Planning
Airship "Norway"
After the end of the expedition on the "Norway" Nobile began to hatch plans for a new flight to the North Pole in an airship. For this, it was decided to use the N-4 airship under construction, the same design as the "Norway", and almost similar in technical characteristics. The plans included the study of Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, an area north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the final solution of the question of the existence of the hypothetical Crocker Land, which Robert Peary allegedly observed in 1906, as well as observations in the field of atmospheric electricity, oceanography and terrestrial magnetism. Nobile at one time discussed the possibility of organizing a joint expedition with the Norwegian polar explorer Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, but due to the growing hostility between Nobile and Amundsen, Riiser-Larsen, who supported Amundsen, refused to participate.
Mussolini agreed to support the project after the main expenses were borne by the Royal Geographical Society of Italy and the city of Milan, where Nobile lived. Careful preparation was carried out, the expedition was very well equipped and equipped with the most modern equipment, some of which was specially designed in Rome and Milan for "Italy". Nobile met with Nansen personally and discussed with him the specifics of Arctic travel. In total, the airship team included 18 people: Nobile (expedition leader), meteorologist Finn Malmgren (Sweden), radiologist Frantisek Begounek (Czechoslovakia), physicist Aldo Pontremolli, 12 crew members and two journalists: correspondent Il Popolo d "Italia Hugo Lago and correspondent Corriere della sera Francesco Tomaselli. Seven of them in 1926 were in the crew of the "Norway". Nobile took with him his dog, the fox terrier Titina, who accompanied him on all his trips, including the expedition on the Norwegian.
Airship "Italy"
The construction of "Italy" took place at the plant of aeronautical structures in Rome, which Nobile headed since 1919. Italia became the fourth N-series airship built according to the Nobile project. Number N-1 was borne by "Norway", the airship N-2 was built in 1925 and was used for training the military, the airship N-3 was sold by Italy to Japan by order of the Japanese navy. Like all airships in the series, "Italia" belonged to the class of semi-rigid airships. The Italy was slightly smaller and lighter than the Norway and developed a lower speed, but could take more fuel. Otherwise, the designs of both airships were very similar.
The keel truss consisted of triangular steel frames, connected by steel longitudinal stringers. A nasal reinforcement was attached to the front of the keel truss, which was a steel tubular truss fastened with transverse rings, in the back - a stern development. Also, gondolas were suspended from the keel truss: one housed the control room and passenger rooms, in three nacelles, Maybach engines with a capacity of 184 kW each.
For the "Italia" shell, a three-layer rubberized percale was used, and from the inside, the shell was divided into a gas container and a ballonet. In turn, the gas reservoir consisted of ten compartments, and the ballonet - of eight. Like most airships of the time, Italy was filled with flammable hydrogen.
Crew
| Name | Position | Status |
| Umberto Nobile | Leader | Survived, wounded. |
| Finn Malmgren | Meteorologist | Wounded in the crash, died while trying to get to the base on his own |
| Frantisek Behounek | Physicist | Survived |
| Aldo Pontremolli | Physicist | Missing |
| Hugo lago | Journalist | Missing |
| Francesco Tomaselli | Journalist | Did not participate in the last flight |
| Adalberto Mariano | Navigator | Lived, lost a leg. |
| Filippo Zappi | Navigator | Survived |
| Alfredo Villieri | Navigator | Survived |
| Natale Cecone | Mechanic | Survived, wounded. |
| Giuseppe Biaggi | Radio operator | Survived |
| Ettore Pedretti | Radio operator | Was on Citta di Milano |
| Felice Troiani | Engineer | Survived |
| Calisto Chocca | Mechanic | Missing |
| Attilio Caratti | Mechanic | Missing |
| Vincenzo Pomella | Mechanic | Killed by the fall of the airship |
| Ettore Arduino | Chief engineer | Missing |
| Renato Alessandrini | Mechanic | Missing |
| Titina | Dog Nobile | Survived |
Expedition
Rescue expeditions
Disaster site detection
Navigator Mariano determined the coordinates of the crash site as 81.233333 , 25.416667 81 ° 14 ′ N sh. 25 ° 25 ′ east etc. / 81.233333 ° N sh. 25.416667 ° E etc. (G) (O) During the crash of "Italia", several bags of equipment and cans of food fell on the ice. The group had a four-person tent, a sleeping bag, a large supply of food (including 71 kilograms of pemmican and 41 kilograms of chocolate), a pistol with cartridges and a backup shortwave radio station, which the radio operator Biaggi brought up. On May 29, Malmgren shot and killed a polar bear, whose meat was put into food. Attempts to get in touch with Citta di Milano on May 27 and 28 ended in nothing. As Nobile argued, the Citta di Milano radio operators, instead of trying to catch the signal from the expedition's transmitter, were sending out personal telegrams. At the same time, the Citta di Milano went to sea in search of the Nobile camp, but without any information about its location, it had no serious chance of success. On May 29, the Chitta di Milano radio operator heard Biaggi's signal, but he mistook it for the call sign of the station in Mogadishu and did nothing. In late May - early June, several more expeditions were equipped in Italy, Sweden and Norway, including with the participation of two Norwegian whaling ships "Hobby" and "Braganza", chartered by the Italian government. The Norwegian government was ready to organize a full-scale rescue expedition involving Amundsen and Riiser-Larsen, but the Italian government then refused to help.
