Sir Hubert Wilkins | |
|---|---|
 Sir Hubert Wilkins (1931) | |
| Born | (1888-10-31)31 October 1888 |
| Died | 30 November 1958(1958-11-30) (aged 70) |
| Known for | Polar explorer |
| Spouse | Suzanne Bennett |
| Awards | Knight Bachelor Military Cross &Bar |
Sir George Hubert WilkinsMC &Bar (31 October 1888 – 30 November 1958), commonly referred to asCaptain Wilkins, was an Australian polar explorer,ornithologist, pilot, soldier, geographer, and photographer. He was awarded theMilitary Cross after he assumed command of a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers during theBattle of the Hindenburg Line, and became the only official Australian photographer from any war to receive a combat medal. He narrowly failed in an attempt to be the first to cross under theNorth Pole in asubmarine, but was able to prove that submarines were capable of operating beneath the polar ice cap, thereby paving the way for future successful missions. TheUS Navy later took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarineUSSSkate on 17 March 1959.
Hubert Wilkins was born on 31 October 1888 atMount Bryan East, South Australia, the last of 13 children in a family of pioneer settlers and sheep farmers.[1]
He was educated first in his home town,[2] and then at theAdelaide School of Mines.[3]
He moved toAdelaide as a teenager, finding work with a travellingcinema.[citation needed]
Wilkins moved toSydney, where he worked as acinematographer, before moving toEngland, where he became a pioneering aerial photographer while working forGaumont Studios.[citation needed]
His photographic skill earned him a place on variousArctic expeditions, including the controversial 1913Vilhjalmur Stefansson-led Canadian Arctic Expedition.[citation needed]
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In 1917, Wilkins returned to his native Australia, joining theAustralian Flying Corps in the rank ofsecond lieutenant. Wilkins later transferred to the general list and in 1918 was appointed as an official war photographer. In June 1918 Wilkins was awarded theMilitary Cross for his efforts to rescue wounded soldiers during theThird Battle of Ypres. He remains the only Australian official photographer from any war to have received a combat medal. The following month Wilkins was promoted tocaptain and became officer commanding No.3 (Photographic) Sub-section of the Australian war records unit.[4][5]
Wilkins's work frequently led him into the thick of the fighting and during theBattle 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 in the1919 Birthday Honours.[6]
When Australian WWI generalSir John Monash was asked by the visiting American journalistLowell Thomas (who had writtenWith Lawrence in Arabia and madeT. E. Lawrence an international hero) if Australia had a similar hero, Monash spoke of Wilkins: "Yes, there was one. He was a highly accomplished and absolutely fearless combat photographer. What happened to him is a story of epic proportions. Wounded many times ... he always came through. At times he brought in the wounded, at other times he supplied vital intelligence of enemy activity he observed. At one point he even rallied troops as a combat officer ... His record was unique."[7]
After the war, Wilkins served in 1921–22 as anornithologist aboard theQuest on theShackleton–Rowett Expedition to theSouthern Ocean and adjacent islands.[4]
Wilkins in 1923 began a two-year study for theBritish 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 toIndigenous Australians and criticisms of the ongoing environmental damage in the country.[citation needed]
In March 1927, Wilkins and pilotCarl Ben Eielson explored the drift ice north ofAlaska, 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 ft (4,900 m), and Wilkins hypothesised from the experience that future Arctic expeditions would take advantage of the wide expanses of open ice to use aircraft in exploration.[8] In December 1928, Wilkins and Eielson took off fromDeception Island, one of Antarctic's most remote islands, and made the first successful airplane flight over the continent.[9]
On 15 April 1928, a year afterCharles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, Wilkins and Eielson began a trans-Arctic crossing fromPoint Barrow, Alaska, to Green Harbour,Spitsbergen, arriving after 21 hours of flight time and a 5-day layover on Deadman's Island (Likholmen) off of Spitsbergen's northeast coast.[10] For this feat and his prior work, Wilkins was knighted, and during the ensuing celebration in New York, he met an Australian actress,Suzanne Bennett, whom he later married.[4]
Now financed byWilliam Randolph Hearst, Wilkins continued his polar explorations, flying overAntarctica in theSan Francisco. He named the island ofHearst Land after his sponsor, and Hearst thanked Wilkins by giving him and his bride a flight aboardGraf Zeppelin.
In 1930 Wilkins and his wife, Suzanne, were vacationing with a wealthy friend and colleagueLincoln Ellsworth. During this outing Wilkins and Ellsworth hammered out plans for a trans-Arctic expedition involving asubmarine. Wilkins said the expedition was meant to conduct a "comprehensive meteorology study" and collect "data of academic and economic interest". He also anticipated Arctic weather stations and the potential to forecast Arctic weather "several years in advance". Wilkins believed a submarine could take a fully equipped laboratory into the Arctic.[11]
Ellsworth contributed $70,000, plus a $20,000 loan. Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst purchased exclusive rights to the story for $61,000. TheWoods Hole Oceanographic Institute contributed a further $35,000. Wilkins himself added $25,000 of his own money.[11] Since Wilkins was not a U.S. citizen, he was unable to purchase the 1918 submarine scheduled to be decommissioned, but he was permitted to lease the vessel for a period of five years at a cost of one dollar annually from Lake & Danenhower, Inc. The submarine was the disarmedO-12, and was commanded by Sloan Danenhower (former commanding officer ofC-4.[12]) Wilkins renamed herNautilus, after Jules Verne's20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The submarine was outfitted with a custom-designed drill that would allow her to bore through ice pack overhead for ventilation.[13] 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.
