The JEANNETTE Expedition
8 JULY 1879-23 MARCH 1882
THE JEANNETTE EXPEDITION
One of the less well known but certainly invaluable activities of the US Navy has been meteorologic, oceanographic, and geographic research. Naval expeditions have surveyed the world’s oceans, reached both Poles and explored the Amazon River. Navy submersibles have plumbed the depths of the Marianas Trench, and balloons carrying Navy personnel have pierced the upper stratosphere. Indeed, LT Charles Wilkes headed a major scientific expedition in 1838-42 that is credited with charting nearly 300 Pacific islands and discovering the continent of Antarctica.
Similarly, knowledge that the Arctic was an ocean and concern over the illusive “Northwest Passage” led LT George Washington DeLong on an ill-advised 19th century attempt to sail to the North Pole during winter. On 8 July 1879, DeLong departed San Francisco in the steam bark JEANNETTE, which had been donated to the Navy by James G. Bennett, publisher of The New York Herald. JEANNETTE’s hull had been specially reinforced against the crushing force of the Arctic ice, and Bennett retained exclusive rights to the story of her quest for the Pole. DeLong sent his last message from St. Lawrence Island (then Siberia) on 27 August. His all-volunteer crew of 31 passed through the Bering Strait in September.
Within days, however, JEANNETTE became locked in the expanding winter icepack. More days passed, then weeks, until time stretched into months. Through the winter of 1879-80 the ship remained fast. JEANNETTE’s crew occupied themselves making scientific observations while the icepack drifted westward along Siberia’s coast. Another winter passed. Shortened rations only made the relentless freezing temperatures harder to bear until June 13th, 1881, when the shifting ice finally crushed the bark’s reinforced hull.
Loading provisions into three whaleboats which were dragged like sleds, the crew set out to the west. They reached the edge of the ice in September, but here a storm capsized one of the boats with the loss of all hands. The other two boats were separated. The largest group of 17 in DeLong’s boat made landfall on the uninhabited eastern bank of Siberia’s Lena delta. This party pushed overland until the weakened condition of the men forced DeLong to make camp. The two strongest continued on.
Meanwhile the other boat carrying Chief Engineer LT George W. Melville reached the western Lena delta, where they were aided by native villagers. Eventually the two from DeLong’s party were united with Melville and thence mounted a rescue attempt. But it was already too late. On 23 March 1882 Melville found the frozen corpses of DeLong, the expedition’s surgeon James M. Ambler, and the rest of the party. DeLong’s scientific data were recovered.
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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. GPO, Washington, DC, pp. 509-10, 1977.
Guttridge, Leonard F. Icebound: The Jeannette Expedition’s Quest for the North Pole. USNI Press, Annapolis, MD, 1986.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. USNI Press, Annapolis, MD, p. 86, 2002.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: As a result of his actions, Melville was considered for the Medal of Honor, but at the time only enlisted sailors and Marines were eligible for the award. Instead, he was voted a special medal by Congress and advanced 15 slots on the promotion list. JEANNETTE was Melville’s second of three polar excursions. In 1873, he had served as Chief Engineer aboard USS TIGRESS in her rescue of 19 survivors of the Polaris expedition which became stranded in Baffin Bay. In 1884 he returned to the Arctic on the rescue mission for the Greely Expedition. He was eventually promoted to Rear Admiral and served as Engineer in Chief of the Navy. He is remembered as much for his later work on warship design as for his Arctic trekking. The WWI destroyer tender AD-2 and the oceanographic research ship MELVILLE (AGOR-14) both bear his name.
DeLong is remembered with the WWI-era torpedo boat DELONG (TB-28), the Rathburne-class destroyer DD-129, and by the DeLong Straits off the northeastern tip of Siberia (the region through which the icebound JEANNETTE drifted with the icepack).
The first ship to sail to the North Pole would not succeed for three-quarters of a century. The nuclear submarine NAUTILUS (SSN-571) reached the North Pole on 3 August 1958.
