Jetrader - Summer 2014 - 51

flew it to Newfoundland, where she took
off alone and became the first woman to
pilot an aircraft across the Atlantic. In 1929
Balchen was Byrd's pilot on the first ever
flight over the South Pole. Their aircraft, a
Ford Trimotor named after Floyd Bennett,
is now also in the Henry Ford Museum.
During World War II Balchen served with
distinction as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air
Force (USAAF). A full list of his aviation
accomplishments and awards is far too long
to be repeated here.
Floyd Bennett was awarded the Medal
of Honor for piloting Byrd's North Pole
flight and was expected to be the pilot
for the 1929 flight over the South Pole.
Unfortunately, fate intervened. In the
spring of 1928, a German Junkers aircraft
named Bremen attempted a non-stop
westbound flight from Europe to America.
Taking off from Ireland, it crash-landed
on Greenly Island in the strait between
Newfoundland and Labrador. Bennett and
Balchen, despite both of them suffering a
bout of the flu, borrowed a Ford Trimotor
to relieve the crew and take spare parts
and equipment to repair the Bremen.
Along the way Balchen's flu got better
but Bennett's became worse. When they
stopped in Quebec to change the Trimotor
from wheels to skis, Bennett was taken
to a hospital where he succumbed to his
fever, while Balchen continued on. In
Bennett's honor, New York's municipal airport in Brooklyn was named Floyd Bennett
Field. The area is now a public park but is
still used as a helicopter base by the New
York Police Department.
Richard Byrd, after the 1929 flight over
the South Pole, was a tireless fundraiser
and proponent of Antarctic exploration. He
commanded four more large U.S. expeditions to Antarctica between 1933 and 1956.
He died in 1957 and was buried at Arlington
National Cemetery.
Umberto Nobile, the Italian pilot of
the airship Norge on its 1926 flight over
the North Pole and onward to Alaska,
returned to Spitsbergen in the spring of
1928 with a new, improved airship, the
Italia. He planned several flights, including a revisit to the North Pole and a wide
area search in all directions to look for
new lands that could be claimed for Italy.
Returning from the pole with a crew of
16 men, the Italia was forced down by
a storm. Nine men survived the crash,

including Nobile. They endured on the ice
for about a month before a small Swedish
search plane found them. With room for
only one passenger, it took Nobile back
to Spitsbergen but crashed on landing
when it went back to get the others. They
remained stranded for three more weeks
until a Russian icebreaker was able to
pick them up. An Italian board of inquiry
faulted Nobile for the crash, and he was
further vilified for being the first man
taken off the ice. Nobile was forced to
resign from the Italian air force in disgrace
for having abandoned his men, and went
into voluntary exile in Russia. In 1939 he

relocated to the U.S and taught aeronautics at Lewis University in Lockport, Ill.
After Italy surrendered to the allied forces
in 1943, he returned to Rome, and in 1946
he was exonerated by the Italian Air Force.
Roald Amundsen had seen it all and
done it all as regards polar exploration.
When he heard that Nobile's expedition went missing on its flight out of
Spitsbergen, he helped prepare a search
and rescue effort by aircraft. Sadly,
Amundsen's aircraft disappeared into
a fog bank while flying from Tromso to
Spitsbergen to join the search, and he
was never seen again.

To Dig Deeper
Oceans, Poles and Airmen, the First Flights over Wide Waters and Desolate Ice,
by Richard Montgue, Random House, 1971
The Last Viking, the Life of Roald Amundsen, Biography by Stephen R. Brown,
Da Capo Press, 2012
Come North With Me, autobiography by Bernt Balchen, E.P. Dutton, 1958
Explorer, the Life of Richard E. Byrd, by Lisle A. Rose, University of Missouri Press, 2008
Poles Apart, the Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Colonel Bernt Balchen Odyssey, by Bess
Balchen, Red Anvil Press, 2004

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