Polar Pilgrims

Wilkins. Safely returned to Fairbanks after their fourth hop over the 560 miles of desolate northern Alaska between Fairbanks and their advanced base, Point Barrow, Captain George H. Wilkins and Pilot Ben Eielson took on a load of freight heavier than ever--4,200 Ib. of fuel and food--and soared northward again. This time their radio was silent for hours that stretched into two days. The men in Fairbanks hoped it was only a wrist Wilkins had sprained during the second round-trip that was preventing him from operating the monoplane Alaskan's wireless outfit.

Amundsen -Ellsworth -Nobile. While her Norwegian and American commanders progressed in triumph to Tromso and took ship, with supplies of men, materials and hydrogen gas, to meet her at Spitzbergen, the dirigible Norge obeyed the commands of her Italian chief, Colonel Nobile, hurrying over Europe by day and night. Her landing at Pulham Field, England, was accomplished after much maneuvering. Various supercargoes were discharged and she left, the evening after arriving, for Oslo. Grey morning found her feeling her way along the Danish coast. Soon after noon she dipped to the royal palace at Oslo, to Explorer Amundsen's villa on a nearby fjord, and settled rather clumsily and with much ground assistance to her mooring mast. The populace had no chance to turn out again, nor government officials again to climb to the roof of Parliament, for she took her departure for Russia at midnight to escape rising winds. Over the Baltic Sea it was a cold, foggy night. Unprotected in the airship's gondola, unable even to sit down save on camp-stools or the keel, the staff made a bad night of it. About noon the fogs cleared, but radio communication with earth was lost. Dipping, the pilot dropped a note to gaping peasants: "Where are we? North or south of the Gulf of Finland? If south, please hold arms aloft; if north, cross arms." The gapers lifted their arms uncrossed. The nearest railway station was that of a village near Riga, in Latvia. That evening, 12 hours behind schedule, the Norge loomed through the dusk and was hauled into a hangar near the Gatchina Palace, outside of Leningrad. Hundreds of Soviet soldiers had to struggle in three feet of snow to get her berthed.

Byrd. Commander Richard E. Byrd, his men and airplanes, rode the high seas in their steel ship Chantier toward Tromso, where there waited for him an ice pilot, thoughtfully engaged for Byrd by Explorer Amundsen to keep the Chantier's hull uncrushed by ice between Tromso and Spitzbergen. Byrd flashed congratulations to Captain Wilkins upon his reconnoissance flight to 73DEG 30' N. (TIME, April 19). There was, allegedly, no race among the three parties, no rivalry. During the next weeks they intended to talk when possible by radio, assist whoever meets disaster.