The Last Viking

by Stephen Bown

  A Massed Attack on the Polar Regions

  Think of what it will mean, to fly in comparative comfort and security above treacherous ice which has threatened other explorers at every step. Never before have I entered an expedition with so few misgivings.

  KINGS BAY IN 1926 consisted of twenty-two houses and a company store clustered around a mine shaft. One American newspaper writer rhapsodized, “[A]ll about, the high silent white peaks shine down in the reflected sunlight dazzling to the eyes of the ‘tenderfoot.’” Giant snow banks filled the spaces between the wooden houses, which “looked more like summer cottages at the seashore than homes for the Arctic. All need a stove in every room.” The reporter commented on northern hospitality and the friendliness of the people, but added, with a dramatic flourish Amundsen would have appreciated, “the Arctic smiles now, but behind the silent hills is death.”

  In the summer of 1926, Amundsen was not alone in his attempt to reach the North Pole. American and British teams were also planning polar flights. In April, the New York Times had announced: “Massed Attack on the Polar Regions Begins Soon.” Tiny Kings Bay was a hive of activity as news correspondents from around Europe and America arrived to report on the spectacle of competing national teams racing into the Arctic wastes to seek glory and fame in their new-fangled flying machines, and perhaps to announce the existence of the earth’s final undiscovered islands. There was also a competing Norwegian-German airship expedition, which planned to cross over the North Pole the following year, using a much larger, fully rigid airship of German design, and Australian aviator George Hubert Wilkins was leading an American expedition to fly to the North Pole from Point Barrow, Alaska, in spite of Amundsen’s failed attempt from there two years earlier. There were even reports of a Russian overland expedition.

  Bernt Balchen, a young Norwegian pilot and air force lieutenant who was part of Amundsen’s ground crew, recorded the arrival of a mysterious ship that was part of the “massed attack”: “All morning long we have paused now and then in our work, and glanced at the smoking funnel on the horizon, and muttering uneasily to each other. We are not sure yet. It could be a supply ship for the mine, or a sealer headed for the ice pack. We look over the tar paper roofs of the mining camp, toward the superintendent’s house on the hill where Captain Amundsen is living. Has he heard yet, does he know?” The ship neared Kings Bay before it radioed ashore. It was the American ship Chantier, carrying Lieutenant Commander Richard E. Byrd of the U.S. Navy, his pilot, Floyd Bennett, fifty men who formed the expedition party, and two Fokker Trimotor airplanes packed in crates, one named the Josephine Ford. The young and ambitious Byrd, who had made an exploratory flight in the vicinity of Greenland the previous year, was now planning to fly to the North Pole and return along the same route Amundsen and Ellsworth had attempted the previous year. Byrd later claimed that “[a]ll three of us—Amundsen, Wilkins and myself—are seeking to discover new land and also to conquer the Arctic from the air. It is not exactly a race, but there is an element of competition in there.”

  Naturally, some of Amundsen’s crew were suspicious and unfriendly. “All work at our base has halted,” recalled Balchen, “and the men of the Amundsen expedition stand in silent groups along the bluff. We resent this foreign ship coming here to our country to snatch the prize, which we feel belongs to Captain Amundsen alone. We of his party are loyal to him to the point of worship, and any one of us would lay down our life without question for one of the greatest of all living explorers.” Balchen’s colourful description then focused on Amundsen, who had skied to inspect the newcomers. “We all look up to the lone figure on the hill behind us. People always turn to look at Roald Amundsen, as their eyes would be drawn to the tallest mountain. . . . His face is expressionless and we cannot read it. Beneath the thick tufts of his eyebrows, white as hoarfrost, his eyes in the deep sockets are hidden in shadow. His cheeks are leathery and folded in hard creases, with a fine network of wrinkles spreading out from the corners of his eyes like a map of all the dog trails he has run. The most prominent feature of his face is the thin and arched nose, which gives him the look of an eagle. It is a face carved in a cliff, the face of a Viking.”

