GENERAL NOBILE’S CAREER

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 28 July 1928, Page 11

GENERAL NOBILE’S CAREER

UIENBR'AiL Umberto Nobile, commander of the Italia, was born at Avelliuo, Italy, in IS So. As a boy -he attended the Naples Polytechnic, and afterwards settled in that city as an engineer. Winning a post in the Ministry of Public Works in an open* competition, he removed to Rome, where until the war lie worked as an official in the railway department. In 1915 he -submitted plans for airship construction which so aroused the interests of expert's that he was invited to join the War Ministry. He was given a post in the experimental station near Rome, where he made great headway.

After only a few months 'he Was entrusted with the construction of the airship Roma,. another engineer named Use Hi being appointed 'to assist him. Then he brought out a dirigible, which was used for coastal patrol purposes. Nobile wrote a book entitled “The. Theoretical and Experimental 'Groundwork of Aviation” and as a result he was asked to draw up plans for two airships. These were used by the Spanish navy and also in the Moroccan campaign. Four further airships were later brought out to his design, one of which was aftcrWards given the name of Norge, and was the dirigible, in which lie flew with Amundsen to the Pole. Another was stationed at Ferrara, a third was purchased by the Japanese navy, and finally there was the Italia. All of these vessels are of the semirigid type.

The flight of the Norge from iSpi'tzborgen '-over the North Pole took place in Mav, '1928. ;A landing was made at. Teller.' Alaska, on May 15. after 71 hours’ flying. Nobile immediately returned to Italy, where he was pr-o-C-alimed a national hero, demonstrations

DESIGNER OF EIGHT AIRSHIPS

being held everywhere in his honour. He was promoted to the rank of general, given the title of marquis, and appointed a professor at the Naples Technical 'College. But Nobile all along insisted that the Norge ?, s flight had been a failure from the scientific point of view. *

Hardly a Couple of month’s had elapsed when controversy 'Started in New York as to who should get the credit for piloting the Norge. Lincoln Ellsworth.-who accompanied the party, was said to have denied that Nobile acted as navigator, but Nobile rebutted this with the claim that the course was laid by him and followed throughout the flight. Moreover, he declared that everybody on board was under his orders. Ellsworth’s father had financed the trip, and feeling ran somewhat high in the United States, but when, in the following Winter Nobile visited America, he was given <a cordial welcome on all hands, and it appeared that the quarrel h'ad subsided. The trouble revived last year when Amundsen himself made an attack on Nobile in his book, "My Life rs an - Explorer.’’ Amundsen stated that Nobile’s part in the expedition was confined from the start to the technical control of the airship, and that his claim to leadership was entirely unfounded. He‘criticised Nobile’s execution of the task of pilot. Further, Amundsen declared that when they wore over the North Pole Nob'ilo "dropped overside nut one but armfuls of flags. For a few moments the Norge looked like a circus waggon of the skies, with great banners of every_^~ / shape and hue fluttering down around her.”