GRIPPING. ... One of the greatest polar rescue efforts ever mounted. ?Wall Street Journal The
riveting true story of the largest polar rescue mission in history: the desperate race to find
the survivors of the glamorous Arctic airship Italia which crashed near the North Pole in
1928. Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24 1928 the world-famous exploring
airship Italia?code-named N-4?was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the
Arctic ice triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search was
Roald Amundsen the poles' greatest explorer who himself soon went missing in the frozen
wastes. Amundsen's body has never been found the last victim of one of the Arctic's most
enduring mysteries . . . During the Roaring Twenties zeppelin travel embodied the exuberant
spirit of the age. Germany's luxurious Graf Zeppelin would run passenger service from Germany
to Brazil Britain's Imperial Airship was launched to connect an empire in America the iconic
spire of the rising Empire State Building was designed as a docking tower for airships. But the
novel mode of transport offered something else too: a new frontier of exploration. Whereas
previous Arctic and Antarctic explorers had subjected themselves to horrific?often
deadly?conditions in their attempts to reach uncharted lands airships held out the possibility
of speedily soaring over the hazards. In 1926 the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen?the
first man to reach the South Pole?partnered with the Italian airship designer General Umberto
Nobile to pioneer flight over the North Pole. As Mark Piesing uncovers in this masterful
account while that mission was thought of as a great success it was in fact riddled with near
disasters and political pitfalls. In May 1928 his relationship with Amundsen corroded beyond
the point of collaboration Nobile his dog and a crew of fourteen Italians one Swede and
one Czech set off on their own in the airship Italia to discover new lands in the Arctic
Circle and to become the first airship to land men on the pole. But near the North Pole they
hit a terrible storm and crashed onto the ice. Six crew members were never seen again the
injured (including Nobile) took refuge on ice flows unprepared for the wretched conditions and
with little hope for survival. Coincidentally in Oslo a gathering of famous Arctic explorers
had assembled for a celebration of the first successful flight from Alaska to Norway. Hearing
of the accident Amundsen set off on his own desperate attempt to find Nobile and his men. As
the weeks passed and the largest international polar rescue expedition mobilized the survivors
engaged in a last-ditch struggle against weather polar bears and despair. When they were
spotted at last the search plane landed?but the pilot announced that there was room for only
one passenger. . . . Braiding together the gripping accounts of the survivors and their heroic
rescuers N-4 Down tells the unforgettable true story of what happened when the glamour and
restless daring of the zeppelin age collided with the harsh reality of earth's extremes.
