Fellow expediton member Geoffrey Lee Martin tells of a daring jaunt.
KEY POINTS:
Sir Edmund called it "a jaunt" when recounting his decision to dash 400 miles, "hellbent for the South Pole - God willing and crevasses permitting" on Boxing Day, 1957, rather than wait around, 9400 feet up on the Polar Plateau for the British party led by Dr (later Sir) Vivian Fuchs.
Fuchs was attempting to cross the continent for the first time - 50 years after Sir Ernest Shackleton had spectacularly failed - but was running badly behind schedule.
This was the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and Hillary's principal task was to lay depots of fuel, food and other essential equipment toward the South Pole, which Fuchs would cross. The two parties were meant to meet at the last depot, 700 miles from McMurdo Sound, where we had built New Zealand's Scott Base the previous summer, but still 500 miles from the Pole.
As it turned out, with Vivian Fuchs more than 1200 miles distant from Hillary and still experiencing trouble, the "jaunt" was anything but a stroll in the snow.
The New Zealand party's modified Fergusson farm tractors had experienced very difficult deep snow and treacherous crevasses while approaching Depot 700 so Hillary decided to venture another 100 miles or so toward the South Pole, to find a safer route for Fuchs.
Radio contact was extremely unreliable, forcing Hillary and Fuchs to "converse" in Morse code relayed by five separate transmissions - usually over several days - through their Antarctic bases, then London and Wellington. Inevitably, this began to cause mix-ups, with replies received to messages that were, in the sender's belief, already superceded.
Hillary had sent a message to Fuchs while at Depot 700 offering to "scrub the southward jaunt" if Fuchs thought the New Zealanders could be of better use elsewhere, but received a message: "Okay, go ahead". So he pushed on.
But, back in New Zealand, the Ross Sea Committee (which technically controlled Hillary's expedition) felt there was an understanding that Fuchs should "get to the Pole first" and instructed him not to proceed past Depot 700.
Hillary told me later he "seemed to mislay some scraps of paper with messages on them". Quite typically, he also wrote testily in his memoirs: "If an explorer in the field always waited for permission from his committee back home, then nothing would get done, or it would be done too late".
Then, out of the blue in London, officials declared there was no race for the Pole - before anyone seriously suggested there was. The listening media ears twitched - and immediately an international controversy blew up: was Hillary attempting to steal Fuchs' glory?
On the Polar Plateau - unaware of the heated comments in the world media - Hillary was "hellbent" but the going became very tough as the party slogged to 10,800 feet in heavy snow while trying to avoid two large areas of crevasses.
Then, with only 60 miles to go, the deep snow almost defeated Hillary. They dumped one and a half tonnes of everything not vitally needed - including emergency equipment - as the Fergussons struggled.
Thankfully, three days later, January 4, they saw the large dome of the South Pole station and the occupants coming out to meet them. They had only a few gallons of fuel left.
Admiral George Dufek, commander of the United States Operation Deep Freeze that built the station the previous year, had promised to fly Hillary and team back to McMurdo Sound in exchange for the tractors, and the offer was gladly taken.
A fortnight later, on January 18, I flew with Dufek, Hillary and a small entourage, back to the South Pole to meet Vivian Fuchs on January 20, 1958. With the "race for the Pole" controversy still raging, how would the two men greet each other? Hillary looked wan: he had lost 15 kilograms and he seemed nervous as Fuchs swung down from the leading Sno-cat but their greeting was hearty, and matter of fact, as I reported in The Telegraph.
"Hullo Bunny," said Hillary. "Damned glad to see you Ed," replied Fuchs as they shook hands. And later they made it clear there had been no "race".
We flew back to McMurdo the next day ...
On February 7, Ed flew back to Depot 700 to join Fuchs party and lead them through the several hundred miles of crevassed areas without difficulty and eventually to Scott Base, which was reached on March 2. It was almost an anticlimax.
* From Hellbent for the Pole (Random House New Zealand).
