TO SAVE AN ENEMY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20183, 27 June 1928, Page 6

TO SAVE AN ENEMY

JT IS NOT generally known in New Zealand that Captain

Amundsen, who is missing, and General Nobile, are at daggers drawn. The fact, indeed, is all the greater tribute to Amundsen’s gallantry in setting out to relieve a fellow explorer who has not hesitated to say the bitterest things about him. It was Nobile -who navigated the airship Norge in the AmundsenEllsworth expedition across the North Pole from Spitzbergen to Teller, 60 miles from Nome. In a very long article in the National Geographic Magazine, Nobile took a great deal of credit for the expedition, as he was entitled to do, but said a good deal less of Amundsen’s part in it than one might have expected. Amundsen, in turn, had something to say on the subject, and the result was a very bitter article by Nobile in the “World To-day” of last February. Nobile attacked Amundsen for attempting to usurp the merit for Ihe aeronautical feat, when the expedition failed in its exploration work, and also declared that in case of a march over the ice the only man capable of leading them was Wisting. His contempt for Amundsen, indeed, was unbounded. He even blamed Amundsen for the landing at Teller instead of Nome, although, unfortunately for himself in his earlier article in the National Geographic Magazine, he wrote: “A delay of half an hour in coming to a decision might spell disaster—-the tragical end to our achievement. I deemed it imperative to land immediately before the tempest should force the ship out of control.” It is most regrettable that animosities of this kind should have crept in between two fearless men, but it is just possible that they may yet patch up their quarrels before they leave the Arctic. Amundsen’s relief expedition, indeed, was more than a friendly gesture.