant was the expert, the polar explorer the fantasist.”
This is fair comment given that Riiser-Larsen’s experience and expertise in aviation was in marked contrast to Amundsen’s. Riiser-Larsen was a man whose professionalism in all aspects of aviation equaled Amundsen’s in all aspects of Arctic exploration by surface travel. The problem was that Amundsen was expedition leader whose decisions were final, while Riiser-Larsen was second-in-command, and this may account for some of the shortcomings of the plan they acted on. On February 25, 1925, the two men left Italy by train having left instructions that the Wals were to be crated and sent north by ship. After a stop in Berlin the explorers arrived near the Norwegian capital (now called Oslo) on March 4. Riiser-Larsen travelled on alone to deal with the crowds. The fact that Amundsen was constantly plotting to avoid crowds of curious citizens and journalists is testimony to his fame and the intense interest in his expeditions. The fact that the expedition would use leading edge technology (aeroplanes) only added to the interest. Amundsen would have acknowledged that he sought fame, as it helped him raise money for his expeditions, and that he enjoyed the limelight most of the time. He would not have been human if he thought (like the English playwright and wit Oscar Wilde) that “the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” On March 11 a telegram was received advising that the planes had left Marina by ship on that day.
On March 30, Ellsworth arrived in Oslo by ship, and on the day before their departure he and Amundsen attended a dinner held in their honor. At 18:30 they were seen off from the East Station by a large crowd of well-wishers and journalists. On April 9, 1925, the Expedition and its equipment departed Tromso bound for Ny-Ålesund on Kings Bay. The ships were the motor ship Hobby (carrying the aircraft as deck cargo in six huge crates and 21 smaller containers) and the naval vessel Farm (not to be confused with the famous Fram) which had been placed at Amundsen’s disposal. It was early in the season and Amundsen had some anxiety over the dangers of the voyage including ice and bad weather. After a stormy voyage, during which the ships had lost sight of each other, the ships arrived at Ny-Ålesund to find the bay iced over. Another ship cut a channel through the ice so that the expedition ships could approach the shore. They moored near the coal company’s jetty and began unloading the aircraft. With the expedition were Schulte-Frohlinde (director of SCMP), his two mechanics Feucht and Zinsmayer, and Rolls-Royce mechanic Green. All of them helped to get the crates ashore and the Wals assembled and ready for flight. There were two meteorologists with the expedition, and they collated radio reports of the weather information from places around the margins of the Polar Sea and prepared weather forecasts. Amundsen particularly appreciated the work of sail-maker Ronne who prepared everything from trousers to sleeping bags to tents. Ronne gave Amundsen a large knife which proved to be invaluable when the ice runways were being prepared on the ice at 88° north. During the stay at Kings Bay the expedition made itself comfortable and looked forward to Fridays when they could use the bath house with its boiler fired by coal from the mine. Amundsen biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen wrote of Ny-Ålesund that it was “entirely taken up with Pole fever” for those few weeks in the spring of 1925.
A fuselage being towed across the ice of Kings Bay from the Hobby to land at Ny-Ålesund.
The two Dornier Wals were assembled in the open at the mining settlement of Ny-Ålesund. as photographers took still and motion pictures for the book and documentary film about the expedition.
Sea ice was still a problem this early in the season and on May 29, Farm had to turn back when it attempted to sail to Green Harbor (on Spitsbergen about 50 nm south of Kings Bay) to deliver and pick up mail.
Amundsen also had decisions to make about an expedition to be mounted in 1926. Riiser-Larsen had the information that the Italian semi-rigid airship N1 could be purchased for $100,000. It had always been assumed that a large airship would cost more than they could raise. Ellsworth offered to put up the money, and it was decided to negotiate the purchase and organize the expedition as soon as the 1925 flight was completed. The 1925 flight now became less important and was represented as reconnaissance toward the North Pole rather than attempt to fly to the Pole and back.
The preparations were marked by the attention to detail that Amundsen applied in all of his expeditions, with a precise plan for food for each man for each day and the contents of each man’s rucksack. It was intended that each man would have equipment and food for about a month on the ice. There were pistols and rifles to shoot game and for protection if they encountered polar bears. They carried gear for a surface journey across the ice including skis and collapsible sledges and boats. Riiser-Larsen and Dietrichson had to allocate time to instruct Amundsen and Ellsworth in air navigation as they (the pilots) would be fully occupied with flying. Amundsen taught Ellsworth to ski, as this would be an essential skill if they had to trek out from a landing on the ice. Amundsen and Ellsworth each had three chronometers and checked them against the radioed time signal from the Eiffel Tower every day for 14 days because their accuracy was essential for accurate navigation. There were three chronometers so that they could be checked against each other. Another essential for navigation were sextants to measure the angle between horizon and the sun. An aircraft sextant should have an artificial horizon built into it so that it could be used if the horizon was indistinct or invisible. The sextants they had were defective in that this feature did not work. They had ordered radio sets for each aircraft but they had not arrived. The radios could have been used to supplement the onboard navigation by taking bearings on the radio stations afloat and ashore at Kings Bay. Amundsen and Ellsworth elected to go in the knowledge that navigation would be problematical and that they could not summon help if they could not make the return flight.
