Yesterday we brought you part one of the story of Carl Ben Eielson, the first man to fly over the top of the world. We left him and his partner, George Wilkins, after they crash-landed in 1927 on an iceberg during a blizzard. Wilkins, the navigator, estimated they were 65 miles from safety, and floating farther away each moment.
On the sixth day, cold weather had formed enough ice for them to leave. In her 1947 book, The Flying North, author Jean Potter wrote, “They drained what little fuel they could from the tank and improvised an oil-burner from a gallon can. They built sleds (from airplane parts). Loading them with (food and supplies), they left the shelter of their plane and set out across the frozen sea.”
The men’s journey was horrific. Potter described them sinking to their waists in snowdrifts and crawling on all fours across broken pressure ridges. After 13 days, they reached the Beechey Point fur-trading post.
The following year, on this date, they tried again. Their new, orange, Lockheed Vega was the 2nd ever built. Their 3,500-pound load was mostly fuel, their food mostly chocolate.
Their airstrip was glare ice, 14 feet wide, but they took off successfully. The first 20 hours and 20 minutes passed uneventfully, covering about 2,100 miles. Then, when they were almost to the Norwegian coastline, a severe storm came up. All they could see were two mountains ahead of them. The windshield was covered with snow and frozen oil. Forced to land, they came down on Dead Man’s Island.
The storm trapped them for five days. The snow got so deep, and the terrain was so rough, that they couldn’t lift off. Wilkins got out and pushed and was supposed to jump on as soon as the plane took off, but unknown to Eielson, Wilkins had fallen. Luckily, Eielson circled, spotted him on the ground, and landed. Their second try failed, too. Finally, Wilkins used a piece of driftwood to push from the cabin door, and they were airborne. Within minutes, they spotted the radio towers of Green Harbour, their final destination. They had done the impossible.
For his “air-breaking” feat, Eielson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Harmon Trophy; and Wilkins, a British subject, was knighted by King George V.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm
