At Snow Hill Island the crew waited three days for the fog to lift before they could begin the strenuous task of hauling the still-full drums of fuel down from the plateau. As they toiled through the morning, up and down the glacier, the weather unexpectedly began to clear. It stopped snowing and the wind dropped. Byrd sent the weather report from Little America, confirming it was clear at both ends of the route. On an impulse Ellsworth suggested to Balchen that they attempt the flight. Balchen, surprisingly, agreed. The crew scurried about to check the plane and start the engine. Wilkins, also hopeful the flight would finally be done, radioed a prepared statement from Ellsworth to the New York Times:
The great adventure, so long awaited, is at hand. The motor is warming up, and soon its roar will be breaking the silence that veils the Earth’s last great unknown, as Balchen and I wing our way across Antarctica, with the opportunity of all that pertains to the opening of a continent for the last time in human history.1
Then Ellsworth made one of his stranger decisions and sent a radio message to Byrd. He asked if, once he arrived at Little America, he could remain there for the winter, after Byrd had abandoned the base and returned north. Furthermore, Ellsworth also enquired if “one of your pilots and a mechanic [would] care to join me in place of Balchen and Braathen.”2 Even if he successfully crossed the continent, Ellsworth was in no hurry to return home, apparently. He had previously suggested to Mary Louise that he may wish to stay in Antarctica. Now he seemed to be seriously considering it. At Little America, Byrd quickly circulated the word among his crew and, remarkably, five men volunteered to spend another winter in Antarctica. Byrd relayed the news to Ellsworth.
Balchen and Ellsworth shook hands, posed for Wilkins’s movie camera, then climbed aboard the Polar Star. The weeks of blizzards had altered the flat runway so that it now sloped downhill, becoming a series of gentle undulations. Those undulations, combined with the fact that the wind was blowing from the higher end, meant Balchen would need to taxi the fully laden plane uphill to get airborne. The crew watched as the Polar Star moved into position before Balchen opened the throttle. But the combination of the uphill slope, the undulations, and the heavy load proved too much for the Polar Star. Balchen taxied back and forth for thirty minutes, growing increasingly impatient. Finally, unable to contain his frustration, Balchen turned the plane around and steered it off the runway and onto the glacier flowing down to the water where the Wyatt Earp was moored. Wilkins and the ship’s crew watched in horror as Balchen opened the throttle to maximum revs and the plane, with a tailwind, sped toward them. At the edge of the ice the Polar Star would either lift into the air or plunge into the water. In the seat behind Balchen, Ellsworth clung on, scarcely daring to open his eyes. The plane shot from the ice like a bullet from a barrel, skimmed the water for half a mile and then gradually began to gain altitude. Balchen brought the Polar Star around in a wide circle, flew over the cheering crew of the Wyatt Earp, then took it to three thousand feet and headed southwest.
Wilkins radioed another preprepared statement to the New York Times. It began by declaring the great flight was underway and ended by quoting Ellsworth’s favorite poem, “Who Has Known Heights,” by Mary Brent Whiteside. As the Polar Star became a speck on the horizon, Wilkins was concluding the exultant radio message with the words, “Who once has trodden stars seeks peace no more.”
Ellsworth was finally on his journey to join the stars of world exploration.
Balchen followed the coast of Graham Land. Ellsworth busily made observations of the landscape in his notebook. He saw that, because everything was so choked and buried under the ice, it was difficult to distinguish land from sea. In fact he became so engrossed in his notebook he did not notice Balchen bank the Polar Star to starboard and turn around. Moments later, Ellsworth looked up to see the peaks of the mountainous spine of the peninsula, which he had previously observed on his starboard side, could now be seen out of his port window. He shouted at Balchen, whose laconic response was the weather was too bad to continue.
