Jetrader - Summer 2014 - 49

midnight they tried again and, sure enough,
off they went.
The flight itself was more or less
uneventful. Bennett did nearly all of the
flying while Byrd navigated with a sextant,
sun compass and a trap door in the floor
to help him observe their drift from any
crosswinds. Once they reached the North
Pole, Byrd asked Bennett to make a wide
circle so that even if his navigation was off
by a few miles the pole would have to be
somewhere inside the circle. Any thoughts

of landing were dismissed because of the
near-disaster experience of the AmundsenEllsworth flight the previous year. They
flew directly back to Spitsbergen, arriving
in mid-afternoon on 9 May after being aloft
for about 15 and a half hours.
Bernt Balchen describes the reception
in his diary: "Amundsen is the first to greet
Byrd as he steps out. I have never seen him
display so much emotion. He cannot speak.
His stern Viking face is broken into a rare
and wonderful smile, and the tears run

from his eyes as he puts his arms around
Byrd and Bennett, drawing them both to
him in a giant embrace, and kisses them on
each cheek." Amundsen had already become
disenchanted with the fascist Nobile and
the Italian crewmembers, so maybe he was
secretly happy to see the Americans win
the race.
At last, the North Pole had been reached
by an aircraft. Or had it? Had the Josephine
Ford been gone long enough to fly that far
and back? There were doubters. In 1925
Amundsen's two Dornier-Wals had flown
about eight hours before they went down
with the pole still about 150 miles away.
If they had flown to the pole and returned
they would have been airborne for about
19 hours. Was the Josephine Ford really that
much faster that it did so in only 15 and
a half hours including the time for the big
circle around the pole? The Italian press
was especially indignant and dismayed.
Mussolini and all Italians had been expecting the Norge to win the race when suddenly the prize was stolen by some upstart
Americans! More about this later.

The Norge Departs

The Fokker Trimotor Josephine Ford after returning to US, seen here with wheels installed in place
of the skis used in the Arctic. Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett reached the North Pole in this
aircraft in 1926. Or did they? Photo from San Diego Air & Space Museum archive.

The airship Norge at its hangar at Spitsbergen prior to flying to the North Pole and onward to
Teller, Alaska in 1926. This Amundsen-Ellsberg-Nobile expedition was the first undisputed visit to
the North Pole by anyone. Photo from National Library of Norway.

A day and a half after Byrd landed from
his polar flight, Amundsen, Ellsworth,
Nobile and their crew left Kings Bay aboard
the Norge and a day later they hovered
over the pole. As noted earlier in the first
part of the polar aviation story, previous
claims by Frederick Cook and Robert Peary
to have reached the North Pole are today
widely believed to be untrue, and if Byrd's
claim is also in doubt, then Amundsen and
the crew on the Norge are the first persons
to indisputably reach the North Pole by
any means. Moreover, Amundsen himself
would be the first man to have reached both
the North and South Poles. After an hour
over the pole, Norwegian, American and
Italian flags were dropped onto the ice. The
American and Norwegian flags were very
small, as agreed in advance, to avoid carrying any unnecessary weight. To Amundsen's
annoyance, however, Nobile had smuggled
an enormous Italian flag onto the ship.
With the ceremonies completed, the Norge
headed for Alaska, hoping to discover new
land along the way.
It was not all clear sailing. Fog tended
to condense into ice on the skin of the
airship, making the ship heavier, and
chunks of ice would break off and slide
Jetrader * Summer 2014 49

Jetrader - Summer 2014

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