NORTH POLAR DRIFT

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXI, Issue 15, 23 February 1940, Page 1

NORTH POLAR DRIFT

SOVIET SCIENTISTS RESCUED

OVER TWO YEARS' WORK

(From The Guardian's London

Correspondent)

LONDON, January 20,

Fifteen young scientists who have been drifting through Arctic seas for two and a quarter years aboard the Soviet ice-breaker Sedov were rescued this week. This North Pole adventure* ended when the powerful engines of the rescue sHip Joseph Stalin—the largest icebreaker in the world—were stopped within a few yards of the stranded vessel. '

Threatened almost daily with the dangers of the treacherous Arctic weather and the shifting icefloes, the crew of the \ Sedov continued their scientific investigations while drifting from -Northern Siberia across the Polar basin into the Greenland Sea. They took 5,000 meteorological bbservations and plumbed the depths of the icy seas. At 30 points they found that the depth was nearly two miles. For a month there has been anxiety throughout Russia while they drifted closer to the danger zone in the lower Greenland Sea where the melting icefloes could suddenly crash the frail vessel. Fifteen scientists—none over 30 years x>f age—are now eating fresh vegetables and, fruit for the first time since 1937, reading Moscow papers two months old and letters from relatives. But the first thing the young men demanded on board the rescue ship was a, hot bath.