Born at Mount
Bryan East, South Australia, on October 31, 1888, Hubert Wilkins
was the thirteenth child born to a South Australian sheep-farming
family.
As a young student, Hubert studied engineering part-time
at the School of Mines in Adelaide, however his passion was photography
and cinematography. An official biography would list his career
as war correspondent, polar explorer, naturalist, geographer, climatologist,
aviator, author, balloonist, war hero, reporter, secret agent, submariner
and navigator.
This was an extraordinary man.
In 1908 Wilkins stowed away on a ship from which he later abandoned
in Algiers. The next thing he knew, he found himself in a gang of
criminals involved with gun-running, kidnapping, drug dealing and
spying.
At 24, Wilkins was hired by the Gaumont Film Company to
join the Turkish side of the Turko-Bulgarian War of 1912 and shoot
footage of the war.
In
1913, Wilkins became second in command of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's
expedition to the Canadian Arctic. He went on to learn how to fly
and in 1917 Wilkins returned to his homeland of Australia and joined
the Australian Flying Corps at the rank of lieutenant. Although
an aviator, his primary duty was to photograph the gruesome fighting
in the field.
His superior officer was none other than Captain Frank
Hurley, the famous photographer of Mawson's
and Shackleton's Antarctic
expeditions. Wilkins was presented with the Military Cross for his
efforts to rescue wounded soldiers in the Third Battle of Ypres,
where at Passchendaele allied forces suffered a quarter million
casualties.
He received a Bar for his Military Cross for temporarily
leading a company of American soldiers, whose officers had been
killed in action. Australian General Monash described him as "the
bravest man I have ever seen".
Once the war ended, Wilkins
turned his attention once again to aviation.
He entered the England
- Australia
Air Race of 1919 only to crash into a fence at a lunatic asylum in Crete.
He went on to Russia for more photographic work where he reported on the
upheaval and famine inside the country which was still in the grips of the
great revolution of 1917.
Oddly,
Wilkins also earned a good reputation as a naturalist and ornithologist.
In 1923-24 the British Museum sent him to North Australia to collect rare
native fauna and report on Aboriginal tribal life. However, the time spent
with Hurley only peaked his interest in an expedition to the Antarctic
where he felt a combination of the airplane with aerial photography could
lead to extensive exploration and discovery.
In 1925, Wilkins proposed
the Australasian Polar Pacific Expedition to fly from the Ross Sea across
King Edward VII Land to Graham Land. The South Australian branch of the
Royal Geographic Society attempted to raise funds for the expedition but
the money was not forthcoming.
In order to gain financial support for
his Antarctic adventure, Wilkins turned to the Arctic where together with
his friend Ben Eielson, Arctic sojourns between 1925 and 1928 earned both
of them a place in the aviator's Hall of Fame. Wilkins received the Patrons
Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Morse Medal of the American
Geographical Society and a knighthood from the King of England.
Wilkins
was introduced to Carl Ben Eielson by his former Arctic comrade Vilhjalmur
Stefansson. Known to the Eskimos as "Brother to the Eagle", 26 year-old
Eielson, a former pilot for the U.S. Army, was now an Alaskan bush pilot
who flew through treacherous weather and topography on nearly a daily
basis. Together with Wilkins, they survived numerous crashes and forced
landings.
Their Arctic adventures culminated in a great journey in April
and May of 1928 when their tiny Lockheed Vega monoplane flew from Point
Barrow, Alaska to the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, in a flying time
of 20 hours and 20 minutes across a distance of 2,500 miles, most of it
above uncharted territory.
Thus, they became aerial pioneers as the first
to fly from the New World to the Old.
The First Wilkins-Hearst
Antarctic Expedition
Wilkins
was now ready to turn his attention to the Antarctic.
Fame earned
from the northern polar regions now propelled him into a position
to finally accomplish his original dream of being the first to fly
an airplane across the Antarctic continent.
Hubert approached fellow
Australian Major R.G. Casey, an official at the High Commission office
in London, for financial backing from the government. Wilkins pointed
out that his expedition could assist in accomplishing an early foothold
on the Antarctic rim where meteorological reporting stations could
subsequently be established.
As much a supporter of Antarctic exploration
as Casey was, his efforts nevertheless failed. Fortunately, the United
States was interested.
Endorsements came from the American Geographical
Society and the Detroit Aviation Society. Millionaire publisher William
Randolph Hearst pledged $25,000 for the exclusive press and radio
rights.
