Page 21 - An-introduction-to-Svalbard

1926: AMUNDSEN & NOBILE

Norway's national hero and South Pole conqueror Roald Amundsen flew together with the Italian
Umberto Nobile over the North Pole to Alaska with the airship Norge in 1926. Their starting point
was Ny Ålesund on Spitsbergen's west coast, where the mast to which the airship was moored
is still standing. Nobile and the Swedish scientist/meteorologist Finn Malmgren, who came
along for the ride on Norge, returned to Ny Ålesund in 1928 to attempt another expedition,
this time with the airship Italia. Their intention was to cross the polar ice to the North Pole
and then return to Spitsbergen. They did reach the North Pole, but on the way back, in a
fierce storm, they had to make an emergency landing on the ice some 100 kilometres north
of Spitsbergen. Only nine men managed to save themselves, the rest disappeared with the
airship, never to be seen again. The survivors camped on the ice, while an international
rescue team set out to find them. Three men left the camp to try to get to Spitsbergen across
the ice. Two of them managed to get there while the third, Finn Malmgren, did not survive
the hardships.
The old polar explorer Roald Amundsen helped in the search for his friends. This led to
Amundsen’s death, when his aircraft crashed south of Bjørnøya. Nobile, however, was rescued
when a Swedish aviator found the camp and the survivors on the ice. The survivors of the
Italia crash were finally rescued by a Russian icebreaker.

Amundsen memorial in Ny Ålesund.

21