In August 1931, a submarine approaches
the edge of the known world. It’s about to enter a massive frozen unknown. A part
of the world remains largely unexplored. On board are a group of daring explorers determined to uncover the Arctic’s great mysteries. Setting out to not only reach the top of the world, but to discover what lies hidden beneath it. In a new kind of exploration machine.
Enduring cramped conditions and frigid temperatures, they’ll push ahead for thousands of kilometers under the ice. But as days turn to weeks, the expedition will go horribly wrong. For centuries, explorers tried repeatedly to reach
the top of the world. At first, they used ships, battling frigid temperatures and treacherous
sea ice. Their vessels often became trapped, stranding crews with little hope of rescue.
Later, explorers tried with dog sleds or even on foot, often ending tragically. Over the
centuries hundreds of explorers perished.
So challenging was the Arctic,
that the first undisputed discovery of the North Pole wasn’t until 1926.
And it was only from the air, in a modified airship that never even touched the ground.
So, when accomplished explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins planned to set foot on the North Pole, he was
convinced there was a better way to do it.
The North Pole doesn’t lie on a continental
land mass like the South Pole. Instead, it’s located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean
amid waters almost always covered in ice.
Wilkins was convinced that a submarine
would be the ultimate way to reach the North Pole. And fitted with the latest
scientific equipment, it could help solve the Arctic's greatest mysteries. Wilkins would set off in the summer. First, sailing across the Atlantic, then all the way
up to the Arctic Circle. From there, his expedition would head West, spanning over three
thousand kilometers. Over six weeks, he'd zigzag underneath the ice, emerging from the deep through
any openings, before finally ending in Alaska.
To fund the expedition, Wilkins put up his
own savings and raised money from wherever he could. He lectured day and night, and even
wrote a book outlining his ambitions plans.
But it still wasn't enough. He’d need serious
backing. And one sure way to get it… was to turn his scientific pursuit into a media sensation.
A voyage under the sea ice was the kind of thing that would sell out newspapers. So
Wilkins made a deal with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. A man
with a flare for sensationalism. Hearst would get exclusive publishing rights,
and Wilkins would get his funding. And to create even more buzz, Hearst
orchestrated for Wilkins to meet up at the pole with a second expedition. The massive
airship Graf Zeppelin would fly overhead just as Wilkins emerged from the ice. Captivating
the public with headlines of the pole being conquered from above and below.
If he could pull off the stunt, Hearst offered Wilkins a one hundred
and fifty thousand dollar prize. All that was left, was to find a submarine. Wilkins planned to reach the North Pole in the
Nautilus. A retired World War One-era attack sub that had been heavily modified by renowned
naval architect Simon Lake. And it would have to do what no submarine had ever done before.
The voyage would be fraught with danger, including the risk of a collision with the sea
ice. So Lake reinforced the Nautilus’s bow with heavy steel plates and concrete, and added a
hydraulic impact absorber to soften the blow.
But the ice above could also prove deadly. So
Lake fitted the topside with sledge runners, which would allow it to slide along the
bottom of the ice, much like a toboggan. A hydraulic retractable guide arm would also
keep a safe distance from hazards above.
The Nautilus could be confined under
the ice for days at a time. But it would eventually need to surface to take
on air and recharge its batteries. A lack of openings in the ice could doom the crew.
So Lake innovated a series of drills capable of boring through the ice. Allowing
the Nautilus’s crew to drill through up to twenty feet to reach the surface.
In place of the original torpedo tubes, Lake added a pressurized diving chamber,
where the crew could lower instruments to the ocean floor, or conduct dives.
In all, Simon Lake made dozens of modifications. Originally built for World War One, the Nautilus
would now have to battle mother nature.
On March 16, 1931, as the expedition prepared
to set off, Wilkins put on a brave face for reporters. “The men are just having things
on board now for the final inspection before leaving the dockyard. We expect in about
six or eight months to have made the trip two thousand miles under the ice. Starting from
Spitsbergen somewhere about the first of July”.
