de long, george w

"... follows the journey of George Washington De Long and the crew of the USS Jeannette, who departed San Francisco in the summer of 1879 hoping to find a route to the North Pole. However, in mid-September the ship became locked in ice north of Siberia and drifted for nearly two years before it was crushed by ice and sank. De Long and his men escaped the ship and began a treacherous journey in extreme polar conditions in an attempt to reach civilization. Many, including De Long, did not survive"--Amazon.com.

A dramatic account of the ill-fated 19th-century naval expedition to the North Pole cites the contributions of German cartographer August Peterman, New York Herald owner James Gordon Bennett and famed naval officer George Washington De Long in the team's efforts to survive brutal environmental conditions.

"... follows the journey of George Washington De Long and the crew of the USS Jeannette, who departed San Francisco in the summer of 1879 hoping to find a route to the North Pole. However, in mid-September the ship became locked in ice north of Siberia and drifted for nearly two years before it was crushed by ice and sank. De Long and his men escaped the ship and began a treacherous journey in extreme polar conditions in an attempt to reach civilization. Many, including De Long, did not survive"--Amazon.com.

In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the Arctic seas, although there were lots of theories. Wealthy and prominent people funded expeditions and so it was that James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of The New York Herald, sent an official U.S. naval expedition to reach the Pole. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco. Leader George Washington De Long led a team of thirty-two men deep into uncharted waters. Two years later, after journeying north of the Bering Strait, they found themselves trapped in pack ice. The ship's hull was fatally breached, the Jeannette sank to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, and the men found themselves marooned on the ice cap nearly a thousand miles north of Siberia with three open boats and only the barest supplies. Thus began their long march across the frozen sea---an ordeal that ranks as one of the greatest struggles for survival in history.