Saving the Chelyuskin

In 1932, the Soviet merchant ship Sibiryakov had attempted to sail across the Arctic Ocean, to demonstrate that a Northeast Passage route was possible, linking European Russia with the Pacific Ocean ports of the Russian Far East. It was not successful; but its efforts suggested that, with the help of ice-breakers, the voyage was possible. Therefore, the following summer, another voyage was planned. It would turn out to be one of the most amazing rescue stories of the 20th century.

Built in a Danish shipyard as the Lena, a ship quite similar to the Sibiryakov was commissioned and sailed to the ice-free port of Murmansk. There it was renamed the Chelyuskin, after the Russian explorer who had discovered the northernmost point of the Eurasian landmass. It was manned, in addition to the crew, by a scientific expedition, headed by the experienced Dr. Otto Schmidt, and a relief party for Wrangel Island – a remote outpost off the shores of Chukotka. Altogether, there were 112 people on board the ship, which, skippered by Captain Vladimir Voronin, steamed out of Murmansk on July 16, 1933, escorted by the ice-breaker Krasin.

At first, the Chelyuskin made good headway. It crossed the Barents Sea without incident, except that, halfway across the Kara Sea, the number on board was increased to 113, when little Karina (named after the Sea) was born to a Wrangel Island family. Then, navigating north, to seek open waters from the pack-ice, the Chelyuskin sighted Uyedinenia Island, which had been mistakenly charted 50 miles away from its true position.

By September, the ship had sustained some damage to its hull, as it battled its way through the pack-ice, and the ice-breakers were not powerful enough to clear channels of open water. The relief party was unable to reach Wrangel Island, as the Chelyuskin was in the grip of the pack-ice most of the time. Only by keeping close to the Siberian shore was it able to make headway.

On October 3, eight people, the older ones and some who were ill, were taken ashore across the ice, near North Cape, by local Chukchi and their dog teams. This reduced the number on board to 105. Eventually, on November 5, when it was within sight of open water in the Bering Strait, the ship came to a halt. Trapped in pack-ice frustratingly close to its goal, the Chelyuskin could go no further.

Despite efforts of assistance by another ice-breaker, the Litke, the ship was helpless. Captain Voronin did his best to escape from the ice’s grip, but strong currents forced the ship back the way it had come – to the northwest.

On February 13, 1934, just under seven months from when it set sail, the Chelyuskin gave in – the pressure of the ice stove in the ship’s weakened hull and the it sank 75 miles from the nearest point of land: the small village of Vankarem.

Fortunately, passengers and crew had long since been preparing for this disaster. Everyone on board, except for one steward, who slipped off the icy deck and drowned in the frigid ocean, was able to get off the ship and to unload a substantial quantity of supplies, including food, oil, building equipment and materials – all intended for the community on Wrangel Island. They set to work and established a camp on the pack-ice.

The Chelyuskin had been well-equipped. In addition to a little Shavrov Sh-2 floatplane (used to reconnoiter the ocean and seek channels of open water), it had a good radio, and Dr. Ernst Krenkel was able to request help from Moscow. An emergency committee was set up immediately, under Politburo member Valerian Kuibyshev. Quickly realizing that any other method would be hopeless, he organized a relief expedition by air; and, as a wise precaution, Kuibyshev set up three separate units, calling upon the best Soviet pilots of the day to rush to the East.

Meanwhile, a twin-engine ANT-4 transport aircraft was already in the Chukotka area, at Anadyr, about 300 miles from Vankarem. In temperatures as low as -37o C, Anatoly Lapidevsky made many attempts to fly north (these flights alone would make a good adventure story), eventually reaching the Chelyuskin camp on March 5, 1934, and evacuating twelve people – all the women and two children, including little Karina. Lapidevsky could not risk another trip, as the aircraft was the size of a DC-3, and could have crashed through the ice during the approaching spring thaw.

