Arctic expedition of Hubert Wilkins

Sir (George) Hubert Wilkins MC & Bar (31 October 1888 – 30 November 1958) was an Australian polar explorer, ornithologist, pilot, soldier, geographer and photographer.^[1]

Early life[link]

Hubert Wilkins was a native of Hallett, South Australia, the last of 13 children in a family of pioneer settlers and sheep farmers. His birthplace at Netfield, 13 km west of Hallett (150 km North of Adelaide) is today an historic site.^[2] The original homestead has been restored by generous donation. He studied at the Adelaide School of Mines.^[3] As a teenager, he moved to Adelaide where he found work with a traveling cinema, to Sydney as a cinematographer, and thence to England where he became a pioneering aerial photographer whilst working for Gaumont Studios. His photographic skill earned him a place on various Arctic expeditions, including the controversial 1913 Vilhjalmur Stefansson-led Cana

World War I[link]

In 1917, Wilkins returned to his native Australia, joining the Australian Flying Corps in the rank of Second Lieutenant. Wilkins later transferred to the general list and in 1918 was appointed as an official war photographer. In June 1918 Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts to rescue wounded soldiers during the Third Battle of Ypres. The following month Wilkins was promoted to Captain and became officer commanding No.3 (Photographic) Sub-section of the Australian war records unit. His work frequently led him into the thick of the fighting and during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line he assumed command of a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers in an earlier attack, directing them until support arrived. Wilkins was subsequently awarded a bar to his Military Cross.

Subsequent to the war, Wilkins served in 1921-1922 as an ornithologist aboard the Quest on the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition to the Southern Ocean and adjacent islands.

Preparations for the Nautilus Expedition[link]

In 1930 Wilkins and his wife Suzanne were vacationing with a wealthy friend and colleague Lincoln Ellsworth. During this outing Wilkins and Ellsworth hammered out plans for a trans-Atlantic expedition involving a submarine. Regarding the purpose of this expedition Wilkins said:

In short, the expedition is for the purpose of gathering data in connection with a plan for comprehensive meteorology study, including the polar areas and with the hope that once polar meteorological study, including the polar areas and with the hope that once polar meteorological stations are established it will be possible to forecast for several years in advance, the seasonal conditions, and to collect scientific data of academic and economic interest from an area hitherto unapproached by a scientific staff equipped with a complete scientific laboratory and facility for comfortably carrying out their investigation and provided with adequate means of sustenance and means of safe retreat. Millions of dollars are spent each year by various institutions in oceanographical and geophysical research. A submarine will provide means for similar investigations in an economic and safe manner, in areas as yet untouched by scientists.^[4]

An expedition of this magnitude would not be inexpensive. Wilkins had to be creative in financing this undertaking. Lincoln Ellsworth contributed $70,000, plus a $20,000 loan. Newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst added $61,000 for exclusive rights to the story. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute pitched in $35,000. Finally, Wilkins himself doled out $25,000 of his own money.^[4] Since Wilkins was not a U.S. citizen he was unable to purchase the 1918 submarine that was scheduled to be decommissioned. However, he was permitted to lease the vessel for a period of five years at a cost of one dollar annually from Lake & Danenhower, Inc. Wilkins renamed the submarine The Nautilus after Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The ship was 175 feet in length and weighed in at 560 tons. It was capable of diving to a depth of 200 feet and could support a crew of twenty men for five days. The submarine was outfitted with a custom designed drill that would allow it to bore through ice pack overhead for ventilation.^[5] The crew of eighteen men was chosen with great care. Among their ranks were U.S. Naval Academy graduates as well as navy veterans of WWI.

Nautilus Expedition[link]

The expedition suffered losses before they even left New York Harbor. Willard Grimmer the quartermaster was knocked overboard and drowned in the harbor.^[6] Wilkins was undaunted and drove on with preparations for a series of test cruises and dives before they were to undertake their trans-Atlantic voyage. Wilkins and his crew made their way up the Hudson River to Yonkers, eventually reaching New London, CT where additional modifications and test dives were performed. Satisfied with the performance of both the machinery and the crew, Wilkins and his men left the relative safety of coastal waterways for the uncertainty of the North Atlantic on June, 4 1931. Soon after the commencement of the expedition the starboard engine broke down, and soon after that the port engine followed suit. On 14 June 1931 without a means of propulsion Wilkins was forced to send out an SOS and was rescued later that day by the USS Wyoming.^[7] The Nautilus was towed to Ireland on 22 June 1931, and later was taken to England for repairs. On 28 June the Nautilus was up and running and on her way to Norway to pick up the scientific contingent of their crew. By 23 August they had left Norway and were only 600 miles from the North Pole. It was at this time that Wilkins uncovered another setback. His submarine was missing its diving planes. Without diving planes he would be unable to control the Nautilus while submerged. Wilkins secretly felt that his mission was deliberately sabotaged by a crew member.^[7] Wilkins was determined to do what he could without the diving planes. For the most part Wilkins was thwarted from discovery under the ice floes. The crew was however able to take core samples of the ice, as well as testing on the salinity of the water and tests on gravity near the pole.^[8] The Nautilus expedition had suffered one setback after another, but they continued on bravely. However, even Wilkins had to acknowledge when his adventure into the arctic was becoming too foolhardy. Wilkins received a wireless plea from one of his financiers Hearst which said, "I most urgently beg of you to return promptly to safety and to defer any further adventure to a more favorable time, and with a better boat."^[9] Wilkins ended the first expedition to the poles in a submarine and headed for England, but was forced to take refuge in the port of Bergen, Norway because of a fierce storm that they encountered en route. The Nautilus suffered serious damage that made further use of the vessel unfeasible. Wilkins received permission from the United States Navy to sink the vessel off shore in a Norwegian fjord on 20 November 1931.^[10]

