On the morning of 3 May 1928, the Italia airship cruised up Sweden's east coast and over the very centre of Stockholm. News of the spectacle spread quickly through the Swedish capital and thousands turned out to see the low-flying airship. As the Italia hovered over Stockholm, the young meteorologist aboard the vessel, Finn Malmgren, asked the Italian commander of the airship if they might make a small diversion over the suburb of Äppelviken. General Nobile agreed, setting a course for Äppelviken, and when they reached the district where Malmgren's mother lived, they descended to a height of just one hundred metres. "The journey has so far gone very well," wrote Finn on a sheet of paper. He then carefully folded the paper and wrapped it in a flag before dropping it from the airship into the garden below.
The crew of the Italia had gathered in Rome on 31 March where they met Pope Pius XI in the Vatican. Two weeks later the Italia left Milan for its long journey to the North Pole. The first leg of the trip took the airship to Stolp on the Baltic coast of Pomerania (today Slupsk in Poland), where the team stopped for two weeks to ensure that the Italia was in tip-top condition for the Arctic flight ahead.
Only the previous year Finn Malmgren had secured his doctorate from the university at Uppsala and everyone knew that his knowledge of polar air flows and weather patterns would be crucial to the success of the expedition. Nobile, Malmgren and the rest of the team waited in Stolp for perfect weather. Eventually the right day came. A night-time departure, that morning cruise over Stockholm and Malmgren’s family home, and within a couple of days the Italia was well north of the Arctic circle. They touched down briefly in Vadsø in the far north of Norway, then continued to King’s Bay, a mining settlement in the northwest of Spitsbergen (King’s Bay is nowadays known as Ny-Ålesund).
From King’s Bay, the Italia made a three day side-trip that took Nobile and his team east over Franz Josef Land (Эемля Франца-Иосифа) and on to the Siberian coast. During a non-stop four thousand kilometre foray, they scoured the seas below them in the hope of identifying hitherto undiscovered islands. No such luck, but the team returned to King’s Bay, having in just three days completed a journey of exploration that would surely have taken a year or two by ship.
On 23 May 1928, the Italia was ready to depart King’s Bay for the journey north to the pole. Malmgren checked his meteorological instruments one last time. The cross blessed by Pope Pius XI during the team’s Vatican visit seven weeks earlier was on board, along with a spare radio, reserve supplies of pemmican and chocolate, maps, sextants, compasses and a dog. Nobile took his pet with him everywhere, and to this day Titina is the only fox terrier ever to have visited the North Pole.
Few exploratory voyages have been so trouble- free as the Italia’s outward journey from King’s Bay to the North Pole. True, the weather deteriorated in the final stages, but shortly after midnight on 24 May, the Italia was over the pole. Nobile hoisted the cross from the Pope overboard, and sent Pius XI a radio- telegram confirming the success of the Italia mission. The team shared a bottle of Vov, a peculiarly Italian liqueur that affects to be a sort of liquid version of zabajone.
Finn Malmgren was aware that the weather might not be on their side and urged a quick departure. After hovering at the pole for two hours, Nobile gave the order to make course for King’s Bay. Few exploratory voyages have been so disastrous as the Italia’s homeward journey from the pole. They made good progress in the early stages, but south of eighty-five degrees the Italia ran into strong headwinds and shortly thereafter a fearful storm.
Realising that a crash was imminent, Nobile had the good sense to order that the airship’s engines be shut down, so averting the risk of a fire on impact. At 10.33 on the morning of Friday 25 May, the Italia crashed onto pack ice north-east of Spitsbergen. Nobile, Malmgren and several of the crew were thrown clear — as was Titina the terrier. They were the lucky ones, for within seconds the untethered balloon was blown into the sky again, taking with it six members of the crew. None survived a second uncontrolled crash twenty minutes later.
Titina was the only one who saw a good side to being unceremoniously dumped on the pack ice. She had found the cramped conditions of the Italia not to her liking and survived the crash entirely unscathed. Not so Nobile, who had a severe fracture to his leg and a broken arm. Malmgren broke his arm and others among the ten survivors had fractures, cuts and bruises.
By Saturday morning with no news of the Italia, there were worried faces at King’s Bay. Similarly, the media and scientists back in Italy monitoring the expedition noted that the Italia had missed several radio check-ins. As it happens, a luncheon was taking place in Oslo that Saturday, attended by distinguished polar explorers and Arctic aviators from Europe and North America. Among those present was Roald Amundsen. What started as a festive event took a very different turn when a telegram arrived announcing the probable loss of the Italia, followed just a few minutes later by a phone call from the Italian government requesting help to mount a rescue mission.
