South Pole conqueror Roald Amundsen won air race to the North Pole

IN 1926 two expeditions set out to conquer the North Pole by air but only one — the Norge commanded by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (left) — could be the true winner

The Airship Norge over Ny-Alesund in Norway in 1926, was the first aircraft to verifiably fly over the North Pole.

IN 1926 two separate expeditions set out to be the first to fly over the North Pole. One was headed by American naval officer Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the other commanded by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 was the first man to reach the South Pole.

Both expeditions set out in May, 1926. But while Byrd has long been seen as the winner of the race to be the first person to fly over the North Pole, his claim was disputed at the time and historians now believe he never quite made it to the pole. That leaves Amundsen’s expedition, which crossed over the pole on May 12, 1926, 90 years ago today, as the first expedition to verifiably make it to the pole by air.

Roald Amundsen (right), in 1924, shows the course he would take to the North Pole.

In fact it may have been the first expedition of any kind to reach the pole. American adventurer Frederick A. Cook’s claim that he reached the North Pole in April 1908 was discredited at the time and has never been adequately proven. The reason why may partly be thanks to the efforts of American naval officer Robert E Peary who had Cook’s instruments and papers taken off the ship he was travelling on after Peary returned from his alleged conquest of the pole. Peary’s claim was examined by a Naval Affairs Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives which doubted that his diaries were authentic. Several members expressed deep-rooted doubts about his claims. National Geographic’s 1988 re-examination of his diaries, which were made public in 1986, showed that those doubts were well founded. His calculations were out, and his entry for the day he allegedly crossed the North Pole had been written on a loose leaf and inserted after.

American aviator Richard Byrd, poses in front of a Fokker plane used for his expedition to the North Pole.

While controversy over the first person to reach the pole on foot raged, greater hopes were held for the aerial expeditions. The American expedition was headed by Admiral Byrd. Born in Virginia in 1888, the dashing American was a war hero, winner of the Medal of Honour, who developed navigational methods and equipment that made trans-Atlantic flights possible.

After gaining experience flying over the Arctic as part of Donald B. MacMillan’s expedition based in Greenland, Byrd became interested in flying over the pole. Acquiring funding for his voyage from benefactors including Edsel Ford, president of the Ford Motor Company, Byrd named his aircraft, a Fokker VIIa monoplane, the Josephine Ford (after Edsel’s daughter). His pilot for the flight was Floyd Bennett, while Byrd navigated.

The Josephine Ford took off from the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen on May 9. The flight was expected to take 18 hours but Byrd was back in 15 hours and 44 minutes. Evidence was later found to suggest that an oil leak had caused Byrd to turn back when he was 130km from the pole and most historians now doubt he ever flew over the pole.

The airship Norge commanded by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsenwas the first to fly over the North Pole in 1926.

The competing multinational expedition was financed partly by the Aero Club of Norway, which had acquired an Italian-designed, 103m-long hydrogen-filled airship, which they named the Norge. This 16-man expedition, headed by Amundsen, chief instigator of the adventure, included the Italian designer of the airship and pilot, Umberto Nobile, and US explorer and expedition sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth.

The Norge took off from Ny-Alesund on Spitsbergen on May 11. Passing over the North Pole at 1.25am on May 12, the flight continued on to Alaska. Plans to land at Nome had to be scrapped when a gale carried them off course. They finally landed in Teller, Alaska, on May 13.

Despite believing they had been beaten by Byrd the voyage is now seen as one of the great pioneering air voyages.

In 1929 Byrd would make the first flight to the South Pole. His aircraft was a Ford Trimotor named Floyd Bennett after his North Pole pilot who had died from pneumonia during a flight in 1928.

In 1935 Ellsworth and Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, would become the first men to cross Antarctica, flying from Dundee Island to the Ross Ice Shelf, although their plane ran out of fuel about 26km short of their destination, Little America. They had to walk the rest of the way, spending several weeks alone at the base until a British rescue ship, the Discovery, arrived from Melbourne.

Originally published as South Pole conqueror Roald Amundsen won air race to the North Pole