Umberto Nobile
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Umberto Nobile | |
---|---|
Italian Constituent Assembly | |
In office 25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948 | |
Parliamentary group | Communist |
Constituency | Lazio |
Personal details | |
Born | Lauro, Italy | 21 January 1885
Died | 30 July 1978 Rome, Italy | (aged 93)
Resting place | Cimitero Flaminio, Rome |
Political party | Independent |
Spouses |
|
Children | Maria |
Alma mater | University of Naples Federico II |
Occupation | Aviator, university professor |
Known for | Polar expeditions of Norge and Italia |
Committees | Committee for the Constitution |
Awards |
|
Military service | |
Allegiance | Italy |
Branch/service | Royal Italian Air Force |
Years of service | 1911-1929[a] |
Rank | Generale di divisione area |
Umberto Nobile (Italian pronunciation: [umˈbɛrto ˈnɔːbile]; 21 January 1885 – 30 July 1978) was an Italian aviator, aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer.
Nobile was a developer and promoter of
Early career
Umberto Nobile was born in
After graduating from the University of Naples in 1908 with a degree in industrial engineering, Nobile was hired by the Italian state railways. In 1911 his interests turned to the field of aeronautical engineering and he enrolled into a course offered by the Italian Army's Engineers Corps. During World War I he served as a military engineer, working at the Military Factory for Aeronautical Construction and Experience (Stabilimento Militare di Costruzioni ed Esperienze Aeronautiche) in Rome. During this time he designed airships designed for anti-submarine reconnaissance, 15 of which would be built after the war, and taught courses for aspiring officers. In 1918 he designed the first Italian-made parachute. He was director of the Factory from 1919 until 1927.[2]
He also lectured at the University of Naples, obtained his test pilot's license and wrote the textbook Elementi di Aerodinamica (Elements of Aerodynamics).[citation needed]
During this time Nobile became convinced that medium-sized,
In the same year Nobile worked with
Polar expeditions
Norge
In late 1925 Norwegian explorer
The Italian State Airship Factory, which had built Nobile's N-1, made it available for the expedition 29 March 1926. Amundsen insisted in the contract that Nobile should be the pilot and that five of the crew should be Italian;
On 29 April Amundsen was dismayed at the arrival of
On 11 May 1926, the Norge expedition left Svalbard. Fifteen and a half hours later the ship flew over the Pole and landed two days later in Teller, Alaska;[7] strong winds had made the planned landing at Nome, Alaska, impossible. In retrospect, the Norge crew actually achieved their aim of being the first to overfly the Pole: Byrd's 9 May flight, acclaimed for decades as the prestigious first Polar flyover, has since been subjected to several credible challenges,[7] including the discovery of Byrd's flight diary, which showed that navigational data in his official report was fraudulent. Byrd's co-pilot Bennett is said later to have admitted that they faked their flight to the Pole.
The Norge "Rome to Nome" flight was acclaimed as another great milestone in flight, but disagreement soon erupted between Nobile (designer and pilot), and Amundsen (expedition leader, observer and passenger) on the flight, as to who deserved greater credit for the expedition.[7] The controversy was exacerbated by Mussolini's Fascist government, which trumpeted the genius of Italian engineering and exploration; Nobile was ordered to make a speaking tour of the U.S., further alienating Amundsen and the Norwegians.