Ellsworth stared in disbelief at what he described as “a wisp of a squall” with “the sun showing on both sides of it.” Surely it was not enough to give up? But Balchen was flying north, back to the Wyatt Earp. It finally dawned on Ellsworth:
So at last I began to realize the truth. Balchen was not going through with this flight unless he found absolutely perfect flying conditions, and they were something we might have to wait years to find. Two years of planning and work were going by the board. I knew that Balchen was a good judge of weather and that by turning back we might be escaping a storm—yet next day we had ideal weather at the Wyatt Earp. I shall always believe we could have gone through.3
Two and a half hours after taking off, the Polar Star returned to Snow Hill Island. Wilkins grabbed his camera when he heard the approaching plane and was on hand to film the landing. The grainy images show Ellsworth climbing from the plane, ignoring the camera, and stomping off without speaking. Wilkins stopped filming. Unsure what had happened, he approached Balchen who responded, “Ellsworth can commit suicide if he likes, but he can’t take me with him.”4
Perhaps, in Balchen’s judgement, the weather was so poor that the flight was impossible. Perhaps he felt he could not rely on Ellsworth to navigate accurately, or assist them to get airborne should they be forced down. Or perhaps he genuinely believed the depressed Ellsworth had some sort of death wish. Friends had feared he might take his life ever since his sister, Clare, had died. Whatever the case, Balchen said little on the subject, other than that he had attempted the flight, found the weather bad, and turned around. According to Ellsworth:
Balchen had his side of the story. He told Wilkins afterward that in the camp on Deception Island, when the five of us were waiting for the Wyatt Earp’s return from Chile, he had made up his mind that he could not rely on a single man for sufficient assistance in the event of a forced landing. That was when he began asking for a third man in the plane. He had decided he would not attempt the flight with me alone, unless conditions were such that we could make it nonstop.5
At Little America, hearing that the flight was abandoned, Byrd sent a consoling message. Ellsworth had previously made a vague insinuation that Byrd’s radio operator, Charlie Murphy, was feeding Balchen false weather reports giving Balchen a reason not to make the flight so, after expressing his sympathy, Byrd pointed out:
I do however congratulate you indeed for using your good judgement in not taking chances in spite of the weather that probably would have resulted in disaster. It often takes a higher type of courage not to do a dangerous thing than it does to do it. During the latter days the weather over here was uncertain as it always is at this time of year but in spite of my concern I did not give you any suggestions because I was afraid it would be misunderstood. We did our best to keep you informed of the weather.6
Ellsworth, however, still had simmering doubts about Byrd’s motives.
Any flying for the year was finished, but not the expedition. The wind had turned and was blowing from the east. They had stayed in the Weddell Sea too long and the Wyatt Earp was in danger of being crushed. Gales buffeted the ship as it heaved itself against the edge of the glacier. It was four days before the wind allowed the men to load the Polar Star hastily on the deck and lash it down. The ship pushed north, to where it was held fast by encroaching ice for five days. At times the crew would try to dynamite their way through, but it was futile. After a week, they were still only sixty miles from Snow Hill Island. A shift in the wind broke up the ice and they returned to the island, this time sheltering in the strait on the west side. The crew took the opportunity to visit Nordenskjöld’s hut. For another five days the pack forced them to anchor near the hut.
The Wyatt Earp had enough provisions to spend the winter, but there was no guarantee they would be released from the ice in spring. Wilkins radioed the British research vessel Discovery II, asking its movements. Might it be possible, he wondered, to fly some men to Deception Island, from where the Discovery II could take them to South Georgia and they could return north? In fact, Wilkins nominated the three men who most wished to escape a winter in Antarctica. Ellsworth, who a few weeks earlier was considering wintering at Little America, was at the head of the list, followed by:
Braathen, airplane mechanic, who must go to hospital for stomach operation although he is not yet a bed case, and a third man, [Jorgen] Holmboe, [a] Norwegian government man whose leave so long since expired that if delayed longer he doubtless will lose his position.7
While Holmboe and Braathen had legitimate reasons for not wintering there, the rest of the crew was aware that Ellsworth simply did not want to spend any more time on his ship than he absolutely had to. Captain Andrew Nelson of the Discovery II (the man who had slipped his business card into Wilkins’s pocket ten months earlier) responded with a qualified offer of assistance, pointing out that he was not entirely a free agent and could not afford to be delayed. But if the men were at Deception Island when he was there, he would take them. Luckily, before the negotiations needed to continue, the ice made a channel and the Wyatt Earp sailed back through the Antarctic Sound to Deception Island.
