The "Italia" Fiasco

XXVIII

After his successful transpolar flight, Umberto Nobile decided to adapt one of Norge's three sister ships for a circumnavigation of the North Polar region. Backed entirely by the Mussolini government, the Italia began a series of polar voyages (each to a different area of the Arctic Ocean) in May, 1928.

Nobile carried nineteen crewmen and his dog aloft. Again, just as on Norge, there weren't enough hands to set watches, The crew simply stayed awake throughout the flights.

Just like with Norge, fog and ice bedeviled Italia's voyages. Italia sustained more damage on each flight than Norge had sustained on its single transpolar voyage, and had to turn back for repairs. Polar weather conditions were unusually bad, but Nobile seemed confident in Italia's flying abilities.

On Italia's third flight on May 25th, Italia flew into a gale. Not only was the wind battering her, but fine needles of ice in the air were puncturing the hull with thousands of tiny pinholes. The ship became weighted down with ice and the control surfaces froze. Nobile, badly lost in a whiteout and without sleep for some 55 hours, decided to turn back.

When the sluggish and barely-controllable ship turned broadside to the wind, she was stressed beyond her tolerance, and crashed on an ice floe. Only one man was killed, but several were badly injured, including Nobile, who broke two limbs.

As the men began removing their injured fellows and needed equipment from Italia, the lightened hulk regained some airworthiness. Six crewmen still aboard floated away helplessly, and were never seen again.

What followed was a fiasco, and is a lesson in why Fascism is a terrible system of government. When the radioman back at base did not pick up the Italia's regularly-scheduled check in signal he noted in his log, "Ship presumed lost" and went off duty. The next radioman took note of the log and brought word of the "presumed" loss to the base commander, who did two things: He wired Rome for instructions (which took days to arrive as they were caught in bureaucratic pigeonholes), and (assuming, since there was no scheduled message from the Italia, that everyone on board had been killed) ordered that base camp begin to dismantle its operations. No one listened for any SOSes.

It was not until June 3rd that a Russian amateur radio operator picked up an SOS from the stranded crew of Italia. It took another two days for the Communist bureaucracy (as bad as the Fascist) to announce the news.

Rescue flights began, but nobody could find the Italia's crew, some of who were walking southward for help (several died in this attempt). Roald Amundsen, the great Norwegian polar explorer and critic of Nobile, lost his life when his rescue flight vanished.

The survivors were not sighted on the ice until June 20th, and the first rescue skiplane, a Norwegian craft, landed three days later. The plane had room for one passenger only, and the badly-injured Nobile was put aboard. It was not until July 12th that all the Italia survivors were picked up.

Nobile faced official and unofficial condemnation. In an attempt to paper over its own incompetence, the Mussolini government accused Nobile of cowardice for being rescued first and leaving his men on the ice. He was stripped of all honors and ranks, and sent into internal exile. Amundsen's criticisms of him during the Norge flight were dredged up, and he was publicly blamed for the death of the great Amundsen.

He left Italy in 1931 to go to the U.S.S.R., where he designed their dirigibles, but had his citizenship and honors restored to him in Italy after the war. 

Promoted to an Air Force Lieutenant General, he ran for public office and served quite honorably. Nobile died in Rome in 1978. He was 93.