CASTAWAYS IN ARCTIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 11

CASTAWAYS IN ARCTIC.

NARRATIVE OF ITALIA. LIFE ON DRIFTING FLOES. ALTERNATE HOPE AND FEAR TRIBUTE PAID TO NOBILE. TERROR OF THE PACK-ICE, (Received August 17, 7,35 p.m.) Times Cable. LONDON, Aug. 16. In continuation of his copyright despatch to tho Times, describing the final disastrous flight of the airship Italia, Professor Francis Behounck, the Czecho-Slo-valvian scientist who took part in it, says:—

For two months the attention of the world was concentrated on our little tent, which the wireless operator, Sergeant Biagi, painted with red stripes. We were lost in a wilderness of pack-ice, and linked with civilisation only by wireless. In the tent six and later five men lived in alternate despair and faint hope. The ice-floe on which it stood was driven in all directions by the polar wind. It might even have been driven over the ocean toward Franz Joseph Land. The newspapers daily reported the events in the rod striped tent through the medium of wireless, telegraph, telephone, reporters' pencils and printers' ink. Some of these reports were so changed that they would bo unrecognisable by the occupants of the tent. Victims o t Polar Psychosis. They said we had gone mad and were quarrelling; that we had become victims of "Polar psychosis;" that wo were dying, or had grown apathetic and that we l'elt daily surer that wo had been deserted. That is why I am writing this article. Our first moment was full of joy and optimism. We were near the mainland and people knew our route from the Pole, Then we realised that we were foodless and this produced a, reaction. Later, when Professor Malmgrcn saw the provisions scattered on the ice, partly sent oveiboard before the crash and partly fallen out, hope revived. Thus lifo on the ice-floe was alternately hope and gloom. Scraps of Pemmican Saved. Biagi put the wireless into operation on the day of the. crash. Wo heard in tho afternoon the high ringing note of our S.O.S. messages giving our position. That evening we wero tired out after our 55 hours' flight and most of us slept soundly. Next morning, with Commandant Mariano directing us with complete calmness and composure, wo garnered every piece of pemmican lying i,n the snow, convinced that each might mean another day to live.

Wc had to pass Signor Pomella's body, which lay with the face buried in the snow and surrounded by the wreckago of (lie roof of the motor cabin, which we had tried to erect to shelter him, becauso no kindly earth was at hand. Professor Malmgren cooked our first meal of pemmican in a petrol tin. We all drank from the same cup. The taste at first was strange and unpleasant, but we soon overcame the distaste. Professor Malmgren's departure with Commanders Mariano and Zappi depressed us, but the belief that they would succeed iu sending us relief earlier cheered us up afresh.

Italian Station Heard. The wireless daily sent out signals, but Biagi's remark, "I hear nothing," was soon too familiar. Nevertheless he heard the San Paolo wireless station near Koine, which said relief measures had been begun, and that Lieutenant liuser Larson and Captain Amundsen were joining in the search. The San Paolo station's announcement that an amateur had partly heard our signals gavo Biagi new energy. He tapped out messages every hour until ho feared the accumulators would give out. Finally the supply ship Cilia di Milano heard us, and we knew the worst anxiety was over.

It might be reasonable to expect that General Nobile, with a broken arm and leg, and Lieutenant Ceccioni with a broken leg; and lacking medical aid, would despair, but a man of Nobile's qualities does not lose hope. Ceccioni, who steered the airship Norge to safety after its moorings had broken, was not likely to suffer from "Polar psychosis," on the contrary when the others were sleeping ho would spend the night measuring on a map the time the Russian icebreaker Krassin would take to reach us Moments of Depression. Similarly Biagi was always ready at a sign, while Vigliari, who measured our position calmly as if on the deck of a warship in peace time, was a Trojan. Ho was our philosophical engineer, who cooked bear meat, and chocolate when the menu improved. Nevertheless there were moments of depression and fear, when the wind opened new channels around tho tent, and the floe melted, flooding the tent. Our footwear crumbled, some of us were ill with gastric fever and rheumatism. We felt this also when Lundborg crashed and fog handicapped the fliers searching for us, while tho floe was driven seaward. But there was no sign of " Polar psychosis." Lundborg was amazed at our good spirits. I am sure he did not say, as was reported, that we were mad or quarrelling.

The only argument I remember occurred while the newspapers were reporting us as being insane. We were playing chess and draughts. I do not want to exaggerate our morals. We realised that the dangers of the situation were chiefly pessimistic, but we did not talk of them. There is a grain of truth in tho phrase " Polar psychosis," which is compounded of spite and haired for the ice,'perhaps also fear of it. We called it "terror of the pack-ice," but we did not succumb to it.

The aviators experienced a similar feeling which might explain why Shyberg did not return on the night in which lie rescued Lundborg, although his base was only about 15 minutes away in flying distance. The feeling might well stop even au airman as plucky os Shyberg proved to be, when, without faltering, he landed on the ico to take off Lundborg.