Word: riiser
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...spoke Lincoln Ellsworth, sturdy comrade and financial backer of Explorer Roald Amundsen: "General Nobile . . . was retained at a salary to act as her [the Norge's] captain, in exactly the same capacity as the captain of any other ship. ... It would be extremely unfair to [Lieut.] Riiser-Larsen, who navigated the entire flight across the Polar Sea, and to [Lieuts.] Horgan and Wisting who operated the lateral and vertical controls, not to give credit for both the navigating and the steering where...
General Nobile (about to leave the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan for a fete in Pittsburgh): "As captain of the airship, every person on board depended on me during the flight. Riiser-Larsen, second in command of the airship, was appointed navigator by me. . . . During the entire flight of 71 hours I acted all the time as captain of the airship, giving orders to every one, controlling what everybody was doing...
...about for an airship, which they found in Italy and bought, hiring her designer as captain and later including the captain-Nobile-in the title of the expedition "as a compliment to Mussolini and the Italians." Friction had begun before the ship left Rome. There was a scene when Riiser-Larsen, a big, strong, silent man, was reduced to tears by Nobile's vociferous demand for recognition and authority. "That man Nobile," Riiser-Larsen had moaned, "has more gall and conceit than I thought any civilized person would dare to show. ... I simply can't stand...
There was a scene as the Norge approached the Pole. Amundsen and Ellsworth had found Nobile in the navigator's cabin, excitedly reminding Riiser-Larsen that "I am captain of the ship." There had been feeling between the Norwegian and Italian members of the crew that arose from purely temperamental differences and even from the minor annoyance of Nobile's fox-terrier bitch, Titina, who often occupied one of the only two chairs in the gondola. There had been a scene at Nome when Nobile had insisted upon his right as an Italian officer to send reports...
...their chief ordered that the nose ropes be cast off. The blunt silvery cigar tilted heavenward to an angle of 45 degrees. Then propellers roared, stern ropes were flung off, every one waved and up they shot toward Italy's bright blue sky ? Colonel Umberto Nobile, Lieutenant Riiser-Larsen, Major Scott (their English pilot), Lieutenant Mercier (their French pilot), Norsemen and Italians and one young female, Titina their mascot terrier ? the personnel of the good airship Norge as she soared above the Ciampino Airdrome to begin the first leg of her Rome-to-Nome transpolar flight...