From Pole to Pole

by Garth James Cameron

  The Latham 47.02 flew non-stop from Caudebec-en-Caux to Bergen in 13 hrs. Amundsen and Dietrichsen joined it at Bergen on June 17, and flew to Tromsø. At 16.00 on June 18, 1928, the Latham took off from Tromsø. It was sighted by a fishermen heading towards Kings Bay on Svalbard. Signals with the Latham were received until about 19.00. It failed to arrive, and the six passengers and crew were not seen again.

  The flying boat headed down the fjord, slowly climbing to cruising altitude. At the seaward end of the fjord it turned on to a heading which would take it northwest across the Barents Sea, past Bear Island, and on to Svalbard. A fisherman saw the aircraft fly towards a fog bank, apparently climbing before it disappeared from view. The Latham broadcast routine messages until about 19:00. No more messages were received and the aircraft did not arrive at Kings Bay.

  At first the concern at Amundsen’s failure to arrive was tempered by a belief that Amundsen might have chosen to fly directly to the survivors camp on the ice northeast of Svalbard. The Italia survivors were in radio contact with the Citta de Milano at Kings Bay, and updated their position as the pack ice drifted. Amundsen had a reputation for doing the unexpected. In 1903, he had sailed from Kristiania in Gjøa in the middle of the night to dodge creditors who might have arrested the ship. He said he would pay them when he returned (which turned out to be in 1907). In 1911, he sailed from the same port bound for the Bering Strait and the North Pole. At Tenerife he announced that Fram was bound for Antarctica and the South Pole. Only three years before he flew out from Tromsø, Amundsen and his five companions had disappeared into the Arctic Ocean and reappeared 28 days later when most people had believed them dead. Thoughtful people would have known that the flying boat could not have operated from the ice and it was unlikely that it would have found a lead to land and takeoff from. The days passed, and there was no news of the Latham. It gradually became clear that it had gone down in the Barents Sea. The search for Italia survivors was widened to take in Amundsen and his companions.

  There were a number of false reports that the six men had been found, including one in an Australian newspaper on July 4 saying that they had been rescued by the British yacht, Albion.

  There were many possible causes for the loss of the aircraft and its crew and passengers. Firstly, it is possible that at least one of the two engines had failed. A heavily loaded aeroplane of this type would probably be unable to maintain height, even if the other engine continued to run. The Latham’s engines drove large four-bladed fixed-pitch propellers that could not be feathered to reduce drag. A fixed-pitched propeller produces an enormous amount of drag in flight when its engine is not running, particularly if it is windmilling in the slipstream. It is a curious fact that a windmilling propeller produces more drag than a stationary one. On one engine there would have been an involuntary descent. The remaining engine would only reduce the rate of descent, flatten the glide, and give the pilot time to plan a forced landing. A landing on the open sea would have been inevitable. The Latham had no de-icing gear, and an ice build-up was likely in cloud or fog. Icing increases the weight, changes the wing profile for the worse and could cause involuntary descent to the water, hopefully to a controlled landing. It could also cause the aircraft to spin or spiral out of control into the sea. Such a crash would not be survivable. Another possibility is that there were navigational problems, and they landed after they ran out of fuel, or made a precautionary landing just before they ran out. Flight in cloud or fog deprives the pilot of visual references, and blind flying instruments, as well as pilots trained in their use, are required for safe flight in cloud or with no visible horizon. With inadequate instruments or piloting skills (or both) a pilot will become rapidly disorientated, and spin or spiral into the sea, killing all aboard instantly. If they made a controlled landing, they would stick with the aeroplane as long as it floated. Flying boats are vulnerable to wind and waves in the open sea, so it would be a distinct possibility that hull would be breached or a tip float knocked off, causing the aircraft to capsize. Either way, the flying boat would be likely to sink.

  The six men lost somewhere in the Barents Sea with the Latham 47.02 on June 18, 1928.

