Airship Italia in King’s Bay, 1928
It was meant to be an unambiguous triumph: Italy’s flag flying high above the Arctic ice, an airship gliding over the world’s most forbidding frontier, victory for science, nation, and ambition. Yet in the frozen wastes north of Svalbard, what began as an audacious feat of ingenuity would spiral into survival, controversy, and heartbreak.
The 1928 Italia expedition is remembered not only for its courage and technological daring, but for its tragedy—an episode where politics, pride, and the limits of human endurance collided at once.
This is the dramatic story of the Italia—a story of visionaries, rivals, and the high cost of chasing glory at the top of the world.
PARTS
The Success of the Norge
May 12, 1926, marked an important milestone in the history of exploration. The airship Norge flew over the North Pole, one of the last places on Earth that had never been reached by humans.1
The mission was led by Roald Amundsen, a veteran of polar exploration who had already been the first to reach the South Pole and to complete the navigation of the Northwest Passage, and who had taken part in multiple pioneering expeditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic. His co-leader was Umberto Nobile, an Italian engineer from Irpinia who specialized in airship design.
Although Amundsen’s experience and Nobile’s skills were in many ways complementary, the relationship between the two was not always cordial. Amundsen called Nobile “just a driver”, and Nobile, in turn, called his Norwegian counterpart “just a passenger”. Needless to say, neither Amundsen nor Nobile accepted being number two.
Despite the tensions, the mission was a success, not least because it paved the way for the polar routes that are now standard on flights between Europe, North America, and East Asia.
Crew of the Norge. The polar explorers Roald Amundsen (left), Lincoln Ellsworth (middle), and Umberto Nobile (right) sit in deck chairs in front of the crew of the airship.
Fascist Italy and the Idea of the Expedition
Nobile’s success galvanized Italy, which had been ruled by the Fascist regime for four years. While many countries celebrated Amundsen, the first man to reach both poles, Mussolini celebrated Nobile; he promoted him to the rank of lieutenant general and took every opportunity to praise this achievement as “a product of the Italian genius.”
In October 1926, the University of Genoa appointed Nobile professor of nautical sciences, and the University of Naples gave him a chair in aeronautical engineering. Yet this was not enough for the stubborn engineer from Irpinia.
The Norge had only flown over the North Pole, without landing on it, and Nobile now wanted to change that. In his plans, the new mission would land three people on the ice cap for scientific work. And, last but not least, while the Norge had been an Italian–American–Norwegian joint venture, the new mission was to be a purely Italian one, with an Italian crew.
This aim fit perfectly with the Fascist regime’s emphasis on national pride. Although Mussolini, among other things, made him an honorary member of the Party, Umberto Nobile was not a Fascist; yet the regime often turned a blind eye to non-Fascist, or even anti-Fascist, senior figures in science, business, and culture if they were useful for its objectives.
A pattern emerged across the regime: from the prestigious University of Padua, whose rector Carlo Anti—himself a fervent Fascist—did not hesitate to appoint openly anti-Fascist professors as long as they met the academic standards, to the IRI (the state holding company that controlled major public corporations), whose first president was the senior civil servant and former Socialist politician Alberto Beneduce.
These cases show how the dictatorship could be pragmatically tolerant at the top when it suited its goals.
Nobile—with his ambition, hard work, and technical skill—was clearly another example. He needed regime backing to realize his plans, and in turn the regime saw in his mission a chance to dramatically boost the prestige of Italian engineering.
Nobile’s Opposition
Not everyone in the Fascist leadership supported Nobile. Italo Balbo, the secretary of state for air and one of Benito Mussolini’s closest collaborators, staunchly opposed the expedition and criticized its high costs.
Italo Balbo, the Italian secretary of state for air, 1929
This was not merely a matter of personal rivalry but also of completely different ideas about the future of aviation: Balbo believed the future belonged to the airplane rather than the airship, and his mistrust of airships went so far as to declare that he would never use one.
“I am a brave person, but I would never set foot on an airship.”
