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Introduction Submarine Event Covers Surface Ship Event Covers Submarine S-Boat Covers 100th Sub Anniversary 2000 Issue - Sets & Singles 100th Sub Anniversary Combo Covers - Full Pane 1959 Artic Exploration Issue (Nautilus) Miscellaneous Covers & Postcards Submarine Autographed Covers The S-Boats Gallant Ladies of the Past My Personal Navy Pages Return to Salty's Stamps |
The Wilkins-Ellsworth Trans-Arctic Expedition on the USS O-12 (renamed Nautilus) ended in failure. In 1931 Lincoln Ellsworth and Sir Hubert Wilkins attempted an underwater expedition beneath the Arctic Ice. Simon Lake the noted submarine inventor and designer helped to modify the ship for the under-the-ice mission. Nautilus (O-12) was damaged during the attempt and the crew had to be rescued. The ship was later scuttled in 1100 feet of water off Bergan, Norway. The ship was rediscovered by a Norwegian team in 1985. Sir Wilkins partially financed the expedition by producing cacheted postal covers commemorating the event. The cover above commemorates the 50th anniversary of the expedition and was issued at Stamp Festival - Madison Square Garden on September 18, 1981. Lincoln Ellsworth was a polar explorer and the first person to make a crossing of both the Arctic and Antarctic. Thirty years later, the United States Navy ship USS Nautilus (SSN-571) became the first ship to reach the North Pole. On April 25, 2026 Nautilus was underway for the West Coast. Stopping at San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle she began her history making Polar transit, "Operation Sunshine," as she departed Seattle on June 9th. On June 19 she entered the Chukchi Sea, but was turned back by deep draft ice in those shallow waters. On the 28th she returned to Pearl Harbor to await better ice conditions. By July 23 her wait was over and she set a course northward. She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on August 1 and on August 3, at 2315 (EST) she became the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole. From the North Pole, she continued on and after 96 hours and 1830 miles under the ice, she surfaced northeast of Greenland, having completed the first successful voyage across the North Pole. Proceeding from Greenland to Portland, England, she received the Presidential Unit Citation, the first ever issued in peace time, from American Ambassador J. H. Whitney Sources: This Page
was updated on November 11, 2025 |