  Amundsen’s crew stood watching their leader on the ridge, waiting for him to speak, “but he pivots on his skis without a word and strides back to the headquarters building.” Amundsen never shied from a race—it was good for publicity—and he probably didn’t care much whether Byrd flew over the North Pole first; the North Pole, everyone believed at the time, had already been visited first by Peary, and the object of Amundsen’s expedition was grander in scope: the Norge would cross over the Pole and continue through the unexplored regions of the Arctic Ocean to Alaska. But Amundsen knew that if Byrd failed, the Norge would be commandeered into the rescue operation, probably ruining the chances for his ambitious Arctic crossing that year. Furthermore, the publicity stemming from any disaster that befell Byrd would detract from Amundsen’s own objectives.

  The July 1925 issue of Popular Science Monthly earnestly profiled the polar race and its personalities, dubbing it “the most sensational sporting event in human history.” In its June issue, it had proclaimed, “None of us need be surprised if from the desolate North is flashed the news of some of the most far-reaching events of modern times—events that will affect the lives of all of us.” Boy’s Life headlined its lead story “The Attack on the Pole,” filling it with much talk of brave men doing battle with the bitter Arctic. Various other publications displayed similar sensational headlines, some suggesting that the race was the greatest heroic undertaking since the war, if not “in human history.” Amundsen himself provided a thoughtful comment: “Think of what it will mean, to fly in comparative comfort and security above treacherous ice which has threatened other explorers at every step. Never before have I entered an expedition with so few misgivings.”

  In addition to the usual raft of reporters for numerous newspapers, there were now also cinematographers with their primitive movie cameras filming the goings-on at Spitsbergen. The newspapers ran a near-daily update on the participants, their equipment and, of course, the weather. Unlike the media that had been available to cover the race to the South Pole a decade and a half earlier, advances in wireless communication meant that regular updates were possible and indeed became common. In the New York Times, the Amundsen-Ellsworth polar expedition was covered so extensively that some updates merely indicated that “snow and winds keep Norge in shed,” continuing with a description of the snow and the winds and just how they were keeping the Norge in its shed. Other articles speculated on what Amundsen expected to discover, where he planned to land in Alaska and where he would seek refuge in the event of disaster. Nearly every literate person must have known about the event, given the quantity of print coverage.

  Every few days, reporters stationed in Kings Bay also sent back reports about Byrd’s preparations, including the details of how he unloaded his planes from the ship, how the construction of the runway was progressing and when a supply ship arrived. Of great interest was the ways in which the rival groups entertained each other in the isolated settlement. Amundsen and Ellsworth invited Byrd and Bennett and several others to “the big mess hall where four languages are spoken at every meal. There are no flowers in Spitsbergen yet, so the table decorations of sprouting onions in tin cups were the only green things on the island. It was difficult to know whether to eat or admire such blossoms,” the reporter admitted.

  The explorers were on their best behaviour with the press; however, the problem was that Byrd and Amundsen had each sold exclusive rights to the documentation of their adventures, but to competing syndicates. The result was that one group’s reporters couldn’t photograph, film or write about the activities of the rival group without violating exclusivity contracts. Amundsen would be in violation of his contract if he allowed the media following Byrd’s enterprise to document his own expedition in any way, and vice versa. But Kings Bay was a small place, and the m
edia really couldn’t help but stumble over one another. A sort of media war broke out as each group of journalists tried secretly to get a scoop from the other, particularly after the Norge cruised into its hangar on May 7 after a difficult ocean crossing from Europe. The ground crew manoeuvred the spectacular cigar-shaped airship into its hangar with ropes and pulleys. The hangar dominated the scenery around Kings Bay and was impossible to ignore, being 30 metres high and 110 metres long.

  There were “undercover operations and secret infiltrations,” according to Balchen. “Scouts from the rival syndicates creep past each other, the Amundsen raiders disguised in American sailor hats, and the Byrd snipers wearing Norwegian ski caps.” With no night, thus no darkness, to conceal furtive actions, the task was made more difficult, but even so a flash bulb might pop and motion-picture cameras whirr near the Josephine Ford and the Norge when least expected. “A skulking still photographer pops out of an empty crate to click a close up of the Josephine Ford or as we enter the dirigible hangar we see a pair of heels disappearing out the other end, the scurrying figure bowlegged under a heavy camera and tripod.”

