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“It was a magical journey, this Arctic cruise of 8,000 miles in 136
hours! In the kaleidoscope of swiftly moving scenes, the highlights
of our voyage seemed like flashes upon the screen, so quickly was
one impression replaced by the next.”
In the above quote,
Coast Guard officer Lt. Cmdr. Edward “Iceberg” Smith wrote in a
journal article his enthusiasm for an important Arctic expedition in
the German airship Graf Zeppelin. Of the approximately 40 expedition
members, Smith was one of the only American participants and the
only U.S. military member aboard the Zeppelin.
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Left -Official service photograph of Lt. Cmdr. Edward “Iceberg”
Smith taken before the historic 1931 Graf Zeppelin Arctic
expedition. Right - Iceberg Smith taking observations from the
comfort of Graf Zeppelin's passenger gondola. (Image created by USA
Patriotism from photos courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard)
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In 1913, Edward H. Smith graduated from the Revenue
Cutter Service Academy, forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard
Academy. He was born and raised on the island of Martha's
Vineyard and descended from a family long associated with
whaling and the sea. Like many of his classmate, such as
Elmer Stone, Fletcher Brown and Carl Christian von Paulsen,
Smith enjoyed a distinguished and interesting career in the
Coast Guard.
Early in that career, Smith served
aboard several cutters, including the Manning, which
performed convoy duty in World War I. It was in 1920, when
he received assignment to the Cutter Seneca and the
International Ice Patrol that Smith developed a life-long
interest in oceanography and the Arctic, and became known as
“Iceberg” Smith. For the next decade, Smith engaged in the
scientific study of iceberg formation at Harvard University,
where he earned a master's degree in 1924. In 1928, he used
Cutter Marion to perform a survey of one of the most
prolific iceberg-producing regions, located in West
Greenland. In recognition of his scientific studies, Harvard
awarded him a doctorate in geologic and oceanographic
physics in 1930. He was the first Coast Guardsman to receive
a doctoral degree and became recognized as an international
authority on Arctic ice.
The Graf Zeppelin Expedition
proved a combination of Arctic exploration and Indiana
Jones-style adventure. On one hand, the Zeppelin served as a
platform to support Germany's state-of-the-art scientific
equipment, including a geomagnetic laboratory, a nine-lens
panoramic mapping camera, and a hot-air balloon
weather-sensing probe. On the other hand, members of the
German Foreign Office saw the expedition as a way to
strengthen German-Soviet ties and claim previously uncharted
lands to show the world that Germany had not renounced an
interest in territorial expansion.
Smith must have
marveled at the airship's technology and appointments. It
boasted a navigation station equal to any contemporary
sea-going vessel, meteorological equipment for predicting
local pressure systems at least three times a day, as well
as smokeless cigarettes and frost proof fountain pens.
During the expedition, Smith would be passing over some of
the most forbidding lands on Earth from the comfort of an
electrically heated cabin with picture windows to view the
frigid landscape below. Smith enjoyed the warmth and comfort
unknown in the frozen often-deadly struggles carried out by
ice-bound explorers.
As dawn broke on Friday, July
24, 1931, Iceberg Smith and his airshipmates embarked the
Zeppelin in its hangar at Friedrichshafen, Germany, and its
300-man ground crew walked the airship to its take-off
point. By 8:35 a.m., the Zeppelin was on its way to Berlin,
where it arrived at 6:00 p.m., circled the city several
times for the benefit of local spectators and set down for
the night at nearby Templehof Field.
The next
morning, Graf Zeppelin began the first leg of its journey
with a flight to Leningrad, Russia, by way of Helsinki,
Finland. Soviet fighter aircraft met the airship at the
Russian-Finnish border to escort the Zeppelin around
sensitive coastal defense installations and on to Leningrad.
After Graf Zeppelin landed at Leningrad's Commandant
Aerodrome, Smith and the rest of the crew received an
official welcome by local Soviet leaders and enjoyed a
lavish banquet. That evening, the Soviets topped off fuel,
stores and hydrogen gas and Soviet members of the expedition
stowed their gear on board the Zeppelin.
In the
morning of Sunday, July 26, Smith and the airship's
scientists and crew were ready to begin their 8,000-mile
aeroarctic journey. Graf Zeppelin proceeded from Leningrad
over the port city of Archangel and the White Sea, at
altitudes between 500 and 1,500 feet, before heading due
north through the Arctic Circle and over the open water of
the Barents Sea. As the airship flew farther north, the
temperature dropped from 60 degrees to 50 to nearly
freezing. The open water began to exhibit ice patches, then
ice floes and, finally, a solid ice sheet.
Graf
Zeppelin spent Sunday evening and most of the next day
crossing the Barents Sea and by 4:30 p.m., Monday, July 27,
Smith and the crew first sighted islands of the Franz Josef
Land group. The airship made landfall at the glacier covered
headlands of Cape Flora, however, Graf Zeppelin continued on
to nearby Hooker Island, site of the most northerly
meteorological observatory, and rendezvous point with the
Soviet icebreaker Malygin. At 5:00 p.m., the airship
descended to the water's surface and Malygin sent out a boat
with naval officers and meteorologists. The boat and
Zeppelin exchanged post bags full of mail with unique German
North Pole stamps cancelled using an exotic postmark on
board the airship. The postmarked mail was returned to
Germany by way of the U.S.S.R. The meeting between Zeppelin
and icebreaker proved brief as ice floes drew dangerously
close to Graf Zeppelin's low-hanging gondola.