Unit No. 1 of the main rescue operation was comprised of Polikarpov R-5 training/ambulance biplanes, led by Squadron Commander Nikolai Kamanin. They went via the Trans-Siberian Railway, and then more than 2,000 miles onward by ship, to reach the Chukotka area, south of Anadyr, on March 21. Of this team, pilots Pivenstein, Demirov and Bastanzhiev could not get through, and the latter two were lucky to survive. Their aircraft crashed 20 miles outside Anadyr and they had to trudge back, half-starved and half-frozen, through the deep snow to the base in Anadyr. But Komanin, with Vasily Molokov, veteran of many Siberian survey flights, got through to Vankarem.

Unit No. 2, under the command of V.L. Galyshev, was made up of aircraft already in Siberia, providing regional airline service to Yakutsk. These were metal-built Junkers-F 13s, of German design, but built under license in Moscow. They were able to fly the whole distance from Khabarovsk, in appalling conditions of terrain and climate, often using improvised airstrips. Galyshev’s aircraft broke down at Anadyr, but Mikhail Vodopyanov, another veteran Siberian flyer, and Ivan Doronin, were able to join Kamanin at Vankarem on April 11.

Unit No. 3 took an entirely different route. The pilots, Sigizmund Levanevsky and Mavriki Slepnev, headed west, by rail and ferry, to London, then by ship to the US and onward to Alaska. At Fairbanks, the Soviet trading organization AMTORG purchased two Consolidated Fleetster cabin aircraft from Pan American Airways. With two American mechanics, they headed for Chukotka.

Therefore, by April 11 – two months after the Chelyuskin had sunk – six aircraft were gathered in the Vankarem-Cape North area. They were two R-5s, two F-13s and two Fleetsters. Also, on April 2, Mikhail Babushkin had flown in from the ice-camp in the Chelyuskin’s diminutive Shavrov Sh-2, which had been salvaged and repaired.

Between April 7 and 13, 1934, in an historic shuttle service between the ice-camp and Vankarem, all 104 survivors of the ill-fated Chelyuskin were brought to shore. It had not been easy, as the ice campers had to build several airstrips, because the pack-ice was breaking up.

Some of the campers were evacuated in enclosed stretchers under the wings of the R-5s. Molokov alone brought out 39, and Kamanin 34. On April 6, Otto Schmidt, who had fallen seriously ill with pleurisy, insisted, along with Captain Voronin, on being among the last to leave. Molokov brough him out on April 11, and Slepnev took him back to Fairbanks, via Nome, in the relative comfort of the Fleetster cabin. Schmidt was accompanied by Dr. Nikitin, and committee representative G.A. Ushakov, who had flown in with Slepnev and Levanevsky.

From Vankarem, the weaker survivors where flown in stages to Providenia, the port where the ice-pack first receded in the spring. Some went by dog-sled, and the strongest even walked part of the way. Two ships, the Smolensk and the Stalingrad, collected the 104 passengers of the Chelyuskin and brought them to Vladivostok. Their journey back to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian was interrupted by celebrations at almost every station – the course of the rescue having been reported extensively in the Soviet press.

But the biggest celebration was in Moscow, where the Chelyuskin survivors and their rescuers where honored in a great parade – the equivalent of a New York ticker-tape welcome – and greeted by Stalin, Kalinin and the entire Politburo. Everyone associated with the Chelyuskin adventure was decorated with the Order of Lenin, and a new title was bestowed on the seven pilots who fought their way through to the ice-camp. They became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union.

This was the first time the advantages of aviation were instrumental in saving the lives of anyone at sea. And it was possibly the first time in history that aircraft had rescued anyone – on land or sea – from certain death.  RL

This map, showing the route of the Chelyuskin’s ill-fated voyage, shows the formidable challenge facing the three teams of airmen who were charged with rescuing the 104 people shipwrecked 75 miles off the Chukotka coast. Each of the four rivers – the Ob, Yenesei, Lena and Amur – is more than 3,000 miles long. The Trans-Siberian is 6,000 miles long, and the nearest city, Khabarovsk, is 2,000 miles from the Chukotka peninsula. The pilots’ route was much longer, with no airfield, and in the depths of the Siberian winter. (Map by R.E.G. Davies)