UNDER THE NORTH POLE The Wilkin s-Ellsworth Submarine Expedition SIR HUBERT WILKINS SOUTHAMProK jG.SLa.veL. , \ i <3Q° J-ongiH*cC£ W£St izo° of fr&nMcA uc° lOO« 60T HQ1 y y / y y RUSSIA ' y Kara. <OLCUEy / NOVA/A I ZEMLYA / / ^ FINLAND / EF LANP ^ ''clttzc SesL W/LCZEK L. / dK • r - (APE VALEXANPRlA LANC^ SVALBARD WHITE 5PITZBER0EN 10 ISL !0 IEENLAND w \ \ / \ \ \y V 7?<xvts \ Capt WiLKiNS Route above BELOW THE ICE REGIONS 5 UNEXPLORED ^ADVENT BAY AT (5REEW HARBOR } in The ICE FIORE? SPITSBERGEN 6o° 4o J THE CITY CLUB F NEW YD R K E^gE%gEEEEEEE%2EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE^%0^ Under the North Pole Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/undernorthpolewiOOwilk Sir Hubert Wilkins. [g)g)g)g)g)g)g)g)'g)g)g)g)g)g)g)g).g)g)g)g)g)g)g)g).g)g)g)g)g)g)g)g).g)g)g)g)g)^1 Under the North Pole THE WILKINS-ELLSWORTH SUBMARINE EXPEDITION by Sir Hubert Wilkins BREWER, WARREN & PUTNAM COPYRIGHT I93 1 BY BREWER, WARREN & PUTNAM INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK IN WHOLE OR IN PART Preface It is unusual and perhaps unprecedented to publish a book as we are doing in relation to an expedition before it takes place. But in our case this is really not without point, for we are going to use a submarine for the first time in the history of polar exploration, and sub- marines open up a new field of Arctic research that needs explaining. Several methods are to be tried by our ex- pedition that have never been tried under polar conditions. We hope and have faith that they will succeed; but if we fail I want to leave behind a record of our preparations and proposals, to help that someone who will some day make a transarctic journey beneath the ice successfully. I first got the idea that submarines might be useful in polar exploration from the com- mander of the first Arctic expedition in which I shared, Vilhjalmur Stefansson. It is therefore appropriate that in this book he writes the section on " The History of the Idea." V Preface The one designer and builder of submarines who has greatly concerned himself with their use under ice is Simon Lake. Moreover, he built the craft we are using, the Nautilus. Logically, then, he writes for this volume a sketch of his own career as proponent of the under-ice submarine, and a description of the Nautilus and her predecessors. Commander Sloan Danenhower, of the U. S. submarine service, will be the Master of the Nautilus. He comes by his job in two ways, both rightful. He is the son of a famous polar explorer, that John W. Danenhower who was Master of De Long's Jeannette, and he is a submarine officer by profession. Properly he contributes the chapter on the special equip- ment of the Nautilus. Quite as naturally, Dr. Sverdrup con- tributes a chapter on the scientific program, for he is not only our chief field scientist but was that also with Captain Roald Amundsen on the famous Maud expedition to the Arctic and has spent seven years in polar work. So might the rest of our staff write their own contributions with propriety — except that vi Preface the purpose of this volume, as stated, is not to forecast our whole scientific program but merely those parts of it that are determined by our use of the submarine. The respect which the public has for a ven- ture as new and (to them) strange as ours must rest on their knowledge of the men who plan it and carry it out. My associate Lincoln Ellsworth has a record in exploration which commands respect, and he should have con- tributed a section to this book — anyone but he would have done so. I, therefore, turned to my friend and former Arctic commander, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and asked him to write a sketch of Ellsworth — whom he has known in connection with their mutual polar inter- ests since Ellsworth nearly joined that Ste- fansson expedition which I did join in 19 13. Stefansson has also written the sketch of the Master of our submarine, the Nautilus, Sloan Danenhower, for which writing he is par- ticularly qualified as a student and admirer of the De Long expedition on which our Mas- ter's father was Master. I, perhaps logically too, write about my vii Preface preparation for Arctic and Antarctic work, the motives which led me to devote to it most of the last eighteen years, my career as an ex- plorer, and the development of the submarine plans. Hubert Wilkins New York March 26, 1^1 viii . Contents I. The History of the Idea 3 II. The Plans of the Expedition 55 III. The Development of the Under Ice Submarine 203 IV. The Arctic Submarine Nautilus j ) vv The Prophecy of Bishop Welkins 2 77 "\7TVI. Lincoln Ellsworth 295 VII. Sloan Danenhower 305 VIII. Studies of Arctic Conditions May Help Solve World Prob- lems 317 IX. The Endorsement of Scientific Groups 327 X. Who's Who on the Nautilus Sci- entific Staff 335 ix ' Illustrations Sir Hubert Wilkins. Frontispiece Map of " the top of the world," showing routes the expedition may follow. Page 2 Facing page A great lead from an altitude of 1500 feet. 16 Christmas 191 3. The first time movies were shown to Eskimos on the north coast of Alaska. Third Stefansson Expedition. Wil- kins at the projector. 