With Australia dropping out of the expedition, Wilkins now
prepared to concentrate his operation from Graham Land, or Palmer
Peninsula as it was known to the Americans. From Deception Island
in the South Shetlands, Wilkins hoped to launch a flight across the
Weddell Sea in an attempt to possibly achieve a major flight, perhaps
across Antarctica at a tangent to the coast.
Wilkins intended to use
the same plane which achieved Arctic fame, renamed the LOS ANGELES
in honor of Hearst, but his backers insisted on a second plane for
safety's sake.
A second identical Vega of Jack Northrop's design was
built and delivered at cost from the Lockheed Corporation.
The second plane was
named the SAN FRANCISCO.
The Vacuum Oil Company of Australia
donated $10,000 worth of products. The N. Bugge Hektor Whaling Co. of Norway
volunteered to take the expedition to the ice which suited Wilkins just
fine... no expensive shore or winter bases would be needed! Heintz and
Kaufman, of San Francisco, California, supplied a short wave radio for the
aircraft.
The radio served both as a long distance communication device
and as a radio beacon (by holding down the morse key).
Ben Eielson joined
the expedition as chief pilot along with another experienced Arctic pilot
by the name of Joe Crosson, who consequently was the first to fly an open-cockpit
plane between Fairbanks and Point Barrow, Alaska.
Carl
Ben Eielson
Born at Mount
Bryan East, South Australia, on October 31, 1888, Hubert Wilkins
was the thirteenth child born to a South Australian sheep-farming
family.
As a young student, Hubert studied engineering part-time
at the School of Mines in Adelaide, however his passion was photography
and cinematography. An official biography would list his career
as war correspondent, polar explorer, naturalist, geographer, climatologist,
aviator, author, balloonist, war hero, reporter, secret agent, submariner
and navigator.
This was an extraordinary man.
In 1908 Wilkins stowed away on a ship from which he later abandoned
in Algiers. The next thing he knew, he found himself in a gang of
criminals involved with gun-running, kidnapping, drug dealing and
spying.
At 24, Wilkins was hired by the Gaumont Film Company to
join the Turkish side of the Turko-Bulgarian War of 1912 and shoot
footage of the war.
In
1913, Wilkins became second in command of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's
expedition to the Canadian Arctic. He went on to learn how to fly
and in 1917 Wilkins returned to his homeland of Australia and joined
the Australian Flying Corps at the rank of lieutenant.
Although
an aviator, his primary duty was to photograph the gruesome fighting
in the field. His superior officer was none other than Captain Frank
Hurley, the famous photographer of Mawson's
and Shackleton's Antarctic
expeditions.
Wilkins was presented with the Military Cross for his
efforts to rescue wounded soldiers in the Third Battle of Ypres,
where at Passchendaele allied forces suffered a quarter million
casualties. He received a Bar for his Military Cross for temporarily
leading a company of American soldiers, whose officers had been
killed in action.
Australian General Monash described him as "the
bravest man I have ever seen".
The WILKINS-HEARST
EXPEDITION sailed from New York on September 22, 1928.
In October
they left Montevideo with the two aircraft aboard the whaling vessel HEKTORIA,
which would serve the men with living quarters for the next five months.
Before leaving their final port, in the Falkland Islands, Wilkins received
a secret message from the British governor authorizing him to make territorial
claims to the Falkland Islands Dependency, of which Deception Island was
a part, on behalf of His Majesty's government. Obviously this did not
sit well with Argentina who believed this region of Antarctica rightfully
theirs.
On November
4 HEKTORIA tied up at the whaling station at Deception Island.
The Norwegians immediately set to work to open the dormant factory while
Wilkins, Eielson and the others began to ready the aircraft for the forthcoming
flights. Wilkins planned to explore along the peninsula as far south as
fuel and good weather could take him.
His ultimate dream was to fly across
the continent to the Ross Sea and the vicinity of Framheim,
Amundsen's
camp in his 1911 South Pole Expedition. This plan would require two planes
with one used to refuel the other for the final push to the Great Ice
Barrier.
Meanwhile, rocks were cleared and holes filled on the sandy beach.
On November 16 Eielson took the LOS ANGELES on a twenty
minute flight. Hardly a noteworthy flight in Wilkins mind, but historical
nevertheless as this was the first flight in Antarctica. Within a week,
the twin Vega SAN FRANCISCO was ready to fly.
