Evening star., 1925-06-19
Flyers Stared Death in Face
Many Times in Hacking
Way From Prison in Ice
With Most Primitive Tools.
GREATEST DANGER LACK
OF FOOD AND SNOW-GLARE
Omdal, Pilot, Smoked Rope and Ate
Cigarettes-All of Party Suffer
ed From Loss of Sleep and Minds
Are Confused on Some Details of
Battle With Polar Zone.
BY JAMES E. WHARTON.
Special Correspondent Of The Star and North
American Newspaper Alliance.

BY JAMES r. WHARTON.
Special Correspondent Of The Star and North
American Newspaper Alliance.
KINGS BAY, SpitZbergen, June 10
Radio from steamer HeimdaO.-Al-
though the Amundsen- Ellsworth North
Pole flight failed to attain its objec-
tive reaching only latitude S7-44, yet
It is becoming clearer every hour that
It achieved a glorious adventure, an
immortal chapter in the history of
Arctic heroism.
The North Pole was forgotten in
desperate battle of six brave men
for their very lives.
The explorers spent % nightless
and almost sleepless days on their
solitary task of effeCting their own
rescue, hacking the stubborn ice with
bowie knives and crude wooden
shovels to free their plane from the
clutch of the frozen fingers of the
relentless North.
Every day death in some new form
stared them in the face.
Blinded by Snow-Glare.
Weak with undernourishment. they
fought on, and finally won the battle
Lincoln Ellsworth, the only Ameri-
can with the party, succumbed to
snow blindness at one point in the
struggle. and later Dietrichson was
seriously crippled from the same
cause.
a curious phenomenon about these
men. now that they have arrived safe
iy at Kings Bay. is their mental con,
fusion about the time of their absence.
They cannot remember how many
days it took to accomplish this or that
phase of their struggle. They cannot
recall whether it was one day or seven
days that they hacked at the ice be-
fore their airplane was freed.
They all agree. however, that the
time passed very quickly in the midst
of their titanic struggle, and it is hard
for them to believe that they have
really been away four full weeks.
Ellsworth says he does not believe
he had more than four nights sleep
during the time he was away.
Omdal Ate Cigarettes.
Omdal remembers most vividly the
fact that he smoked rope, after he had
eaten up the 90 cigarettes which he
carried i'll his pocket
Feucht recalls chiefly how weak he
became after a fortnight of the dimin-
ished ration which Amundsen en-
forced from the first day. After few
yards walk through the snow and ice
ne was obliged to support himself
against the plane for "a few moments
before he was able to start work.
- Gradually the details of those terri
Bile % days at latitude SI.4i are com
ing out, as strange as any days ever
experienced by men. 1t will be long
before all is told; probably much viii
never leave the minds of the six, but
stay there as long as life lasts, as
simply d scar of memory. Their eX-
perience is too colossal to describe in
a breath. 1t is still only possible to
touch the edges Of those friShtful days
by repeating flashes of the random re-
marks of the survivors.
Capt. Nils Woolan, captain of the
SjoeliV, which took AmundSen aboard
at North Cape, is one of the heroes of
Kings Bay today. OF all the sealing
captains in the world today. he is
surely the one most completely out of
his element. The sudden change from
hunting seals to sharing the center
of the world stage with the Amundsen
party has just about struck him dumb.
He has probably spoken not more than
20 words since his arrival in Kings
Bay, and the battery of cameras and
cinema apparatus which has lombard
ed him since he stepped ashore has
completed his discontinue.
When Woolan first saw the N-25
riding on the open water beside the
ice barrier at North Cape, he natural
ly thought it was one of the rescue
airplaneS out for a trial spin. When
II came alongside, he hailed it and
asked. Have you any news of Amund-
SEM" His feelings may be better inn
aSined than described when a voice
from the airplane beloved back, Yes.
l am Amundsen.'
Twenty minutes after the Amund-
sen party alighted at North Cape they
were aboard Woolan's ship. He tried
to tow the airplane, but storm came
up and he was forced to pull the
machine into the nearest sheltered
cove, where it was anchored to the
ice until the Iieimdal could come
north to salvage it.
Capt. Woolan had unofficially
joined the search for Amundsen since
a few days ago, when he met the skip
per of the Farm at Advent Bay and
offered his assistance While he was
cruising along the north coast. The
longest connected sentence which
Woolan has uttered since he arrived
in Kings Bay was this:
Il guess we didn't do so badly We
were looking for seals. but | guess we
picked up some bigger fish, eh, what?"
Hard to Realize.
Even today, "a hours after their ar
rival here, the mere fact of their re-
turn seems still the one big fact that
matters.
If their return was dramatic, it was
dramatic in such a colossal yet simple
way that we who have spent four
weeks in constant vigil still have to
pinch ourselves to realize it is true.
1t was l o'clock yesterday morning
that d dingy sealing ship. the Sjoeliv,
crept into the harbor. A few of us
were on the deck of the Hobby at the
time, for night and day are all the
same at this season of the year.
There was nothing about the Sjoe-
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