The USS Jeannette: Shattered Ambitions (Part 1)

June 11th, 1881 - Commander of the ill-fated USS Jeanette, Lt. George De Long, writes in his journal…

At four P-M the ice came down in great force all along the port side, jamming the ship hard against the ice on the starboard side, causing her to heel 16 degrees to starboard. From the snapping and cracking of the bunker sides and starting in of the starboard ceiling, as well as the opening of the seams in the ceiling, it was feared that the ship was about to be seriously endangered. Orders were accordingly given to lower the starboard boats, and haul them away from the ship to a safe position on the ice floe. This was done quietly and without confusion. …Mr. Melville, while below in the engine room, saw a break across the ship in the wake of the boilers and engines, showing that so solidly were the stern and starboard quarters held by the ice that the ship was breaking in two from the pressure upward exerted on the port bow of the ship. The starboard side of the ship was also evidently broken in, because water was rising rapidly in the starboard coal bunkers. Orders were now given to land one half of the pemmican in the deck-house, and all the bread which was on deck, and the sleds and dogs were likewise carried to a position of safety. At 4.30 …The ship was heeled 22 degrees to starboard, and was raised forward, but at five p. m. the pressure was renewed and continued with tremendous force, the ship cracking in every part. The spar deck commenced to buckle up, and the starboard side seemed again on the point of coming in. Orders were now given to get out provisions, clothing, bedding, ship's books, and papers, and to remove all sick to a place of safety. While engaged in this work another tremendous pressure was received, and at six p. m. it was found that the ship was beginning to fill. From that time forward every effort was devoted to getting provisions, etc., on the ice, and it was not desisted from until the water had risen to the spar deck, the ship being heeled to starboard about 30 degrees. The entire starboard side of the spar deck was submerged, the rail being under water, and the water-line reaching to the hatch-coamings. The starboard side was evidently broken in abreast of the mainmast, and the ship was settling fast. Our ensign had been hoisted at the mizzen, and every preparation made for abandoning, and at eight p. m. everybody was ordered to leave the ship. Assembling on the floe, we dragged all our boats and provisions clear of bad cracks, and prepared to camp down for the night. At four a-m the Jeannette went down. First righting to an even keel, she slowly sank…the foremast was all that was standing.

This passage is from the journal of Lt. George De Long, Captain of the USS Jeanette. The Jeanette, with De Long his crew of 32 men, had been trapped in the thick ice of the Arctic since September of 1879. Trapped firmly in the ice, the Jeanette drifted aimlessly for almost two years. In June of 1881, the massive pressure of the ice destroyed the Jeanette, and the expedition was stranded on the frozen ice floes of the East Siberian Sea. But this was just the beginning of their struggle to survive.

Part 1 of The USS Jeanette: Shattered Ambitions, today, on Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs.

Hello and welcome to Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, tales of mishaps, misfortune, and misadventure. I’m your host, Rich Napolitano. 

Across centuries, a courageous and determined company of men have ventured into the unknown regions of the earth lying within the Arctic Circle. Norseman Erik The Red ventured into the Arctic in the 10th century, while the first of organized, purposeful Arctic exploratory efforts began as early as 1553, with the voyages of Englishmen Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor. Ordinary seamen, physicians, scientists, naval officers, and no small number of adventurers all set forth upon a formidable quest; some in search of the Northwest Passage, others for scientific purposes, and famously, those who wished to reach the geographic North Pole. Yet among them all, none had left behind a record so deeply etched with disappointment, steadfast heroism, and relentless suffering as that of the immortal Lieutenant Commander George W. De Long, on board the USS Jeanette.

The ship that eventually became USS Jeanette began as HMS Pandora, a 420 ton gunboat of the Royal Navy, built at the Pembroke Naval Dockyard in 1860. She was 146 feet long and 25 feet wide, (roughly 45 meters by 7 and a half meters), and while rigged as a barque, her primary propulsion was via a steam driven screw propeller.

HMS Pandora was acquired from the Royal Navy in 1875 by Sir Allen Young, an experienced mariner and explorer. Young served as sailing master aboard HMS Fox in 1857 under Leopold McClintock, during an expedition to search for the Lost Franklin Expedition in northern Canada. In 1860, as captain of HMS Fox, he led an expedition to determine the feasibility of establishing a telegraph line from Europe to America through the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland; a project that never materialized.

