Reservist

ISS3 2014

Reservist Magazine is the award-winning official publication of the United States Coast Guard Reserve. Quarterly issues include news and feature articles about the men and women who comprise America's premier national maritime safety and security

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island revealed that it was actually two islands separated in the center by a wide channel with little vegetation and no evidence of animal life. Graf Zeppelin proceeded to the island's southern end where Ellsworth radioed the American Geographic Society the results of the island's survey. From Severnaya Zemlya, Graf Zeppelin crossed the Vilkitski Strait to the Taimyr Peninsula. The white ice and snow of the island group gave way to the dark earth colors of tundra and the Graf Zeppelin discovered a new uncharted range of mountains. The crew also witnessed the trip's first animal life, including large water fowl and reindeer. The reindeer herds scattered in every direction frightened by the shadow of the large airship. The zeppelin flew two hours from the coast before reaching Lake Taimyr, a distance that took the most recent land-bound expedition a month to cover on foot. Graf Zeppelin's scientists conducted a complete camera survey of the lake mapping features never known or charted before. From the Taimyr Peninsula, the zeppelin expedition crossed the Kara Sea on its way to the massive island of Novaya Zemlya. Graf Zeppelin passed over pack ice much of the flight over the Kara Sea until open water appeared for a few miles around the island. The zeppelin arrived at the northern tip of the island and rose to about 4,000 feet in preparation for a photographic survey along its length. The island's mountainous landscape was covered with snow and ice and punctuated by glaciers calving hundreds of ice bergs into the coastal waters. From Novaya Zemlya, Graf Zeppelin flew directly toward Archangel and continued on to Germany. Dr. Eckener had planned to stop in Leningrad but altered plans at the last minute to proceed directly to Berlin. The zeppelin stopped for half-an-hour in Berlin then left for its home base at Fredrichshafen. After only 136 hours in flight with no mishaps or problems, Graf Zeppelin touched down at its base of operations at 5:00 a.m. on Friday, July 31, 1931. Despite the inability to travel further north than latitude 82° N, the expedition proved an unqualified success, and, in Ellsworth's opinion, worked "like a dream." The expedition had flown over vast regions never seen by the human eye and discovered new land forms, such as islands, mountain ranges and coastal features. It also photographically surveyed large parts of the Russian arctic that had never been properly mapped. In presaging the role of aviation in the modern International Ice Patrol, Smith ended his article by concluding that airship flights would prove very useful in the Coast Guard's monitoring of iceberg production in west Greenland waters. The 1931 the Graf Zeppelin Expedition proved one of the most successful ventures in the history of German polar exploration, but it was never tried again. The poles had remained one of the final frontiers of human exploration prior to man's journey into space and the Graf Zeppelin showed that polar exploration could be accomplished safely and comfortably with the aid of airship technology. However, when Germany's Weimar Republic collapsed under the takeover by Adolph Hitler and the National Socialist Party, the zeppelins were no longer used for polar expeditions. Iceberg Smith and Lincoln Ellsworth continued to work on ice- related missions after completing the Graf Zeppelin expedition. Ellsworth led four successful aerial expeditions to Antarctica between 1933 and 1939 before World War II precluded any further exploration of the South Pole. Smith continued with his distinguished Coast Guard career, commanding cutters in Alaska and then became head 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 the 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 on Martha's Vineyard. � a view of the icy landscape as seen from the Graf Zeppelin. U.S. Coast guard Photo Issue 3 • 2014 � RESERVIST 41

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