North Pole 1949 two other Soviet scientists (Vitali Volovich and Andrei Medvedev) became the first people to parachute onto the North Pole. They jumped from a Douglas C-47 Skytrain, registered CCCP H-369. On 3 May 1952 U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict, along with scientist Albert P. Crary, landed a modified Douglas C-47 Skytrain at the North Pole. Some Western sources considered this to be the first landing at the Pole until the Soviet landings became widely known. The United States Navy submarine "USS Nautilus" (SSN-571) crossed the North Pole on 3 August 1958. On
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Wilkins. Calvert wrote the book "Surface at the Pole" about this and the other Arctic missions of USS "Skate." The film "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" begins with "Seaview" in the Arctic for the final phase of her sea trials, including a dive under the ice cap. Two milestones in underwater exploration were achieved in 1960, the year before "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" was released. On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh (USN), in the bathyscaphe "Trieste", made the first descent to the bottom of the Challenger Deep. The Challenger Deep is