Roald Amundsen

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (16 July 1872 – c. 18 June 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the Antarctic expedition of 1910–12 which was the first to reach the South Pole, on 14 December 1911. In 1926, he was the first expedition leader for the air expedition to the North Pole.

Amundsen is recognized as the first person, without dispute, as having reached both poles.He is also known as having the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage (1903–6) in the Arctic.

In June 1928, while taking part in a rescue mission for the Airship Italia, the plane he was in disappeared. Amundsen was during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration among key expedition leaders, in the class of Douglas Mawson, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton.

Roald Amundsen in The War That Came Early
When Staff Sgt. Alistair Walsh was trudging with his regiment through Norway in December 1939, he told a young Captain that he'd never been in anything like this blizzard. The Captain surmised that the last bugger who was in anything like their predicament was Robert Falcon Scott. He then amended this, remembering that Roald Amundsen was exploring Antarctica at the same time as Scott, and surmised that Amundsen, being Norwegian, survived because he was used to such weather.