Umberto Nobile is a brave polar explorer who was saved even by enemies

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

July 30 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of the Italian polar explorer and inventor Umberto Nobile. This man lived a very long life, as much as 93 years - although he could have died much earlier, back in 1928, during his second expedition to the North Pole. But then he and his companions were not allowed to die by numerous rescuers, among whom was his Norwegian colleague Roald Amundsen, who by that time had become his enemy.

Umberto Nobile was born in 1885 in the small Italian town of Lauro into a large family of an ordinary employee. He graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Naples and began working as an electrical engineer on the railway, and in 1911 he entered the aeronautical school in Rome. Later he worked at an aircraft factory, where airships were built, and participated in the development of new designs for these aircraft, and then organized a private company to produce them. It was he who developed a new type of airship design - the so-called semi-solid, which turned out to be more perfect than the previously existing hard and soft airships.

When Friends Become Enemies …

In 1926, Umberto had the opportunity to test his airships in extreme conditions. The discoverer of the South Pole, Roald Amundsen, invited him to fly in an airship to the closer, North Pole. This would bring them both world fame, so Nobile did not think long about whether he should agree.

Their joint expedition with Amundsen was successful, but after returning from the pole, its main participants quarreled. Roald Amundsen believed that the glory of reaching the pole on an airship should belong to him, since he was the head of the expedition, and Umberto Nobile wanted to take all the laurels for himself, since it was he who designed and controlled the airship on which they flew. Perhaps, after some time, the travelers would have cooled down and made peace, but the situation was aggravated by the fact that Umberto was declared a national hero by the Italian fascists, and Rual considered that he, too, was one of them. As a result, the two extraordinary people who could have been friends never spoke to each other again. Nobile could not forgive Amundsen for accusations of fascism, and he did not believe that Umberto had nothing to do with Mussolini's movement.

Wrecked on the way home

In 1928, Nobile decided to repeat the flight in an airship to the North Pole, including in order to prove that he could cope with it without Amundsen. He managed to fly to the pole on the Italia airship, but on the way back the airship was in for a disaster. Due to the sharp cold snap, the airship froze over, became much heavier and hit the ice. Almost all of the crew fell out of his gondola, except for six people who flew on along with the airship that had gained altitude again. Their bodies were never found, and it is assumed that they drowned along with an airship that fell into the Arctic Ocean.

Nobile was among those who fell out of the gondola. In the fall, he broke his leg and wrist, but this did not prevent him from continuing to lead the expedition and organize the winter. His surviving comrades collected the things and food that had spilled on the ice and built a shelter out of the snow. By that time, the accident was already known in Europe, and rescue expeditions began to be prepared in almost every country. Three companions of Nobile, confident that they would not be found, went on foot to Svalbard, and one of them died on the way.

An enemy who has become a friend again

One of the first urgent rescue expeditions was organized by Roald Amundsen. All conflicts, all suspicions and accusations were forgotten: travelers like himself were in trouble, and he was obliged to do everything he could to help them. But the weather in the Arctic was still very bad, and Amundsen's plane, on which, in addition to him, were French pilots, fell into the Barents Sea. Members of his crew were also never found.

This was the only time that Amundsen set out on a journey not well prepared - he deviated from his rule only because the purpose of this flight was to save lives. And if this flight did not become fatal for him, there is no doubt that he and Nobile would have reconciled and, probably, have made more than one trip together - even if Umberto and his friends were found not by Roal, but by someone else. But it turned out that these two did not have time to make up, and Nobile could only console himself with the fact that his former friend and rival was trying to save him, despite the quarrel.

Help still came

Umberto and his companions five days after the death of Amundsen was found by the Swedish pilot Einar Lundborg, who managed to land next to their tent in a small two-seater plane. He took Nobile with him and delivered him to the Italian ship Citta di Milano, from where he then supervised the rescue of the rest of his comrades.

He still had a very long life ahead, full of memories of the former enemy, which he sacrificed himself in trying to save him.

And in continuation of the theme of polar research 19 retro photos from Robert Scott's South Pole expedition.