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Arctic Triumphs and Tragedies
The bomber radio station (RSB), which was manufactured especially for this
Arctic expedition, and which had undergone a triple acceptance and flight test
process, was dead.The aircraft had no backup.After celebrating their safe landing and
shouting “hoorah,” the Papanin team quickly unloaded the radio operator Krenkel’s
radio unit.This radio station was supposed to maintain contact with the world the
entire time Papanin’s station, dubbed North Pole, was in operation. But even Ernest
Teodorovich Krenkel, the legendary radio operator of the Chelyuskin epic, was unable
to quickly set up communications. During the flight, the radio station’s storage batteries
had frozen.They had to start up the small gasoline-powered generator and use the
charging current to warm up the batteries.The generator didn’t start up immediately
and then coughed and sputtered for a long time. It was half a day later before Shmidt
reported to Moscow that they had landed safely. Now Moscow could make the decision
whether or not to send the remaining three airplanes to the ice floe.
in this large system for coordinating the mission that was supposed to be reliable,
radio communications proved to be one of the weakest links. Unfortunately,
the celebratory commotion in the wake of the polar conquests prevented us from
analyzing this incident and drawing conclusions from it.
In a ceremony on 6 June 1937, Shmidt gave the command to raise the flag of
the USSR over the first station, North Pole-1. One by one, the four TB-3s safely
took off from the ice floe.A festive reception awaited them in Moscow.
Official reports of the uncovering of “an anti-Soviet Trotskyite military organization”
threw a pall over the nationwide rejoicing. High-ranking military officers
Tukhachevskiy, Kork,Yakir, Uborevich, Putna, Eydeman, Primakov, and Feldman
were accused of organizing a fascist military plot, preparing to overthrow Soviet
power through armed uprising and defeat of the USSR in an ensuing war, espionage
and sabotage, and forming terrorist groups to annihilate Party leaders and
the government. The affair, which was fabricated by Yezhov’s department, was
reviewed on 11 June 1937 at a special session of the Supreme Court comprising
Budennyy, Blyukher, and Alksnis, and chaired by Ulrikh. 9 The Court sentenced all
of the accused to be shot to death. Subsequently, Blyukher and Alksnis were also
shot to death. The “officers’ affair” was the beginning of a campaign of massive
repressions in 1938.
in newspaper articles and radio broadcasts, dispiriting demands for vigilance
and the unmasking of Trotskyite espionage activity were intermingled with
reports about the achievements of our aviation. The reports about new and
outstanding flights were breaths of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere.
9. Nikolay Ivanovich Yezhov (1895–1939) was chief of the Soviet security police (NKVD) from 1936 to
1938, during the most severe period of the Great Purges, also known as the Yezhovshchina. Marshal Semyon
Mikhaylovich Budenny (1883–1938), Marshal Vasiliy Konstantinovich Blyukher (1890–1938), and General
Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis (1897–1938) were all famous Soviet armed forces officers.
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