But deep down, Wilkins was worried.
He feared many of the sub’s novel features were unnecessary. Even dangerous.
He had reservations about the sledge runners, the ice drills, and the shock absorber Which he
worried would actually lodge itself into the ice, trapping the Nautilus beneath the surface.
Wilkins insisted on installing a photosensitive electrical cell to measure the thickness
of the ice above so he’d know where to surface. But Simon Lake denied the request.
The Nautilus was Lake’s submarine. He’s the one who leased it from the U.S. Navy, and he had
the final word on any modifications. Wilkins merely sub-chartered it for the expedition.
There was little he could do, but accept the submarine as it was. But the wonder gadgets
would cause headaches before the expedition even began. Repeatedly forcing the sub back into
port for repairs. It was one thing to invent novel features. Trying to retrofit them onto
a tired old sub, created all kinds of issues.
Confirming Wilkins’s worst fears, the ice
drills didn't even work during testing, and a separate engineering firm was
called in to try to figure it all out.
The weeks turned into months, and Wilkins
was beginning to feel the pressure.
If the Nautilus was to meet the Graf Zeppelin at
the North pole, time was of the essence. Otherwise Wilkins would lose out on Hearst’s prize money.
By June, Wilkins had had enough. Mechanical issues be damned, it was time to get going. The journey across the Atlantic was grueling. The tiny sub was easily tossed around by fierce
North Atlantic storms.The crew were also beginning to learn just how uncomfortable the Nautilus was.
The submarine was cramped and claustrophobic to begin with. Now loaded up for the expedition,
there was even less space. For twenty men there was just a single toilet out in the
open between two roaring diesel engines.
The crew would have to spend their entire day
standing. Because there wasn't anywhere to sit. Only a handful of bunks shared
amongst the men provided any relief.
Wilkins sent Hearst daily radio updates
documenting harrowing journey.
“This morning an extra heavy wave swept the deck
and carried away the screen before the bridge”
Nearly everyone aboard was seasick. And
when the Nautilus’s bilge pump failed, sewage, oil, and vomit began to swill around
the crew's feet. But as the tiny sub battled the fierce Atlantic, things only got worse.
“The fourth cylinder of our starboard engine is badly cracked.” Forced to shut down one of its two
engines, the Nautilus could only limp forward.
On June 13th, a week into the journey, the
Nautilus stopped sending radio updates. And for several days, no one had any idea
about the fate of the sub and its crew.
On June 15, the Battleship Wyoming found
the Nautilus drifting aimlessly about a thousand kilometers northeast of the
Azores, both engines had failed and the batteries were dead. Wilkins would now face
the humiliation of having his sub towed the rest of the way across the Atlantic.
Worse still, four crew members quit, and the Nautilus once again needed major
repairs. It would take weeks for replacement parts to arrive from the United States.
It meant, there was no longer enough time to catch up with the Graf Zeppelin.
And In a stunning blow, Wilkins could no longer claim Hearst’s prize money.
The media also turned against him, running headlines that openly mocked his expedition.
Wilkins was under mounting pressure. His submarine didn't work. His crew was demoralized
and winter was fast approaching. At this point, just about anyone else would have thrown in
the towel. But this was Sir Hubert Wilkins.
Even months behind schedule,
Wilkins pressed ahead. On July 28th, the expedition finally left for the North Pole.
The Nautilus was still riddled with problems, but the crew had gotten used to making
repairs on the go, and any major issues were fixed during scheduled stops.
By August 15th, the Nautilus had reached the last inhabited land before the Arctic.
And Wilkins was finally sending out upbeat progress reports. And on the 19th, the
Nautilus reached the first ice flows.
To celebrate, the men were given a
break from the cramped conditions, and began collecting scientific data. Back home,
Hearst relayed fascinating new discoveries, like a warmer layer of water deep below the surface,
thought to be vital for predicting weather.
