Umberto Nobile

Umberto Nobile (January 21, 1885, Lauro, province of Avellino – July 30, 1978, Rome) was an Italian aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. Nobile is notable for having piloted the airship Norge that was the first aircraft both to reach the North Pole, and to cross the polar ice cap between Europe and America.

Early career

Nobile graduated from the University of Naples with degrees in both electrical and industral engineering. In 1906 he began work with the Italian state railways, where he worked on electrification of the rail system. In 1911 his interests turned to the field of aeronautical engineering and he enrolled in a one year course offered by the Italian Army. Nobile had always been fascinated by the work of airship pioneers such as Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin. When Italy entered World War One in 1915, the then 29 year old attempted three times to enlist but was rejected as physically unfit for service. The Italian military had used airships as early as 1912, during the Italo-Turkish War for bombing and reconnaissance. Nobile worked on airship construction and design during the war. Italy built about 20 M-class semi-rigid airships with a bomb load of 1000kg which it used for bombing and anti-shipping missions. Other smaller airships – some of them British built – were also used, but none of Nobile's designs flew until after the war.

In July 1918, Nobile began a business partnership with the engineers Giuseppe Valle, Benedetto Croce, and Celestino Usuelli which they called the Aeronautical Construction Factory. During this period he also lectured at the University of Naples, obtained his test pilots license and wrote the textbook Elementi di Aerodinamica (Elements of Aerodynamics). He became convinced that medium sized, semi-rigid airships were superior to non-rigid and rigid designs. The company's first project was the Airship T-34, which was designed for a trans-Atlantic crossing. When the British R34 crossed the Atlantic in 1919, the airship was sold first to the Italian military and then the US Army where it was commissioned as the Roma. The deteriorating political situation and threats to nationalise his company convinced Nobile to go to the US in 1922 to work as a consultant for Goodyear in Akron, Ohio. He returned to Italy in 1923 and began construction of a new airship, the N-1. However he was immediately enveloped in a storm of political intrigue, stage-managed by personal enemies and business competitors who used the newly emerged Fascist government to harass and intimidate Nobile and those associated with his company. The main antagonists seem to have been General Gaetano Arturo Crocco, an airship manufacturer and General Italo Balbo, chief of the general staff and heavier-than-air proponent.

Polar Expeditions

In 1925 Nobile became involved in planning a Polar flight with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and American millionaire/explorer Lincoln Ellsworth. The pair had previously flown to within 150 nautical miles (280 km) of the North Pole in two amphibious aircraft, but been trapped on the ice for 30 days after a forced landing. After a series of test flights, the N-1 was handed over on March 29 1926 and re-christened Norge (Norway). On April 14 the airship left for Ny-Ålesund (Kings Bay), Spitsbergen via a stop in Leningrad. On May 9, the expedition members were dismayed by a report that Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett had reached the Pole before them (this claim since been disputed). On May 11, 1926, the expedition left for the Pole. They flew over the Pole and landed in Teller, Alaska two days later, strong winds having made a return to Norway impossible. This "Rome to Nome" flight resulted in controversy between Nobile and Amundsen as to who deserved the credit for the expedition — Nobile, the pilot, or Amundsen, the expedition leader. The controversy was worsened by Nobile's Fascist enemies at home, who trumpeted the genius of Italian engineering and ordered Nobile on a speaking tour of the US, further alienating Amundsen and the Norwegians.

