by Jeremy Scott
At 4.30 that afternoon in Kings Bay, Amundsen and Ellsworth were seated at dinner with their support party when they heard shouts from outside. An Italian burst into the mess crying, ‘She come!’ All rushed outside. The Jo Ford was flying in to circle the village then line up for her approach run. The aircraft touched down at the far end of the runway, slowed and taxied to the snow ramp from which it had set off, where an expectant crowd had congregated. It came to a halt, the cockpit door opened and Byrd stepped down to the ground, followed by Bennett. His support team, who’d been eating their evening meal aboard the Chantier, was still charging up the hill and Amundsen was the first to greet them. Balchen says that he’d never seen him display such emotion. Tears showed in his eyes as he threw his arms around the two men and embraced them, kissing each on the cheek. Then he was swept aside by the breathless scrum of Byrd’s party welcoming their leader home, pounding the air in their excitement and cheering his victory. Two pairs of burly men hoisted the flyers on their shoulders and made off with them down the icy slope and the whole mob followed, laughing and shouting with elation as they ran and slipped and skidded towards the Chantier.
The word was flashed by radio to a waiting world. At dawn next day the news was headlines in US papers and around the globe. In America Byrd became a national hero, a living legend. On the instant all his debts were solved and he was recognised as a superstar, the revered public figure he would remain for the rest of his life.
17.
OPERA BUFFO
It is Kings Bay, Spitsbergen, two days later. After round-the-clock work preparing the airship, the Norge is ready to take off on her voyage of 3,400 miles over the Pole to Alaska – but nobody shows up to board her. ‘I sent to Omdal to tell Amundsen that we would be ready to leave at five,’ Nobile writes, ‘But four and five went by without anyone turning up. I was tired. It had been a busy day: the sleepless night … and the impatient waiting had worn me out. Towards six I could stand it no longer. I threw myself down on the floor of the control cabin. Someone passing by covered me with a rug, so that I should not feel the cold…’
Soon after seven the ground crew started to arrive but it was considerably later when Amundsen, Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen and the other Norwegians turned up with their luggage and climbed on board.
I pointed out to them that now the manoeuvre of bringing the ship out of the hangar had become risky, but that I would try to do it between one gust and another … I ordered the manoeuvre. There were minutes of suspense. At last I breathed again … our take-off was assured … I gave the order to let go the ropes, while they cheered us from the ground … The weather was magnificent, the sky cloudless. I felt deeply happy, how light I felt! A few hours previously I had been shivering with cold; now I would have liked to take off my furs.
That was Nobile’s version, but Amundsen recalled their start rather differently.
I was wakened at six o’clock … Word was brought us that, on account of the wind we should bring with us as little as possible of personal effects. Ellsworth and I, therefore, went … with only what we had on. Imagine our astonishment to find everything about the airship in confusion … Nobile was standing off to one side, apparently in a state of equal confusion … he explained to us that the sun had now risen so far that… the gas had expanded, and he did not venture to start. Suddenly, someone called: ‘We’re off,’ and in a few moments we were in the air.
Later, we learned what had happened. Riiser-Larsen had found Nobile in such a state of nervous excitement as to be incapable of action … Riiser-Larsen had thereupon accepted the responsibility, and … the final swift preparations were made under his orders. The moving pictures, taken of these last moments … show Riiser-Larsen giving the orders and Nobile standing fatuously to one side, doing nothing. Here again Nobile demonstrated his conduct in an emergency. We were to have yet further demonstrations on the flight …
The Norge carried sixteen men, ten in the gondola slung beneath her hull, the other six crewing the three pods which held the motors. The airship, which was 348 feet long, carried 6½ tons of gasoline and a further 10½-ton-load of gas cylinders, spare parts, tents, sleeping-bags, snowshoes, skis, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, a large canvas boat and food rations for two months. To reduce the weight, Amundsen had at the last moment dropped three members of the crew, one of them Balchen. Everything not considered essential and all personal possessions were left behind. While lightening the ship Amundsen had been irritated to come upon a large suitcase of Italian dress uniforms, which he had ordered off-loaded.