Completion of the expedition
Boris Chukhnovsky
Taking Zappi and Mariano, the Krasin moved towards the camp of Villieri's group. Communication with her was maintained through Citta di Milano. At 20:45 the same day, the icebreaker took on board five people who remained on the ice: Villieri, Behouneca, Troyani, Cecioni and Biaggi. Nobile insisted on finding the airship with the six members of the expedition remaining in the shell. However, Samoilovich said that he was unable to conduct searches due to a lack of coal and a lack of aircraft, and the captain of the Citta di Milano Romagna referred to an order from Rome to immediately return to Italy. All surviving members of the expedition moved to the Citta di Milano. On July 25, the ship arrived at the Norwegian port of Narvik, from where the Italians went by train to their homeland.
The search for the Alessandrini group
At the request of Pontremolli's relatives, an expedition led by Danny Albertini was organized aboard the Braganza in August, which did not bring any results. On September 3, the Braganza returned to Kongsfjord. At the same time, the Krasin made a trip in search of an airship. On September 20, he reached Georg Land (an island in the west of the Franz Josef Land archipelago), also not finding anyone during the voyage. On September 22, an order was received to return, on October 4, a solemn meeting was organized for him in Leningrad.
On September 29, one of the two Italian planes that took part in the rescue operation of Nobile and then, together with the Braganza, explored the area in search of Alessandrini's group, crashed. The search was stopped in mid-September, on the 27th the plane with a crew of five took off from Bergen. Not far from the city of Valenza, the plane crashed into a power line and fell into a river, pilot Pier Luigi Penzo and two other people were killed.
Consequences and assessment of the expedition
After returning to Italy, Nobile was enthusiastically greeted by a crowd of two hundred thousand people. In public speeches, Nobile assessed the expedition as a step forward in airship construction: “If I returned to the Arctic again, I would use an airship identical to Italy. Flights on "Italy" became a record for the Arctic. In three flights, we covered more than 5,500 miles (over 8,851 km) in 134 hours of net time. This is more than twice the total flight time of the Norway and more than three times the distance covered by Captain George Wilkins. " At the same time, Nobile was sharply criticized by the country's leadership, led by Mussolini and the pro-government press. Particular attention was paid to the fact that Nobile allegedly cowardly abandoned his expedition to the mercy of fate (meaning his evacuation), and the ambiguities in the fate of Malmgren. On the whole, the accusatory tone was taken by both the American and Soviet press. Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote a poem "", in which Nobile was called a "fascist generalish woman" who "betrayed his comrades." The Norwegian press was extremely hostile towards Nobile: the attitude towards Nobile in Norway was bad since the time of the conflict with Amundsen, and after Amundsen, a national hero, died trying to save his opponent, the press was almost not shy in expressions.
In March 1929, a state commission recognized Nobile as the main culprit in the disaster. Immediately after this, Nobile resigned from the Italian Air Force, and in 1931 he left for the Soviet Union to lead the program to build airships.
In 1969, Nobile unveiled a monument in the Norwegian city of Tromsø dedicated to all those who died during the Italia expedition. It bears the names of eight crew members of the airship, six crew members of the Latham and three Italian pilots.
"Italy" in culture
Already in October 1928, Sovkino released a documentary about the rescue operation of the Italia crew, based on material filmed by the cameraman Bluvstein on board the Krasin icebreaker.
The history of the airship "Italy" formed the basis for the joint Soviet-Italian film "Red Tent" (1969), shot by Mikhail Kalatozov. It was starred by Peter Finch (Nobile), Sean Connery (Amundsen), Yuri Vizbor (František Behounek), Eduard Martsevich (Malmgren) and Claudia Cardinale (Valeria, the only fictional character). Four of the direct participants of the expedition and accompanying events survived until the premiere of the film: Nobile, Villeri, Begounek and Chukhnovsky. It is known that Nobile attended the premiere of the film in Rome.
The hero of the novel "Horrors of Ice and Darkness" by Austrian writer Christoph Ransmair, who goes on an Arctic expedition to the Spitsbergen area, recalls "Italy" many times. The hero's mother as a girl personally saw the airship, and Nobile remained an idol for her forever. Then she told her son a lot about him.
Memory
- In 1995, the Bank of Russia, in the series of commemorative coins "Exploration of the Russian Arctic", issued a coin "Saving the expedition of U. Nobile" worth 100 rubles.
Notes
- John Toland, Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs and Disasters... P. 166-167.
At the end of May 1928, having visited the North Pole, the airship "Italy" of the expedition of General Umberto Nobile was returning from a long and difficult flight. A strong headwind interfered with the airship. The airship began to cover with ice and quickly descend. There was no way to prevent the fall. The ship hit the ice hummock and dragged with a crash through the deep snow, leaving the wreckage of the gondola on its white surface.