Young purchased Pandora to once again search for evidence of the Franklin expedition, partially funded by Lady Franklin. Pandora sailed from Southampton in 1875, but was unsuccessful in reaching the primary search area due to thick ice. Young returned to the Arctic in 1876 with Pandora, with the goal of finding the Northwest Passage, but was diverted by the Admiralty to deliver much-needed supplies to the British Arctic Expedition; a voyage which earned him a knighthood. In 1877, Young sold Pandora to American James Gordon Bennett Jr., the owner of the New York Herald. Bennett was gregarious, ostentatious, and the third wealthiest man in New York at the time. He was somewhat of an adventurer himself, having won the first ever transatlantic yacht race, and was an enthusiast of hot air balloons. The Gordon Bennett Cup, the world’s premier hot air balloon race, is still held today.

Bennett selected the vessel, along with Lt. George Washington De Long of the United States Navy, for an expedition to test an ancient belief that there was an “open polar sea” - a relatively warm water sea at the north pole. A map from the 1590s shows a mass of land and ice divided into four relatively equal parts by 4 rivers. These rivers lead to an “open polar sea” at its center, with a mountain of iron at the north pole.  The Ancient Greeks called this Hyperborea, a warm climate “beyond the mountains” where it was always summer. The Norse people named this land “Ultima Thule” where warm water flowed beyond the ice, and fantastical creatures lived. Throughout history, humans speculated and created wild theories of what existed at the earth’s poles, including the hollow earth theory, and “holes at the poles” made famous by John Cleves Symmes. The warm water open polar sea theory was reignited by 19th century geographers, most notably American Matthew F. Maury and German August Petermann, who theorized the Kuroshio current from the Pacific, and the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic, converged at the north pole to create the open polar sea. The mystery of the poles fueled a desire in Bennett for polar exploration, and he was a believer in the existence of the “open polar sea.”

Bennett partnered with the United States Navy for the expedition, with Bennett providing the funding, and the Navy providing the crew, and De Long to command the expedition. Bennett renamed the Pandora to Jeanette after his sister, and, as it would be sailing under naval laws and discipline, it was designated USS Jeanette. 

Lt. George W. De Long was selected as Captain of the vessel, and commander of the expedition. De Long was no stranger to the arctic. In 1873, he was second in command of USS Juniata, which set out for Greenland to find the survivors of the Polaris expedition. Conditions were harsh and the approaches to the site were blocked by ice. Ultimately, the mission was a failure, but the experience left a mark on De Long and he very much desired to return to the Arctic again.

De Long sailed the Jeanette from Le Havre to San Francisco, accompanied by his wife Emma, and arrived at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in January of 1879. De Long spent the early months of 1879 in Washington D-C promoting the expedition and seeking additional support, including the assistance of a supply ship. This request was denied, which put the entire expedition in jeopardy. James Gordon Bennett was forced to step in, and he hired the schooner Frances Hyde to carry extra coal and supplies as far as Alaska.

The Jeanette was significantly rebuilt and fortified to withstand the tremendous pressure of the arctic ice. It received the latest technology including Thomas Edison’s arc lights, a telephone from Alexander Graham Bell, telegraph equipment, Budweiser beer, and a 3000 volume library.

During the lengthy process of fitting out the ship for an arctic journey, Secretary of the Navy Richard W. Thompson added another challenge for the expedition. He ordered De Long to search the Siberian coast for Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, and his ship, Vega. Bennett was among the first to believe newspapers should create the news, not just report it. He famously sent Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to “find” Dr. David Livingston, who as a matter of fact, was not lost. But Bennett found the story made for a great series of articles for his newspaper. He convinced Secretary Thompson to issue the order to search for the Vega, despite protests from De Long.

The USS Jeanette departed San Francisco on July 8, 1879, to much fanfare. Over 10,000 people watched as it sailed away, and the US Army issued an 11-gun salute. Commanded by Lt. George De Long, the Jeanette had a diverse crew of U.S. Navy officers, sailors, whalers, scientists, and cooks, hailing from the United States, Denmark, Norway, Scotland, England, and China.

On August 12th, the Jeanette reached Norton Sound on the west coast of Alaska, and put in at the small port of St. Michael. De Long waited for the arrival of the supply ship Francis Hyde, which would deliver fresh supplies. Here, in preparation for overland travel on the ice, De Long purchased sled dogs and hired two Inuit sled drivers.

After receiving its supplies from the Francis Hyde, the Jeanette set out for the Chukchi peninsula, at the extreme northeast of Siberia, to inquire about Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and his ship, the Vega. Landing at St. Lawrence Bay, the Chukchi people told De Long of an unidentified steamer that had passed the area going south. De Long pushed north through the Bering Strait, stopping first at Cape Dezhnev. Villagers informed him that the Vega had stopped in at nearby Cape [SYEHR-tseh KAHM-yen] Serdze-Kamen, and De Long found items left behind. De Long saw this as confirmation that the Vega had successfully completed its voyage through the Northeast Passage. De Long drafted a letter communicating this information, addressed to “To the Commanding Officer of any Ship visiting Cape [SYEHR-tseh] Serdze” and left it behind with the villagers.

With his obligation to search for the Vega now finally out of the way, the De Long could focus on the Jeanette goal of reaching the North Pole. On August 31, the Jeanette departed in the direction of Wrangel Island, located in the Arctic Ocean between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea. This is a different island from the Wrangell Island of southeastern Alaska. At the time, it was called “Wrangel’s Land” and was believed to be part of a larger polar continent, rather than an island.

The Jeanette steamed north at a good speed, but with temperatures rapidly dropping, almost immediately encountered sea ice. On September 4th, the Jeanette and its thick plume of black smoke were seen by whalers heading northwest. 

De Long and the crew believed they could see Wrangel’s Land ahead in the distance, and set course to land there. But the following day, thick ice gripped the Jeanette, trapping the ship in its grasp. Wrangel’s Land would be unattainable now, and De Long instead made for Herald’s Island, 15 nautical miles away, in hopes of finding a winter harbor. A scouting party led by 2nd in command Charles W. Chipp set out on sleds across the ice, but couldn’t reach the island due to the unstable conditions of the sea ice.

Unable to move his ship, De Long hoped for a break in the weather and an opening in the sea ice, but temperatures continued to drop. With no other options, the Jeanette and its crew prepared to ride out the Arctic winter, helplessly drifting in the unrelenting ice.

Ironically, around the same time the Jeanette became stuck in the ice, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey released the results of a recent study, which found the Kuroshio current had no impact whatsoever north of the Bering Strait - virtually putting to rest the Open Polar Sea theory. While scientists in Washington knew this, De Long and the crew of the Jeanette did not. However, his current predicament among the frigid temperatures and vast endless ice of the Arctic made De Long doubt the concept.

The Jeanette drifted in the ice pack haphazardly through September, circling back and forth erratically, helpless to determine its own course. The ice around the ship growled and creaked ominously, and all aboard understood the ice could crush the ship at any moment. Captain De Long diligently kept up with his logbook throughout the expedition. On November 11, 1879, he wrote of the haunting sounds of the Arctic winter… “The grinding and crushing flow of ice to the westward had again commenced … The ship groaned and creaked at every pressure until I thought the next would break her adrift. The pressure was tremendous, and the noise was not calculated to calm one's mind. I know of no sound on shore that can be compared to it. A rumble, a shriek, a groan, and a crash of a falling house all combined might serve to convey an idea of the noise with which this motion of ice-floes is accompanied.”

Well-provisioned for the expedition, food was not yet a concern. However, the crew were able to venture out on the ice to hunt for seal, walrus, and birds, which added fresh meat to their stores.  As for the modern technological comforts installed, they were ultimately far from satisfactory, including Thomas Edison’s supposed revolutionary arc-lighting. De Long lamented, “We have been trying the electric light this evening, but without success. The machine does not work well, and the light is altogether insufficient. It is a great disappointment to us, as we had hoped for much from it during the long winter night. At present it is of no practical use whatever. The telephone line has given us much trouble, and is now entirely useless. The wires are continually breaking, and we can get no reliable communication through them. The telegraph apparatus is little better, and cannot be depended upon.”

The spirits of the men were lifted on Christmas Eve, 1879, when the ship’s navigator, Lt. John Danenhower, offered a toast. De Long wrote, “Danenhower proposed and we drank to the health and success of "our old shipmates", and so in the interchange of yarns and recollections we welcomed in the Christmas Day with the hope that at its next coming we should be at least no worse off.”

Danenhower’s health began a downward spiral toward the end of 1879. He suffered from syphilis, and had been committed to a psychiatric hospital about a year prior to the expedition due to having an “unsound mind.” But he recovered soon after and was reinstated to active duty with the Navy. Syphilis can cause a painful inflammation of the eyes, impaired vision, and complete blindness, among other maladies. Danenhower had complained of pain in his eyes to James Ambler, the ship’s surgeon. By January of 1880, Ambler informed De Long that Danenhower would lose his left eye unless surgery was performed. Ambler performed the surgery, but Danenhower’s vision continued to worsen throughout the expedition, forcing him to wear darkening goggles.