The Norge’s gondola was partitioned into three compartments, with one corner curtained off as a lavatory. There were no seats, crew and occupants squatted on crates or canvas stools, stood or sprawled upon the canvas floor. Nobile, who operated the gas valves, was the only Italian in the gondola. Tintina, dressed in a warm knitted waistcoat, was the sole female on board.
Leaving Spitsbergen behind, the airship headed north over open sea speckled with occasional small ice floes. At a height of 600 feet they flew at 43 mph into a steady headwind, and had travelled for no more than twenty minutes when to their surprise and irritation – for the steady drone of the Norge’s motors drowned out the sound of the aircraft – they were overtaken by Byrd and Bennett in the Jo Ford. Moving at twice their speed, the Fokker wheeled and swooped around them in the bright air like a swift bird while the Italians grew indignant at the taunting display, but Amundsen and Ellsworth remained tight-lipped… until with a final wave from the cockpit the triumphant Americans turned for home.
An hour later the Norge was over the pack ice. ‘Everything was working smoothly … The flight went on monotonously, calmly, without anything particular happening,’ says Nobile. He told the Norwegian Wisting, who was at the elevator control, that he wanted to take over so he could get the feel and balance of the airship.
Amundsen relates what happened next:
Wisting stood aside and Nobile took the control. Imagine my astonishment to see Nobile standing with his back to the nose of the ship while he turned the wheel around several times in a careless manner. The nose of the Norge tilted downward toward the ice … we were getting closer and closer to the surface. Nobile seemed to be standing in a sort of daze … Another moment and we should be dashed to pieces. Riiser-Larsen sensed the danger, sprang to the wheel himself, thrust Nobile roughly to one side, and himself spun the wheel around. So close was our call it seemed the rear motor could not possibly clear the ice. Fortunately, it did, but it was a matter of inches.
Exactly this same incident happened a second time … Again Riiser-Larsen saw us about to crash and shouted a rough command of warning … Nobile gave a start like a man coming out of a dream. Automatically, he obeyed Riiser-Larsen’s command but we barely cleared the ice as the Norge, responding to the rudder, rose again. The third incident was this: Flying above the ice, the Norge ran into a heavy fog. Nobile spun the wheel in an effort to climb above the fog bank. He was in such nervous haste to do this, however, that he gave no thought to the gas pressure in the bag. We mounted swiftly to a high altitude where the gas pressure inside threatened to burst the bag. Nobile now made a frantic effort to get the nose of the Norge pointed downward. The ship did not respond. Then Nobile lost his head completely. With tears streaming down his face, and wringing his hands, he stood screaming: ‘Run fast to the bow! Run fast to the bow!’ Three of our Norwegians dashed forward on the runway under the bag, and by their weight forced the Norge’s nose downward…
Nobile’s own account of the polar flight:
More than once my timely intervention served to prevent a catastrophe.
At 1.30 a.m next day the Norge reached the Pole. The Italians on board were highly exhilarated, but for Amundsen and Ellsworth to get here brought only a sense of anti-climax. To come second was no cause for celebration, and they marked the occasion drably with toasts of tea.
While the airship cruised slowly over the totemic spot they dropped the small Norwegian
and American flags they’d brought with them. It was an empty gesture, for Byrd had already claimed the prize, but they could hardly take them home. Then, says Amundsen, ‘Imagine our astonishment to see Nobile dropping over-side not one, but armfuls, of flags.’ For a few moments the Norge looked like a circus wagon of the skies, with great banners of every shape and hue fluttering down around her. Nobile produced one really huge Italian flag. It was so large he had difficulty in getting it out of the cabin window. There the wind struck it and it stuck to the side of the gondola. ‘Fortunately, I have a sense of humour,’ Amundsen writes (it has to be said that nowhere in the entire canon of Amundsen’s writing is this borne out), ‘which I count one of my chief qualifications as an explorer … It struck me as so grotesque I laughed aloud.’