In spite of his high-ranking position, Balbo could not do much to stop Nobile. The discoverer of the North Pole was then a popular hero; he could rely on the support of the regime, and even Balbo had to back off and concede the use of an airship to the Royal Italian Geographical Society.2
The chosen airship was named Italia.
At this point, the mission needed funding, but thanks to Mussolini’s support, finding donors and institutional backers was not difficult. Nobile would have preferred a brand-new airship, the N-5, rather than the N-4 (de facto an upgraded version of the Norge), but there was little room for choice. He also requested hydrofoils for use at King’s Bay in the Svalbard Islands, yet they were not provided.
At the same time, the mission received support from the Royal Italian Navy, which equipped the airship with an advanced radiotelegraphic communication system and sent an auxiliary vessel, the Città di Milano, to King’s Bay to conduct scientific research and to provide support if needed through a detachment of eight mountain infantry soldiers, the Alpini.
Likewise, both national and foreign academic institutions provided support and scientific instruments. The expedition also received the blessing of the Vatican: Pope Pius XI held a private audience with the crew and gave them a cross.
After several test flights in March 1928, the expedition was ready to depart for the Pole.
The Mission
En Route
The Italia left Milan on April 15, 1928. The crew consisted of sixteen people:
- Military personnel (including Nobile himself);
- Technicians;
- Three scientists, including the prominent physicist Aldo Pontremoli and the meteorologist Finn Malmgren;
- Two journalists.
Last but not least, Titina, Nobile’s dog, accompanied the explorer on every mission.
Umberto Nobile with his dog Titina
Seven members of the crew had already taken part in the Norge expedition, they were:
- Umberto Nobile (Commander)
- Natale Cecioni (Chief Technician)
- Finn Malmgren (Meteorologist)
- Felice Trojani (Engineer)
- Attilio Caratti (Mechanic)
- Vincenzo Pomella (Mechanic)
- Renato Alessandrini (Rigger)
Expectations of the crew were high.
After several stops, the airship reached the Svalbard Islands on May 6. Once in King’s Bay, from where the expedition was to head toward the Pole, the Italia carried out a number of reconnaissance flights. The last one was toward Nicholas II Land, a remote archipelago north of the Taymyr Peninsula, the northernmost location of any continental mainland.3
At 4 a.m. on May 23, 1928, the Italia began its final voyage toward the North Pole. To prevent the airship from becoming too heavy, two members of the crew—including one journalist—remained in King’s Bay.
The northbound leg of the voyage was relatively uneventful. The airship flew at an average speed of 75 km/h and, in order to make better use of the winds, followed a curved route first toward northern Greenland and then straight to the North Pole. After about twenty-four hours, the Italia reached the Pole.
Above the Pole
Because of unfavorable weather conditions, the airship was ultimately unable to descend at the Pole and perform the planned research, but it still managed to drop the cross and an Italian flag to “mark” that the crew was indeed above the Pole.
After leaving the Pole, a terrible storm began, and the ship had to maneuver. Nobile wanted to fly on toward Alaska, following the route of the Norge two years earlier, but Malmgren proposed to return directly to King’s Bay, believing that the weather would improve. Unfortunately, this did not happen: the weather worsened, and as icing accumulated on the hull, the airship became steadily heavier.
Continuing forward became increasingly difficult. Before reaching the Svalbard Islands, the Italia grew so heavy that it crashed onto the ice cap.
The control car was torn away and left stranded on the ice together with ten members of the crew. One of them died in the impact, while Nobile and the chief technician were injured. Six other crewmembers, including the already mentioned Aldo Pontremoli, remained trapped on the airship, which, having suddenly lost much of its weight, rose and drifted away.
Neither the Italia nor these other six men were ever seen again. The most likely hypothesis, supported by Nobile himself, is that the airship crashed some 25–30 kilometers away, but no definitive proof has ever been found.
The nine marooned on the ice were in a desperate situation. Fortunately, most of them were not badly injured. The impact had thrown out a number of useful items—including food, a radio set, and a small tent—onto the ice.
The tent was painted red to make it more visible to potential rescuers and later became known as the Red Tent, which in turn inspired an international film in 1969 by Mikhail Kalatozov, starring Sean Connery and Claudia Cardinale.
