MALMGREN HAILED BY COMRADE AS BRAVEST OF ALL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18543, 17 August 1928, Page 4

MALMGREN HAILED BY COMRADE AS BRAVEST OF ALL.

GAVE HIS LIFE TRYING TO SAVE COLLEAGUES. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON. August 15. After describing the commencement of the final disastrous flight of the airship Italia, the arrival at the North Pole, and the subsequent crash, Professor Behounek continues: — Dr Malmgren was a gentleman in the full sense of the word and will, like Scott and Franklin, always be remembered by the world as a martyr in the cause of science. It was by the irony of fate that the bravest of us all should be the only one of the nine survivors to die. I shall always remember him as he left us in the dim light of the white polar night—miserable, crippled, loaded down with a knapsack of provisions, his strength already failing but with an indomitable will. I shall not forget his last words, saying that he believed that he could manage to reach the mainland over the ice. He did not go to save himself, but as . the only hope of rescue for the entire expedition. The whole world can be proud, in these days of egotism, that there are still men able to give their lives for others, deliberately, under such terrible conditions.

When the Italia crashed Malmgren was standing near the steering gear and did not escape injury. The cabin smashed nose downward on to the ice, partly onesidedly, with a threefold velocity, due to the continued momentum of the airship after the engines had stopped, the speed imparted by the wind and the impetus resulting from the fall. Malmgren’s left side was painfully bruised and his left arm or collarbone, was injured. It was difficult to reach the injured arm owing to the double suit of clothes necessitated by the temperature, which was eleven degrees (centigrade) below zero. Commander Zappi told me on board the Krassin that Dr Malmgren was unfit to march because his arm was broken and his legs were frozen. Malmgren carried his arm supported lightly in a towel which I brought him as a sling. Although his arm was useless he chopped ice and left it to melt for the water supply of the camp. General Nobile told me after the rescue that Malmgren wanted to commit suicide after the crash, but Nobile dissuaded him. He was the first to take a telescope and find several metal cases of food wh'ch had been thrown out of the airship. Malmgren was a descendant of the Nordic soldiers of the seventeenth century who let themselves be shot for those they served, though their term of service was expiring in a few hours. He left all the bear meat with us when he went and did not even take any pemmican to make up for it, taking only his personal share of pemmican and chocolate.

I asked him whether I could take any message to Sweden. He said: If you were a Swede I .would ask you to take several greetings. You can’t have quite the same feelings as a fellow Swede.

I knew he did not want me to write to his mother, as that would

only have increased her suffering: Times Cables. t