During the early morning hours of January 19th, 1880, De Long and others heard a loud cracking sound. The crushing force of shifting ice floes had forced open the ship’s planking, and water entered the bow of the ship through its seams. The crew quickly made efforts to fill the gaps, but it would require constant re-caulking with oakem, and continual operation of the pumps. This became a daily ritual of the crew, as the ice continued to put pressure on the ship.

The expedition continued on through the winter, the crew making due as they could, uncomfortable to be sure but relatively safe and well-fed. Meteorologist Jerome Collins and Naturalist/Astronomer Raymond Lee Newcomb took water samples, preserved local species, and measured the ocean depth, currents, salinity, air and water temperature, ice thickness, snow thickness on the ice, and other measurements.

The rest of the crew performed their duties as necessary, such as cleaning the ship, feeding and exercising the dogs, and doing their best to stay busy and avoid the boredom and mental degradation that can plague polar expeditions. De Long described the crew’s activities, writing, “From eleven to one every day the berth deck is cleared and aired, and the men of their own accord take at once to the ice, tramping up and down near the ship, or wandering off looking for open water and seals or bear tracks. The officers are as ready to take a constitutional walk as could be desired, the cabin being thoroughly aired.”

With Spring and Summer of 1880 approaching, De Long was hopeful the ice would break up, and he would find a lead to open water. But there would be no such luck. 

Day after day, open seams in the hull were re-caulked, water was pumped out, and ice dug away from the side of the ship with pick-axes. The men endured grueling labor in a desperate struggle against the never relenting arctic conditions. 

The Jeanette continued to be subjected to constant pressure from the ice floes, causing its timbers to creak, moan, and pop; a devilish foreshadowing. On March 4th, Engineer George Melville reported damage to the port side coal bunker due to the ice floes. De Long wrote of this, “Had I any doubt of it before I should be convinced of it now, that nothing of wood and metal could be constructed to withstand the tremendous pressure caused by moving ice-floes.”

As March 1880 turned into April, De Long could see some leads opening up in the distance, but nothing near enough to his ship to be of consequence. It gave him hope, but with that hope came danger. As ice floes break apart, it gives them room to move, and momentum to smash into the ship even harder. De Long needed a clear path to the open sea, to get clear of the floes. But this he could not do;  the Jeanette remained trapped firm in the ice.

The summer of 1880 did not bring any relief. No leads opened up, and the crew continued their pattern of daily chores and survival. Repair the ship, pump water, chip away ice from the hull, and hunt for food. They could do nothing else if they wanted to survive until summer of 1881, when once again they hoped the ice would break up. 

While the ship was originally well-stocked, they would not be able to remain on the ship for much longer. De Long knew, if they did not find open water he would be forced to abandon the ship, and trek over the ice with the ship’s boats.

In the early months of 1881, the ice was now taking the Jeanette steadily northwest, and the crew was thrilled to spot land for the first time in two years. This was a small, desolate island, too far to reach on foot over the ice. The crew named the island Jeanette. There was yet more cause for celebration when they spotted a second island, closer to the ship, and Engineer George W. Melville set out with a scouting party to reach the island. On June 2, Melville planted the American flag, and claimed the island for the United States. This barren, ice-capped land was named Henrietta Island, after George De Long’s mother. 

On June 11th, the ice seemed to finally cooperate, and gave way enough for the ship to settle into the water on an even keel. De Long immediately ordered the crew to bring all supplies and equipment, some of which was stored on the ice, back on board. He wanted to be ready to move if a lead opened up. But this was false hope, and the ship remained icebound. At 4:00 PM the following day, a large ice floe slammed into the port side of the ship at full force, jamming the Jeanette hard against the ice on its starboard side. As described in the scene at the top of this episode, De Long ordered all provisions, sleds, dogs, boats, and everything else possible to the ice. The 33 men of the Jeanette watched as their ship, their home for over two years, slowly disappeared under the ice. It was a solemn moment as they were now faced with trekking over 500 miles, across the treacherous ice to the Siberian coast. 

Captain De Long was an extremely capable officer and had anticipated being in such circumstances. The men were all sheltered in tents on the ice while preparations were being made to begin their retreat to Siberia. Ninety days of provisions and other supplies were loaded onto four sleds, each weighing over 1000 pounds. The men, including officers, were fitted to a hauling harness to pull the sleds and the three boats, which would be used when, and if, they could find open water. Additionally, the dogs pulled a sled which carried their medical supplies. With the men organized into five work parties, the journey south began on June 17.