The Norge continued on her voyage, and seventy-two hours after leaving Spitsbergen landed at the tiny settlement of Teller in Alaska. There, some Eskimos thought the airship was the Devil, others a whale, but one man was so certain it was a gigantic flying seal he tried to shoot it down with his rifle. It would have made a fitting end to the preposterous undertaking, but fortunately the Amundsen–Ellsworth expedition was spared that last indignity. They had failed dismally to win the Pole, but they had completed an intercontinental crossing of 3,391 miles.
Not that anyone greatly cared – except in Italy, as will be seen.
18.
STRAIGHT MAN SWITCHES CAST
It is two days earlier, in Spitsbergen. When the Norge lifted off at Kings Bay at the start of her transpolar flight, among the small crowd made up of its support group, miners’ families and Byrd’s exultant followers spectating the departure one man stood apart from the throng, his emotions very different from the rest. The Norwegian mechanic/pilot Bernt Balchen watched the airship go with fierce disappointment. Amundsen was an idol to him – a figure both mythic and real, for Balchen had first met him when he was twelve years old. Now he was twenty-seven, a well-built, good-looking fellow with blonde hair, slow voice and easy manner – girls called him a ‘hunk’. He was a lieutenant in the Norweigian Navy, but when he’d heard of the grand old man’s planned expedition he’d volunteered to join it and obtained leave to do so. He’d worked hard and usefully as a member of the support party, he was scheduled to go on the flight and it was crushing to be rejected at the last moment for reasons of weight.
While standing by the hangar watching the Norge grow smaller and smaller till it was no more than a shining dot in the sky, Balchen felt someone nudge his arm. It was Floyd Bennett. The two had got to know each other over the last days and had become friends. ‘Commander Byrd would like to speak to you,’ Bennett told him. Byrd was in his cabin on the Chantier, seated working at his desk. To Balchen he seemed quite different to the man he’d observed before his triumphant flight. All signs of strain had gone from his face. He’d always been handsome but now there was a glow about him. He looked much younger, relaxed, assured, and he was smiling. He stood up to greet the two as they came in. His manner was warm but just now he was the most famous man in the world and he didn’t waste any time. He said, ‘Lieutenant Balchen, I’m planning another expedition to the Arctic and I can use your experience with skis and cold-weather flying. How about requesting a year’s leave of absence and sailing back with us on the Chantier?’
Balchen hesitated. He saw that Bennett was grinning and knew the idea had come from him. And Balchen wanted it, he saw a whole new world opening up before him and he wanted it so much that he could taste it. But he knew the code, he knew he had to play it down the line. He said, ‘Can I give you my answer in a couple of days, sir? When I know Captain Amundsen has reached Alaska.’
For Balchen this is a decisive moment, for Byrd a fateful choice, for in Balchen he has picked the agent of his own eventual destruction.
19.
FOOL STEALS THE SHOW
The Amundsen–Ellsworth expedition (aka by some as the Amundsen–Ellsworth–Nobile expedition) quits Alaska to sail for home on the old SS Victoria, leaving behind the dismantled Norge for a shipping company to transport to Italy, where it is hoped the government will buy the airship back. Very much hoped by the principals and backers of the misfortunate expedition, for with its failure there is now no possibility its debts can be resolved. The attempt on the Pole has proved a disaster.
Norwegian and Italian members of the airship’s crew are travelling together on the crowded steamship. Weather is vile, but that alone is not the reason for an unpleasant trip. By now Amundsen and Ellsworth are no longer on speaking terms with Nobile. In their view he has behaved outrageously during the weeks in Nome, the unprepossessing Alaskan mining ‘city’ (pop. 1,000) where they waited for the Victoria. The two of them and the rest of the expedition put up in rooms rented in private houses. Not Nobile, who insisted that the town’s best (seasonal) hotel be opened early so he might stay there. Among the mass of congratulatory cables he received from Italy was one promoting him to the rank of general; lesser accommodation would be undignified, he informed them.