Feucht, Riiser-Larsen, and Amundsen aboard N25 just before take-off on the flight toward the North Pole.
Dietrichson and Ellsworth in their cockpits waiting to take-off late on May 21, 1925.
Amundsen in the front cockpit of Dornier Wal N25 shortly before departure from Kings Bay late on the afternoon of May 21, 1925. From left to right are;
the windshield of the pilots cockpit, sun compass, airspeed indicator, and venturi which was used to drive the gyroscopic instruments used in blind flying. The sun was low throughout the flight and blinkers were placed behind the clear windshields of both cockpits as soon as they reached cruising altitude. The two Dorniers would have the sky to themselves and so there was no risk of collision as long as the Wals kept to a loose formation with a clear view of each other.
On May 9, the N25 was ready and taxied on the ice of the bay, although neither aircraft was flown before they departed for the Polar flight. The day of departure for the Pole would be the first and only time that the Wals would take off with a full over-load. Amundsen met with Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, and Dietrichson in late April and announced that he intended to over-fly the Pole and fly in to Alaska. Ellsworth’s aircraft would return to Kings Bay. In this he was re-enacting his famous announcement at Madeira in 1910 that Fram was not going to the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole but on to Antarctica and the South Pole. The difference here was that he did not possess the expertise to assess the risks the journey would involve. The distance from Ny-Ålesund to the North Pole and on to Wainwright, Alaska was over 1,800 nm and the range of a Dornier Wal was about 1,300 nm, even if no allowance was made for wind, navigational issues, and a reserve. Riiser-Larsen and Dietrichson vetoed the plan (for perfectly good technical reasons) and Amundsen had to agree, grumbling in his diary:
“I ask myself so often, where are the guts? If they are the slightest bit uncertain, they pull in their horns.”
On May 21, 1925, the aircraft and the men were ready and the weather and ice conditions were suitable for the take-off. The plan had always been dependent on the ice in the Bay being strong enough for the flying boats to take off from. The machines were overloaded, and if the Bay had been ice free they would have been so low in the water that they could not have accelerated enough to get on the step and could not have taken off. The normal maximum take-off weight was 5,700 kg and the Wals were loaded to 6,660 kg, an overload of almost 1,000 kg.
At 17:00, they were ready for departure with the engines warmed up and the final details attended to. The crew members donned or made ready the special clothing and footwear that was necessary for long flights in open cockpits in sub-zero conditions. The mechanics were protected from the slipstream in their enclosed positions and needed to move around to manage the fuel and engines, and so were less warmly clad than the observers and pilots. The sun compasses were set going, final goodbyes made, and the machines taxied down the ramp and onto the ice of the bay. In N25 were expedition leader and navigator Amundsen, pilot Riiser-Larsen, and mechanic Feucht. In N24 were Ellsworth, pilot Dietrichson, and mechanic Omdal.
Amundsen biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen wrote of Ny-Ålesund that it was ‘entirely taken up with Pole fever’ for those few weeks in the spring of 1925. The two Dornier Wals surrounded by onlookers at Ny-Ålesund just before take-off on June 21, 1925.
The N25 made its take-off first with the ice bending beneath its weight and the sea water surging up as it made its run with both engines running flat out at 2,000rpm. After a tense 40 or 50 seconds, Riiser-Larsen eased the wheel back and the machine took to the air. Dietrichson in N24 had a more eventful take-off. In turning through 90° on to the slipway (with the help of some of the men watching the departure) the pilot heard a sound like a row of rivets popping and, sure enough, when he slowed down in the middle of the Bay so the crew could don their cold weather gear, the ice sank beneath machines weight and the hull started to fill with sea-water. They hurriedly finished dressing and made a full throttle dash across the ice with Dietrichson letting the air speed rise to 65 kt. before pulling back on the wheel to rise into the air. The take-off had taken 1,400 m.
The two Wals flew in loose formation up the western coast of Spitsbergen, passed Danes Island and Amsterdam Island off the northwestern point of Spitsbergen, and made their departure for the North Pole. The mean temperature during the flight was about 8.6°F, and the airspeed was around 80 kt. giving a substantial wind-chill factor if they had to expose any part of their bodies to the slipstream. The clothes and footwear had been carefully chosen, and cold was not a problem. They were facing the low sun, and even dark sun glasses did not make for comfortable vision. They had anticipated this problem and they installed shields called blinkers behind the windscreens in the bow and pilots cockpits in each machine. As long as they kept the formation loose there was no risk of collision.
