N-4 Down

The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia

By: Mark Piesing

Narrated by: Matt Jamie

Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's Summary

"Gripping.... One of the greatest polar rescue efforts ever mounted." (Wall Street Journal)

The riveting true story of the largest polar rescue mission in history: the desperate race to find the survivors of the glamorous Arctic airship Italia, which crashed near the North Pole in 1928.

Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24, 1928, the world-famous exploring airship Italia — code-named N-4 — was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the Arctic ice, triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search was Roald Amundsen, the poles’ greatest explorer, who himself soon went missing in the frozen wastes. Amundsen’s body has never been found, the last victim of one of the Arctic’s most enduring mysteries....

During the Roaring Twenties, zeppelin travel embodied the exuberant spirit of the age. Germany’s luxurious Graf Zeppelin would run passenger service from Germany to Brazil; Britain’s Imperial Airship was launched to connect an empire; in America, the iconic spire of the rising Empire State Building was designed as a docking tower for airships.

But the novel mode of transport offered something else, too: a new frontier of exploration. Whereas previous Arctic and Antarctic explorers had subjected themselves to horrific — often deadly — conditions in their attempts to reach uncharted lands, airships held out the possibility of speedily soaring over the hazards. In 1926, the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen — the first man to reach the South Pole — partnered with the Italian airship designer General Umberto Nobile to pioneer flight over the North Pole. As Mark Piesing uncovers in this masterful account, while that mission was thought of as a great success, it was in fact riddled with near disasters and political pitfalls.

In May 1928, his relationship with Amundsen corroded beyond the point of collaboration, Nobile, his dog, and a crew of 14 Italians, one Swede, and one Czech, set off on their own in the airship Italia to discover new lands in the Arctic Circle and to become the first airship to land men on the pole. But near the North Pole, they hit a terrible storm and crashed onto the ice. Six crew members were never seen again; the injured (including Nobile) took refuge on ice flows, unprepared for the wretched conditions and with little hope for survival.

Coincidentally, in Oslo, a gathering of famous Arctic explorers had assembled for a celebration of the first successful flight from Alaska to Norway. Hearing of the accident, Amundsen set off on his own desperate attempt to find Nobile and his men. As the weeks passed and the largest international polar rescue expedition mobilized, the survivors engaged in a last-ditch struggle against weather, polar bears, and despair. When they were spotted at last, the search plane landed — but the pilot announced that there was room for only one passenger....

Braiding together the gripping accounts of the survivors and their heroic rescuers, N-4 Down tells the unforgettable true story of what happened when the glamour and restless daring of the zeppelin age collided with the harsh reality of earth’s extremes.

©2021 Mark Piesing (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

too much

chased too many rabbits to tell a simple story. Could have been a shorter story

Highly recommend

An excellent book on early aviation, airships and arctic survival. Umberto Nobile is somewhat overshadowed in airship history by Eckener and the Zeppelin Company so this was my first experience with him. Quite an interesting character! Mark’s book is thoroughly researched and well written and I couldn’t put it down.

Interesting History

This book is for people who like polar exploration, disasters , and Fascist machinations . It isn’t the best of all these , but it certainly is one of the more unique stories of this time period .

Is early aviation at the North Pole

Fascinating story not only of Exploration of the Arctic but of the politics of the twenties and thirties.

Interesting and entertaining

I haven’t rated, but few, of my inventory of 4,000 books. This is great in historical terms, and plays like a great novel.
You won’t be disappointed with this purchase

Great Story. Well read

A very interesting book about a story that I was unaware of especially with regards to the loss of Amundson. Excellent Narration. Highly recommended

Brilliant Historical Story.

A riveting account of early exploration of the North Pole by air.

I could not stop listening, managed two long periods and finished in two days.

Enjoy.

I returned this one

I had great hopes for this book - it appeared to have all the elements of the sort of book I like to listen to (and fall asleep to most nights...). I tried to like it....but in the end I found the writing inconsistent and disjointed. In addition to this we of course had the (now obligatory) ''I am going to punch myself in the face with guilt because there were so few female airship pilots in those days'' section. And then there are strange comments (random opinions really) like such and such a person's features ''showing the signs of good breeding''. What is ''good breeding''? After a while I couldn't go on. On the plus side, from the bit I did listen to, it does seem to give quite a good general history of airships, as well as the whole Amundsen/Nobile relationship and adventure.