Joe Crosson
flew the aircraft on a few short excursions and on November 26 both planes
took to the air: Eielson from the bay ice aboard LOS ANGELES
and Crosson from the beach aboard SAN FRANCISCO. What a
public relations stunt for the stunned Norwegians watching below!
But
a moment of terror befell Eielson as he came in for a landing.
The wheels
on the LOS ANGELES skidded on the bay ice and rushed Eielson
and the plane dangerously towards the edge where the ice was thin and
brittle. Sure enough, the horrified onlookers witnessed the aircraft nose
over, splash into the water and sink up to its wings in the icy water.
It took eighteen hours to haul the plane safely back to land.
December's
unseasonably warm weather, once reaching 50°F, turned Deception
Island into a prison for the aviators. Steam rose along the shoreline
with no sign of thickening bay ice.
Skis would be necessary equipment
for the aircraft if there was any intention of exploring the interior.
Without the thick bay ice, it would be impossible to lift off with
skis attached. They tried to tow an aircraft to open water and fly
away on floats, but a mass of sea birds surrounded the plane, flying
into the propeller thus making a liftoff impossible. It would have
to be wheels or nothing!
Borrowing picks, shovels and wheelbarrows
from the Norwegians, the men set to work clearing a long strip of
beach from rocks, boulders and deep potholes.
When all was said and
done, Deception Island's airstrip was 2300 feet long and 40 feet wide
with a couple of 20 degree bends.
After the sinking of LOS ANGELES,
SAN FRANCISCO was the preferred plane for the long flight
ahead. They filled the fuel tanks with enough fuel to carry them 1400
miles at a cruising speed of 125 MPH. Their emergency rations consisted
of biscuits, pemmican, chocolate, nuts, raisins and malted milk tablets.
In case of a forced landing, a block and tackle was loaded aboard
to help pull the aircraft from danger, particularly from a crevasse. Crosson stayed behind to fly LOS ANGELES in case of
an emergency.
At 8:20 a.m. on December
20, 1928, Wilkins and Eielson took to the air in SAN FRANCISCO
signaling the start of a new chapter in the exploration of the last unknown
continent from the air.
Griffith Taylor, explorer with Robert
Scott's TERRA NOVA EXPEDITION, said that,
"Just as 1841
and 1903 were wonderful years in Antarctic exploration, so 20th December
1928 was the most wonderful day, for in ten hours Sir Hubert Wilkins settled
more problems and sketched more new coastlines than any other expedition
had accomplished in West Antarctica".
The
plan was to fly east across the Bransfield Strait and then head down
the Antarctic Peninsula.
Flying parallel to the mountains, Eielson
took SAN FRANCISCO to an altitude of 6000 feet. The
plateau behind the mountains continued to rise ever higher so the
plane continued south. Wilkins made notes for the press and photographed
the area with a hand-held Kodak 3A camera and two movie cameras.
In
a 20-minute period Wilkins sketched a map covering 40 miles knowing
it would have taken three months to do the same had they been sledging.
"I felt liberated," he said. "I had a tremendous sensation of power
and freedom".
They flew above Hughes Bay, crossed Gerlache Strait
and neared the Danco Coast where Wilkins instructed Eielson to take
the Vega up to 9000 feet and cross the peninsula from west to east.
A magnificent scene of pure natural beauty unfolded before them prompting
Wilkins to enter a note in his diary that "For the first time in history,
new land was being discovered from the air". Beyond the Antarctic
Circle at 67°S, they dropped closer to the surface and discovered
a group of small, thin channels twisting their way deep between the
mountains.
Wilkins theory (seven years later disproved by fellow Australian
explorer John Rymill) was that the peninsula was actually divided
into three major islands, making it an archipelago rather than an
extension of the mainland. Wilkins named one of the channels Casey
Channel, after his friend R.G. Casey at the Australian High Commission
in London.
Another was named Stefansson Channel, after the man who
had introduced him to the Arctic, and to these he added the Crane
and Lurabee Channels. Wilkins freely named other distinguishable topography
in honor of those who assisted with the expedition: Hearst Land, Mobiloil
Bay, Scripps Island, Lockheed Mountains, and Cape Northrop after the
Vega's designer.
As a tribute to themselves, the map was also marked
with the Wilkins Coast and Eielson Peninsula. Fighting gale-force
winds, Wilkins opened the hatch and dropped the territorial proclamation
on behalf of the British government.
