Flying The Arctic
- New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1928
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1928. First American Edition. Octavo. 21cm. Publisher's ribbed copper colored cloth titled in gilt to spine and front board. 336pp. Light scuffing and bumping to corners and spine ends, gilt a trifle dulled, strong, and sharp; internally clean, bookplate to front flyleaf; photographic plates. A very good, handsome copy, lacking its dustjacket.
An autobiographical account of Captain George Wilkins, Australian photographer, pilot, explorer, and war hero, who incidentally holds the position of the only war photographer ever to be awarded a combat medal, after risking almost certain death to rescue wounded soldiers during 3rd Ypres in June 1918, for which he was awarded the Military Cross; as an apparent afterthought he later took command of a group of US soldiers who had suffered the loss of all their officers during the battle of the Hindenburg Line directing them until they were relieved, for which he was awarded a bar on his MC. Having cemented his reputation as a man of considerable presence of mind and an almost total absence of physical fear he went on to become an intrepid explorer, and narrowly missed being the first person to successfully navigate under the North Pole in a submarine. He was described by Australian General Sir John Monash as the Australian equivalent of Lawrence of Arabia; "His record was unique." This suitably understated adventure in book form recounts Wilkins' groundbreaking Trans-Arctic crossing, by biplane, in the company of equally fearless US aviator Carl Eierson, managing the traversal in a mere 21 hours of flight time, with five days snowed in by fiercely unrelenting weather.
An autobiographical account of Captain George Wilkins, Australian photographer, pilot, explorer, and war hero, who incidentally holds the position of the only war photographer ever to be awarded a combat medal, after risking almost certain death to rescue wounded soldiers during 3rd Ypres in June 1918, for which he was awarded the Military Cross; as an apparent afterthought he later took command of a group of US soldiers who had suffered the loss of all their officers during the battle of the Hindenburg Line directing them until they were relieved, for which he was awarded a bar on his MC. Having cemented his reputation as a man of considerable presence of mind and an almost total absence of physical fear he went on to become an intrepid explorer, and narrowly missed being the first person to successfully navigate under the North Pole in a submarine. He was described by Australian General Sir John Monash as the Australian equivalent of Lawrence of Arabia; "His record was unique." This suitably understated adventure in book form recounts Wilkins' groundbreaking Trans-Arctic crossing, by biplane, in the company of equally fearless US aviator Carl Eierson, managing the traversal in a mere 21 hours of flight time, with five days snowed in by fiercely unrelenting weather.