GOAL REACHED.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1928, Page 7

GOAL REACHED.

ITALIA OVER POLE.

Airship Succeeds Against Heavy

Storm.

NOW HOMEWARD BOUND,

(Australian I'ress Assn. —United Service.) (Received 0.30 a.m.) LON DON, May 24. A message from King's Bay, Spitsbergen, via Oslo, states that General Nobili, the Italian explorer, in the airship Italia flew across the North Pole at midnight. \o landing was possible but the uirremained over the Pole for an hour, from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m., and is now en route for Spitsbergen. An earlier message stated that the ]talia had encountered a heavy storm, milking it almost impossible to steer, and that she was therefore returning. ]f it was impossible to land at King's Bny she would make for Vadsoc, where everything is in readiness for a landing dating the night. CJmberto Xobili, the airship expert, was born in 1883 at Avellino, Italy, studied nt the Naples Polytechnic, and settled in that city as an engineer. Winning in open competition a post in the Ministry of Public Works, he moved to Home, where, until the war, he was an official in the railway administation. Jn 1915 his plans for airship construction aroused the interest of experts, and he was taken over by the War Ministry. Practically, unknown, he entered the experimental station near Rome, and after a few months was entrusted with the construction of the airship Roma, along with the engineer Usuelli. During the war he also built a dirigible which was used for patrolling the const. His book, "The Theoretical and Experimental Groundwork of Aviation," attracted the atten-

tion of experts. The outcome was that he drew up the plana for the two airships which were used by the Spanish Navy and in the Moroccan cnmjiaipn, and built the Italian dirigible No. 1 (later known as the Norge). In the Norge, along with Amumhen, he flew from Spitzbergen over the North Pole on May 12, 1920, and landed after an ex-

citing journey near Teller, Alaska, on May 13. The flight lasted 71 hours and over Alaska ice formed on the propellers and flew off. tearing the gas bag. The helium bejran to escape, but Teller was reached before the loss of gas could become fatal. Af'.er his return from this epoch-making flight Nobili was loaded with honours in It: ly. promoted to the rank of general, given the title of marquis and appointed •irofessor at the Naples Technical College. In July a controversy began in New York as to who should have the credit for pibting the Norge. Lincoln Ellsworth, who accompanied the expedition which his father had financed, denied that Nobili acted as navigator, but the latter asserted tlmt the course was laid by him and followed during the flight and that everyone in the ship was under his orders. Amundsen in his book "My Life as an Explorer," also a ttacked /Nobili with extreme violence for his alleged incompetence as a navigator. as well as on other grounds, asserting that the airship was actually navigated i.t-"*" • "'' ser -Larsen. The present expedition is part of a scheme to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the end of the war. Originally the explorers proposed to remain in the Arctic for three months. J hoy already have flown to Franz Josef and made fruitless efforts to find 11. Land and Lenin Land, which mo supposed to exist in the Arctic, north ot Greenland. A plan which Mussolini wishes General Nobili to carry out in the future is a flight to Suenoe Ayrea.