After traveling a week in the ice, the Nautilus
reached 82 degrees north. Further than any vessel had ever made it under its own power.
It looked like Wilkins would actually do it, he would travel a thousand
kilometers under the ice. But as the world read about Wilkins's
achievements, onboard the Nautilus things were not as they seemed. Wilkins had
once again, merely put on a brave face.
In reality, the crew were exhausted and freezing.
The Nautilus had no heat or insulation. Nothing but bare metal separated them from the frigid
arctic waters. The crew were constantly sickened with food poisoning and dosed with lead from
the soldering in the submarine’s pipes. Attempting the Pole this late in the season would
be extremely dangerous, and without exception, everyone wanted to turn around and head home.
Everyone, except Wilkins On August 22nd he gave the order to dive
beneath the ice. But the Nautilus refused.
The diving rudder, the mechanism
that controls vertical motion underwater, just wouldn't respond.
Wilkins sent a diver to investigate and he soon returned with a stunning discovery.
The rudder had simply disappeared. Maybe it had fallen off and somehow no one noticed? Or maybe
as Wilkins suspected, the crew had sabotaged the sub in an attempt to end the expedition.
By this point, even Hearst was publicly urging Wilkins to return home.
But again, things weren't what they seemed. In a private message, the Hearst
corporation pressured Wilkins to continue to the Pole …reminding him of their agreement.
And that left Wilkins with an impossible decision. Return home to certain failure and financial
ruin, or press on and risk the lives of the crew.
On August 31st Wilkins ordered the
ballast tanks flooded and trim set two degrees down. He would force the Nautilus
to submerge by ramming under the ice.
The sound of the sledge runners scraping
against the ice reverberated right through the superstructure, as if the
Nautilus was being torn apart.
It’s as though Wilkins had
lost his mind. He couldn't possibly reach the pole in the crippled sub.
But faced with an endless string of setbacks, Wilkins seemed determined to prove a point.
They pushed on for several kilometers before Wilkins ordered a test of the ice drills.
For hours the crew tried in vain to bore through just a few feet of ice. Each time,
Simon Lake's patented drill would only go so far before jamming. It was hopeless.
On September 6th, Wilkins finally sent out the radio transmission that by
now, everyone was hoping for.
“Our Arctic trip is over…” Wilkins had taken the Nautilus where no submarine had ever gone before. But it would be
another three decades before anyone successfully traversed the arctic underneath the ice.
Sharing the same name the nuclear-powered USS Nautilus could stay submerged for weeks at a
time. It made its first Polar crossing in 1958, returning home to huge fanfare. By that point
Wilkins’s attempt had long been forgotten.
The original Nautilus now lies sunk on the
ocean floor off the coast of Norway. After the crew returned from the Arctic, the sub
was deemed too worn and damaged to be worth saving. And it was deliberately sunk.
Prior to the nautilus expedition, Wilkins was considered among the greatest explorers of the
20th century. Having made immense contributions to our understanding of the North and South Poles.
But his final expedition left him financially ruined and largely forgotten by history.
After passing away at the age of seventy, Wilkins's final wishes were fulfilled,
when the crew of the U.S.S. Skate scattered his ashes at the North Pole. In the dying days of the U.S.S.R., the Soviets begin working on a mysterious
project straight out of science fiction.
They’re preparing to launch the
first in a series of artificial suns. Massive orbital satellites with the power to turn
night into day. Illuminating large areas of the planet to generate power, light up entire
cities, and grow plants in the far north.
“They will transform perpetual night into
daylight. There could eventually be a whole network of those cosmic spotlights. You’re
talking about something which is several miles across. It’s the last vestige of the
old Soviet dream of industrializing space.”
This is the little known story
of one of the most bizarre and fascinating space projects in history.
And you can learn more about it in my feature coming next month to Nebula.
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