page_title: Tryggve Gran
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Tryggve Gran / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Jens Tryggve Herman Gran MC (January 20, 1889 - January 8, 1980), Norwegian aviator, explorer and author, member of Robert Falcon Scott's antarctic expedition of 1910-1913, the Terra Nova Expedition
context_page_description: Jens Tryggve Herman Gran DSC, MC was a Norwegian aviator, explorer and author. He was the skiing expert on the 1910–13 Scott Antarctic Expedition and was the first person to fly across the North Sea in a heavier-than-air aircraft.
context_section_description: Gran took an interest in science and exploration which in 1910 led to Fridtjof Nansen recommending his services to Robert Falcon Scott, who was in Norway at the time preparing for an expedition to the Antarctic and testing the motor tractor he intended to take with him. Scott was impressed with Gran, who was an expert skier, and Nansen convinced Scott to take Gran as ski instructor to Scott's men for the Terra Nova Expedition.
  Arriving in Antarctica in early January 1911, Gran was one of the 13 expedition members involved in the laying of the supply depots needed for the attempt to reach the South Pole later that year. From November 1911 to February 1912, while Scott and the rest of the Southern party were on their journey to the Pole, Gran accompanied the geological expedition to the western mountains led by Griffith Taylor.
  In November 1912, Gran was part of the 11-man search party that found the tent containing the dead bodies of the past South Pole party. After collecting the party's personal belongings the tent was lowered over the bodies of Scott and his two companions and a 12-foot snow cairn was built over it. A pair of skis were used to form a cross over their grave. Gran travelled back to the base at Cape Evans wearing Scott's skis, reasoning that at least Scott's skis would complete the journey. Before leaving Antarctica he made an ascent of Mount Erebus with Raymond Priestley and Frederick Hooper in December 1912, an occasion which nearly ended in disaster when an unexpected eruption caused a shower of huge pumice blocks to fall around him. On 24 July 1913 Gran was awarded the Polar Medal by King George V.
  On his return voyage, Gran met aviator Robert Loraine, the first pilot to cross the Irish sea, and immediately took an interest in aviation. Gran became a skilled pilot at Louis Blériot's aviation school in Paris, and on 30 July 1914, Gran became the first pilot to cross the North Sea. Taking off in his Blériot XI-2 monoplane, Ca Flotte, from Cruden Bay, Scotland, Gran landed 4 hours 10 minutes later at Jæren, near Stavanger, Norway, after a flight of 320 miles (510 km).The restored, but complete and original plane is on display at the Norwegian Technical Museum in Oslo, Norway. 
  Only five days later, the United Kingdom entered the First World War. Gran, now a first lieutenant in the Norwegian Army Air Service, volunteered for service with the Royal Flying Corps. He was rejected because of Norway's neutrality. However, the rejection did not stop Gran. Under the identity of "Captain Teddy Grant" of Canada, he was admitted to the RFC, serving in 1916 with No. 39 Squadron on Home Defence.
  Gran was commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps under his own name as a probationary temporary second lieutenant on 1 January 1917, confirmed in the rank and appointed a flying officer on 1 March 1917, and was posted to No. 70 Squadron, flying the Sopwith Camel on the Western Front.
  He was appointed a flight commander on 1 January 1918 with the rank of acting-captain, and in March his seniority as second lieutenant was backdated to 1 January 1917. Soon after he was awarded the Military Cross. His citation reading:
  T./Capt. Tryggve Gran, Gen. List and R.F.C.
  For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He bombed enemy aerodromes with great success, and engaged enemy searchlights, transport and other targets with machine-gun fire. He invariably showed the greatest determination and resource.
  He was promoted to acting-major on 10 September 1918. and commanded various Royal Air Force units in Arkhangelsk and North Russia during the Allied intervention in 1919. Gran was temporarily transferred to unemployed list on 26 April 1919, but on 1 August was granted a permanent commission in the RAF with the rank of captain, however, this was then cancelled on 2 December 1919. Gran finally relinquished his commission on 6 August 1921.
  Gran himself claimed to have shot down German ace Hermann Göring in a dogfight on 8 or 9 September 1917. He discovered this when he became acquainted with Göring after the war, and compared his flight lo
caption: Tryggve Gran in Antarctica (1911)
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