Evening star., 1925-07-13
CORRESPONDENT BRAVED ARCTIC
PERILS TO GET. AMUNDSEN STORY
Hardship and Danger Of Death We're Routine of
i ]. A. BOuman of Associated Press on Trip
to Kings Bay-Was Refused Aid.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, July 13.-How q staff
correspondent of the Associated Press
who was sent to the Arctic regions
to learn the fate of the Amundsen-
fRnchingly braved the perils of the
ICY seas can now be told.
Less than a month ago when the
world was praying for the safe re-
turn of the Norwegian explorer s
party-believed by many a forlorn
hope-J. A. Bouman of the London
bureau of the Associated Press was
encountering hazards as great as
those of the explorers. His risks
were In the line of duty. He had no
thought of fame. His work. like that
of all employees of his organization,
was to be anonymous. His reward
was to be only the knowledge that he
had done his best, had met courage
ously the hazards that beset his
journey. The public is entitled to the
story.
Demand for Relief.
When the Amundsen party hoped
of from Spitzbergen on May 21 in
two airplanes in an effort to fly to
the North Pole their aim was to be
back within two or three days. When
days and weeks passed without any
word from the adventurers the world
speculated as to their fate. There
was insistent demand that relief eX-
pedition be sent to Spitzbergen and
as much nearer the Pole as ships and
afrplanes could reconnoiter. The Nor
wegtan government finally responded.
Meanwhile Mr.. Bouman had been
sent from London to Oslo, the capital
of Norway. He reported daily the
activities of the government and of
the Norwegian Aero Club, which had
bought the exclusive rights to the
personal narratives of Amundsen and
members of his party.
It was arranged to send airplanes
and flyers to SpitZbergen on the coal
carrier lingerie. Bouman, a man of
50 years, and not particularly robust.
cheerfully accepted the assignment to
proceed with the relief ship, notwtth-
standing that he suffered severely
from q cold caught on the 50-hour
Journey from London to Oslo, as his
Office later learned.
He met his first barrier when both
the Norwegian government and the
Aero Club undertook to protect what
they conceived to be a contract right
of the purchasers of the <Amundsen
personal story to bottle up the details
OF the rescue work as well.
Bouman Imperiled Life.
Refused aid by both the government
and the club, left to his own resources
in flnding means of transportation
through the untraveled and ice
strewn Arctic waters, Bouman did not
falter. Twice he imperiled his life
and suffered genuine hardship to
reach his objective. That Mr.. Bou-
man failed at the time to get his story
to the outside world was due to the
contract made by Amundsen to sell
the narrative of his experiences to
group of newspaper syndicates of
various countries, whose representa-
tive at Kings Bay controlled the only
means of communications
He refused to allow Bouman's dis
patches to be sent.
The news (along with Amundsen's
personal narrative) was allowed to go
only to relatively few newspapers,
being controlled in this country by
the North American Newspaper
Alliance. The bottling up of the news
in this manner was done in spite of
the tremendous interest awakened
throughout the world by the mishap
to the expedition and notwithstanding
that the Norwegian government ac-
tion in dispatching a rescue eXpedi-
ton had raised the enterprise from
the category of a private affair to a
public one in which a government
shared and for the results of which
the world anXiouSly waited.
Until it became evident that Amund-
sen and his companions might be lost,
the Associated Press made no extraor-
binary efforts to report the Amundsen
flight, considering the expedition a
private enterprise which it was not
its function to help finance. When,
however, Amundsen failed to return
on time and it seemed that disaster
had overtaken him and when the Gov
ernment, in response to appeals the
world over, announced its intention to
send a relief expedition, the story
transcended the field of private enter
prise.
Permission Obtained
The Associated Press, responding to
the public interest, at once began its
endeavor to obtain the facts. 1t ap-
piled to the Norwegian government
for permission to have its representa-
tive go on the rescue ship. Finally
the permission, including the promise
of the ships wireless, was obtained.
Later the rescuers left this ship,
eventually transferring to another
government ship, the Heimdal, and
Bouman was not permitted to board It.
He was left stranded at Advent Bay,
where ships rarely touch.
This constituted the only instance
in the history of the Associated Press
that any government has not willing
Iyr accorded facilities for Obtai0in the