 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The 1931 Polar Flight of the Graf Zeppelin. The impetus for the 1931 Graf Zeppelin polar flight came, as it had with Count Zeppelin's 1910 Spitzbergen trip, from Fridtjof Nansen. In 1926, Nansen founded an organization of explorers and geographers bearing the impressive name of International Association for Exploring the Arctic by Means of Airships, but known simply as "Aeroarctic" for short. Nansen had contacted Eckener regarding the possibility of using a Zeppelin airship for arctic exploration, but at the time such an undertaking did not seem feasible to Eckener and Aeroarctic appears to have existed largely on paper. |
| Nansen died unexpectedly in 1929 and later the Board of Aeroarctic offered the presidency to Eckener. Eckener was reluctant to accept, assuming that his acceptance would involve committing the Graf Zeppelin to at least one arctic flight. Nevertheless, Eckner approached first the German government about sponsoring an arctic flight. Although the government reportedly was enthusiastic about the prestige of having a German airship make a arctic flight, no funding was forthcoming. Eckener then turned to William Randolph Hearst whose coverage by the Hearst newspapers had helped finance the Graf Zeppelin's 1929 around-the-world flight. Earlier, the Hearst newspapers had profited handsomely from their coverage of the Italia disaster and Hearst declined to fund an arctic flight believing it not to be newsworthy enough after the Italia crash. |
| The opportunity to make a polar flight came from an unexpected source. In April of 1928, Australian arctic explorer Capt. George H. Wilkins and Alaskan pilot Carl Ben Eielson made a daring airplane flight in a Lockheed Vega from Pt. Barrow, Alaska to Green Harbour, Spitzbergen. Wilkins was knighted for his part in this flight to become Sir Hubert Wilkins. Later the same year (1928) Wilkins and Eielson became the first to fly in the Antarctic. In 1930, following his return from a second expedition to the Antarctic, Wilkins conceived a plan to travel under the polar ice pack by submarine and, boring through the ice, to surface at the North Pole. Wilkins convinced Lincoln Ellsworth to take part as a "scientific advisor" and the plan became known as the Wilkins-Ellsworth Trans-Arctic Submarine Expedition. Ellsworth, however, was quick to point out in his autobiography that, "I consented to attach my name to the submarine expedition as scientific adviser, though I had no intention of accompanying Wilkins on his voyage." (Ellsworth, 1938, p. 246). |
| Wilkins then presented to Eckener a plan for a rendezvous and exchange of mail and passengers at the North Pole between the Graf Zeppelin and Wilkins's submarine, the Nautilus. Eckener, one might assume, was a bit skeptical that such a meeting would ever take place, but at least then he had plans for a newsworthy flight with which to again approach Hearst. Hearst, too, may have been somewhat skeptical but nevertheless was agreeable, apparently sensing that the flight would generate reader interest regardless of its outcome. Hearst's contract with Eckener reveals something of his skepticism: for reporting rights onboard the airship, $150,000 if the airship and submarine met at the North Pole and an exchange of mail and passengers took place; $100,000 if the airship and submarine simply met at the North Pole; and $30,000 if there was merely a meeting elsewhere in the Arctic. (Eckener, 1958, pp. 120-21) Even if the north pole rendezvous never took place, Eckener was assured of at least partial funding and could go ahead with preparations for the flight. The sale of philatelic items to be carried on the flight also helped in large measure to defray costs. |
| By early summer 1931, Wilkins, predictably perhaps, was encountering serious mechanical problems with his submarine [3], and meanwhile the time for favorable flying weather over the Arctic was fast coming to an end. Since a meeting between submarine and airship was not essential to the scientific pursuits, Eckener, therefore, decided to proceed with the flight as planned. A Russian ice-breaker, the Malygin at Hooker Island in Franz Josef Land, was substituted for the submarine for the exchange of mail. |
| The luxurious interior of the Graf Zeppelin was removed and replaced with sparse furnishings more in keeping with the scientific aspect of the flight. In addition to a crew of 31 under Eckener, there was a 15-man scientific team headed by the Russian arctic scientist Professor Samoilovich. A last-minute addition was Lincoln Ellsworth who had wisely declined to accompany Sir Hubert on his submarine venture. |
| The Graf Zeppelin departed its home-base at Friedrichshafen on July 24, 1931 and flew first to Berlin's Staaken airbase. The airship departed Berlin at approximately 4:00 am the following morning bound for Leningrad [St. Petersburg] and arrived shortly after 6:00 pm. At about 9:00 am on the morning of the 26th, the Graf Zeppelin departed Leningrad bound for the Arctic. The route of flight took them over Archangel, across the White Sea, and toward Franz Josef Land and Hooker Island where the meeting and exchange of mail with the ice-breaker Malygin was to take place. |
| The Graf Zeppelin descended into Tikhaya Bay at Hooker Island, then the site of the world's northernmost weather station, and executed a water landing near the Malygin. There a nostalgic reunion of sorts took place. As Lincoln Ellsworth described it, |
| We had a sack of mail for the Maligin and they sent over a boat for |
| it. In the stern sheets was a vaguely familiar figure waving a greeting |
| to me. When he came aboard the Graf Zeppelin and shook hands, I |
| had to look twice to recognize him. It was Umberto Nobile, whom I |
| had not seen since our Norge flight of 1926. He had aged visibly |
| since then. The Italia disaster had made a different man of him. As |
