Why write about him?
Because he was a famous polar investigator, had saved 104 lives after an accident in the Arctic, was one of four men on an ice-floe which during 274 days drifted from the North Pole to Greenland, was appointed Hero of the Soviet Union, and was for many years chairman of the USSR Central Radio Club with hundreds of thousands of members. Like that club did, now the Central Radio Club of the Russian Federation wears his name. A bay on the coast of Komsomolets Island and one of the islands in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago are also named after him, and so is a polar hydrometerological observatory on the Heys island in Franz Josef's Land, a street in Moscow, a Communications Electro-Technical College in St. Petersburg and a weather research vessel of the Hydrometeorological Service Gidrometsluzhba.
Because I have had a contact with him via amateur radio, have met him in Stockholm and in my home in Täby, Sweden, have been guided by him in Moscow, have visited his datja in Zhukova near Moscow, have met him in Vilnius, Lithuania, and because I have access to his memoirs, written at the age of 37.
A QSO with RAEM
One evening in May 1947 I heard on the 40 meter amateur band that Soviet amateurs had some sort of a contest, where reports and numbers were exchanged. I dived into it and made contacts with 25 stations. Number seven had an unusual callsign, RAEM, different from the others, which began with UA3-, UA1- etc, followed by two letters. The man behind the telegraph key was a very good Morse code operator.The QSL-card arrived after a couple of months, and looked like the picture below. The text explains: "Here formerly op of the North Pole expedition 1937-38. Now RAEM, Moscow, G.S.D., Hero of the Soviet Union, Ernst Krenkel."
On the backside, there was a further explanation: "RAEM was the callsign of s/s Chelyuskin, crushed by the ice in the Arctic Sea in 1934. I was there the Chief Radio Operator. Since then, RAEM is my personal callsign."
Printed there is also his private address, something that "normal" Soviet citizens were not allowed to forward abroad. Apparently a very special person. Let us take a look at his autobiography!
Memoirs at the age of 37?!
And in German, in the Soviet Union? Seems a bit peculiar, but there were two reasons. At this age, Ernst Krenkel had experienced more than most people do in their whole life, and as the book was used as a reading-book in German, the time (1939-40) was absolutely right, with the unholy alliance between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. The book was published in 1940 by the Publishing House of the People's Commissar Authority for Education in RSFSR. - Krenkel himself came from a german-speaking minority.
Shortwave was not obvious at this time, and shortwave in
the Arctic had never been tested. Krenkel persuaded a professor
of the Lenin Laboratory to provide equipment, giving him the
impression that the Navy would test it in the Arctic. Then he
went to Leningrad (he paid the trip himself) and told the Navy
people that if there was room for him in a polar expedition, the
equipment problem was already solved. A successful bluff!
In Archangelsk they thought he was mad - those small devices
couldn't make contact with the mainland. However, a few hours
after his arrival in Novaya Zemlya Ernst contacted Baku and later
the whole world. Not surprising, we think, but then they said it
was incredible.
In the winter 1930 Krenkel and six others were on Franz Josef's Land and used the northernmost shortwave station ever. January 12 he had a contact with Admiral Byrd's antarctic expedition!
Because the Soviets wanted to use dirigibles in the Arctic
- the Italian general Nobile had tried, with disastrous result -
Krenkel went to Friedrichshafen, the home of the German
Zeppelins. One evening, he took part in a banquet.
"It was the first banquet in my life. On the table there
were dinner-plates, soup-plates, small plates, forks, small
forks, knives and small knives. In Moscow they had told me to
begin from the right, but I had to look at my neighbour, a
Swedish scientist. But when I saw that he too was not sure and
was looking at me, we both began eating just to became satisfied,
not caring about the rules."
With Krenkel at the radio a 13000 km trip was made:
Friedrichshafen-Franz Josef's Land-Cape Chelyuskin-Dickson
Island-Arkhangelsk-Berlin. Later, he worked on board the biggest
Soviet airship, W-3, and also followed the ice-breaker Sibiryakov
all around Siberia.
The Loss of Ice-breaker Chelyuskin
The North-East Passage was important. Along the Siberian coast there were trappers, weather stations and others who needed supplies - food, clothing, machines and medicines. Now, the ice-breaker Chelyuskin was planned to go along the northern coast, and the work was to be finished before the winter. On July 16 1933, the expedition left under Otto Schmidt's command and with Krenkel as Chief Radio Operator. On board were engineers, carpenters and others who should replace people on the Wrangel Island. The ship advanced slower and slower, and finally it was
stuck in the pack-ice. It was clear that everybody had to leave
the ice-breaker.
