History Book: Trapped in ice

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, June 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Twenty three years ago two criminals attempt a daring getaway in a delivery van.

But first, nearly 150 years ago, explorers set sail to plant the American flag in Arctic soil for the first time. But the mission fails when they discover they’ve been misled by a popular myth, WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: On June 13th, 1881, the USS Jeannette creaks and shudders. Sealed in the frigid ice packs of the Arctic Ocean, the ship is about to collapse. Voice actor Kim Rasmussen reads what a crewman later wrote:

KIM RASMUSSEN: Each successive shock … resounded with awful distinctness upon her sides like death strokes.

The Jeannette has been making little progress for more than a year. Sometimes the ship is stuck in ice, and other times, drifting among the ice caps. Its captain, George De Long, dreams of being the first explorer to reach the North Pole. He’s a large, broad-shouldered man convinced he can prove what many scientists theorize: that there’s open sea around the North Pole making it easy access for ships.

Many believe that the “Open Polar Sea” is real but nobody actually knows the truth. The men who had gone on expeditions before De Long had all failed to reach their goal.

De Long still has hope the Jeannette might pull through. A few days earlier, the ship broke free of the melting winter ice and slid back into the water. The captain and crew cheered at the turn of events. He declared:

RASMUSSEN: The crucial moment in our voyage is at hand!

But that hope fades fast. Soon, sheets of floating ice pound against the ship with deadly force. Then the ice bursts through the hold, and cold water pours in. Metal and wood groan and splinter under the pressure.

De Long stands on the bridge, puffing on a meerschaum pipe. There isn’t much time left.

RASMUSSEN: Abandon ship! Abandon ship!

As everyone grabs belongings and escapes to the Arctic floes, De Long glances back at the collapsing vessel. It’s completely horizontal, sucked into the depths below. He writes in his journal:

RASMUSSEN: It will be hard to be known hereafter as a man who undertook a Polar expedition and sunk his ship at the 77th parallel … I fancy it would have made but little difference if I had gone down with my ship.

Now, the men are at the mercy of the tundra. They’re almost a thousand miles from the nearest land mass—the Arctic coast of Siberia. They have sleds, sled dogs, and three small boats. But they have only 60 days’ worth of food and water. Time is of the essence.

Months of struggling only brings them a fraction closer to escape or rescue. Desperate for food, they hunt seals and polar bears. Some of the men fall dangerously ill. De Long plows onward, keeping the men in line. He’s as much the captain on land as he was at sea.

Eventually, the crew splits into three parties. One perishes while taking an ocean route in one of the boats, but another makes it back to a Russian village. The last one, headed by De Long, is lost inland.

Sensing they might not make it out, De Long sends two men ahead to find help. But before they get back, the crew succumbs to the harsh weather. De Long’s final journal entry reads:

RASMUSSEN: October 30th, Sunday. One hundred and fortieth day. Boyd and Görtz died during the night. Mr Collins dying.

Of the 33 men, only 13 return. During their harrowing journey, De Long and his crew discovered three islands in an archipelago. They’re named De Long Islands in his honor. The disastrous expedition ended the theory of the Open Polar Sea.

Next, a polar opposite story, from frost to frosting.

Over the years there have been a handful of so-called “donut heists…”

On February 11th of this year a 32-year-old Indianapolis woman stole a Krispy Kreme delivery truck when its driver pulled up to one of his stops. But as she sped off, the truck’s door swung open. Leaving baker’s dozens covering the road.

Body cam footage afterward shows an officer cleaning up the street donuts by the box. If you listen closely you can hear one officer admit how good the donuts look, even on the street:

POLICE: You guys just helping out? These bad boys do look delicious though…

The woman was caught 11 miles later and charged with auto theft and possession of paraphernalia.

In late 2023 an Australian woman tried the same stunt, making off with 10,000 Krispy Kreme donuts when the unsuspecting driver stopped at a filling station.

NEWSCAST CLIP: This CCTV footage showing a woman stealing a van from a petrol station…

But the doors stayed shut. So, without the donut crumb trail, it took police two weeks to apprehend the woman. Most of the donuts were recovered but the evidence had to be destroyed as they had gone stale.

But one of the earliest Krispy Kreme donut truck thefts happened on March 27th, 2002 in Slidell, Louisiana.

At 3:30 in the morning, two men car-jacked a Krispy Kreme delivery van. Like the copycat crimes that followed, the driver had stopped to make a delivery but kept the truck running while entering the store. When he came back out, the van was gone.

The police quickly responded…leading to a 15-mile, high speed chase. Doughnuts spilled from the vehicle, sprinkling the road as they drove. Eventually they abandoned the van and the joy riding driver got away. It began a two month-long manhunt. Police knew the man liked donuts and kept an eye out for him at the local shops.

The search came to an end on June 10th, 2002, when the 21-year old attempted to flee from sheriff deputies—driving intentionally into a patrol car. He was eventually charged with auto theft, resisting arrest by flight, and attempted murder of a police officer.

Afterward, one of the Slidell police joked, “We’re glad he’s off the streets, but this unfortunately means we’re going to have to stop staking out all the local doughnut shops looking for him.”

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Emma Eicher. 

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