The Crash of Italy. The Story of Umberto Nobile's Arctic Expedition

On May 24, 1928, the research airship "Italia," returning triumphantly from the North Pole, encountered a storm and crashed in the ice. After its disappearance, the whole world held its breath and followed the largest rescue operation in the history of Arctic exploration for several weeks. The first signal from the radio station of the surviving polar explorers was caught by the Soviet radio amateur Nikolai Schmidt. This happened on June 3. The famous polar explorer Roald Amundsen, who helped with the search, soon disappeared himself in the icy wilderness. On June 23, a Swedish pilot managed to rescue expedition leader Umberto Nobile from the ice floe, and only in July were the remaining polar explorers saved by the Soviet icebreaker "Krasin." Combining the testimonies of those who crashed and those who came to their aid, the author of the book tells the captivating story of the disaster, the heroic searches, and the rescue that occurred when the glamour and boundless courage of the airship era collided with the harsh reality of the Arctic.