  On June 20, Italian pilot Maddalena located the red tent and dropped supplies, many of which were damaged by the drop. On June 22, Swedish and Italian pilots dropped supplies, which were recovered and raised the morale of Nobile and the others left after the departure of Malmgren, Mariano, and Zappi. On June 23, Swedish aviator Lundborg and his observer landed their ski-equipped Fokker CV on the ice, and Nobile made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his long life. He allowed himself to be persuaded that the Italian government wanted him rescued first and flown to the Citta de Milano. Nobile would justify his decision by arguing that he consented so that he could coordinate the search, which had been chaotic up to date. The Fokker has two open cockpits and normally carries two, a pilot and an observer. Nobile squeezed into the rear cockpit alongside the observer; he took his dog, Titina, with him. He had committed a major error of judgment. He was injured (he had a broken leg) but so was another survivor. He was the captain of the Italia. The tradition and the expectation of the public was that he be rescued last. It made matters worse that he elected to take his dog with him. The dog weighed only a few kilos, and took up little room, yet it was symbolic in the worst possible way. The captain left his crew, and his dog was rescued before any of them.

  Lundborg returned to the ice flow, flying solo so that he could rescue two more survivors but the Fokker flipped on to its back during the landing, and he was trapped on the ice at the red tent. On July 6 Swedish pilot Birger Schyberg landed his de Havilland Moth on the ice and rescued Lundborg.

  The Soviet Union had contributed several ice-breakers to the search. When Krassin left Tromsø after coaling, the wharf was crowded with people shouting “rescue Amundsen,” and there was a strong feeling that everything possible should be done to rescue him and his comrades. The search for Amundsen eventually became as complex and long running as that for the Italia. Krassin pushed its way through the pack ice towards the survivors’ camp, and picked up Mariano and Zappi on July 12, after they had been walking across the ice for 42 days.

  Later the same day Krassin rescued the five men at the red tent. Krassin did not have the coal to make a long search for the six men who drifted away from the crash site in the derelict Italia on May 25. An air and sea search for them was made too late to do any good, and no trace of the six was ever found.

  A massive search for the aircraft, and its occupants had been mounted, involving many ships, aircraft and men. Participants included units of the Royal Norwegian Navy. Riiser-Larsen took part in the search aboard Hobby. The vessel had been under charter to an American, Louise Arner Boyd. Boyd was a woman of means who financed and led nine Arctic expeditions, created a unique archive of motion picture and still photographs, wrote a number of books, and was awarded many decorations by private and government organizations. She was 41 in 1928, and was on her third expedition to the Arctic. When the news of Amundsen’s disappearance reached her, she immediately offered the ship, its crew, and herself to the search. The Hobby searched for ten weeks and sailed about 10,000 nm above the Arctic Circle, looking at every island or coastline that Amundsen might have reached. Afterwards Miss Boyd was awarded a high Norwegian honor for her efforts. She had also shot 20,000 feet of movie film during the search.

  Other units engaged in the search included the French Navy cruiser Strasbourg, and the Norwegian coast defense battleship HNoMS Tordenskjold. On August 31, a fishing boat picked up an item from the sea off the coast near Tromso that was positively identified as coming from the Latham, and the New York Times for September 2, 1928, ran banner headlines:

  A tip float from the Latham was recovered from the sea near Tromsø on August 31, 1928. It had been torn off the bottom of a wing tip. It was identified from a small repair made at Bergen on the way north. The only other item found was an empty fuel tank recovered from the
sea in October 1928.

  AMUNDSEN PONTOON FOUND OFF NORTH NORWAY COAST;

  HOPE FOR CREW ABANDONED

  IDENTIFICATION IS DEFINITE

  Repairs Prove Relic Found

  By Fishing Boat is From

  Explorers Plane

  FLOAT WAS WRENCHED OFF

  The item was a float from under one of the wingtips of the flying boat, and was identified from a small repair made to it at Bergen. The struts and bracing wires were still attached to it, and the four strut ends show that it was torn from the lower surface of the wing. There was then no realistic hope of finding any of the men alive. At that point there was still uncertainty as to what happened. The float could have been torn off in an out of control spiral or spin into the sea. It is equally possible that a controlled ditching had been made, and then the float was ripped off by wind and wave as the men struggled to keep their machine afloat. If it had been a controlled ditching, they would have had a significantly greater chance of survival if they had been flying a Dornier Wal, as used on the Amundsen-Ellsworth Polar Flight of 1925, as it was more seaworthy than any contemporary type of flying boat.

