USS Jeannette (1878)

The USS Jeannette, originally named HMS Pandora, was a ship purchased by the United States Navy in 1878. It is most famous for its ill-fated Arctic expedition led by Lieutenant Commander George W. De Long, intended to reach the North Pole by sailing through the Bering Strait.

Commissioned as the USS Jeannette, the ship was refitted and strengthened for Arctic exploration. De Long hoped to drift across the North Pole, proving the existence of a vast, open polar sea and claiming new lands for the United States. The expedition departed San Francisco on July 8, 1879.

The Jeannette became trapped in the Arctic ice pack in September 1879, northeast of Wrangel Island. For nearly two years, the ship drifted westward with the ice, enduring extreme cold and pressure. On June 12, 1881, the ship was crushed and sank.

The crew of the Jeannette, led by De Long, then undertook a perilous journey south across the ice and open water towards the Siberian coast. The party divided into three groups, each with its own boat. One boat, commanded by Chief Engineer George W. Melville, reached the Lena River delta and was eventually rescued. A second boat, under Lieutenant Charles W. Chipp, was lost at sea with all hands. De Long's boat reached land, but the exhausted and starving men struggled to find inhabited areas.

De Long and his remaining crew members eventually perished from starvation and exposure in the Siberian wilderness. Only two men from his boat were rescued: William F. C. Nindemann and Louis P. Noros, who had been sent ahead for help. Melville eventually led a search party that discovered De Long's body and the remains of his men.

The Jeannette expedition, though a tragic failure in its primary objective, contributed significantly to Arctic exploration and scientific knowledge. The discovery of new islands and the documentation of Arctic conditions provided valuable data. Furthermore, debris from the Jeannette was found on the coast of Greenland several years later, suggesting the existence of a Transpolar Drift Stream. This discovery influenced Fridtjof Nansen's Fram expedition, which deliberately allowed its ship to be frozen in the Arctic ice in order to study the drift.