To the six aviators stranded on the Arctic ice, the future looked bleak but not hopeless. Engine trouble had forced their pair of Dornier-Wal flying boats to put down on the shifting ice. With makeshift tools and grim determination, the men not only had to fix the engines but also had to stave off the drifting ice floes that threatened to crush their frail craft, and prepare a runway across the rough pack.

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The 1925 expedition to fly over the North Pole was led by renowned Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. Amundsen had gained international fame two decades earlier when he had searched for the elusive Northwest Passage from Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound through the maze of islands and straits of the Canadian Arctic aboard the ship Gjöa.

In December 1911, Amundsen and his party became the first to trek to the South Pole. Always on the prowl for more adventure; Amundsen purchased a Farman biplane in 1914, intending to mount skis on the craft and use it to fly over polar obstacles. World War I ended that endeavor, but the explorer continued to dream of flying over the great ice cap.

Amundsen purchased a Junkers J-13 monoplane in 1922, satisfied that the craft's aluminum shell would withstand the rigors of the Arctic clime. Unfortunately, the airplane crashed during a practice flight over Pennsylvania. Amundsen scraped together enough cash to purchase another just in time for his expedition across the Arctic coasts of Europe and Asia to reach Nome, Alaska, aboard the sailing ship Maud. Neither the Junkers nor a small Curtiss Oriole biplane loaned by the Curtiss factory survived much beyond the opening leg of the journey.

Still convinced that the airplane was the best machine for polar exploration, Amundsen sought help from the Norsk Luftseiladsforeningen, a Norwegian air club. The club enthusiastically promised what aid it could, but Amundsen was still sorely lacking funds. He traveled to New York in 1924, hoping a lecture tour would provide some of the necessary monies. but he was unprepared for the chance phone call he received. Lincoln Ellsworth, the son of a multimillionaire, promised him $85,400 for a joint flight over the North Pole.

Ellsworth had attended both Columbia and Yale universities and had been trained as an aviator during World War 1. Illness kept him out of combat, but Ellsworth had met Amundsen while stationed in France and briefly discussed polar exploration by air with him. The Norwegian quickly forgot the encounter, but the seed of an idea had been planted in the American's mind. After the war, Ellsworth led a geological survey to the Peruvian Andes for Johns Hopkins University. When he returned to New York in 1923 and discovered that Amundsen was in the city, Ellsworth immediately telephoned the famous explorer. 'I met you several years ago in France, during the war,' Ellsworth said. 'I am an amateur interested in exploration, and I might be able to supply some money for another expedition.' An excited Amundsen immediately invited him to his room.

With Ellsworth's money in hand, Amundsen telegraphed his pilot, Norwegian naval Lieutenant Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, with instructions to purchase a pair of Dornier-Wal flying boats. Both men had decided on the Dorniers for several reasons. The aircraft sported twin Rolls-Royce 365-hp water-cooled Eagle engines mounted on top of the wing structure, one facing forward, the other aft. The location and power produced by the engines 'make it possible for a weight equal to that of the machine to be lifted,' noted Riiser-Larsen. The Dorniers also featured a duralumin flat-bottomed fuselage with projecting sponsons, or flynders to the Norwegians, which helped to stabilize the craft in the water. The flynders would tend to be less fragile in icy seas than wingmounted stabilizer floats.

The Dornier-Wals were being built in Pisa, Italy, by the firm of S.A.I di Construzioni Mecchaniche i Marina di Pisa because German manufacture of such aircraft was prohibited by the Versailles Treaty. Rather than ship the flying boats halfway around the world to an Alaskan starting point, Amundsen planned to begin his expedition from King's Bay on Spitsbergen, only 750 miles from the North Pole.

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