Wilkins, George Hubert

George Hubert Wilkins (October 31, 1888 - November 30, 1958) was an Australian polar explorer, adventurer, geographer, photographer, pilot, and soldier. The journalist Lowell Thomas considered Wilkins to be a hero of the caliber of his own subject, Lawrence of Arabia. Born in South Australia, Wilkins attended the Adelaide School of Mines before finding work as a cinematographer in Sydney. He then moved to England, working as an aerial photographer for Gaumont Studios, which sent him on several Arctic expeditions, including the 1913 Vilhjalmur Stefansson Canadian Arctic Expedition. During World War I (1914 - 1918), he returned to Australia and enlisted in the Australian Flying Corps before being transferred to the general list and, in 1918, appointed as an official war photographer. After the war, Wilkins served as an ornithologist on the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition (1921-22). Afterward, he completed a 2-year study for the British Museum on the birds of Northern Australia. Between 1926 and 1928, Wilkins undertook a series of aerial Arctic expeditions between Alaska and Spitzbergen; in 1928 he made the first airplane flight over Antarctica. In 1930, Wilkins attempted a trans-Arctic voyage by submarine, the Nautilus Expedition, but the vessel (a decommissioned U.S. Navy sub) proved prone to breakdown and never reached the pole. Nonetheless, Wilkins did prove that submarines could operate beneath sea ice. During the 1930s, he made five further expeditions to the Antarctic. Wilkins died in Framingham, Massachusetts, and his ashes were scattered at the North Pole by the crew of an American nuclear submarine.