Ten people were on the ice. Nobile and the mechanic Cecioni were seriously injured. Among the wreckage of the engine lay the dead minder Pomella. The lightweight airship soared up to the low overhanging clouds and disappeared forever in an easterly direction, carrying six aeronauts away.
Those thrown onto the ice had to thank fate for the fact that food, a tent, weapons and even a radio station fell out with them. Radio operator Biagi tirelessly tapped out distress signals every hour. Time passed, but no one answered the alarming call of the "red tent".
And then on May 30, on a foggy, white polar night, three - Italian officers Zappi, Mariano and the Swedish scientist Malmgren - went on foot across hummock ice to the distant islands of Brock and Foyn to report the disaster. The departed were called "Malmgren's group".
The mysterious disappearance of the Italian airship has worried the whole world. Hundreds of radio stations listened in vain to the air, hoping to receive signals from "Italy". And suddenly, on June 3, the incredible happened. In the northern village of Voznesenie-Vokhma, a radio amateur Nikolai Schmidt received weak, barely distinguishable radio signals in an unfamiliar language. It was the "voice" of the Nobile camp.
FATAL SOLUTION
Following Schmidt, signals were heard by other radio stations. A stable radio communication was finally established with the camp in the ice. Many countries have responded to the call of the disaster. The Soviet icebreaker Krasin was in full swing to help the Italians.
However, finding a small camp in the vast Arctic expanses proved to be a difficult task. Many times the planes circled almost side by side and, to the great chagrin of the Italians, turned back. Nevertheless, that happy day came when the camp was spotted from the air and the first plane landed on the ice floe. The Swedish pilot Einar Lundborg managed to do this.
Long ago, on the ice, they decided that they would be the first to leave the Cecioni camp, whose leg was broken during the fall of the airship. He could not walk and only crawled helplessly. But Cecione was too heavy, and the co-pilot was sitting in the cockpit of Lundborg's small plane. The Swedish pilot offered to fly to Nobile, promising to return soon and gradually take everyone out.
As the head of the expedition, Nobile was obliged to leave the ice floe last. On the other hand, he - a seriously wounded and sick person - was a burden for the camp. There were minutes left for reflection, and, yielding to Lundborg's persuasions, Nobile agreed.
"I SEE A MAN!"
How later he regretted his rash decision! But that was later. And then the plane that soared into the sky was watched with envy by the five exhausted inhabitants of the ice floe.
On the same polar night, Lundborg flew in again. However, during the landing, the plane, hitting the hummock, rolled over its "head" and broke the propeller. So from a rescuer the brave Swede himself turned into a prisoner.
On the ice again, the bleak days dragged on. It was already July. The sea water became warmer, and the ice floe, melting from below, became thinner and thinner. More and more often in the camp they talked about the Soviet icebreaker "Krasin", hoping only for him. And at this time he was struggling to make his way through the ice.
On the evening of July 10, the icebreaker's radio operator, through the crackling and noise, received a radiogram, which excited the Krasin people. The pilot of the icebreaker Boris Chukhnovsky from the air near the island of Karl XII discovered the "Malmgren group", which had been wandering on the ice for more than a month. From that moment on, the sailors, forgetting about sleep, did not leave the deck, day or night. And finally, one of them shouted: “Man! I see a man! " The man ran along the ice, as if mad, and waved his arms strangely. The other was lying on his back, only raising his head.
OPAL GENERAL
They were Zappi and Mariano. From the contradictory and confusing story of the Italian officers, it turned out that they had left the exhausted Malmgren, as if at his request, in an ice grave. The Krasin people listened to this story, amazed at the cruelty of the companions of the Swedish scientist. In the evening of the same day, the icebreaker reached the "red tent", and five more from the crew of the deceased "Italia", all who were on the ice, boarded it.
The heroic epic was over. It cost dearly to its participants. Six people, carried away by the airship, were missing. Somewhere in the cold Barents Sea, the famous polar explorer Roald Amundsen, who took off in the French seaplane Latham, was killed to save the Italians.
After returning to his homeland, an unusually difficult period of life began for Nobile. Italy was under the fascist regime of Mussolini. Nobile was demoted, stripped of his general rank and even put on trial.
Then, as an airship designer, he left for the Soviet Union to help our engineers create a good airship. And when the ship was built, he flew on it more than once, passing on his rich pilot experience to Soviet aeronautics.
LIVE TALISMAN
Nobile stayed in our country for about five years. During his leisure hours, he walked along the wooden sidewalks of the village near Moscow, in which the design bureau was located, accompanied by his beloved dog Titina. She was with Nobile on all his flights. Was with him and on the ice. Nobile considered her to be his living talisman. He endlessly trusted her instinct, and if Titina refused to enter the airship gondola with him, he would even cancel the flight. Nobile believed that he suffered a disaster in the Arctic precisely because he did not obey his living talisman.
In 1936 he returned to Italy, but he could not get along with the fascist regime and left for the USA three years later. Umberto Nobile returned to his homeland during the Second World War. He was destined to live another 36 years. He died a very old man, having managed to write several books, including about his journey to the North Pole, which ended so tragically.
