AMUNDSEN MISSING NOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 386, 21 June 1928, Page 11

AMUNDSEN MISSING NOW

FEARS FOR GREAT EXPLORER

ITALIA’S MEN FOUND AND AIDED

FOOD DROPPED FROM MADDALENA’S PLANE

THE Italia's castaways have been found and supplied with their immediate needs, these being dropped from Commandant Maddalena’s airplane. But fears are now felt for Captain Amundsen, who is missing, and who may have had to make a forced landing on the ice.

(United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright> (Australian P.A.—United Service)

Reed. 12.20 p.m. LONDON, Wednesday. A telegram which has been received from the supply-ship Citta Di Milano announces that Commandant Maddalena has located General Nobile’s party, and supplied it with immediate needs. He returned this afternoon to King’s Bay. Commandant Maddalena states that General Nobile complied with the advice conveyed by wireless and signalled as directed. Maddalena, flying at a height of 500 feet, saw the camp, came lower, seeking a landing-place in vain, and dropped 6001 b. of foodstuffs, rifles, ammunition and cigarettes. The castaways were so overjoyed that they danced on the ice. Commandant Maddalena continued the flight, hoping to locate the wreck of the airship and the remaining castaways, but he discovered nothing. Anxiety is now felt regarding the whereabouts of Captain Roald Amundsen, whose seaplane, it is feared, has had to make a forced landing on the ice. Earlier dispatches from Kings Bay say it is persistently reported there that Captain Amundsen, who left Tromso, Norway, on Monday, in a seaplane piloted by the French airman, Major Guilbaud, with Lieutenant Dietrichson as spare pilot, descended on open water close to General Nobile and met him. WAITING ANXIOUSLY Authentic news from Captain Amundsen is anxiously awaited, the dispatches said. He left Tromso at 4 p.m. on Monday, and was due at King’s Bay at 1 a.m. on Tuesday, but the whole population of the latter town waited in vain. It is therefore believed that the three men must have attempted to reach General Nobile direct.

The distance from Tromso to Foyn Island is about 700 miles. The giant seaplane in which Captain Amundsen and his companions are travelling carries fuel sufficient for a flight of 2,000 miles. A message from Rome says the people of Italy are buoyed up by the

NOTED EXPLORER MlSSlNG—Captain Roald Amundsen, famous Norwegian explorer, went to help General Nobile, and there are fears that he himself is now in peril. fact that there are 10 aircraft within cruising distance of General Nobile, and that a sledge expedition, an Alpine chasseurs’ expedition and an ice-breaker are all concentrating on Foyn Island. There are now 13 expeditions representing six nations participating in the efforts to rescue the explorers.