Cases and boxes containing rice, canned food, sugar, lemons,
onions, blankets, fur coats etc were brought out of the ship.
Suddenly the ship was hit by a heavy blow, and then by another
one. The forebody was already under the ice. Otto Yulyevich
Schmidt gave the ship's log and the scientific observations to
the captain and went to Krenkel to have a distress message sent.
Krenkel transmitted it, dismantled his radio equipment and
carried it onto the ice.
Suddenly the ship rised, stood for a moment almost
vertically. A big smoke cloud came out of the funnel. And then,
there was nothing left than dark water.
This happened February 13, 1934. 104 men and women had to
encamp on the ice. In the radio tent lived Otto Schmidt, Ernst
Krenkel and three others.
On the ice, February 14
"On February 24, we rebuilt the radio tent. We made a table of rough boards and put it in the rear, with accumulators under it and receiver and transmitter on the top of it. The table was my sacred place. I became very angry if someone tried to put a tea mug or a tin-can there. In the tent we also had a small kerosene heater and a lamp.
At 0530, Ivanov lighted the heater and melted ice for the tea. I got up a few minutes to six and exchanged weather reports with the mainland at 0600."
  Ivanov (left) and Krenkel in the radio tent - - Ludmila Shrader, operator at Uelen |
Small aircraft could bring a few persons to the mainland each time, provided that the weather was favourable both at Cape Vankarem and the camp on the ice at the same time. The book does not tell the distance, but other sources say that the distance to Cape Wellen was 230 kms. Women and children (there was a two year old child among them!) were evacuated first. 30 men volunteered to be among the last ten, so it was decided that the last 50 should be considered as being "the last ten".
|
The cited book is written in German, and what is called "Kap Wellen" is written Uelen in Russian, and 70 years later it is a village of 800 inhabitants on the easternmost point of the Asian continent, just at the entrance of Bering's strait if you come from the north. The cape is named Kap Dezjnjov and is situated 10° (400 km) beyond the 180° meridian, on the western hemisphere. Vankarem is located on the Siberian coast 340 km northwest of Uelen. |
The rescue operation would have been impossible without
the radio communication. Lacking modern navigational aid it was
still very difficult. Krenkel had to maintain the equipment
carefully. In the night the "indoor" temperature was below
0° C, and when the heater was lit, dew appeared in the cold
radio gear.
"I had to take the equipment apart, polish the contacts and
let the components dry near the heater. When working with that
noone was allowed to talk to me, I cursed and muttered to myself.
Schmidt was silent, knowing that the rescue operation depended on
the radio equipment."
The night between April 8 and 9 there was a heavy
ice-pressure, and the antenna mast was saved in the last moment.
The day after, the weather was extraordinary favourable, three
aircraft could operate, and one of them could make three
round-trip flights. On April 12 (after 7 weeks on the ice) only
six men were still to be rescued, and among them was Ernst
Krenkel, of course.
The following is not printed in the book, but Krenkel has
told it to me. He, Schmidt and some others were waiting for the
last aircraft. As usual, they had to light a fire so that the
pilots could see the smoke. But no firewood was left, so they had
to set their fur-coats afire - hoping that they would not be left
on the ice another night. However, Krenkel sometimes seemed to
apply the Swedish proverb "Small lies adorn your speech". So we
will never know for sure.
More winters in the Arctic
In August 1935 the ice-breaker Sibiryakov took Krenkel to Severnaya Zemlya. There, at Cape Olovyanniy, he was to be the chief of a wintering camp. When he had started the work there, he obtained permission to move to Kamenev Island together with one man, in order to restore an abandoned camp. During the winter they were taken ill with scurvy. But they celebrated May 1st. Krenkel wrote in his diary: "The whole population of the island has left their winter-quarters." - The whole population consisted of those two men! Side by side they left the snow-covered windswept hut. Krenkel looked solemn. He made a short speech about people, who far away from home on this day had the same feelings as those living in Moscow. He congratulated himself and Mekhrengin to the festival of the proletariat.Before leaving the desolate island in May 1936 he had been notified that he had been appointed second man in Papanin's expedition to the North Pole - up to this time the biggest and most dangerous venture in the polar research.
Flying to the North Pole
Moscow airfield, March 22, 1937. Ernst Krenkel stands in front of us, big, with an open resolute face, clever, frank, a little ironic.Five big, multiengine airplanes are ready to start northwards. In his leather dress, Krenkel strides forward over the snow-covered field. At pilot Molokov's airplane he says goodbye to his wife. "Greetings to the kolkhos!" he says - he used to use that word for his family.
