SIR HUBERT WILKINS: His World of Adventure

Lowell Thomas lets the late, famed Arctic explorer and world adventurer tell his story in his own words. It is a wise decision, for the story is so rich and exciting it needs little heightening and commentary. Wilkins, a South Australian who later, in 1931, became one of the first men to fly across the Arctic, had a life rivalling fiction. A stowaway to Africa, he was kidnapped by gun runners, later worked as a pioneer movie cameraman in the Balkan's War. His story then takes him to the Arctic with Stefansson, then into the heat of World War I as a military observer and photographer. His later adventures---world flight in the Graf Zeppelin, Arctic submarining and flying--keep up the pace. Wilkins, whose ashes were buried at the North Pole by the crew atomic submarine Skate in 1959, left a widow who adds notations and comments at the end of the story. The book creates the portrait of the adventuring kind of man who may soon vanish from the earth.