Now he had a much more interesting proposition. Lincoln Ellsworth had first met Amundsen in France during the war and later had shown some interest in joining the Maude expedition (through the north east passage). Salvation came out of the blue in the form of a telephone call. Still in America, he launched on a lecture tour and wrote articles for magazines. He had no money - he owed his brother $20,000 lent to support a previous expedition. This put Amundsen in a very difficult position. He negotiated the purchase of three Dornier Wal flying boats at $40,000 each. Hammer, an American of Danish origin was an eternal optimist and he went off to Italy where Dornier had his factory (to avoid contravening the terms of the Versailles Treaty). It meant that Amundsen had now achieved a complete circumnavigation of the polar sea and with the vast amount of scientific data which had been collected the expedition was deemed to be a success. It eventually emerged from the ice in the spring of 1921 near Alaska. It drifted, not towards the pole, more along the line of the north-east passage. Maude sailed from Tromso on 15 June 1918 without an aeroplane. America entered the war in April 1917 and disrupted this plan. There were reports that he was going to take an aeroplane, a Curtis Oreole, that was being built for him. He had a special ship built, one with rounded bilges so that it would rise rather than being crushed by the freezing sea.
He planned a ‘voyage’ - a drift in the frozen sea - towards the pole in the relatively unexplored region north of Russia. It benefitted from a shipping boom and Amundsen’s family made enough money to finance’s Roald’s next expedition. The kites were taken on the expedition, intending to be used to pick out leads through the sea ice though there is no record that they were actually used. Here he is, conducting his own low-level test.
Instead, Amundsen had a set of man-lifting kites made, like those developed by Samuel Cody for the British army. Although it would be excellent for reconnaissance, no current model was robust enough to cope with polar conditions. In its planning, which was in 1910, it was inevitable that the latest form of travelling vehicle - the aeroplane - would be considered.
His well-organised and skilfully carried out trip to the South Pole and back was yet another successful expedition on his list of achievements. On the way, he trekked to the location of the north magnetic pole. From 1903 to 1907, in the 47-ton sloop, Gjoa, he sailed - and drifted, trapped in ice - from Greenland, past the northern Canadian islands and Alaska to the Pacific. He gained fame as a polar explorer and national hero status by being the first to travel through the North West Passage. When this spent a winter trapped in ice, Amundsen completed his ‘polar’ education. In 1896, he joined a Belgian research ship.
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When his mother died in 1893 he left university and joined a sealing ship to learn navigation in high latitudes and how to cope in Arctic weather. He had become fascinated by the exploits of polar travellers, particularly John Franklin who died with all his men in the search for the north west passage in 1845. His mother insisted he should train as a doctor and he spent three years at university as an indifferent student. Born in 1872, Amundsen was the fourth son of a wealthy shipping magnate and sent to the best schools. And in Britain at least, and in much of the world, the man primarily associated with the South Pole is Captain Scott, not Roald Amundsen.īut not in Norway. Ironically, although Scott and his men failed in their quest to be first to reach the Pole and had tragically died on the return journey they were hailed as the heroes. 35 days later Robert Falcon Scott reached the Norwegians’ tent with its flag flying proudly above it. On 14th December, 1911, Roald Amundsen’s team were the first men to stand at the South Pole. The 1924 Two Seater Aeroplane Competition
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