Junkers-Spitsbergen expedition

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Participants in the expedition from left to right: Wegener, Neumann, Hammer, Duus (below), Löwe, Holbein, Wedekind (above), photo: Mittelholzer

The Junkers-Spitzbergen expedition was planned by Junkers Motorenbau GmbH in 1923 as an auxiliary expedition for the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen , but was ultimately an independent scientific expedition with an all-metal Junkers F 13 aircraft . In its course, Arthur Neumann and Walter Mittelholzer carried out the first powered flight north of the 80th parallel. Mittelholzer took the first aerial photos of Svalbard .

prehistory

In 1922, Roald Amundsen bought a Larsen JL-6 , a replica of the Junkers F 13 , and planned to fly it from Point Barrow via the North Pole to Spitsbergen. The company was high risk, especially because Amundsen overestimated the range of the machine. According to the manufacturer, the plane could not take enough fuel to reach Svalbard. Haakon H. Hammer, a confidante of Amundsen, then turned to the Junkers factories with the request to equip a small expedition that was to set up food depots north of Spitsbergen to the likely landing site of Amundsen. The Junkers factories took this as an opportunity to test one of their aircraft under polar conditions in a public manner.

preparation

The Junkers D 260 in Tromsø

The expedition had to be prepared in a hurry due to the tight time frame. An expedition team was put together, which in addition to Hammer included the two pilots Arthur Neumann and Fredy Duus, the fitter Holbein and W. Löwe as the official representative of the Junkers factories. On the recommendation of Hugo Hergesell , the meteorologist Kurt Wegener was hired as a scientific advisor. He was the only one who had Arctic experience - from 1912 to 1913 he had headed the Geophysical Observatory Ebeltofthafen in Albert-I-Land . It was not until June 9th - 11 days before Amundsen's scheduled start date - that the Swiss pilot and travel writer Walter Mittelholzer received the offer in Berlin to take part in the expedition as a photographer and cameraman. The optical institute CP Goerz provided him with high quality film and photo equipment at short notice. At this point, Wegener and the Junkers employees had already embarked on a Norwegian passenger steamer for Bergen with the packaged Junkers D 260 Eisvogel . The machine had been converted into a seaplane with floating bodies . Instead of the two front passenger seats, it had an additional tank so that it could stay in the air for up to 18 hours instead of 6. The expedition team was only united in Bergen on June 15, but had to wait three days for the coal steamer Eidshorn , which brought it to Tromsø by June 21 . Just as the ship passed the Arctic Circle , the men learned that Amundsen had canceled the pole flight after two unsuccessful test flights by his pilot Oskar Omdal .

In consultation with the Junkers factories, the decision was made to continue the trip to Spitzbergen. The auxiliary expedition, which had become obsolete, was quickly redesignated as a scientific expedition for the acquisition of aerial photographs of Svalbard. The previous secondary goal of making film and photo recordings in order to partially finance the expedition has now become the main purpose of the company. A few test flights were made with the now assembled kingfisher before the Dutch steamer Ameland transported it as a whole to Green Harbor . On July 4th, the expedition moved into quarters at the Norwegian radio station at Grønfjord, 2.5 km south of Green Harbor.

course

Flight route on July 8, 1923
View of the Newton peaks from the north
The mouth of the Lomfjord in the Hinlopen Strait
Svea, a mountain of the Tre Kroner

From July 5th to 7th, the expedition carried out three test flights, each with increasing flight routes, in the Isfjord area . While Neumann steered the kingfisher , Mittelholzer alternately operated the photo and film cameras. The third flight also served to explore the areas north of the Isfjord of Oscar II and James I Land . Mittelholzer wanted to get an idea of ​​the nature of the path that would have to be mastered on skis on one of the planned large reconnaissance flights in order to return to inhabited areas in the event of an accident.

The first big flight was to take place on July 8, 1923. The machine was again thoroughly serviced and loaded with skis, weapons, sleeping bags and food for three weeks. There were also two aviator cameras with 100 photo plates and the film camera with 500 m of film stock. Mittelholzer received the information from the captain of the Norwegian auxiliary cruiser Farm , who had just entered the Grønfjord from the north coast of Spitsbergen, that there were some whale and seal-catching ships on the edge of the pack ice, from which help could be expected in the event of an emergency landing. He planned to fly to the North Cape of Northeastern latitude at about 80.5 ° north, take photos of the islands there and return to Green Harbor along the north and west coast of West Spitzbergen . In ideal weather, the kingfisher started shortly before noon with Neumann and Mittelholzer on board and soon swung north-east. The machine rose only slowly, however, as the engine regularly failed under higher loads. Neumann decided to continue the flight. When the Billefjord was flown over an hour later, they entered an area for which there were no precise maps yet. The Chydeniusfjella with the highest mountain in Svalbard, the Newtontoppen , were circled and filmed. The kingfisher then continued its flight to the northeast and crossed the Lomfjord and the Hinlopen Strait . After the 80th parallel on the island of Kvaløya, Mittelholzer gave up the North Cape as a destination in view of the problems with the engine. He made Neumann take a western course. The machine now followed the lying off the north coast pack ice and reached at 16 o'clock the island Danskoya . Here the kingfisher swung south, crossing Albert-I-Land, the Kross and the Kongsfjord . He circled the Nunataks Tre Kroner and reached the base station after a nearly seven-hour flight in time for the fog gathering from the west and with only 12 liters of fuel in the tank. The plane had covered a distance of almost 1,000 km.