Most of the Norwegian crew was exhausted and, after almost two years of faithful service, they were openly saying they had had enough of the expedition and Ellsworth’s dark moods, arrogance, and ingratitude. Arriving back at Deception Island they received the final insult.
In their seven-week absence, members of John Rymill’s British Graham Land Expedition, which was trying to locate and confirm Stefansson Strait, had visited the abandoned Norwegian whaling station and vandalized the place. Doors, windows, furniture, and even the piano were smashed. Broken crockery was strewn about and every drawer and cupboard had been ransacked. Wilkins reported, ‘There was human excrement on the floor of the mess room of the whaling company’s barracks and also less than six feet away from the pathways to other buildings.”8
Horrified at the wanton and needless destruction, Magnus Olsen immediately skied to the nearby cemetery, fearing the Norwegian graves would be desecrated, but was relieved to see that “the marauders had not found the old, isolated graveyard . . . The stones were as we had left them.”9
Wilkins had always enjoyed the support and hospitality of the Norwegian whalers at Deception Island. In his report to the owners, the Hector Whaling Company, he pointed out that on his previous visits, and while the Wyatt Earp used the facilities to repair the Polar Star’s engine, any supplies taken had been replaced and the station left in good order. He concluded:
About the material removed, I mention only in passing. It is the dirty, wrecked condition in which the place was left that I wish to comment on, particularly because the company owning the buildings at Deception Island have so generously and courteously assisted several polar expeditions and would doubtless continue to do so if they felt they could receive ordinary consideration in return.10 1
If the Norwegians, who had agreed to crew a Norwegian ship in an attempt to help an American cross Antarctica, needed any more reason to quit the expedition, they found it when they walked among the trashed buildings and human feces of their countrymen’s former home.
The long voyage back across the Pacific to New Zealand was out of the question. On January 21, 1935, they headed, instead, for the closer port of Montevideo, Uruguay. On the trip north a plague of rats, which had found its way on board at Deception Island, swarmed over the ship eating everything in their path. They even ate the ship’s cat. Miss Piggy survived.
On the return voyage Ellsworth mostly stayed in his cabin. He continued to ignore the crew and issued his orders through Wilkins. After two voyages and months of close confinement, he still did not know many of their names. About a week before the Wyatt Earp arrived in Montevideo, Wilkins addressed the men, asking how many would be willing to return for a third trip if required. The question was met with stony silence, so Wilkins quickly added, “Don’t make your mind up now, but think about it and let me know before we drop anchor.”11
At Montevideo, Ellsworth immediately left the ship, crossed the River Plate to Buenos Aires, and flew back to the United States. Some time before he left the Wyatt Earp—possibly while the ship was still in Antarctica—he had scribbled an undated note and handed it to Wilkins. It read:
I will continue my effort to cross Antarctica only under the following conditions. Namely that:
1.Both Sir Hubert Wilkins and Bernt Balchen accompany the expedition.
2.Only two men fly in the plane.
3.Opportunities of weather conditions to fly are taken that were not [Ellsworth’s underline] considered this year with agreement to landing if necessary.
4.No meteorologist accompanies the expedition except one who will be available for weather reports at that [Ross Ice Shelf] end.
5.No more flying considered after January 1.
6.Balchen agrees to go on a salary of $4,500 per month after reaching Valparaíso or Buenos Aires where the ship will winter [and] the plane will be left until its departure October 20 for Deception Island.12
If Ellsworth was going to make another attempt he wanted everything to be the same as his second expedition, except he had to start the flight on time, not have any of the nonsense about a third person in the plane, nor any of the nonsense about delaying the flight or turning back because of poor weather.
