The Dominion MONDAY, JULY 16, 1928. AN ARCTIC EPIC

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 244, 16 July 1928, Page 8

The Dominion MONDAY, JULY 16, 1928. AN ARCTIC EPIC

Imaginative fiction has probably never so thrilled the. world as has the daily narrative told by the radio of the heroic incidents of the Nobile Arctic episode. From the moment the airship Italia left its sunny Mediterannean home latitudes with its Polar adventurers on board, throughout its voyage to the Arctic regions, its epochmarking cruise over the Pole itself, to the hour of disaster, Nobile maintained uninterrupted communication with the waiting world below the fringe of the frozen Silence. Then came the blank, the subsequent restoration of communications. From then on, the rescue of Nobile and some of his companions, told in daily radio bulletins, has held the interest and the emotions of the public. The last part of the story, which concerns the fate of the men who were carried off in the airship's envelope when it parted from its gondola, remains to be told. The chapter which has just closed, however, presents an epic comparable with the highest in Polar tradition. In its sequence of incident it has some appealing points of resemblance to the tragedy of the Scott Expedition to the Antarctic. In each case, the objective was reached. Each suffered disaster in the hour of achievement, and in each case the spirit of endurance, heroism, and self-sacrifice, which in desperate events demonstrates its inherent residence in humanity, flamed aloft, a moving spectacle and an inspiration to the'beholders. The supreme and unforgettable moral incident of the Scott tragedy was Oates’s sacrificial act of self-destruction when, with a brief intimation to his starving companions that he was going out for a moment, he deliberately walked into the Antarctic blizzard and inevitable death, incidentally increasing the ration of food for the others. From the incidents of the Italia disaster, the radio has given us a splendid replica in the death of Professor Malmgren, who, desperately incapacitated, insisted on being left to his fate, that his two companions might have a chance to save their. lives. In an age apparently given up to luxury and pleasure-seeking, and the material pursuit of selfish gain, such incidents induce moments of reflection which may not be altogether in vain. It has previously been demonstrated that an aeroplane may fly over the Pole, and afford the navigators on board a fleeting glimpse of the frozen terra incognita. Nobile Jias further demonstrated that a more leisurely survey of these regions is possible by airship, but his experience lias .revealed difficulties and dangers which will probably rule out future enterprises of this kind, at any rate for some time. The chief difficulty appears to have been the deadweight of snow and ice which continually settled on the airship, endangering her stability and the fabric of her construction. The constant removal of this was a task of immense difficulty, and as events subsequently proved, an insuperable one. Apart from that, the expedition which, with the tragic exception of the envelope party and Professor Malmgren, lias now been so fortunately rescued, should possess a wealth of important scientific data, of great value io meteorology and aeronautics, to mention but two of its opportunities for research work. These results will in due course be available for analysis and publication. At present, however, the world is less interested in the scientific achievements of the expedition than in its dramatic narrative of events. The picture of rescuing aeroplanes scouting amongst the ice hummocks and drifting floes for isolated parties of castaways, of the huge ice-breaker Krassin smashing laboriously to the spot noted by the aeroplanes and the faint intermittent radio signals, and that miracle of salvation—the radio itself—-presents a wonderful study of scientific achievement against the forces of Nature. Capped by incidents of personal heroism on the part of rescuers and the rescued, it makes an imperishable Arctic epic.