The expedition was the most exciting event in the history of the mining settlement which had been operating at Ny-Ålesund since 1916. The miners show a close interest in one of the Dornier Wals as it waited to take-off. When Amundsen returned to Kings Bay in 1926 he found a monument to the men of the 1925 flight.
The Dornier Wals were overloaded with three crew, survival gear, and fuel and oil for 16 hours of flight. The also carried both still cameras and motion-picture cameras to document the expedition. The Dorniers were able to take off and land on water, ice or packed snow. Here N25 gets a push from the onlookers as it slides down the ramp onto the frozen surface of Kings Bay. N25 was crewed by Amundsen as navigator, Riiser-Larsen pilot, and Feucht as mechanic. Feucht was a last minute choice and had no experience in the Arctic.
As they flew north Amundsen tried to take a sun-sight with his sextant. The horizon was indistinct. This should not have been a problem because they had ‘bulb sextants’ which provided an artificial horizon. They had discovered at Spitsbergen that these sextants did not work and had chosen to depart knowing that, if the horizon was indistinct, they would not be able to determine longitude. Latitude was easier to calculate and Amundsen kept track of it without too much trouble. They were over cloud cover so they could not use the drift-meter to determine their drift or ground speed. The horizon was indistinct, so the sextants could not be used. Dead reckoning gave them a general idea of their position but could not provide a fix. Wind was probably drifting them to the west or east of their track. The sun compass and the magnetic compasses gave them a reliable heading and they continued to maintain a heading of due north.
Early on in the flight thick clouds and fog made them climb to over 3,000 ft. to stay in the clear air. Shortly afterwards Dietrichson noticed the engine radiator temperature gauge showing a rising temperature and rang the bell which summoned Omdal. He later wrote:
“The indicator had passed 100°, and I felt sure that we would have to make a forced landing. Through small holes in the fog we could see the drift ice below us where a landing would certainly mean a wrecked plane. The temperature rose higher and the last I saw was, that it indicated 115°, when the thermometer burst, and my hopes sank to zero. I rang again for Omdal, but a little time elapsed before he came, and I judged that he was busy. Meantime I was astonished to see that the engines still went as well as ever. I had throttled them down to 1600 revolutions, but expected to hear a crack any minute; and how goes it with the forward motor?”
The engines continued to run and the flight continued with the Wals flying in a loose formation. As he flew Dietrichson thought about the conflicting advice they had received about whether or not they would find places suitable for landing both the Dorniers:
“Nobody had so far observed the conditions from a flying man’s point of view. This we were quite clear about, but we depended on the material at our disposal, namely our flying boats, which if the worst should happen, ought to be able to take us back home without our making a landing.”
This is a curious observation to make because a return without landing and with a small reserve of fuel and endurance could only happen if they had agreed, before take-off, to turn around at some defined point short of the Pole. They had taken off without agreeing to do this. By default, they set out knowing that landings would have to be made and that they were hostages to fortune. At about 82° north they flew out of the fog belt and could again see the surface. They flew at altitudes varying from 3,000 ft. to 10,000 ft. (about the service ceiling of a Do
rnier Wal), and looked carefully for land. Of land there was no sign. Their view of the surface was not reassuring. Dietrichson noted:
“The ice looked quite different to what I expected. Instead of the big kilometer ice plain, we saw ice plains which through cracks or bergs had been divided into small, irregular pieces, where it was impossible to land. And open water lanes? These were reduced to small snake-like cracks, following a winding course, on which it was impossible to land . . . Hour after hour passed without the conditions below use changing to any noticeable degree.”
After about eight hours, when they should have been in the vicinity of the Pole, depending on the wind direction and strength (they had been unable to get a fix on their position during the flight) they saw blue water rippling in the sunshine, the first seen since leaving Spitsbergen. They had planned to land on the ice if at all possible, but the ice was broken and quite unsuitable for a landing so N25 descended toward a lead. As Riiser-Larsen reduced power the rear engine started to back fire and lose power. He was obliged to land in a lead full of slush and small pieces of ice which at least slowed N25 down. Amundsen saw one of the wing-tips pass over the top of an iceberg close enough to blow off some loose snow:
“We zig-zagged along in a manner which was most impressive and alarming . . . I expected every moment to see the left wing destroyed. The speed now slackened in the thick slush, and we stopped at the end of the arm-nose up against the iceberg. It was again a question of millimeters. A little more speed and the nose would have been stove in.”
From Pole to Pole Page 8