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Eielson Carl Ben (20.01.1897 - 09.11.1929)
Born in Hatton, North Dakota, in a family of Norwegian immigrants. His interest in aviation was manifested as a child. After the US entered World War I, Eielson got a chance to become a military pilot. He learned how to fly a plane in the US Air Force, and in January 1918 he was enrolled in the newly formed Air Force Corps. The First World War ended when Eielson underwent flight training. The end of the war reduced the US need for military pilots, but Eielson, not wanting to part with the flights, organized a flight club in Hatton with his friends. After the war, he enrolled at Georgetown Law School (now Georgetown University) in Washington, worked part-time as a police officer at the Capitol, where he met with Daniel Sutherland, a congressional delegate from Alaska who called him to Alaska to teach there in high school. In 1921, he made the first airmail flight in Alaska from Fairbanks to McGrath at 4 o'clock, while teams with sled dogs made this distance in 20 days. In addition, he made the first airmail flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville (Florida) in 1926. Eielson received great fame as a pilot who flew the first aircraft that flew over the Arctic Ocean, with Australian explorer Hubert Wilkins on board in April 1928. The flight from Barrow to Svalbard over a distance of 3540 km (2200 miles) took 20 hours. The main objective of the flight was to establish whether there really are any islands between Alaska and the North Pole. In the summer of 1928–1929, Eielson and Wilkins conducted an aerial survey of the Antarctic, discovering several unknown islands. After returning from an arctic flight, Eielson was asked to head Alaska Airlines, a subsidiary of the America Aviation Corporation. Eielson died with his mechanic, Count Borland, in a plane crash on November 9, 1929 in Siberia while attempting to evacuate people and cargo from Nanook, a cargo ship caught in ice captivity at Nord-Kapp (now Cape Otto Schmidt). An airbase, an observation post in Denali National Park, the campus of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, a peak in West Central Alaska Ridge, an elementary school at the Grand Forks base in North Dakota, the oldest at Eielson base and an average in Fargo (North Dakota ). During his lifetime he won the Roughrider Award and the Harmon Trophy. In 1985, he entered the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. He was buried in the USA, North Dakota, Hatton, Trail County, St. John's Cemetery. Cape on the west side of Wilkins Cove on the north shore of Isfiord, West Svalbard Island. |