Despite the controversy, Nobile continued to have good relations with other polar scientists and started planning a new expedition, this time under Italian control. Nobile's company managed to sell an N-class airship to Japan, however political interference in his business led to constant threats and intimidation of staff. Publicly, Nobile's popularity meant he was, for the moment, safe from direct attack. When the plans were announced, Italo Balbo is reputed to have said "Let him go, for he cannot possibly come back to bother us anymore". The N-class airship Italia was slowly completed and equipped for Polar flight during 1927-28. Part of the difficulty was the raising of private funding for the expedition, the Italian government limiting its direct participation to sending the aging steamer Città di Milano as a support vessel to Spitsbergen, under the command of the incompetent Giuseppe Romagna. After two preliminary flights from Ny-Ålesund (Kings Bay), the flight to the North Pole began on May 23, 1928, but ended in a crash on the ice on May 25, close to 81° 14' latitude north, 28° 14' longitude east. The crew managed to salvage several items from the crashed airship, including food, a radio transmitter and, famously, a red tent. The drifting sea ice later took the survivors towards Foyn and Broch islands. Incompetence on the part of Captain Romagna meant that the survivors' distress signals were not picked up for several weeks, and despite the presence of Italian ski-troops on board in case of just such an emergency, no effort was made by the Italian authorities to mount a search, let alone a rescue effort.

Thus it was left to the international community, and in particular Norway, Sweden and Finland to begin the first polar air rescue effort. Several privately owned ships which had been chartered by polar scientists and explorers also participated. Even Amundsen forgot his past differences, but went missing when his overloaded seaplane disappeared en route to the search headquarters. His body was never found. After a month of privation, the first rescue plane, a Swedish airforce Fokker ski plane, piloted by Lieutenant Einar Lundborg landed near the crash site. Nobile had prepared a detailed evacuation plan, with the most seriously wounded men at the top of the list. However Lundborg, possibly on orders from his superiors, but also possibly on orders from the Italian government, refused to take anyone but Nobile, arguing that he was desperately needed to co-ordinate the rescue operations. Nobile was reluctantly airlifted to Ryss Island, base camp of Swedish and Finnish air rescue efforts. However, when Lundborg returned to pick up a second survivor he crashed his plane on landing and became trapped with the others. Eventually, Nobile reached the Città di Milano where he was dismayed at the incompetence he found. His attempts to co-ordinate the international rescue effort were blocked, and when he threatened to leave he was placed under virtual arrest by Captain Romagna. His telegrams to the survivors still on the ice, as well as to various people involved in the rescue, were heavily censored, and he was forced to sign a communique implying cowardice for being the first to be evacuated. Eventually the rest of his crew were rescued by the Soviet icebreaker Krasin. Nobile wanted to continue the search for six crew who were swept away in the envelope of the airship when it crashed, but he was ordered back to Rome with the others, in a locked train.

Two hundred thousand cheering Italians met Nobile and his crew on arrival in Rome. This show of popularity was unexpected by Nobile's enemies, who had been seeding the foreign and domestic press with accusations against him, probably to whitewash over their own incompetence in the rescue effort. During an interview with Benito Mussolini he offended the dictator by detailing his grievances at length, thus sealing his fate. The patently rigged official inquiry blamed Nobile for the disaster and, accused of abandoning his men, he spent the rest of his life defending his actions. However the complex conditions that led to the crash cannot rest solely on the shoulders of Nobile. Horrendous climatic conditions, equipment failure, and poor decision making all played a part. After resigning in public protest from the Italian air force (further angering Mussolini) in March 1929, Nobile faced a further trial with the death of his wife in 1930.

Later career

In 1931 he left to work in the Soviet Union, where he helped with the Soviet semi-rigid airship programme. Details of the Soviet Airship Program remain obscure, but there is an obvious Nobile influence in the design of the airships USSR-V5, and URSS W6 Ossoawiachim. He was allowed to return to Italy to teach in 1936, before going to the United States in 1939 to teach aeronautics in Lockport, Illinois. Despite his enemy alien status, he was permitted to remain in the US, and only returned home in 1943 because of his children.

In 1945 the Italian air force cleared him of all charges and promoted him to rank of major general. He was persuaded to run for parliament, but once elected was smeared as a communist on the basis of 5 years spent working in Russia. He then returned to his beloved University of Naples where he taught until his retirement.

External links

Umberto Nobile ~ The North Pole Flights
Fathom Archive An interview with Umberto Nobile about N-1 Norge and Roma airships

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Umberto Nobile

Early career

Polar Expeditions

Later career

See also

External links