From Montevideo, Bernt Balchen sailed to America, writing to his wife shortly before he left:
[Ellsworth] will probably go down again this fall, but I am definitely not going again. Both he and Wilkins have been a big disappointment during the difficult times. They both like to take all the credit they can get, but they are weaklings when things are going against them. They have made several attempts, in the most delusive way, to blame me for there being no flying this year. I have cleared out my [things] and don’t give a damn about them.13
An exhausted Wilkins was left to sort out the ship and the crew. He began by sacking most of them. The men, Wilkins pointed out to Suzanne in a letter sent soon after the ship reached port, were more than willing to leave the ship because, “when they saw [Ellsworth’s] behavior in general they all got disgusted and now with the exception of two or three they would all like to be clear of the expedition, as in fact I would too if that were possible.”14 Wilkins never made clear whether he was talking about the crew’s disgust at rumors that Ellsworth was gay, or the fact that Ellsworth was always the last to board and the first to leave and only did minimal work.
Meanwhile, in New York, Mary Louise was confiding to her friends that Ellsworth was gay, and when that news reached Suzanne, she was pleased to have something new with which to taunt Wilkins. In a letter that has not survived she told Wilkins of the gossip, and mocked him for being employed by a gay man. Wilkins replied in the same matter-of-fact manner as he did to Suzanne’s “pregnancy”:2
I am not the least bit concerned as to what people say. He may be a sissy for all I know, but I do know that I gave my word that I would do the job of putting him in a position for doing the flight he has made up his mind to do and that is that. One does not argue or ask to get out of a contract by word of honor. However Lincoln may volunteer to release me and you can bet that I would be mighty glad of the chance to be free.15
Although he was indicating that his reason for staying with the expedition was because he had given his word, Wilkins was also conscious that he had few opportunities to earn money while America was gripped by the Great Depression. He had written to various contacts in New York and learned, “It is more difficult for one in my position to earn one hundred dollars now than it was to earn one thousand three years ago.”16 Even the possibility of touring and showing his films in theaters seemed unlikely because, as he explained to a Paramount News executive:
There is little of interest to the movie public. There has been very little action and what did take place was either always at midnight or when the weather was unsuitable for filming. The crowd on this expedition have no interest in the films and will not do anything especially in the interest of pictures, so I am afraid that there is very little of use in the negatives despatched, except a plain record of what happened, e.g. nothing.17
First Mate Magnus Olsen, Second Mate Lauritz Liavaag, Engineer Harald Holmboe, and the cabin boy Bjarne Larsen, stayed with the Wyatt Earp. The rest of the crew sailed for Norway. The Wyatt Earp was taken to sea, and the skeleton crew set about ridding it of rats. More than one hundred were forced overboard before it returned to Montevideo, and Wilkins checked into a hotel to oversee storage of the Polar Star in a local warehouse. The four remaining Norwegians settled down to spend the winter in Montevideo, with Ellsworth paying their wages, and await his decision. Olsen had the unenviable task of presenting Miss Piggy to a local butcher and commented after the event, “not one of us ate a pork chop as long as the ship remained in harbor.”18
Ellsworth bypassed the gossiping tongues of New York and headed straight for the castle without Mary Louise, who was finding she preferred his Italian villa.3
Alone again, Ellsworth pondered his future. He was, he felt, a laughingstock. He had spent a decade trying to write his name into history books and he was still only a footnote. While he tried to decide what he should do, the normally reclusive Ellsworth granted an interview to a New York Times journalist who penned a telling portrait of both the man and his environment:
In Switzerland there is no more picturesque castle outside or inside than the Ellsworth home. The first thing that strikes one on entering the living room is the ticking of several ancient clocks in different notes. One finds several of these ancient clocks in every room one enters. It excites your curiosity to find out that each one is running and telling a different hour.
Mr. Ellsworth explains that there are seventy-two clocks in the castle.
“My father collected them,” he says.
In the ancient Gothic fireplace a cedar fire crackles in the cool evening on an extraordinarily high pile of wood ashes.
“Those are ashes of all the fires that have ever burned in that fireplace in twenty-four years,” Mr. Ellsworth says. “My father would never let them be disturbed and I have carried on.”19
Perhaps driven by the past more than drawn to the future, Ellsworth felt he had to carry on. He had commenced a task in the name of his father and, despite his disappointment and detractors, he could no more stop now than he could clean the fireplace or sell the clocks.