  On October 13, an empty petrol tank was found in the sea south of Tromsø. It is reported that it had had its bung stopped with a hastily whittled piece of wood. This is consistent with two scenarios. If they were on the water in the Latham and could see the tip float about to go, they would have sent one or two of the crew out on the opposite wing to provide weight to lift the vulnerable side out of the water. The empty tank could have been hurriedly made waterproof and lashed under the vulnerable side. They would not have been able to take off, but it would stabilise the boat laterally and keep it afloat for a time. The other possibility is that the Latham had lost its tip float and was sinking, and the crew’s only option was to improvise a raft from available components, including the petrol tank. They then took to the raft, and hours or days later drowned or died of exposure or thirst.

  The Italia crash had now claimed 17 lives. Foreman motor mechanic, Vincenzo Pomella was killed instantly when the rear engine car was ripped off in the crash. Professor Aldo Pontremoli, chief motor engineer Ettore Arduino, motor mechanic Attilio Caratti, journalist Ugo Lago, motor mechanic Calisto Ciocca, and foreman rigger Renato Alessandrini drifted off with the derelict Italia, and died somewhere on the pack ice. Dr. Finn Malmgren had died attempting to walk across the ice from the crash site to dry land. Roald Amundsen, Leif Dietrichson, Rene Guilbaud, Albert Cavelier de Cuverville, Gilbert Brazy, and Emile Valette had been lost with the Latham on June 18, or soon after. Others had died in September 1928 on an aircraft returning to Europe from Svalbard. On September 29, 1928, an Italian flying boat with a crew of five was flying home from Svalbard across France. As it followed a river in poor visibility, it struck wires and crashed into the river. Two of the crew were rescued, but Pierluigi Penzo, Tullio Crosio, and Giuseppe Della Gatta died in the crash.

  On December 14, 1928, the Norwegian people celebrated the seventeenth anniversary of Amundsen’s arrival at the South Pole, and marked the death of their hero. Flags were flown, speeches made by public men, the national anthem was sung, and pupils in their classrooms were told about Amundsen’s achievements. The radio stations devoted the entire day to the event. At 12 noon church bells tolled, trams stopped, flags were lowered to half-mast, and the whole nation held a two-minute silence. Amundsen was dead, and had no grave, yet the people accepted that he departed his life in a way that he might have wished for, taking chances in a noble cause in the Arctic that he loved.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gardens of Stone and an AUV

  North Cape February 1929, Barents Sea 2009

  Amundsen and his comrades have not been forgotten.

  On February 6–19, 1929, the cruise ship Stella Polaris made a voyage to North Cape, Norway, which would have been Amundsen’s last sight of his native land. Aboard was Fridtjof Nansen, Arctic explorer and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who made a speech on the first anniversary of Amundsen’s death.

  The Latham had been built, and had departed, from Caudebec-en-Caux, which lies on the right bank of the Seine 47 km west-northwest of Rouen. On November 5, 1931, a striking sculpture and monument was unveiled at Caudebec-en-Caux with all due ceremony. The centerpiece is a three dimensional representation of the forward part of the Latham 47, which flies out of the stone in a climbing turn to the right. The monument is enormous and steps lead from the road up to it. It dominates the location and includes the names of the passengers and crew lost with the aircraft, the dates and places where it flew, and two large metal replicas of Aeronavale wings. Elsewhere, Guilbaud is remembered with a striking monument consisting of a full length sculpture of him, and a cross piece with images of the aircraft and its flight in bas-relief. There is a Rue Gilbert Brazy, and a handsome stone column surmounted by a metal bust of him and with a metal bas-relief image of leaves on its front.