SOS
The radio operator Giuseppe Biagi began sending SOS messages in the hope that someone, somewhere, might hear them. The first signals went unnoticed, but later, by accident, a Russian amateur radio operator, Nikolay Schmidt, picked them up on June 3.
News of the disappearance of the Italia and its crew mobilized rescue efforts in several countries. Among those who joined the search was Roald Amundsen.
Although Amundsen joined the rescues out of a sense of duty and Arctic camaraderie, his involvement was also colored by a sense of rivalry and envy toward Nobile. After being overshadowed by Nobile’s success with the previous Norge flight, Amundsen was reported by several contemporaries to have been frustrated that much of the acclaim for crossing the North Pole by air had gone to the Italian.
On June 18, 1928, Amundsen boarded a French Latham 47 seaplane in Tromsø to look for Nobile’s party. The aircraft disappeared over the Barents Sea; only some wreckage was later found, and Amundsen’s body was never recovered.
Amundsen thus ended his life while attempting to rescue the very expedition led by his former rival. Amundsen’s tragic end during the Italia rescue effort would become forever intertwined with Nobile’s story, adding another layer of irony and drama to an already remarkable set of events.
Even after the signals had been decoded, locating the survivors was anything but easy: the Arctic ice pack can drift by up to 15 km per day. Out of desperation, Malmgren—who reportedly had already attempted suicide, tormented by guilt for having advised the return route that led to the disaster—and two other members of the crew set out on foot across the ice, hoping to reach land or to encounter a passing ship. Only two of them would eventually be found alive; Malmgren died during the march.
On June 20, an Italian seaplane finally spotted the survivors, but it was unable to land. It could only drop supplies and inflatable boats to help the stranded cope with the melting ice.
The Rescue
The first rescue plane reached the Red Tent on June 23. Nobile had prepared and sent to Rome an order of evacuation listing those who, in his view, should be saved first, without placing himself at the top. Lundborg, the Swedish pilot flying the rescue plane, however, said he had orders to evacuate Nobile first so that he could oversee the wider rescue mission. Reluctantly, Nobile agreed.
The plan was to rescue everyone within a single day, but Lundborg’s plane was damaged during his second landing at the Red Tent, and the pilot himself now had to be saved. The rest of the crew—including two of the three men who had broken away from the group (Malmgren was dead by then)—were rescued only on July 12 by the Soviet icebreaker Krassin, thanks in part to Nobile’s personal friendship with its commander, Rudolf Samoylovich.
On their way back to Italy, Nobile and the other survivors were greeted by thousands of people relieved that at least part of the Italia’s crew had survived. In Rome, about 200,000 people gathered at the railway station to welcome them. Although the mission had not achieved its original scientific goals, the fact that Nobile and his crew were able to survive for more than a month on the ice sheet still made them heroes in the eyes of many.
Tragedy at Home
After his compatriots’ initial relief, Umberto Nobile was accused of cowardice and mismanagement, often on the basis of completely fabricated claims.
Even though his early evacuation had occurred at Lundborg’s insistence, under superior orders, and although the entire crew had asked Nobile to go with Lundborg, the fact that he left the Red Tent first was portrayed as an act of cowardice. His chief detractor, unsurprisingly, was Italo Balbo, who played a leading role in a virulent press campaign against him.
The Corriere Padano, a Ferrara-based newspaper founded by Balbo himself, claimed that Nobile broke his leg while running after Lundborg’s rescue flight, and Balbo even demanded that Nobile be sentenced to death by firing squad for violating the supposed principle that “the captain goes down with the ship.”4
Nobile defended himself vigorously and rejected every accusation of cowardice. This was not easy, not only because Italo Balbo was a powerful member of the Fascist Party while Nobile was not even a Party member, but also because Nobile himself did not have the most conciliatory character.
On August 1, 1928, Mussolini summoned him to the Viminale Palace in Rome to give the general a chance to present his version of events. Since the Duce had been one of Nobile’s main supporters, the latter placed great hopes in this meeting and prepared extensive documentation to support his case. However, despite Mussolini expressing keen interest in Nobile’s health, Nobile felt that his arguments were not truly being heard and, as he later recalled, he raised his voice against the Duce. Mussolini then sat down, took some medicine with a glass of water, and asked the butler to escort the general out of the room.