Progress was painstakingly slow, as ice ridges, hummocks, and snow drifts made for significant obstacles. All the men were forced to haul just one sled at a time over a short distance, then return to haul each of the seven sleds in turn. For the entire expedition to make two miles south, a total of twenty-six miles of extremely difficult ground had to be covered.  De Long described, "We have such terrific roads, such soft and deep snow and such ugly ice openings. Twenty-eight men and twenty-three dogs laying back with all their strength could only start our sixteen-hundred-pound sled a few feet each time and when it would plunge into a snow bank it was terrible work getting it out." 

The sight of a small island in the distance offered the chance of rest and recovery. The men desperately fought through the hardships, with the ice often shifting or breaking apart under their feet. On several occasions, the men and their sleds were forced to float on small ice rafts to cross across open gaps in the ice. The expedition reached the island on July 27th, after covering ninety miles of tough sledding. Remarkably, no men, dogs, or sleds were lost in their effort to reach the island. They named this barren slate of icy rock Bennett Island after their benefactor, James Gordon Bennett. They rested here for over a week, giving the sick and injured a chance to recover. De Long was increasingly desperate to reach the mainland before another Arctic winter arrived, and the group departed again on August 6th.

By mid-August of 1881, the rapidly declining food stores became a serious concern. Two years spent locked in the ice, and now the slow progress with the sleds had reduced their stores to only tea, pemmican, and beef extract. Hunting parties came back with an occasional seal or ptarmigan, providing an additional, but temporary boost of calories. 

Ice floes continued to slide and grind past them and shift under their feet. De Long described, “the ice seemed to come around us like magic, and that it was moving and swirling about as if in a tideway.” One of the boats had been stove in by ice, requiring a quick repair by First Officer, Charles Chipp.

Open leads in the ice were observed in the distance and De Long knew the time would soon come to take to the boats. On August 19th, De Long made the decision to redistribute all the remaining supplies into the three boats and cut up the sleds. When the time came, they would be ready to launch the boats into the open water and make for the Siberian mainland. By this time, the group had made the difficult decision to eat their sled dogs. One by one, the starving animals were sacrificed so that the men could live.

The desperate journey pushed on, and after finding a promising lead of open water, the men boarded the boats and landed on Faddejaw Island on August 30th. The moss covered island had signs of life, and hope. The one remaining sled dog, named Snoozer, chased lemmings, while the men hunted for deer, geese, ducks, and hare. Tall Norway Pines provided wood for fire and much-needed repairs to the boats.

Despite the relative comfort of the island, the men departed the following day. After making several unsuccessful attempts to land at different parts of the island, they continued southward instead.

Suffering from terrible exhaustion, exposure, and hunger, the men alternated between boarding the boats in open water, and hauling them across the rough ice, now without the use of sleds. 

As they pushed on through to another island, many of the men, including De Long, were thrown into the ice cold water up to their shoulders, and spent miserable nights in the boats fighting off death from exposure. After the three boats became separated for a time, they all successfully reached Koltenoi Island, on September 4th. In thirty-five days, the crew of the Jeanette had slogged over 250 miles of almost impossible icy terrain.

Faces, hands, and feet were swollen, chafed, and bruised. Some, including De Long, could only walk with great difficulty. De Long wrote of his own pains, “It may seem curious to some people why I do not go around more myself when ashore, instead of taking accounts of others ; but the fact is, my feet are swollen with cold, and my toes are broken out with chilblains, and I am unable to get around very much.”

Ducks and small game were hunted on Koltenoi, but fresh water was scarce. Ruined huts were found scattered about the island, along with wooden cups, rags, and other evidence of human existence, although the island was otherwise uninhabited. Moving on from Koltenoi, the expedition reached Semenovski Island, where a deer was shot by Alexey, one of the Inuit dog-sled drivers from Alaska. This provided a nice meal for the weary men. De Long wrote of this, “I ordered one pound of meat to be served out per man, and at 4.45 p. m. we all sat down to a delicious meal of fried deer meat and tea.”

Semenovski Island had provided food, water, and wood for the expedition, and on September 12, they set out again. They were still a grueling 185 kilometers, about 115 miles, from Siberia. Before departing, a message was left in a tin case, for anyone who may later happen across it. The message read, “We are all well, have had no scurvy and hope with God's help to reach the Lena Delta (Siberia) during the coming week. Have yet seven days provisions." 

That’s going to do it for Part 1 of the USS Jeanette: Shattered Ambitions. Please be sure to listen to part 2, and the conclusion of this epic story from maritime history. Thanks to Patreon subscriber Connie M for requesting this episode.

Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs is written, edited, and produced by me, Rich Napolitano. Original theme music is by Sean Sigfried. You can find transcripts, show notes, and show merchandise at shipwrecksandseadogs.com

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