Wilkins described the planned expedition in his 1931 bookUnder The North Pole, whichWonder Stories praised as "[as] exciting as it is epochal".[14]
The expedition suffered losses before they even left New York Harbor. Quartermaster Willard Grimmer was knocked overboard and drowned in the harbor.[15]
Wilkins was undaunted and drove on with preparations for a series of test cruises and dives before they were to undertake their trans-Arctic voyage.[16] Wilkins and his crew made their way up the Hudson River to Yonkers, eventually reachingNew London, Connecticut, 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 4 June 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 USSWyoming.[17] TheNautilus was towed to Ireland on 22 June 1931, and was taken to England for repairs.[citation needed]
On 28 June theNautilus 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 theNautilus while submerged.[citation needed]
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.[17] The crew was able to take core samples of the ice, as well as testing the salinity of the water and gravity near the pole.[18]
Wilkins had to acknowledge that his adventure into the Arctic was becoming too foolhardy when he received a wireless plea from 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."[19]
Wilkins ended the first expedition to the poles in a submarine and headed for England, but was forced to take refuge in theport of Bergen, Norway, because of a fierce storm that they encountered en route. TheNautilus 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.[20]
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.[citation needed]
Wilkins became a student ofThe Urantia Book and supporter of the Urantia movement after joining the '70' group in Chicago in 1942. After the book's publication in 1955, he "carried the massive work on his long travels, even to the Antarctic" and told associates that it was his religion.[21]
On 16 March 1958, Wilkins appeared as a guest on the TV panel showWhat's My Line?[22]
Wilkins was the first recipient of theSamuel Finley Breese Morse Medal, which was awarded to him by theAmerican Geographical Society in 1928.[23] He was also awarded theRoyal Geographical Society'sPatron's Medal the same year.[24]
Wilkins was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1930.[25]
Wilkins died inFramingham, Massachusetts, on 30 November 1958. The US Navy later took his ashes to the North Pole aboard the submarineUSSSkate 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."[26]
His wife Suzanne inherited the farm atMontrose,Pennsylvania, as well as her husband's collection of films, photographs, papers, and various other artefacts were stored indiscriminately in around in 200 boxes in a barn. There were no children of the marriage. Suzanne subsequently lived with a man called Winston Ross for over 30 years, who inherited the farm and contents upon her death in 1974. Ross married Marley Shofner, who had two sons to previous husbands, and the pair, who did not understand its value nor knew much about Australian history, began selling some of it to fund their lifestyle. In 1985, they sold a large batch to theOhio State University inColumbus, Ohio, which was setting up a polar archive at the time. After the couple's deaths in the 1990s, Shofner's sons inherited the farm and what was left of Wilkins' collection. They sold the farm and the material moved elsewhere.[27]
Australian businessman and adventurerDick Smith bought Wilkins' 1939Chevrolet station wagon from Ross and Shofner and had it shipped to Australia. In 2024 he donated it to theNational Motor Museum atBirdwood, South Australia, for public display.[27] The Wilkins family homestead atMount Bryan East, in theMid North, has also been restored thanks to the philanthropy of Smith.[27]
Ohio State University catalogued its large collection and made it available to researchers at theirByrd Polar and Climate Research Center, while other items from Wilkins' collections is scattered around other publicly accessible museums and archives around the world. Some remains privately owned.[27]
In 2015, a group of people in Adelaide established the Sir Hubert Wilkins Interest Group, which later transformed into the Wilkins Foundation. In 2023 theHistory Trust of South Australia took over the papers of the Wilkins Foundation and founded the Wilkins Project. A variety of specialists formed a committee with the aim of conserving the records and legacy of Wilkins, and educate others about his life.[27]
The Sir Hubert Wilkins Oration (aka the Wilkins Oration) is presented by theHistory Trust of South Australia in association with the Wilkins Project.[28] In 2023, Emma McEwin, great-granddaughter of geologist and polar explorerDouglas Mawson,[29] presented the lecture, "explor[ing] the personalities and backgrounds of both Hubert Wilkins and Douglas Mawson".[30][31] In 2025, DrRichard Harris, patron of the Wilkins Project and known for his part in the 2018Thai cave rescue of a group of stranded schoolboys, discussed "his mission to encourage young people to unlock their inner explorer".[28]
TheWilkins Sound,[32]Wilkins Coast,[32] theWilkins Runway aerodrome,[33] and theWilkins Ice Shelf[34] in Antarctica are named after him. The airport atJamestown, South Australia,[35] and Sir Hubert Wilkins Road atAdelaide Airport[36] as well as theWilkins Highway[37][38] in the mid-North of South Australia are also named in his memory.
A species of Australianskink,Lerista wilkinsi, is named after him,[39] as is a species of rock wallaby,Petrogale wilkinsi, first described in 2014.[40]
Wilkins is briefly portrayed by actorJohn Dease in the 1946 filmSmithy (1946).[41][42]
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