After
the rendezvous with Malygin, Graf Zeppelin continued to the
northeast to photomap the rest of Franz Josef Land. The
survey of this island group revealed several features not
seen from ground level, including new islands and peninsulas
previously believed to be islands. A Russian scientist
aboard the Zeppelin estimated that three hours of aerial
mapping represented about four summers of survey work by a
land-based party.
At midnight on Tuesday, July 28,
Graf Zeppelin reached the northernmost latitude of its trip
at 81� 50� N, about 565 miles south of the North Pole.
German insurance firms would not cover accidents or mishaps
north of latitude 82� N due to the treacherous conditions
and odds against rescue between that latitude and the pole.
From the expedition's most northerly point, Smith noted,
“Here was one of the most beautiful scenes of the trip,
looking northward towards the midnight sun, then just below
the horizon. All objects appeared to be bathed in the soft
and mellow light except where a golden reflection shone
brightly along a glittering, icy path between us and the
pole.”
From Franz Josef Land, Graf Zeppelin proceeded
to the island of Severnaya Zemlya, located 300 miles to the
east. During the flight, Smith witnessed unusual formations
in the sea ice, including smoothly polished ice disks one to
two miles in diameter, and patches of brown, green and
yellow color caused by algae in pools of melt water. As the
airship approached the island, Smith found that the sea ice
formed a continuous sheet from glaciers flowing down from
Severnaya Zemlya's northern headlands.
After arriving
at the island, Graf Zeppelin assumed an altitude of 4,000
feet to begin its photographic survey. In 1914, a Russian
icebreaker had charted the island's shoreline, but humans
had never seen the island's interior. The survey of the land
mass revealed that it was actually two islands separated in
the center by a wide channel and Smith saw little vegetation
nor evidence of animal life.
From Severnaya Zemlya,
Graf Zeppelin crossed the Vilkitski Strait to the Taimyr
Peninsula. The ice and snow of the island group gave way to
the dark earth colors of tundra, and the crew discovered a
new uncharted mountain range. Smith saw the trip's first
animal life, including large waterfowl and herds of
reindeer, which scattered in every direction as the airship
drew near. In two hours, the Zeppelin reached Lake Taimyr, a
distance that took the most recent land expedition a month
to cover on foot. Graf Zeppelin's scientists conducted a
complete camera survey of the lake, mapping many features
never seen or charted before.
Departing the Taimyr
Peninsula, theZzeppelin crossed the Kara Sea on its way to
the massive island of Novaya Zemlya. Graf Zeppelin passed
over pack ice most of the trip until open water appeared for
a few miles around the island. The Zeppelin ascended to
about 4,000 feet at the northern tip of the island and began
a photographic survey along its length. Smith witnessed the
island's mountainous landscape, covered by snow and ice and
punctuated by glaciers calving hundreds of icebergs into the
water.
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The Arctic's icy landscape in 1931 as seen from the Graf Zeppelin. (U.S. Coast Guard
courtesy photo enhanced by USA Patriotism!)
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After surveying Novaya Zemlya, Graf Zeppelin flew
straight over Archangel and continued on to Germany.
Originally, the Zeppelin was scheduled to stop in Leningrad,
but the Germans altered that plan at the last minute and the
airship proceeded directly to Berlin. At Berlin, the
Zeppelin stopped for only a half hour then left for its home
base at Fredrichshafen. After only 136 hours in flight, with
no mishaps or problems, Graf Zeppelin returned to
Friedrichshafen at 5:00 a.m., Friday, July 31.
Despite the inability to fly north of latitude 82� N, the
expedition proved an unqualified success. Graf Zeppelin had
passed over vast regions never seen by the human eye and
discovered new landforms, such as islands, mountain ranges
and peninsulas. It also photographically surveyed large
parts of the Russian arctic previously unknown and
un-mapped. In presaging the use of aviation in the Coast
Guard's modern International Ice Patrol, Smith ended his
report by concluding that aviation would prove very useful
in the Coast Guard's role of monitoring iceberg production
in West Greenland waters.
Iceberg Smith taking
observations from the comfort of Graf Zeppelin's passenger
gondola. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
The 1931 Graf
Zeppelin expedition proved the first and most successful
venture in the history of German polar exploration, but it
was also the last airship expedition. The poles had remained
one of the final frontiers of human exploration prior to
man's journey into space and the Graf Zeppelin proved that
polar exploration could be accomplished safely and
comfortably with the aid of airship technology. However,
when Adolph Hitler's National Socialist Party ended
Germany's Weimar Republic in the early 1930s, the Zeppelins
no longer ventured into the Arctic.
Iceberg Smith
continued to work on ice-related missions after completing
the Graf Zeppelin expedition. He led a long and
distinguished Coast Guard career, commanding cutters in
Alaska and assuming command of the International Ice Patrol.
During World War II, he commanded the Greenland Patrol, the
Coast Guard command responsible for the Greenland theater of
operations.
In 1950, Smith retired as a rear admiral and became director of
the Oceanographic Institution at Woods Hole, where he served for six
years before retiring for good. He passed away in 1961 and was
buried with his ancestors at Martha's Vineyard. Iceberg Smith was
one of the Service's long blue line, who devoted his life to
increasing our knowledge of the Arctic and sea ice formation for the
safety and benefit of all who navigate the world's Polar Regions.
By William H. Thiesen
Atlantic Area Historian, U.S. Coast
Guard
Provided by
U.S. Coast
Guard
Copyright 2015
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