  At Tromsø is a stone and metal marker, paid for by the newspaper Le Temps, commemorating the events of 1928, and unveiled during a visit of the ship Stella Polaris in 1934. Also at Tromsø is a monument to the memories of the 17 men who died on the Italia, on the Latham, and on the way home from the search effort. It was unveiled on June 22, 1969, and Umberto Nobile attended the ceremony.

  Amundsen and his companions were not forgotten. This monument was unveiled at Caudebec-en-Caux in 1931. On the 80th anniversary of the unveiling, in 2011, there was a ceremony which was attended by the Ambassadors of Norway, Sweden, Russia, and the United States, local and national politicians, officers of the French navy, and an honor guard.

  Captain Roald Amundsen, 1872–1928.

  On November 5, 2011, the eightieth anniversary of the unveiling of the monument at Caudebec-en-Caux was marked by a major ceremony attended by leading politicians, naval officers, and the Ambassadors of Norway, Sweden, Russia and Italy. Flowers were placed at the monument, a parade was held, and an honor guard of sailors in formal uniforms with white gaiters presented arms.

  Images of Amundsen are too numerous to catalog. At Ny-Ålesund is a metal bust on a plinth made of stone slabs. The wood and canvas hangar at Ny-Ålesund vanished many years ago, although the foundations are said to be visible. The airship mast, designed and built in Italy, and assembled just before the Norge arrived in 1926 still stands. It has not been used since the Italia took off on its final flight in 1928. Attached to the base of the mast is a rectangle of metal embossed with images of Norge, the flags of Norway, Italy, and the United States standing at the North Pole and words including:

  AMUNDSEN-ELLSWORTH-NOBILE TRANS-POLAR FLIGHT 1926

  HONOURING A GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR.

  It was placed there by the Italian Air Force, and gives Nobile the equal recognition that he has always deserved. The mast at Vadsø survives, and has a plaque with a picture of Italia and text (in English) explaining its significance. There is a museum including a mock-up of the interior of the control car of an airship at the same location.

  Since Amundsen’s death, there has been a steady stream of books and magazine articles published about him, his men, and his rivals. Learned papers have been published analysing issues including whether or not Byrd reached the North Pole on his flight of May 9, 1926.

  In the early 1930s, a fishing vessel operating near Bear Island may have snagged and pulled to the surface an engine from Amundsen’s plane, but it slipped back into the sea.

  In 2004, a group of aviation historians tried to search the seabed where the Latham may have gone down, but bad weather caused the search to be abandoned. On May 21, 2007, the frigate Roald Amundsen was commissioned in the Royal Norwegian Navy.

  From August 20–September 5, 2009, the Norwegian ships HNoMS Tyr and CGV Harstad searched for the remains of Amundsen’s Latham in a rectangle of the sea floor about 30 km northwest of Bear Island. The expedition was organised by a German film company and lead by New Zealander Rob McCallum. Harstad was the recently commissioned fi
rst of a new class of offshore patrol vessels operated by Remoy Management for the Norwegian Coast Guard. Tyr is a mine sweeper, equipped to locate small sea mines, and has located World War II wrecks, including the German battleship Scharnhorst, and the submarines U-864 and U-735. It carries the Hugin 1000 MR Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). The search area was defined after reviewing the evidence of the cruising speed of the Latham, and the time that radio messages ceased. It also relies on the reported catch of wreckage by the fishing boat in this area in 1933. This is approximate at best, and the water is about 400 m deep in that area. The wood and metal structure of the Latham will be gone, but the search team hoped that the twin engines will have survived. The Hugin 1000 would be sent down to conduct a sonar search. The AUV is autonomous, can operate for 18 hours at a time, and has sonar that can resolve an image down to 5 cm in size.

  If Hugin found anything, the Scorpion ROV would be deployed to obtain high resolution images. After some weeks of searching, some of it amidst cold green seas, the ships returned having found nothing of interest. The Norwegian Navy was pleased that the Hugin 1000 performed perfectly. It is significant that interest in Amundsen and his fate is great enough to justify the expense of such a search, and the financing provided by the documentary company.

  In 2010, the major documentary film Roald Amundsen: Lost in the Arctic by Rudolph Herzog and covering the 2009 search was aired on television.