On Rudolf Island they had to wait for better weather until
May 21. They dug up the ski-equipped landing gear of the
airplanes and poured hot water on the wings to get rid of the
ice. Ten hours after their departure from Rudolf Island a radio
message arrived there, in the book quoted as "This is UPOL. I
hear you loud and clear". Then they had already put up a
"residential tent" made of eider-down in silk cover and weighing
17 kg, a radio tent, a tent for the hydrological laboratory, and
the radio masts. All that on an icefield at the North Pole.
Several messages to Pravda followed.
"We are happy that our powerful country has entrusted us the
realization of the dreams of mankind. We will do everything to
give the Soviet science a valuable and complete material. Here,
in a region, to which in all times the best and most intrepid
representatives of mankind have strived, our large country's flag
is streaming. Through the editors of Pravda we send our warmest
polar researchers' greetings to our compatriots, to our Soviet
government, to the Central Committe of the Party, and to the
inspirer and organizer of our victory comrade Stalin. We ask the
Soviet government to endow our polar station, the drifting
ice-floe at the North Pole, the name 'Stalin'
The members of the expedition, Krenkel to the left
274 days on the ice-floe
Krenkel writes: "All the winterers showed great respect for the radio equipment, our only link to the outer world. Noone was allowed to touch anything on my little table in the tent. There was a penknife and a pair of nippers - the latter necessary in case of icepressure, when the radio had to be evacuated. Transmitter and receiver remained in their boxes.I often slept only three hours at a time because of the radio communication schedule. Papanin was astonished at my capability to fall asleep very quickly. A good quality in a telegraphist!"
The book relates both commonplace and dramatic incidents in the dark polar night. How food was stored in several places, some hundred meters apart, so that not everything would be lost in case of the ice breaking up. How the floe actually cracked under the tent. How the wind-generator charged the batteries, and how the reports from the others were made much shorter at calm weather, when they had to charge themselves with a hand-cranked generator. How Krenkel in a snowstorm with poor visibility got lost but finally to his surprise and relief found himself standing in front of the tent. How he in his few minutes of leisure time worked amateur stations all over the world. How they finally, when the ice-floe was drifting along Greenland's coast, were met by the ice-breakers Taimyr and Murman.
Here are Ernst Krenkel's final words in the book:
"It was an unforgettable moment, when Taimyr and Murman
worked their way towards us. Moved we left the ice-floe, where we
had spent 274 days. With red banners our friends met us, to bring
us to the big world.
February 19 at 4 o'clock I sent the last telegram. It was
directed to the government and to comrade Stalin and told them
that the drifting station North Pole now had finished its work. -
- -
Full of pride in my country I say: I am greeting you, my
home country, you happy Soviet people, led by the great Stalin
from victory to victory!"
The noble art of surviving
Despite so many winters in the Arctic in primitive camps, and so many starts and landings on rough ice, scurvy on a desolate island, wrecked ships, and cracking ice-floes, Ernst Krenkel not only survived, but also succeeded in keeping his signals on the air.Ernst Krenkel survived the Stalin epoch, which could be more difficult than surviving a winter in the Arctic. But it was risky to grow popular and have a high position. Furthermore, he was the only one of the four "papaninites" who was not a member of the communist party. His son Teodor, born in 1940, wrote about difficulties and experiences when 90 years had passed after his father's birth. Here is an excerpt from a translation, made by Mike Hewitt, G4AYO.
| 1948 was retained in father's and all
of our memories. This was the year of our struggle with
"cosmopolitanism". Just then on the personal instructions of the
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, G.M. Malenkov,
they expelled him from the Central Radio Club of the USSR, where
he was chief of the Soviet Club, and they relieved him of his
position as Head of the polar stations of the Northern Sea Route
Administration (NSRA). At the same time they forbade him to work
on the air. This was a terrible blow, since he was deprived of
his most favourite work. It must be said that all the Papanin four were subjected to persecution: they took I.D. Papanin away from Head of Northern Sea Route Administration, P.P. Shirshov ceased to be Minister of the Navy and E.K. Fedorov was taken from the post as Head of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Red Army. Footnote: After Josef Stalin's death in 1953 Georgij Malenkov became the leader but was later outmaneuvered by Nikita Khrustjev. |
Helped by A.N.Bulganin Krenkel was given a rather
low-position job, but in 1956 his reputation was restored, his
honour was retrieved, his amateur radio license given back to
him, and he became chief of Federatsiya Radio Sport
SSSR.
Footnote: Bulganin was twice Minister of
Defence, regarded as politically weak.
So it was not just an ordinary radio amateur whom I met on the 7 MHz band nine years after that he left the icefloe with callsign UPOL.
