Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24, 1928, the world-famous exploring airship Italia—code-named N-4—was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the Arctic ice, triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search for General Umberto Nobile and the crew was his former friend Roald Amundsen, the poles' greatest explorer, who himself disappeared and never returned. In telling the story of this controversial rescue, Mark Piesing also looks back to the perilous 1926 mission, in which Amundsen and Nobile joined forces to make the first trip over the North Pole.