Sunday, 17 September 1911

Amundsen

The atmosphere at Framheim was tense and bitter. "[Amundsen] regards me as completely outside the expedition," wrote Johansen, humiliated by Amundsen's dismissal of him from the polar party. "He is mortally affronted because his qualities as a chief have been shipwrecked; he who so often in the course of the winter has spoken so much of how he could not understand how the English expeditions which have been down here have managed, since there has constantly been poor morale amongst them. But he himself is not the man I took him for to lead an expedition such as this." [1]

Amundsen defended his actions in his diary. "Many have criticised our early departure," he wrote. "Well, it is easy to do so afterwards [but] to sit still without doing anything, would never occur to me, criticise me who will. With the exception of [a few] frozen heels, and some dogs, our little journey has not caused us any loss. It was a good trial run. Besides we got everything up to 80 deg." [2]


Notes:

[1] Hjalmar Johansen, [diary? date not given], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.413.
[2] Roald Amundsen, diary, [date not given], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.413. Prestrud, for one, felt that Amundsen had let him down, and for a while sided with Johansen; Stubberud, many years later, called Amundsen's orders of the 15th "a mistake".