Standards of the Radio Sport Federation and the Central Radio Club (SM5IQ)
Listen to Krenkel's voice
In May 1960 Ernst Krenkel visited the radio club in Schkeuditz near Leipzig in the German Democratic Republic. Thanks to DL3XM Guenter who has permitted me to "borrow" a recording of his speech there! If you want to hear all of it, go to http://dl3xm.dl0xm.de/dm3xm/raem.mp3, but if 27 seconds are enough, here is raemkort.mp3, 56 kB. Ernst is telling the audience how he has permission to use Chelyuskin's old callsign RAEM, "and when amateurs all over the world hear it they know that it's Krenkel at the key " (!)My first personal meeting with Ernst Krenkel
The first European Championship Competitions in "fox hunting" -- Amateur Radio Direction Finding, ARDF -- were held in the surroundings of Stockholm in 1961. I had introduced the sport into Sweden in 1948 and was in charge of the event.The Soviet team consisted of Krenkel, the trainer Nikolay Kazanskiy and three runners.
RAEM and SM5ZD Per-Anders Kinnman, delegate to IARU, former president of SSA, etc
Foto SM5IQ 1961 at the first European Championship competitions in ARDF
Ernst Krenkel was at the same time stringent, jovial and humorous. As he could speak fluent German it was easy to communicate with him.
When the Soviet team visited our home Ernst drew a picture in our guestbook. The rendering of my family is perhaps not perfect (where are my trousers?), but he certainly had a feeling for what we in the west considered different: the wide trouser-legs with cuffs, and the hero-star.
Krenkel was in charge of Federatsiya Radio Sport and had a salary that seemed very low from a western standpoint, yet it was about ten times as high as that of an ordinary Soviet citizen. He also had other privileges, e.g. a car.
Ernst Krenkel guided us in Moscow
A month after the European ARDF Championship we were invited to Moscow. Krenkel asked my wife if she wasn't afraid when her husband went to the big unreliable Russian bear - exactly the impression we Swedes had had for at least three centuries, accentuated during the cold war, but how did he know? Being briefed before leaving Moscow? For several days we Swedes were guided by Ernst Krenkel in his little Moskvitch. He did not praise the communist system like he did in the book, he rather kept a certain distance to it.
All doors were opened for Krenkel and his guests when he made a gesture towards the hero star on his jacket lapel. One day at 10 a.m. he invited us to a café at the Red Square to have champagne and icecream. There was a queue outside, but Krenkel showed his star, and 30 seconds later we could sit down around the only free table, and those sitting there before had vanished into thin air. - He also could have taken us past the people waiting to come into the mausoleum, where Lenin (and in 1961 also Stalin) were lying on lit de parade, but we did not want to interfere with the thousands of pilgrims waiting to see the dead saviour. I have many nice pictures from the art treasures in the Kremlin; I think taking photos was forbidden, but if you are in the right company....
But Krenkel did not always take advantage of his star. Once when he parked his car at the kerb, a very old woman with a broom reproached him: "But tovarich, I have to clean up here!" Krenkel said something friendly and moved his car.
We also visited the University and - of course - Tsentralniy Radio Klub. Its monthly journal Radio (700000 printed copies) asked me to write something about Swedish ARDF (foxhunting). I did so and received 25 rubels, minus 42 kopeks income tax. Unfortunately I have lost the receipt, otherwise it had been funny to be able to prove that I (working at the Swedish
Institute of National Defence) had paid income tax in the Soviet Union.
But another Swede had received much more from the same country, colonel Wennerström, who some months earlier had been unmasked as a spy. Krenkel and we fully agreed that spying in itself was OK - all countries had spies - but spying against one's own country was very blameworthy.
One evening two persons from each country which participated in the competitions were invited to the datja of the Krenkel family, situated in the village of Zhukova outside Moscow. My memories of this evening are foggy and the photos are too unsharp to be shown, but I'm sure we had fun. Mrs Krenkel sat at the end of the table and was busy filling our glasses with vodka. With her shawl she looked like a matrioshka (those russian wooden puppets). Ernst had driven his car on the way out, but fortunately he asked his son to take us back to Gostinitsa Ukraina in Moscow.
Ernst Krenkel in Sweden and in Moscow. Photo SM5IQ.
The grave at Novodevichy
(Nikita Khrushchev and Boris Yeltsin are also buried there)
Credits to Mike G4AYO
In the days of the cold war, when the threat from the Soviet Union was a reality, it was very interesting to get to know a nice representative of the people of that country, a representative who had a fascinating life-story, who cared for us
in the best possible way, and who sometimes when we were walking along the street began reciting Pushkin with his deep
voice.
The fact that he was a ham radio operator still more enhanced his good points.
