04/06/2026
BOOK REVIEW: "N4 Down: The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia" by Mark Piesing.
A fascinating yarn of daring do, of which I had never heard of.
The book tells a tale of Umberto Nobile, an Italian engineer, and his adventures in the Arctic. Almost Tin Tin-esque, the man went to the Arctic in a form of dirigible. A first attempt at reaching the North Pole led to a overflight from Norway to Alaska. A second attempt ended in disaster. The Second airship, the N-4 of the title, crashes into the ice sheet after overflying the North Pole on its first attempt.
A dirigible was a gas filled balloon with a gondalier cabin underneath. The N-4 had 16 men aboard. When it crashed the cabin area hit the ices and 10 crew ended up strewn around, while the gas filled section flew away with 6 crew never to be seen again! The nine survivors then were stranded with a small tent and some limited supplies in extreme conditions. After failure to secure radio communication three crew attempted to walk out. One perished and was perhaps subject to cannibalism. The others remained on the ice. Nobile the leader was badly injured and must have suffered terribly. The stranding was a cause celebre in the international media and there were many players from several nations involved in the rescue . Russian icebreakers, (who rescued the two survivors who attempted to walk out), German planes et al, risked life and limb to reach the lost balloonists. Scandinavian pilots eventually saved most of the stranded men.
The story is much more than this, with the exploration of the Arctic generally being big part of the story, as told with the personalities of numerous ego maniacs in the mix.
Not least was that of Mussolini and his henchmen as Nobile was not one of the in crowd and his success not seemingly part of the plan. Didn't help Nobiles cause that when recued and back in Italy he seems to have given Mussolini a bit of a spray. He eventually worked in America and Russia, was eventually exonerated and lived to a ripe successful old age
The politics of Scandinavian vs Italian players gets detailed by Piesing, as does the intra Scandinavian rivalry. Amundsen is the most notable. A classic explorer who went to the Antarctica and the Arctic with dog sleds. Leader of numerous adventurous sorties by land and air, who then loses his life in the search for N-4. American millionaires both male and female enter the stage as detailed by the author. The bleak freezing environment is another player in the work - no land but ice and more ice. Australia's own Hubert Wilkins get some text time also.
The islands off Norway and Russia were a base for the operations. This took me down the rabbit hole of geography of todays Arctic. The islands are still there but the ice isn't. Cook looked for the NW passage in the Pacific. The ice was hundreds of feet thick. Earlier stories of ancient Greek voyagers encountering ice miles from where it now is in the North Atlantic. The new route from the Pacific to the Atlantic between Russia and Canada is regularly used by commercial bulk carriers nowadays, and is growing more popular as the ice continues to recede. Ports exist on the Russian arctic coast. Russia has huge atomic powered ice breakers to es**rt these ships so the seasonal passage achievable extends. It is only a matter of time before this shorter route competes with the Suez Canal.
The book could do with a good edit. Places where the text babbles on about pet dogs barking at polar bears, or the gulls swooping and calling AGAIN spoil the narrative. Equally at crunch point where N-4 crashed details are suddenly scant in my mind. That said fascinating yarn of fortitude and bravery by many assorted souls in pursuit of understanding how our planet actually is!
Another great new book in the FMI library
Review by Neil.
