27 Facts About Hubert Wilkins

Hubert Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross after he assumed command of a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line, and became the only official Australian photographer from any war to receive a combat medal.

Hubert Wilkins narrowly failed in an attempt to be the first to cross under the North Pole in a submarine, but was able to prove that submarines were capable of operating beneath the polar ice cap, thereby paving the way for future successful missions.

Hubert Wilkins was a native of Mount Bryan East, South Australia, the last of 13 children in a family of pioneer settlers and sheep farmers.

Hubert Wilkins was born at Mount Bryan East, South Australia, 177 kilometres north of Adelaide by road.

Hubert Wilkins was educated at Mount Bryan East and the Adelaide School of Mines.

In 1917, Wilkins returned to his native Australia, joining the Australian Flying Corps in the rank of second lieutenant.

Hubert Wilkins later transferred to the general list and in 1918 was appointed as an official war photographer.

In June 1918 Hubert Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts to rescue wounded soldiers during the Third Battle of Ypres.

Hubert Wilkins remains the only Australian official photographer from any war to have received a combat medal.

Hubert Wilkins was awarded a bar to his Military Cross in the 1919 Birthday Honours.

Hubert Wilkins was a highly accomplished and absolutely fearless combat photographer.

Hubert Wilkins's work was greatly acclaimed by the museum but derided by Australian authorities because of the sympathetic treatment afforded to Indigenous Australians and criticisms of the ongoing environmental damage in the country.

Soundings taken at the landing site indicated a water depth of 16,000 feet, and Hubert Wilkins hypothesized from the experience that future Arctic expeditions would take advantage of the wide expanses of open ice to use aircraft in exploration.

Hubert Wilkins was the first recipient of the Samuel Finley Breese Morse Medal, which was awarded to him by the American Geographical Society in 1928.

Hubert Wilkins was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Patron's Medal the same year.

Now financed by William Randolph Hearst, Hubert Wilkins continued his polar explorations, flying over Antarctica in the San Francisco.

Hubert Wilkins named the island of Hearst Land after his sponsor, and Hearst thanked Wilkins by giving him and his bride a flight aboard Graf Zeppelin.

Hubert Wilkins said the expedition was meant to conduct a "comprehensive meteorology study" and collect "data of academic and economic interest".

Hubert Wilkins anticipated Arctic weather stations and the potential to forecast Arctic weather "several years in advance".

Hubert Wilkins believed a submarine could take a fully equipped laboratory into the Arctic.

Hubert Wilkins described the planned expedition in his 1931 book Under The North Pole, which Wonder Stories praised as "[as] exciting as it is epochal".

Hubert Wilkins was undaunted and drove on with preparations for a series of test cruises and dives before they were to undertake their trans-Arctic voyage.

On 14 June 1931 without a means of propulsion Hubert Wilkins was forced to send out an SOS and was rescued later that day by the USS Wyoming.

Hubert Wilkins was determined to do what he could without the diving planes.

Hubert Wilkins ended the first expedition to the poles in a submarine and headed for England, but was forced to take refuge in the port of Bergen, Norway, because of a fierce storm that they encountered en route.

Hubert Wilkins received permission from the United States Navy to sink the vessel off shore in a Norwegian fjord on 20 November 1931.

Hubert Wilkins became a student of The Urantia Book and supporter of the Urantia movement after joining the '70' group in Chicago in 1942.