The damage to the engine turned out to be irreparable because a required spare part was missing and could not be obtained promptly. The plane was no longer able to rise from the water. So it stayed with the one big flight. On July 16, the expedition on the Ameland started its journey home.

Results

The expedition is undoubtedly an important pioneering act. It was thanks to it that the first scientific research flights in the Arctic were made. The big round of July 8, 1923 was the most northerly powered flight ever. With the first aerial photos of Svalbard, the expedition provided evidence that the aircraft is ideally suited for cartographic recordings in areas that are difficult to access and that it can create the same conditions for good map material in just a few hours as grueling land expeditions during a whole season. It is not known whether the photographs that now fill 72 folders and large company albums in the Junkers estate at the Deutsches Museum were actually used for land surveying.

Several points prevented the expedition from being more successful. The fact that it was planned to help Amundsen meant that the preparations were under enormous time pressure and did not allow them to focus on scientific goals. Even after the main purpose of the expedition ceased to exist, the Junkers factories were more interested in a film that would appeal to the public than in improving the map material. This led to the choice of low altitudes and an emphasis on details. Greater heights would have significantly improved the usability of the photos for land photography. Unfortunately the expedition had to be stopped prematurely because of the engine failure of the F 13 .

In 1924 Orell Füssli in Zurich published Mittelholzer's expedition report with contributions by Kurt Wegener, the photo chemist Adolf Miethe and the flight technician Hans Boykow (1878-1935) under the title In the airplane towards the North Pole . The foreword was written by the Norwegian polar explorer Adolf Hoel . The book contains 48 photographs and three map sketches, which were created with a photogrammetric process on the basis of oblique aerial photographs . Mittelholzer's travelogue, written for the general public, takes up most of the book.

Mittelholzer's expedition film In the Junkers Airplane over Svalbard is one of the first advertising films by the Junkers factories. In the style of a cultural film , he shows the audience the chronological and geographical course of the expedition and comments on it using extensive popular science interludes. The film was distributed by UFA in the spring of 1924 . B. shown in the opening act of Oliver Twist with Jackie Coogan .

Publications

Travel report

  • Walter Mittelholzer (Ed.): In the plane towards the North Pole. With contributions by K. Wegener, A. Miethe and H. Boykow, Orell Füssli, Zurich 1924 (English version: By Airplane towards the North Pole . George Allen & Unwin, London 1925).

Movie

Individual evidence

  1. Cornelia Lüdecke: Amundsen. A biographical portrait . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2011, ISBN 978-3-451-06224-7 , pp. 140 .
  2. Hans Steinhagen : Researcher, adventurer, rescuer - the Spitzbergen expeditions by Kurt Wegener, Herbert Schröder-Stranz and Theodor Lerner 1912/1913 . In: Cornelia Lüdecke, Kurt Brunner (Ed.): From A (ltenburg) to Z (eppelin). German research on Spitzbergen until 1914. 100 years of the expedition of Duke Ernst II of Saxony-Altenburg (PDF; 31.8 MB). Neubiberg 2012 (= series of publications by the Institute for Geodesy , issue 88), pp. 47–58.
  3. a b c H. Boykow: The picture yield of the Junkers' Spitzbergen expedition from the geographical and surveying point of view . In W. Mittelholzer (Ed.): In the airplane towards the North Pole. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1924, pp. 42–50.
  4. ^ W. Mittelholzer: The first flights in the Arctic. In: W. Mittelholzer (Ed.): In the airplane towards the North Pole. Junkers' auxiliary expedition for Amundsen to Spitzbergen 1923 , pp. 51–106, here: p. 87.
  5. Ewald Thoms: A Pinch of the Arctic. In: Fliegerrevue , No. 9/211, 1970, pp. 364-368.
  6. Kurt Hassert : The polar research . Goldmann, Munich 1956, p. 188.
  7. a b Ralf Forster: Junkers on Spitzbergen. Target shifts of expedition trips in the twenties . In: Cornelia Lüdecke, Kurt Brunner (Ed.): From A (ltenburg) to Z (eppelin). German research on Spitzbergen until 1914. 100 years of the expedition of Duke Ernst II of Saxony-Altenburg , Neubiberg 2012 (= series of publications by the Institute for Geodesy , issue 88), pp. 109–116.

Web links

Commons : ETH-BIB Mittelholzer-Spitsbergen flight 1923  - collection of images, videos and audio files