  At first there was some unhelpful competition between the two expeditionary groups, born of the crews’ excessive loyalty to their commanders. When Byrd wanted to unload the components of his airplane at the dock, the Norwegian captain of the coal boat stationed there refused to move his ship, so Byrd and his men were forced to haul the equipment ashore across the ice floes that clogged the bay. Although Amundsen had no authority over a local coal ship, Byrd felt that Amundsen was trying, however passively, to obstruct his efforts even while remaining outwardly friendly. Ellsworth felt that he and Amundsen had “every reason to be disgruntled” for what he believed was a trespass on their prior right to be in Kings Bay. Byrd’s presence was feared to be damaging their chances of recouping their enormous expenses by flooding the market with more books, lectures and motion pictures. Saturation was an uncomfortable prospect.

  Amundsen, however, could not retreat into defensive partisanship. He did not want a repeat of the competitive situation with Scott and the race to the South Pole a decade and half earlier. Amundsen’s initial seemingly unhelpful attitude toward Byrd probably stemmed from a fear of violating the exclusive media contracts he had signed. After Byrd had failed in several attempts at a lift-off, Amundsen offered the aid that ensured Byrd’s success. In particular, he got his men to help with the selection of a suitable location for Byrd’s runway and with its construction. He also advised Byrd on the best time to attempt a lift-off, provided tips on when the ice was hardest and therefore offered the least resistance, and supplied Byrd and his pilot with emergency supplies and equipment—snowshoes, warm boots and a small sledge—none of which they had brought.

  Perhaps most importantly, Balchen helped construct stronger skis for the Josephine Ford after two had cracked during a test flight, something he said he did at Amundsen’s request but which Byrd at the time felt was done in spite of Amundsen (Balchen and Byrd later became friends). Byrd could hardly have gotten into the air without Amundsen’s help: “We had much to learn,” he admitted privately. When Byrd commented that Amundsen was being very generous to a competitor, Amundsen replied that he didn’t feel they were competing but were engaged in different facets of the same goal; that Byrd was merely flying to the North Pole, while Amundsen and the Norge were crossing to Alaska—what else could he say? “Nothing stimulates like competition,” Amundsen claimed, “nothing encourages exploration more. It seems absurd that all should stay away from a place that someone had announced his intentions to explore.”

  Nobile had wanted the Norge to depart before Byrd did, but perhaps to counter the lingering notion that he had been devious in rushing to the South Pole without informing Scott of his intentions, Amundsen flatly denied Nobile the chance to ready the Norge to leave before Byrd had completed his flight. It was the first public disagreement between the two proud men. Amundsen was determined to give Byrd his chance to fly to the North Pole, but Nobile was displeased at losing a chance for further glory for himself, his airship and Fascist Italy, probably in that order. Also on May 7, a cable arrived from Point Barrow, where Wilkins had finally brought his planes. Wilkins asked about the weather in Spitsbergen: was it good for a crossing from Alaska? But he would have no better luck at Point Barrow than Amundsen had had in 1923; his airplanes were damaged in the test flights, and he was forced into an ignominious retreat.

  In Kings Bay, Amundsen, Ellsworth and their crew anxiously waited for good weather—clear skies and low winds—while Nobile worked on the Norge, repairing a damaged engine and adding glycerine to the cooling system to prevent the engine from freezing. Balchen was hastily giving skiing lessons to the five willing Italians, who had never seen snow—“the poor souls longed for their sunny Naples,” he wrote. On May 8, Byrd and his men had finally readied the Josephine Ford for the flight, but the airplane still couldn’t lift off, and Balchen suggested that Byrd try again at midnight, when the snow would be firmer and offer less resistance. Its engines roared to life once again, and this time the Josephine Ford shot down the icy runway and lifted into a clear sky. When silence returned to the base, the men tried to get on with their regular duties; but there was an edge of anxiety that disrupted everything. Occasionally they stopped to turn and listen while scanning the northern sky.

