Publication at Catholic Theological Faculty |
2013
Abstract
In 1928 the ill-fated Italia airship expedition gained world-wide notoriety and dominated newspapers' front pages for weeks. The Czechoslovak press was no exeption – One of the sixteen men who went missing was the Czech radiologist František Běhounek.
Behounek remained stranded on an ice flow for seven weeks and became almost a national hero. The expedition leader General Umberto Nobile was, in contrast, labeled as an incompetent coward for allowing himself to be rescued first.
Ironically enough, the two men were on good terms and Behounek later became Nobile's most prominet defender.