Word: chelyuskin
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...last March, landed last week at Wrangel Island, a bleak scrap of land in the Arctic Ocean, 85 miles from the northeast coast of Siberia. There for five long years six Russian meteorologists, their families and assistants, 44 souls all told, have lived in isolation. Last year the freighter Chelyuskin, commanded by hardy, hairy Professor Otto Tulyevich Schmidt, was sent to take the colonists off their icebound island, deposit a new shift of weather observers. The ice pack closed in on the Chelyuskin in September, hugged it all winter, broke it in February. One man was lost but doughty Professor...
Lord of the drifting ice pack that crushed and sank his Soviet icebreaker Chelyuskin (TIME, Feb. 26, March 12), jungle-bearded Professor Otto Schmidt has somehow kept his crew alive, fed and sheltered for two months in the - 20°F wilderness of the Arctic Ocean north of Bering Strait, while a semicircle of rescuers hovered from Cape Van Karem, Siberia, to Alaska. Last month a rescue plane swooped onto the ice pack, loaded the Chelyuskin's ten women and two babies aboard, got back safely to Cape Wellen, Siberia. Since then the ice pack, twisted by Arctic currents...
...Soviet Encyclopedia, professor of hydrology, chemistry and Arctic science. Two years ago the middle-aged professor led the icebreaker Sibirya-kov to a great Soviet feat: first navigation of the "northeast passage" from Archangel to Vladivostok in one year. Last August he tried it again with the icebreaker Chelyuskin, setting out this time from Murmansk, through the empty wastes of the Barents and Kara Seas. In September the ice pack began fingering the Chelyuskin. Another Soviet icebreaker went to the rescue, turned tail before howling storms. Professor Schmidt and his men began chopping a path in the ice, nudging...
...When the Chelyuskin was within 150 mi. of the Bering Strait, the ice pack closed its fist, began its inexorable squeeze. On the decks, in the rigging, in Professor Schmidt's beard, a heavy load of ice formed. Last week the ice pack broke the Chelyuskin's steel heart. From bow to engine room the port side stove in amid great grindings and crunchings. The sudden cold burst the steam pipes. A plank swept the chief steward overboard...
Professor Schmidt threw in with the ice pack. Working fast, his remaining 71 men and women lugged food, scientific instruments, tents, clothing, records and baby on to the ice. Most important, they got off a little radio sending set with batteries. With a huge glop the Chelyuskin followed the chief steward to the bottom. Even before they set up their tents, the Russians radioed the bad news out. From North Cape, Siberia, 155 mi. away, 60 dog teams mushed off to Professor Schmidt's aid through a screaming blizzard. Rescue planes waited in their hangars for the blizzard...