  The next day they were sitting down to dinner in the mess hall, about fifteen and a half hours after takeoff, according to Balchen, when “one of the Italian soldiers comes bounding into the mess hall, out of breath. He chatters in broken English, ‘she come—a motor!’” They dropped their forks and rushed to welcome the incoming airplane, photographers and reporters readying their equipment. Because Byrd was arriving several hours earlier than expected and his American media crew were still aboard their ship, it was Amundsen’s motion picture crew who filmed the momentous event. As Byrd and Bennett climbed out of the machine onto the snow, Amundsen organized “nine good Norwegian cheers.” A photograph shows Byrd and Bennett dressed in their flying furs, Amundsen and Ellsworth standing on either side, shaking their hands and congratulating them. Amundsen probably should have been a little curious about the timing of the flight—Byrd had returned ahead of schedule and with broken navigational equipment, and he claimed to have made the return flight by dead reckoning. Given the known speed of the Fokker airplane that Byrd and Bennett were flying, it has since been established that reaching the North Pole would have been impossible in that timeframe. On that day, though, Byrd was heralded as a hero for his aeronautical feat.

  On May 11, Nobile pronounced the Norge ready to fly. Cables were attached to the enormous airship, and dozens of men were hauling it slowly from its hangar onto the snowy field when an unexpected wind blew up partway through the operation. There had been disagreements among the organizers. Nobile had slaved all night, getting the airship loaded and ready for the flight because he was planning to leave around one in the morning, when it was coldest and the airship would have the greatest lift. But as the Norwegian contingent failed to arrive, Nobile anxiously waited for hours, valving-off gas three times as the temperature rose, until Amundsen, Ellsworth and Riiser-Larsen slowly trudged over after having had their breakfast. Nobile, tired, hungry and irritable after his vigil, noticed that the wind had picked up again and wanted to cancel the flight for that day. Amundsen, however, dismissed Nobile’s concerns as “nervous excitement,” and Riiser-Larsen proceeded to organize hauling the Norge from its hangar while Nobile stood by, nervously “supervising”—a quick gust could spin the airship into the side of hangar and break a delicate fin or an engine. No one knows why the Norwegians arrived so late, or indeed why Nobile didn’t just go and rouse them from their cabins, but the language barrier is the probable culprit: the Italians didn’t speak Norwegian and the Norwegians didn’t speak Italian, and Ellsworth spoke neither language. So English became the operational language of the expedition, even though many of the crew did not speak English
except in the most rudimentary fashion.

  Fortunately the Norge was not damaged by the gusts, and the flight crew quickly boarded. The ground crew let go of the ropes and the dirigible shot into the air, propelling its way toward the North Pole in a cloudless blue sky. As the icy peaks of Spitsbergen receded in the distance, the North Pole was 1,200 kilometres away and the cruising speed of the Norge was about 80 kilometres per hour. Byrd and Bennett, who had fired up the Josephine Ford, flew alongside the Norge for a while before returning when the airship reached the pack ice. The next day, newspapers around the world ran special editions to celebrate the launch. In Italy, in an incident that didn’t augur well, it was proclaimed that the airship was sailing “under an Italian flag, in the spirit of fascism.” Norwegian newspapers were equally possessive. The Norge flight had become politics, not mere entertainment, and certainly not science—there were no scientists on board.

  As the Norge buzzed ever northward across the frigid expanse, wispy patches of polar fog snaked across the ice. The only signs of life were occasional seals, polar bear tracks and a few birds. After nearly a day of travel the fog cleared to reveal, once again, a featureless, wind-blown plain of white nothingness. It was empty, eerie and haunting in its desolation, particularly for anyone not used to the polar environment. On the other hand, it was a routine flight in terms of the activity required of the crew, distinguished chiefly for its cold temperatures and the men’s trepidation at entering the unknown.

  All the crew had small tasks to do as they operated various propulsion or steering machines. Piloting an airship was certainly not a one-person job. There were ten men in the cabin, and six others out in the rigging checking the gas cells and valves, while others checked on and maintained the engines at the rear of the enormous airship. Men from the cabin crew continuously rounded the vessel on its catwalks, their eyes always scanning for possible problems, spelling each other off when they could no longer endure the bitter cold. Nobile’s dog stayed close to her master, though her presence was technically a breach of the rules. (Amundsen overlooked this, perhaps in a spirit of generosity.) Cooking on board ship was prohibited, to avoid the risk of an explosion resulting from escaping gas. It can hardly have been a relaxing flight for the crew, clothed in fur garments in the unheated cabin, comforted with thermoses of coffee and tea and cold sandwiches, hardboiled eggs frozen as solid as rocks, all the while wondering about gas leaks.