In Nome, Amundsen and Ellsworth, assisted by the journalist Ramm who’d been with them on the Norge, sat in a room rented from the local hospital, smoking heavily while they laboriously composed an account of the flight for the New York Times. To their dismay the paper was insisting on the 75,000-word piece it had contracted. The problem the three faced in padding out this farcical tale to the length of a full-sized book can be imagined.
It occupied them for quite a spell – and meanwhile General Nobile had taken over the town’s telegraph office where he was busy replying to his countless telegrams, but more pertinently transmitting his own version of the historic transpolar flight he had commanded to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which ran the piece front page with maximum publicity – then syndicated it to America.
When Amundsen learned of this he went insane with fury. With Ellsworth at his side hurrying to keep up, he strode through the shanty streets of Nome to hunt down Nobile in the telegraph office. Kicking aside the flimsy barricade and pushing through the gang of Italians, he confronted the little general. A stand-up row took place. Amundsen says:
Nobile … burst into a tirade which revealed fully the schemes and ambitions boiling in his mind. This emotional oration disclosed that he had from the very beginning harboured illusions of greatness. His vanity, feeding upon his ambition, had built up in his own mind an idea of his importance … When … he grandiloquently shouted, ‘I have given my life to this expedition – I had the whole responsibility of the flight!’ anger got the best of me. With furious indignation, I reminded him now in no uncertain tones of the pitiable spectacle he would have presented on the Polar ice if the Norge had been forced down, and pointed out how preposterous would have been his claims to effective leadership under those conditions. In heated tones I reminded him, for the last time, that Ellsworth and I were the leaders of the expedition, that we should never recognise his right to claim a major share in its achievement…
So that was that then and one can well understand that the voyage aboard the Victoria to Seattle provided neither a comfortable nor relaxed cruise for its passengers. Both outside and inside the ship the temperature was exceptionally chilly. But on the morning of 27 June the sun was shining as Amundsen and Ellsworth – dressed in the rough suits they’d bought at the miners’ store in Nome – stood together on deck as the Victoria steamed slowly into Seattle harbour.
A launch sailed out to greet them, flying a large flag. The boat was packed with men and women. As it came closer they heard music. They recognised the melody at the same dismaying moment they identified the flag. The joyful throng were belting out ‘O Sole Mio’ with full-throated brio. In Italian!
Ellsworth writes:
The harbour was black with launches jammed to the gunwales with cheering men, women and children. It was all very flattering and also somewhat perplexing, since when Amundsen and I stepped to the rail to acknowledge the applause nobody seemed to notice us. The bravos
from the launches came in periodic waves. Casting our eyes upward at the bridge, we were stunned by the explanation. Nobile stood there, Tintina at his feet barking with excitement. But it was a different Nobile. Despite our agreement to carry no spare baggage in the Norge, in his own duffel he had slipped the uniform of an Italian general of the air. Now he was dressed in it, and every time he lifted his arm in the Fascist salute, the huzzas rose from below.
Ellsworth’s ironic tone hardly conceals the outrage that must have boiled through his and Amundsen’s veins as the Victoria approached the quay, but there was a final affront yet to come. Nobile had carefully calculated the spot at which the gangplank would be let down and had stationed himself where he could thrust himself forward to lead the expedition off the vessel, but an officer of the Victoria had ‘sensed this intended impudence and … placed himself in a position to block Nobile’s dash for the gangplank, and then bowed to me and Ellsworth to lead the procession’.
A large crowd had gathered to welcome them, including spruced-up officials of city government and photographers. At the very front was a little girl in a party frock with a big bouquet of flowers. Dodging past the officer’s defence, Nobile reached the top of the gangplank level with Amundsen and Ellsworth. They pushed down it together. At its foot, the little girl saw three strange men jostling toward her. Who should get the flowers? Seeing that two of them were dressed like rough miners but the third glittering and gorgeous in peaked hat, jackboots, resplendent uniform and carrying a dear little doggie, there was no question in her mind as to which was most important. She stepped forward and with a charming curtsey presented the flowers to General Nobile, their magnificent leader who had flown them across the Pole.