Nobile and Mussolini would never meet again; the general likely missed a crucial opportunity to regain the political support he needed.
Not surprisingly, in this increasingly personal struggle between Balbo and Nobile, Balbo emerged as the clear winner. The Fascist gerarca, who had been flying formation raids across the Mediterranean while his rival was fighting for survival on the ice, managed to discredit Nobile and seized the chance to promote his own airplane ventures, beginning with the transatlantic flights that took him from Italy to New York and Chicago five years later.
Nobile’s behavior, for its part, was scrutinized by an ad hoc committee, which concluded on March 4, 1929, that he had mismanaged the expedition, made a piloting error near the Pole, and—worst of all for a man who cared deeply about honor—abandoned his command post and his crew. The report had no criminal consequences, but Nobile’s career in Fascist Italy was effectively shattered.
A Protest
In protest against these findings, Nobile resigned from the Italian Air Force on March 5, and after some time he left Italy altogether, moving first to the USSR—where he was invited by Samoylovich to work on Arctic and aviation projects—then to the United States, and finally to Spain.
Nobile returned to Italy only after the Liberation, when he was acquitted of all charges and reinstated in the Air Force with his previous rank.
In the 1946 elections, Nobile was chosen by the Communist Party as an independent candidate for the Constituent Assembly and became the party’s second most-voted candidate after its leader, Palmiro Togliatti. He was then appointed one of the seventy-five members of the committee that drafted the new Italian constitution. After this brief political experience, the general chose to return to the University of Naples. In 1966, Umberto Nobile was appointed Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Italia’s Shadow
The shadow of the Italia continued to haunt Nobile. Even after being fully rehabilitated, and even though his main adversaries—starting with Balbo—were dead or out of power, he still had to face accusations from those who claimed he had behaved selfishly and dishonorably. He seized every opportunity to present his own version of events, writing books, giving interviews, and appearing on talk shows.
Nobile’s account has long been accepted by official bodies. However, as often happens in Italy, public opinion remained divided, and the debate between those who see Nobile as a great explorer who did what was best for his crew and those who instead consider him a kind of Schettino ante litteram is still ongoing among those interested in the history of the Italia.5
What’s Left of the Mission?
Although the airship managed to reach the North Pole for the second time in recorded history, the mission was not as successful as the Norge’s when measured against its original scientific objectives. It also laid bare the limitations of the airship as a means of transport at a time when it was still possible to argue that the future of aviation could belong to it.
To be fair, it was not the Italia story that definitively sealed the fate of the airship but the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, when an airship performing passenger flights between Frankfurt and New York caught fire and crashed in New Jersey. Even so, there is little doubt that the Italia tragedy played an important role in shifting enthusiasm and investment toward the airplane.
The story of a handful of people who managed to survive for seven weeks on the Arctic ice under a red tent, with only a dead bear and a few supplies as provisions, after reaching one of the most remote places on Earth for only the second time in human history, fascinated millions.
The legend of the airship is still remembered. Italy’s research station in the Svalbard Islands, active since 1997, is named Dirigibile Italia. And, as with the Titanic, several expeditions have tried to locate the remains of the Italia, the most recent in 2018. As of today, none of these missions has been successful, but the search for the wreck of the Italia and for traces of its lost crew will continue to fascinate researchers and enthusiasts alike.
Footnotes
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The Norge expedition is the first verified which reached the Pole by air. On the surface, however, it is now widely believed that it was the Soviets who reached the Pole first. ↩
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Now Severnaya Zemlya. ↩
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In Italy, abandoning a ship before everyone else has disembarked is considered a crime, as shown by the sixteen-year conviction handed down in 2017 to Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino, in part for having left his ship while it was sinking. ↩
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Schettino ante litteram is a phrase used to describe a person who behaves like Francesco Schettino. ↩
Independent Expert
Analyst, Associate Editor
The Arctic Century