| he left in the bobbing boat of the Maligin, which was still looking |
| for Italia survivors--waving good-by as he stood unsteadily in the |
| stern--the scene held an element of pathos that I can never forget |
| (Ellsworth, 1938, p. 248). |
|
| The "sack of mail" that Ellsworth referred to was actually about 650 pounds of mail consisting of philatelic items, the sale of which helped in large measure to finance the 1931 flight. In return, they received roughly 270 pounds of mail from the Malygin. In all, there were approximately 50,000 pieces of mail associated with the 1931 polar flight. (Eckener, 1958, p. 121). Today, they are highly prized and highly collectible. . |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Once the formalities of the exchange of mail were dispensed with, the flight could continue with its scientific pursuits. The Graf Zeppelin turned east and flew along the 81st parallel bound for ice-locked Severnaya Zemlya. Flying along the coast, the scientists on board made a startling discovery: Severnaya Zemlya was not one island as indicated on maps, but two land masses separated by a narrow strait (actually, it was later determined that Severnaya Zemlya is an archipelago of four main islands). |
| From there they returned to Franz Josef Land to carry out one of the main objectives of the flight, the aerial survey and mapping of the island groups. It was there that they reached the northernmost point of the trip, Rudolf Island, roughly 500 miles from the North Pole. Then turning south, the Graf Zeppelin flew over the Taimyr Peninsula past Dikson Island and across Novaya Zemlya to complete a first-ever program of air-mapping of the Russian Arctic. Eckener then set a course for Archangel, Leningrad, a brief stop in Berlin, then home. |
| The Graf Zeppelin arrived back in Friedrichshafen at 4:00 am on the morning of July 31, 1931 after completing an eight day, 8,142-mile voyage. The scientific results of the flight, however, took several years to compile. |
|
| The Thirties and Beyond. When the Graf Zeppelin was safely moored to the mast at Friedrichshafen in the early morning hours of July 31, 1931, it marked the end of one era and the start of another. The previous year, Eckener had made an excursion to Spitzbergen carrying Swiss tourists who had chartered the flight. The 1931 polar flight would be the last flight into the far north by the Graf Zeppelin, or by any airship for that matter. The Graf Zeppelin and later the Hindenburg went on to pioneer transatlantic flights. Meanwhile, the Russians went on to dominate polar aviation in the thirties using airplanes rather than airships. During the 1930s, the Russians claimed several spectacular transpolar flights from Moscow to North America. In 1937, Russian aircraft landed on the ice in the near vicinity of the North Pole to establish the first of many drifting ice stations that now dot the Arctic Ocean. By the end of World War II, airplane technology had advanced to the point that flights over the north polar regions had become almost routine. |
|
| The 1931 Graf Zeppelin polar flight is possibly the least well-known of many spectacular flights the giant rigid airship made in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In fact, despite its impressive scientific achievements, the flight now is of interest primarily to collectors of Zeppelin mail. The Norge and Italia polar airship flights are far better known. It should have been otherwise. The row between Amundsen and Nobile, played out in the world press, drew attention to the 1926 Norge flight despite its lack of appreciable scientific results. In terms of polar exploration, the 1925 Amundsen-Ellsworth flight to 88ºN and the 1928 Wilkins-Eielson flight from Alaska to Spitzbergen were of far greater importance. In 1928, it was the Italia crash and subsequent international air-sea rescue operations that generated world-wide attention rather than the flight itself. |
| Had the intended meeting at the North Pole between the Graf Zeppelin and Wilkins's submarine taken place, this might be remembered as one of history's great flights. But Eckener must have known from the beginning that the rendezvous was hardly a realistic possibility. Perhaps a clue lies in the fact that the flight was conducted over the most remote and sparsely populated regions of the world. Unlike other Graf Zeppelin flights, there were no crowds cheering, bands playing, and press photographers snapping pictures wherever they went. In fact, there are hardly any memorable photos from this flight. Further, Eckener by-passed Leningrad and waiting crowds on the return flight (the reason he gave was deteriorating weather) and the stopover at Berlin's Tempelhof was a brief one. An additional factor was Eckener's consistent reluctance to sensationalize for the benefit of the press and eager readers the conditions encountered on his flights. |
|
| Hugo Eckener described the return of the Graf Zeppelin to Friedrichshafen in July 1931 in these words: "We arrived there [Friedrichshafen] shortly after 4 a.m., exactly a week after our take-off for the Arctic flight. An ancient dream of Count Zeppelin's had found its fulfillment. Would there be a sequel? Will Nansen's 'Aeroarctic' live again?" (Eckener, 1958, p. 139). |
| These are good words to ponder. The polar flight of the Graf Zeppelin represents a last in the annals of great polar aviation firsts--it was the last of several spectacular forays into the polar regions by an airship. But amazingly, the Norge and Italia mooring mast at Kings Bay--now the international scientific community of Ny Ålesund--is still standing although the airship hangar has long since disappeared. With the advent of a new breed of Zeppelin airships, perhaps one day now Eckener's questions will be answered and yet another Zeppelin will make an historic flight into the polar regions. |
|
|