Italia
Despite the controversy, Nobile continued to maintain good relations with other polar scientists, and he started planning a new expedition, this time fully under Italian control. Nobile's company managed to sell the N-3 airship to Japan; however, relations between Nobile and his competitors in the fascist government were hostile, and he and his staff were subjected to threats and intimidation. Nobile's popularity with the public meant he was, for the moment, safe from direct attack. When the plans for his next expedition were announced, Italo Balbo is said to have commented, "Let him go, for he cannot possibly come back to bother us anymore."[8]
The
This time the airship used a German hangar at Stolp en route to Svalbard and the mast at Vadsø (Northern Norway). On 23 May 1928, after an outstanding 69-hour-long flight to the Siberian group of Arctic islands, the Italia commenced its flight to the North Pole with Nobile as both pilot and expedition leader. On 24 May, the ship reached the Pole and had already turned back toward Svalbard when it ran into a storm. On 25 May, the Italia crashed onto the pack ice less than 30 kilometres north of Nordaustlandet (Eastern part of Svalbard). Of the 16 men in the crew, ten were thrown onto the ice as the gondola was smashed; the remaining six crewmen were trapped in the buoyant superstructure as it ascended skyward due to loss of the gondola; the fate of the six men was never resolved. One of the ten men on the ice, Pomella, died from the impact; Nobile suffered a broken arm, broken leg, broken rib and head injury; Cecioni suffered two badly broken legs; Malmgren suffered a severe shoulder injury and suspected injury to a kidney; and Zappi had several broken ribs.[9]
The crew managed to salvage several items from the crashed airship gondola, including a radio transceiver, a tent which they later painted red for maximum visibility, and, critically, boxes of food and survival equipment which quick-witted engineer Ettore Arduino had managed to throw onto the ice before he and his five companions were carried off to their deaths by the wrecked but still airborne airship envelope and keel. As the days passed, the drifting sea ice took the survivors towards Foyn and Broch islands.[8]
A few days after the crash the Swedish meteorologist
A "highly imaginative, fictionalized version" of these events was made into the 1969 film The Red Tent.[10] The film was an Italian/Soviet co-production and featured Peter Finch as Nobile, Sean Connery as Amundsen and Hardy Krüger as Lundborg.
Controversial search and rescue
In the wake of the crash, a collection of nations, including the Soviet Union, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Italy, launched the first polar air and sea rescue effort. Privately owned ships which had been chartered by polar scientists and explorers also participated. Even Roald Amundsen put aside his past differences with Nobile and boarded a French seaplane and headed for the rescue headquarters; this plane disappeared between Tromsø and Svalbard, and though a pontoon from the craft was later found, the bodies of Amundsen, the pilot René Guilbaud and the four others on board were not.[11]
After a month of privation for the Italia survivors, the first rescue plane, a
Eventually, Nobile reached the Città di Milano, where, he later said, he was dismayed at the incompetence he found. His attempts to help 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. It was wrongly reported in Fascist Italian newspapers that his own evacuation was an obvious sign of cowardice. After 48 days on the ice floe, the last five men of his crew were rescued by the Soviet
Two hundred thousand cheering Italians met Nobile and his crew on arrival in Rome on 31 July. This show of popularity was unexpected by Nobile's detractors, who had been seeding the foreign and domestic press with accusations against him. An aggrieved Nobile was not shy about his complaints; in an interview with Benito Mussolini, he offended the dictator by detailing his grievances at length. The official inquiry and the embarrassment over the crash gave Nobile's enemies the chance they were looking for: blame for the disaster was placed on his shoulders, and he was accused of abandoning his men on the ice – charges he would spend the rest of his life trying to dispel. In protest of the findings, General Nobile resigned from the air force in March 1929.
Later life
In July 1931, Nobile took part in the expedition of the Soviet icebreaker Malygin to Franz Josef Land and the northern Kara Sea. He moved to the Soviet Union in 1932, and lived there for nearly five years to work on the Soviet semi-rigid airship program. Few details of the program have been documented, but Nobile supervised the manufacturing of three airships, including SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM, and designed two others that were intended for military use.
Nobile returned to Italy in December 1936, after he had been appointed as a member of the
Due to the hostility of the Fascist government, Nobile moved to the United States in 1939 to teach at Lewis University (at the time called Lewis Holy Name School of Aeronautics due to its aviation-focused curriculum) in Romeoville and in Chicago. He was permitted to remain in the US after Italy declared war on the United States, but declined the offer of US citizenship and opted to return to Europe in May, 1942. Following a brief stay in Rome he moved to Spain, where he remained until Mussolini was deposed, after which he made his definite return to his native country.
In 1945, the Italian air force cleared Nobile of all charges related to the Italia crash, and not only reinstated him at his former rank as major general, but promoted him to lieutenant general[
In 1948, Nobile returned to teaching at the University of Naples, where he studied and taught aeronautical and astronautical subjects. He continued giving interviews and writing books and articles until his death, without managing to fully sway public opinion and some military experts of his version of the events of his polar expeditions.[2]
Nobile died in Rome on 30 July 1978, aged 93, shortly after the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of his two expeditions. The Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle has a large permanent exhibition on his achievements. A museum in his hometown of Lauro collects his documents and memorabilia.[14]
Personal life
Nobile was married to Carlotta Ferraiolo, daughter of a wealthy notary from Teano and ten years his senior, from 1916 until her death in 1934. Together they had a daughter, Maria. In 1959 he remarried with Gertrude Stolp, a German woman whom he had met in Spain in 1943[2] and who later became chief librarian at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.
