Otto Sverdrup to the Rescue of the Russian Imperial Navy

Abstract

Otto Sverdrup, one of Norway's greatest explorers, is usually remembered for his participation, as captain of Fram, in Nansen's memorable drift of 1893-96, and for his remarkably successful exploratory expedition in 1898-1902, again in Fram, to what are now the Queen Elizabeth Islands. ... But several later arctic exploits of Otto Sverdrup's, although in some ways ranking equally as high as the better known expeditions, have achieved relatively little renown. One of these was his leadership of the search-and-rescue expedition aboard Eklips in the Kara Sea in 1914-15 .... it is fair to say that had it not been for Sverdrup, and had ice conditions in the summer of 1915 been more severe, the Russian Imperial Navy might have experienced a major disaster. The initial objectives of Sverdrup's expedition were two missing expeditions: those of G. L. Brusilov aboard Sv. Anna, and of V. A. Rusanov aboard Gerkules. Lieutenant Brusilov had mounted a private expedition to traverse the Northern Sea Route from west to east. ... The second expedition, that of V. A. Rusanov, appears to have been even less well planned. ... As early as 1913, some public anxiety began to be expressed in Russia about the whereabouts of the expeditions of Brusilov and Rusanov as well as that of Sedov aboard Sv. Foka, which had left Arkhangelsk the previous year in an attempt to reach the Pole. ... The almost impossible task of searching for Brusilov and Rusanov was entrusted to Otto Sverdrup, in Eklips. The whereabouts of the Sv. Anna were totally unknown; however, he was to search the coasts of the Kara Sea from the north island of Novaya Zemlya to the mouth of the Yenisei, and on to Mys Chelyuskina, and also Ostrov Uyedineniya .... She sailed from Christiania (Oslo) on 13 July 1914 .... By the 16th, she was already beset and drifting with the ice; this drift, alternating with occasional spells of independent progress ... continued until 20 August, when Eklips encountered unbroken ice, and for severalweeks further progress was blocked. It was here ... that around noon on 9 September, one of her radio transmissions was answered by a completely unexpected call: Taymyr and Vaygach located at the Ostrova Firnleya. ... This, as it turned out, was to be an extremely fortunate encounter for Taymyr and Vaygach, the two Russian Imperial Navy icebreakers of the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition which since 1910 had been engaged in making the first accurate survey of the arctic coasts of Siberia as an essential preliminary to establishing a practicable Northern Sea Route. ... on 9 September, off the Ostrova Firnleya, Taymyr was caught between two large icefields, pivoting around each other, and was severely nipped. She received heavy damage .... Vaygach also suffered from ice pressures: she broke a propeller blade ... and was taking water at a rate of 3 tons per hour. ... It was in the midst of all this anxiety, tension and bustle that the Taymyr's radio-operator had chanced to pick up Eklips's transmission and had successfully made contact. ... But Taymyr's and Vaygach's problems were not over .... a wintering was inevitable and imminent. ... on 20 January, Eklips made two-way radio contact with Yugorskiy Shar. Sverdrup sent a short telegram to St. Petersburg with the details of the location and condition of all three ships. ... Sverdrup was informed that the search for Rusanov and Busilov had been called off and that Eklips was now assigned to helping Taymyr and Vaygach .... by noon on 16 September 1915, Eklips was making fast alongside the city wharf at Arkhangelsk, with Vaygach and Taymyr right behind her. The city gave both the Russian crews and Sverdrup and his crew a hero's welcome. Thus ended not only the through-passage of the Northern Sea Route by Taymyr and Vaygach, but also a complicated and well-mounted precautionary rescue operation, in which Otto Sverdrup played an eminent and worthy role. Finally, it should be mentioned that Sverdrup was to head further Russian expeditions and was to come to the rescue of Russian sailors again, but in the service of the Soviet rather than the Tsarist regime. ...