The Last Explorer by Simon Nasht

Author:Simon Nasht [Nasht, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61608-717-3
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Norwegian miners were kind hosts. The government radio station was put at their disposal. Wilkins’ first message was a coded signal to Dr. Isaiah Bowman at the Geographical Society: “No foxes seen,” meaning no land had been discovered.

Confident of his arrival, the New York Times had left a message requesting an account of the flight. He asked if they wanted 500 words or so. The response was eager and immediate: “Send all you can.”17 The paper splashed the unexpected news in huge type across its front page while it awaited Wilkins’ own account. He wrote this in longhand on the back of scrap paper, which the Times ran verbatim over the following three days. Its straightforward, restrained prose remains a classic of exploration reportage.18 In an editorial the paper called his flight “an amazing victory of human determination amounting to genius.”19 It was, the newspaper claimed, the greatest flight in history.

For days the radio operator at Green Harbour was busy transcribing hundreds of congratulatory telegrams from around the world. Wilkins’ rivals and colleagues among the exploration community were generous in their praise. Amundsen, who knew better than anyone what Wilkins had achieved, said: “No flight has been made anywhere, at any time, which could be compared with it.” Byrd and Stefansson agreed. Fridtjof Nansen, perhaps the greatest explorer of them all, called it a splendid achievement for which he had the highest admiration. For forty years the American Geographical Society had seen no reason to award its highest honour, the Samuel B. Morse gold medal. On the evening of April 24 its council unanimously agreed to grant it to Wilkins—the first of more than fifteen medals and awards he would receive from scientific bodies around the world.

The two men, exhausted but exhilarated, were swept up in a global outpouring of congratulations. Their tour began with a giant welcome in Norway and a meeting with the King. Amundsen hosted them at his country home, then at a banquet in their honour. That evening he received word that Nobile’s airship, the Italia, had disappeared in the north. Though supposedly retired, the conqueror of the poles immediately volunteered to lead a rescue party. Wilkins and Eielson offered to go too, but the veteran explorer told them not to bother, he would find the Italian. Amundsen left soon afterwards and never returned.

In Germany a squadron of fifteen planes escorted them on the final leg of their flight from Denmark, and in Berlin a crowd of 10,000 awaited their arrival. “I had to do the talking for us both,” said Wilkins, as the shy Eielson was overwhelmed by the reception. “He could not stand the night after night round of entertainments put on for us in Berlin, under the direction of none other than Herman Goering.” Goering at the time was a minor member of the Reichstag and the government director of entertainments for VIPs. After a week of nightlife with Berlin’s idle rich and movie stars, Ben got into the habit of propping himself up against the piano used by the band and dozing off.

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