See also
- The Red Tent, a 1969 film about the rescue effort
- Titina (film), a 2022 animated film about Nobiles polar expeditions.
- List of explorers
- Timeline of hydrogen technologies
- Enrico Forlanini – another Italian designer of semi-rigid airships
- Spitsbergen Airship Museum
- Nobile (crater)
Notes
- ^ Nobile resigned from the Air Force on 5 March 1929 after an inquiry commission blamed him for the Italia accident. In 1945 he was rehabilitated and reinstated with his prior rank.
References
- ^ "Congressional Gold Medal Recipients". United States House of Representatives. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
Roald Amundsen, the distinguished Norwegian explorer, and Umberto Nobile, the distinguished Italian explorer, were recognized for their participation in the transpolar flight of 1926.
- ^ a b c d Surdich, Francesco (2013). "NOBILE, Umberto in "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani"". Treccani (in Italian). Retrieved 25 October 2022.
- ^ Nobile, Umberto (1970). La tenda rossa. Memorie di neve e di fuoco (in Italian) (2nd ed.). Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. p. 56.
- ^ Starkings, Peter. "Japanese Military Airships, 1910-1945". JAS Jottings.
- ^ Nobile, Umberto (1970). La tenda rossa. Memorie di neve e di fuoco (in Italian) (2nd ed.). Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. pp. 131–133.
- ^ "Roald Amundsen and the 1925 North Pole Expedition". 12 June 2006. Retrieved 11 March 2009.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-57607-422-0)
- ^ ISBN 1-58574-496-4
- ^ Wilbur Cross, Disaster at the Pole, Lyons Press 2002
- ^ Barbara Rhodes. "Umberto Nobile – The North Pole Flights". Retrieved 11 March 2009.
- ^ "Search for Amundsen expedition webpage". Archived from the original on 2 August 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
- ^ Vilhjalmur Stefansson (June 1929). A Defence of Nobile. Reader's Digest.
- ^ Nobile, Umberto (1970). La tenda rossa. Memorie di neve e di fuoco (in Italian) (2nd ed.). Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. p. 362.
- ^ "Museo Civico "Umberto Nobile"". Museo Italia (in Italian). Retrieved 26 October 2022.
Further reading
- Garth Cameron. From Pole to Pole: Roald Amundsen's Journey in Flight. (New York, Skyhorse Publishing, 2014)
- Garth Cameron. Umberto Nobile and the Arctic Search for the Airship Italia (Stroud, Fonthill Media, 2017).
- Alexander McKee. Ice crash: Disaster in the Arctic, 1928. (London, Kenneth Leish, 1979).
- Umberto Nobile. My Polar Flights", (London, Frederick Muller, 1961). Republished as paperback in 1972 with new title: The Red Tent.
- R Samoilowitsch. S-O-S in der Arktis – Die Rettungs-Expedition des Krassin. (Berlin, Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1929).
- Rolf S.Tandberg. The Italia disaster: Fact or Fiction – Including the Personal Experiences of a Member of One of the Relief Expeditions. (Oslo, 1977).
- "Zeppelin Design: Umberto Nobile and the Italian N-1 Airship". Archived from the original on 3 August 2009. Retrieved 11 March 2009. (Umberto Nobile interviewed in 1960 about the Norge and Roma, with transcript)
- "Land or Ocean? Umberto Nobile Explores the North Pole Terrain". Kenneth Leish. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 11 March 2009. (Umberto Nobile interviewed in 1960 about the 1926 Norge Alaska trip, with transcript)
- The Red Tent at IMDb(fictional dramatization)
- U. Nobile "Semi-Rigid v. Rigid Airships" FLIGHT, 22 January 1922
External links
- Works by Umberto Nobile at Open Library
- Works by or about Umberto Nobile at Internet Archive
- Newspaper clippings about Umberto Nobile in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- The Papers of Umberto Nobile at Dartmouth College Library
- Letters from Umberto Nobile to Harriet Lund at Dartmouth College Library