17 Summer conditions in the Polar Sea. " From the documentary film 1 Krassin the rescue work in the Arctic of the Nobile Expedition by the Soviet ice breaker Kras- sin under the leadership of Professor Samoilovitch." 32 The broken Polar ice in winter as seen from the air. 33 A stern view of the Nautilus before recon- ditioning. 48 At the control board of the Nautilus. 49 xi 1 Illustrations Facing page Wilkins in the conning tower of the O-12 during reconstruction. 64 Ice and open water in summer; north of Bering Strait. 65 Eielson and Wilkins with their packs contain- ing sufficient food and ammunition to en- able them to walk at least 500 miles over the ice. 80 In Australia. Wilkins brings a kangaroo into camp. 8 The Russian rescue of the Nobile Expedition. 96 A forced open-water landing with flying boats 136 miles from the North Pole on the Amundsen-Ellsworth expedition. 97 Two crashes in the Arctic. 112 The Fokker at Point Barrow. 113 Typical of ice conditions 100 miles north of Alaska, with much open water in the back- ground. 113 The Stinson Detroiter flying in Alaska. 128 The Stinson Detroiter, finally abandoned on the Polar ice. 128 • • Xll Illustrations Facing page Ice and open water taken from the Norge at the North Pole. The flags that have been dropped may be discerned on the ice. 129 Ben Eielson, Wilkins, and their Lockheed. 176 The Lockheed before the Alaska-Spitsbergen flight. 177 In the cabin of the Graf Zeppelin on its round-the-world journey. At the table are Wilkins, Eckener, and Lady Hay. 192 Typical ice on the fringe of the Polar pack. 193 Simon Lake. 203 The Nautilus traveling beneath fairly level polar ice. 224 Charging batteries through medium thick ice. 224 As Jules Verne pictured his submarine adven- turers in 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. 225 Two photographs of the experimental sub- marine Protector at Newport in the winter of 1903-04, during the ice trials. During the three days of submersion the boat was operated under an ice floe 8 ft. thick, Illustrations Facing page through which she broke coming up on the surface. 240 The christening of the Nautilus at the Brook- lyn Navy Yard, March 24, 193 1. Sir Hu- bert Wilkins, Lady Wilkins, and Jean Jules Verne, grandson of Jules Verne. 241 Commander Sloan Danenhower. 256 Spinning ice saw. 257 The O-12 in dry dock. 272 Wilkins and Ellsworth aboard the submarine Nautilus on its arrival in New York for final preparation. 273 Bishop Wilkins, author of " Mathematicall Magick." 279 Lincoln Ellsworth. 304 Amundsen and Ellsworth beside their planes just before the start of the 1925 expedition. 305 The Norge landing at Teller, Alaska, after its 3393 mile journey across the Polar Sea, May 1926. 320 The Norge leaving her hangar at Kings Bay, Spitsbergen, May 11, 1926. 321 xiv I THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA BY VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA A he Arctic has been crossed only twice in the history of the world, once by airship and once by airplane. The commander of the first airplane, Sir Hubert Wilkins, and the second- in-command of the first airship, Lincoln Ells- worth, have now joined to attempt the first crossing of the Arctic by submarine. There was romance in flying above the polar ice from Europe to America; there is more ro- Under the North Pole mance, or at least more strangeness, in swim- ming that course beneath the ice. If the jour- ney is successful the value to science will be greater. The time is short for study from a plane when you are holding a course through the air; you cannot learn much more oceanog- raphy flying over an ocean that you learn bot- any flying over a botanical garden. It is usually inconvenient and dangerous to stop either an airplane or an airship far from a base. Neither Ellsworth nor Wilkins made any stop in 1926 or in 1928 as they crossed the Arctic by diri- gible and plane.