Later life & career[link]

After his service on the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, Wilkins in 1923 began a two-year study for the British Museum of the bird life of Northern Australia. This ornithology project occupied his life until 1925.^[3] His work was greatly acclaimed by the museum but derided by Australian authorities because of the sympathetic treatment afforded the Aborigines and criticisms of the ongoing environmental damage in the country.

In March 1927, Wilkins and pilot Carl Ben Eielson explored the drift ice north of Alaska, touching down upon it in Eielson's airplane in the first land-plane descent onto drift ice. Soundings taken at the landing site indicated a water depth of 16,000 feet, and Wilkins hypothesized from the experience that future Arctic expeditions would take advantage of the wide expanses of open ice to use aircraft in exploration.^[11]

Wilkins was the first recipient of the Samuel Finley Breese Morse Medal, which was awarded to him by the American Geographical Society in 1928.^[12] On 15 April 1928, only a year after Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, Wilkins and Eielson made a trans-Arctic crossing from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitsbergen, arriving about 20 hours later on 16 April, touching along the way at Grant Land on Ellesmere Island.^[13] For this feat and his prior work, Wilkins was knighted, and during the ensuing celebration, he met an Australian actress in New York Suzanne Bennett whom he later married.

Now financed by William Randolph Hearst, Wilkins continued his polar explorations, now flying over Antarctica in the San Francisco. He named the island of Hearst Land after his sponsor, and Hearst thanked Wilkins by giving him and his bride a flight aboard Graf Zeppelin.

Wilkins led the failed Nautilus expedition to the North Pole in the summer of 1931. Despite the failure to meet his intended objective, he was able to prove that submarines were capable of operating beneath the polar ice cap, thereby paving the way for future successful missions.

On 16 March 1958, Wilkins appeared as a guest on the TV panel show What's My Line?.^[14]

Wilkins died in the United States in 1958. The US Navy took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarine USS Skate on 17 March 1959. The Navy confirmed on 27 March that "In a solemn memorial ceremony conducted by Skate shortly after surfacing, the ashes of Sir Hubert Wilkins were scattered at the North Pole in accordance with his last wishes." ^[15]

The Wilkins Sound, Wilkins Coast and the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica are named after him, as are the airport at Jamestown, South Australia, and a road at Adelaide Airport. The majority of Wilkins' papers and effects are archived at The Ohio State University Byrd Polar Research Center.

See also[link]

• Thomas George Lanphier, Sr.

Works[link]

• 1928 Flying the Arctic, Grosset & Dunlap
• 1928 Undiscovered Australia, Putnam
• 1931 Under The North Pole, Brewer, Warren & Putnam
• 1942 with Harold M. Sherman: Thoughts Through Space, Creative Age Press. Republished as Wilkins, Sir Hubert; Harold M. Sherman (2004). Thoughts Through Space: A Remarkable Adventure in the Realm of Mind. Hampton Roads Publishing Co. ISBN 1-57174-314-6. 

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• R. A. Swan, 2006 Wilkins, Sir George Hubert (1888 - 1958), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition, Australian National University, ISSN 1833-7538
• Thomas, Lowell 1961 Sir Hubert Wilkins: His World of Adventure McGraw-Hill.
• Nasht, Simon 2005 The Last Explorer: Hubert Wilkins Australia's Unknown Hero Sydney, Australia: Hachette/Hodder & New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 0-7336-1831-6
• Voyage of the Nautilus, Documentary 2006, AS Videomaker/Real Pictures
• Jenness, Stuart E. 2006 The Making of an Explorer, McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2798-2
• Maynard, Jeff (2010). Wings of Ice: The Air Race to the Poles. Random House Australia. ISBN 978-1-74166-934-3