Mountains and plateau continued
to loom southward, far into the horizon, but at 71°20'S, with
their fuel gauge close to the half-full mark, Wilkins reluctantly
ordered Eielson to turn the plane around. They headed north across
the Larsen Ice Shelf filled with satisfaction from exploring 1000
miles of previously unexplored Antarctic territory.
Storm clouds hovered
above and around the vicinity of Deception Island upon their return.
With fuel running short, the clouds suddenly parted to give them a
glimpse of the airstrip on Deception Island below. Eielson quickly
put the SAN FRANCISCO into a steep descent to get through
the low ceiling before the clouds once again closed in.
In short order,
SAN FRANCISCO was safely landed.
The account
of Antarctica's first exploratory flight is best summed up in Wilkins
final entry in his diary following the historical event:
"We had left
at 8:30 [sic] in the morning, had covered 1300 miles - nearly
a thousand of it over unknown territory - and had returned in time to
cover the plane with a storm hood, go to the HEKTORIA, bathe
and dress and sit down at eight o'clock to dinner as usual in the comfort
of the ship's wardroom".
Wilkins
made one more exploratory flight before the aviation season came to an
end. On January 10,1929, his aircraft flew 250 miles south, following
part of December's route in order to confirm their earlier sightings.
Both planes were soon dismantled and stored in a shed at the whaler's
station.
The men said farewell to the Norwegians and joined a patrolling
British warship, HMS FLERUS, to take them back to
Montevideo.
The Second
Wilkins-Hearst Antarctic Expedition
The second WILKINS-HEARST
EXPEDITION returned to Deception Island aboard the factory
ship MELVILLE in late November 1929.
The British government
once again authorized Wilkins to make territorial claims on behalf
of the Crown. To assist with the expedition, the Colonial Office
voted £10,000 and the services of the Discovery Committee's
research vessel, WILLIAM SCORESBY.
This time their
equipment included a boat with an outboard motor, a caterpillar
tractor and a Baby Austin automobile fitted with eight wheels and
chains.
With one plane loaded aboard WILLIAM SCORESBY,
they sailed just below the 67th parallel in an attempt to find a
more suitable takeoff and landing area for the plane. However, floats
were used and by this manner a number of successful flights were
completed between December 1929 and January 1930. A trans-Antarctic
venture was never within their grasp.
The most rewarding flights
were those of December 27-29 when an area then known as Charcot
Land revealed itself to be a large island, over which Wilkins dropped
a flag and document proclaiming the land in the name of King George
V.
The final flight came on February 1 and reached 73°S, in
the vicinity of Peter I Island, but no new discoveries were made.
The pilots of
the second expedition were both experienced Arctic pilots. Al Cheeseman
and Parker D. Cramer came with Wilkins while Eielson remained behind,
preferring to fly in Arctic skies where he obtained a mail contract.
As the team on Deception Island reorganized, a radio message arrived
informing Wilkins that Eielson had taken off on a mercy mission
to locate a stranded fur-trading vessel and had not returned.
Shortly
afterwards they heard that Joe Crosson had found the wreckage; Eielson
had flown into a Siberian hillside that had been shrouded in fog.
Eielson was dead and Wilkins said he felt the loss of a brother
- a "Brother to the Eagle".
Other Ventures
In a pause
from his Antarctic expeditions of 1928-30, Wilkins purchased a surplus
World War I submarine for one dollar, renamed it NAUTILUS,
and attempted to cruise beneath the ice to the North Pole.
The old ship
broke down and the expedition failed which earned Wilkins some adverse
publicity. Actually, he was just a man well ahead of his time. The submarine
adventure, in 1931, represented his last individual and private expedition.
From this point he accepted a post as manager to his friend and supporter,
American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth, in an Antarctic association which
lasted until 1938.
Lincoln Ellsworth went on to become the first to successfully
fly across the Antarctic continent. In each of the three attempts, between
1933 until success on November 22, 1935, Hubert Wilkins was a participant.
Signed Cover
from the NAUTILUS
North Pole Adventure
Wilkins always carried a miniature of the Australian
flag in the cockpit of his airplane. He settled in the United States and
worked in World War II for the American government, but never surrendered
his Australian citizenship of which he was intensely proud. Wilkins died
of a heart attack at the age of 70, in 1958.
His body was cremated and
the ashes taken on the nuclear submarine SKATE and scattered
at the North Pole.
