Product Description

Against the backdrop of Mussolini's rising power, one of Italy's premier aeronautical engineers, Unberto Nobile, gained acclaim by crossing the North Pole in a dirigible. Buoyed by this success, Nobile decided in 1928 to raise the ante and take his newly designed airship to the North Pole, land it, and then return to base. But what started in glory turned to disaster when the airship crashed some 300 miles from civilization. With more than 30 years of research and interviews with surviving participants, Wilbur Cross presents this terrifying tale of tragedy and survival. Here is the story of the airship's survivors, who were stranded on a disintegrating ice floe, and of a determined international team of rescuers, including the famous Amundsen, whose desperate search for the missing Italians led to their own disaster. It is also the story of the controversy surrounding the rescue of Nobile while much of his crew perished in the icy wastelands of the Arctic. Filled with political intrigue, heroics and cruel twists of fate, "Disaster at the Pole" is an account of one of the greatest polar disasters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #291592 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 326 pages

Review
"(The book) has just been reissued by Lyons Press, which performs stellar work re-introducing great books of the recent past." --" River Falls Journal"

About the Author
Wilbur Cross is the author of more than forty-five books. A former editor at Life, he presently runs his own editorial consulting and writing firm. He lives with his wife on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Thrilling rescue adventure
The Airship Italia disaster of 1928 has unfortunately been nearly forgotten today, but in its time captivated the world. I've read a number of books on the incident and this one ranks with the best (I even have an aviation text from that same year that was published after the accident, but before the rescue. The readers were left hanging!). While attempting to fly to the North Pole under the command of Italian General Umberto Nobile, land on the ice, and return, the airship Italia crashes on the pack ice hundreds of miles from civilization. The survivors are hurled to the ice and can only watch as 6 other survivors float off to their doom on the now uncontrollable derelict airship. Legendary Norwegian artic explorer Roald Amundsen, flies off in a seaplane to attempt a rescue, and is never heard from again. The castaways confront sudden cracks in the ice, broken bones, polar bear attacks, and almost staggering incompetence from their base ship back in harbor, which didn't even bother to monitor the radio most of the time. 3 of the party set off in a desperate bid to reach land and lead back a rescue party. The Norwegian Dr. Malmgren is soon too exhausted to continue, and after stoically help dig his own ice grave, bids the other two, Zappi and Mariano, on after giving them his food. The duo trudges on, clearly seeing land on the horizon, while the drift of the pack ice cancels out all their efforts. 43 days after they started, the last 12 without food, the exhausted and snow blinded Zappi and Mariano sit down to await their fate. But the Russian Icebreaker Krassen miraculously rescues them just hours from death. 48 days after the crash, and against all odds, all of the survivors are finally rescued. First published in 1960, this book has the advantage that the author had personal one-on-one interviews with nearly every survivor. Ironically, after coming so close to death, each survivor lived to comfortable old age, while the majority of their rescuers met early deaths, either by accident, or in the case of the Russians, in Stalin's purges. Instead of receiving a hero's welcome, Nobile was slandered by Mussolini's fascist government, who perceived him as a threat. He only received the credit due shortly before his death. This story is just begging for big screen, big budget treatment (it was the subject to a not-well-known, but good, Sean Connery movie, The Red Tent, though). Hopefully, they wont take the U571 route and change the principle characters from Italian, Czech, or Norwegian to Americans!

thanks for that
After reading the above review, seems like i don't need to read it. Who ever wrote it spoilt the whole book. Even told us they all got rescued.......Thanks alot for spoiling it.