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hubert Wilkins

• Australian War Memorial Entry for Sir George Hubert Wilkins
• Register of The Sir George Hubert Wilkins Papers
• Australian Dictionary of Biography Entry for GH Wilkins
• Sir Hubert Wilkins biography from Flinders Ranges Research
• In Search of Sir Hubert Short bio on Sir Hubert Wilkins
• Searching for Sir Hubert Documentary Filmmaker site
• The 1931 Nautilus Expedition to the North Pole
• The Last Explorer: Simon Nasht Life&Times radio documentary, first broadcast by ABC Radio National, 29 August 2009

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David Horton Wilkins (born October 12, 1946) is an American attorney and a former U. S. Ambassador to Canada^[1] during the administration of President George W. Bush. Prior to the appointment, he practiced law for 30 years while serving in the South Carolina House of Representatives for 25 of those years. He was speaker of the South Carolina House for 11 years. Wilkins presently chairs the public policy and international law practice department of a large South Carolina law firm.

Family life and education[link]

A life-long resident of South Carolina, Wilkins graduated from Greenville High School, attended Clemson University on a tennis scholarship, and graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in 1968. He earned his law degree from the University of South Carolina and then served in the Army as a first lieutenant. In the early 1970s, he returned to Greenville, where he and his wife, Susan, raised their two sons.

Public service[link]

State legislature[link]

Wilkins, a Republican, was first elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1980. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Democratically-controlled House, serving six years as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and two years as speaker pro tem before being elected speaker, a position he held for 11 years. He was the first Republican to elected speaker of any legislative body in the South since Reconstruction and when he retired on June 2, 2005, he was the third longest serving speaker in South Carolina history.

In his 25 years in the state legislature, Wilkins played a role in major reform legislation including South Carolina’s historic ethics bill and the Education Accountability Act. Wilkins was also a central figure in the relocation of the Confederate battle flag from atop the State Capitol Building to its present location behind the Confederate Memorial.^[2] Under his watch, the state adopted the Martin Luther King holiday. As speaker, Wilkins also played a role in banning video gambling from South Carolina and in delaying the establishment of the South Carolina Education Lottery. During the economic recession of the 1990s, Wilkins successfully fought tax increases, and as a result, South Carolina was one of only a handful of states that did not raise its taxes.

Throughout his legislative career, Wilkins received numerous awards including the prestigious 2004 Excellence in State Legislative Leadership Award from the National Conference of State Legislatures which cited his steadfast position for relocating the Confederate flag and his refusal to cancel a national conference in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Wilkins was also named Outstanding Legislator of the Year by a wide range of organizations, and he served as President of the National Speakers' Association and as chair of the Southern Legislative Conference.

Political activities and appointment as Ambassador to Canada[link]

Wilkins was state chair of the Bush–Cheney '04 campaign and co-chair of the campaign in 2000. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2002. He was nominated by President Bush for the post of U.S. Ambassador to Canada on April 27, 2005, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote on May 26, 2005.^[3] Wilkins formally presented his credentials to the Governor General of Canada Adrienne Clarkson on June 29, 2005.

Tenure as Ambassador[link]

Upon his arrival in Canada, Wilkins pledged his commitment to "strengthening the ties that bind our two great nations." In an April 2008 interview, Wilkins reiterated that sentiment stating, “we have the largest trading relationship the world's ever known, and I think the best relationship. To just remind ourselves on both sides of the border how important we are to each other and keep trying to make it stronger -- that's certainly my goal.”

Before his appointment, Wilkins had only been to Canada once, when he was in the U.S. Army Reserve three decades prior. However, by the time he been on the job for nine months, he had traveled to every province and territory in Canada.

In his first 20 months as ambassador, the top irritant between the nations – softwood lumber – was resolved, with the support of most of the Canadian lumber industry. In addition to the softwood lumber dispute, Wilkins addressed a number of other issues including the Northwest Passage, Rendition, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Canada’s role in Afghanistan.

Wilkins resigned his post in early 2009, at the end of President Bush’s second term.

Clemson University activities[link]

Wilkins has served on Clemson University's board of visitors, was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities from Clemson in 2003, and has earned the Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Award. He was elected by the University to a lifetime seat on its 13 member board of trustees on March 28, 2007. On July 17, 2009, he was unanimously elected to a two year term as chair.

Post government career[link]

Wilkins was frequently named as a potential candidate for governor of South Carolina in 2010. However in August 2008, he announced that he would not seek the post.

In February, 2009, Wilkins became a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP and chairs the Public Policy and International Law practice group, which focuses primarily on representing businesses on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border and offers experience on a range of strategic bilateral issues.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Clemson News Release 2007^{[dead link]}
• Biography from South Carolina House of Representatives^{[dead link]}
• CBC Canada News Background
• U.S. ambassador to Canada named
• CBC News David Wilkins: America's next ambassador to Canada
• presentation of Letters of Credence to the Governor General of Canada
• David Wilkins Interview
• Interview from Calgary Herald
• National Post story
• Interview with David Wilkins (includes audio)

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