UMBERTO NOBILE: #2 Umberto Nobile (1885-1978) Umberto Nobile lead two flights over the North Pole, one in 1926 in the airship Norge and another in 1928 in the airship Italia.. In addition to his crew, his companions on the first flight were: Roald Amundsen a Norwegian and the first person to achieve the South Pole. The second was Lincoln Ellsworth, a wealthy American and the first person to fly across the Antarctic continent. Ellsworth also financed the flight. A number of supplies, including a radio and a tent were thrown to the ice. The radio eventually allowed Nobile to establish contact with the outside world. The survivors used a red dye to paint red stripes on the tent to make it more visible from the air. The site became known in the press as the Red Tent. The Italia crash created a massive search and rescue operation, the first in the far north. Roald Amundsen, hearing of Nobile’s predicament, put aside their disputes and flew by plane to lend his experience to the rescue efforts. His plane crashed while traveling from Norway to Spitsbergen. The great explorer was never seen again. Nobile and his group of survivors were ultimately rescued from the ice. . Nobile was promoted from Colonel to General in the Italian air force following the success of the Norge flight and then forced to resign following the Italia disaster. He spent five years in Russia in the 1930s developing Soviet airships. He lived in the US for several years during WW II and returned to Italy in 1944 where he died in 1978 at age 92
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