Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain (53 page)

6 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, January 7, 1943.

7 HTP: War Diary, January 9, 1943.

8 HTP: War Diary, January 31, 1943.

9 See Pugh, “Physiological Commentary,” 1958–59, pp. 241–44.

10 Claude Gordon Douglas (1882–1963) studied medicine at Oxford and became a fellow and lecturer in Natural Science at Oxford, remaining there for the rest of his career. He became Professor of General Metabolism in 1942, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1922. His principal research interests were in respiratory physiology. J. S. Haldane (1860–1936) was his early mentor and remained a major influence throughout his life.

11 The 1910 expedition was led by another visionary physiologist, Nathan Zuntz.

12 See “Ski Wing Directive No. 1,” February 20, 1943, in PP 49.15.

13 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, March 3, 1943.

14 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, April 4, 1943.

15 HTP: Pugh was paid a small sum for his invention.

16 Riddell 1995.

17 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, February 14, 1943.

18 PP 24.15. See also War Office correspondence in file entitled “Equipment for Mountain Troops and Research on Mountain Warfare.” TNA: FD1/6471. General Godwin-Austen became Vice Quartermaster General, War Office, in 1944. Lieutenant General Alexander Hood was Director General of Army Services 1941–48.

19 “Mountain Warfare Training Centre Ski Wing Supplement No.2: Physiology of Military Skiing,” Winter 1942–44, PP 25.2.

20 A letter from Sir Alexander Hood to Sir Edward Mellanby, the head of the Medical Research Council, December 17, 1943, described Pugh as a “first class medical officer,” and praised his recommendations concerning the training and equipping of mountain troops, emphasizing that they had the blessings of the War Office (see TNA: FD1/6471).

21 Pugh’s unit, 140 Field Ambulance, was attached to the 44th Royal Tank Regiment, which was part of the Fourth Armoured Brigade.

22 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, July 24, 1943.

23 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, November 8, 1943.

24 HTP: “Mountain Warfare Training Centre Ski Wing: Final Report: Winter 1942/3,” p. 6.

25 Ibid., p. 7.

26 Pugh’s video interview with Milledge, December 23, 1992. British army officers as opposed to privates were much healthier and fitter, Pugh thought, not simply due to their better food and medical care but also to their basic fitness as a result of playing sports at their public schools. Before World War II there was very little scope for ordinary British people, who mostly left school at fourteen, to undertake sports of any kind. This problem was noticed and understood in the war and led to concerted efforts to provide decent facilities for sports at schools, and to bring sports to the wider population after the war.

27 Dill led the International High-Altitude Expedition to Chile of 1935—the last major scientific expedition to high altitude before World War II. See Register of Bruce Dill/Harvard Fatigue Laboratory Reprints, MSS 0517, Mandeville Special Collections Library, Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego, United States.

28 HTP: Letter, Pugh to his wife, November 8, 1943, and Letter, Lt. Col. Bruce Dill to Pugh, October 14, 1944, PP 7.5.

29 PP 9.32.

30 Letter, E. Arnold Carmichael to Sir Edward Mellanby, October 3, 1944, TNA FD1/6741. Also Mellanby’s signed note recording a conversation with Crew about Pugh, October 4, 1944, TNA:FD1/6471.

31 As Mussolini’s ally, Hitler came to the aid of the Italian offensive against Greece by invading Greece through Bulgaria on April 6, 1940. The German army seized Thessaloniki on April 9, entered Athens on April 27, and progressed into the Peloponnese shortly afterward. The German invasion of Greece was completed in only twenty-four days (see PP 49.13).

6.
Excess Baggage

1 Alexander Kellas (1868–1921) was the son of a minor business executive. Born in Aberdeen and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, he had spells at university in Edinburgh, London, and Heidelberg, after which he became a lecturer in chemistry at Middlesex Hospital Medical School—a job which seems to have allowed him plenty of spare time to develop a passion for the Himalayas (see West 1998, pp. 167–77).

2 Kellas’s paper was discovered at the RGS and subsequently published by the physiologist and expert on high-altitude medicine, Professor John West (see West 1987 and West 1998, pp. 167–77).

3 RGS/EE/62/63/64.Physiology.

4
The Times,
April 8, 1952.

5 Shipton 1953, p. 130. Shipton’s most ardent admirers were prepared to admit that he was singularly uninterested in the planning of expeditions. Tom Bourdillon described his typically relaxed behavior on the 1951 Everest Reconnaissance: “My respect for Shipton grows. He seems astonishingly casual, never quite sure about how many porters we have or where we are going for the day, but things work out smoothly. Mike [Ward] says the same thing happened in London. He wandered about utterly vague . . . and things turned out exactly as he wanted.” See Bourdillon diaries, AC D 103.

6 Hardie 2006, p. 93. Norman Hardie (b. 1924) is a New Zealand climber who spent some years living in London in the 1950s, and served briefly as secretary to the 1953 Everest expedition. Two years later, he led one of the summit pairs that succeeded in making the first ascent of Kanchenjunga.

7 RGS/EE/60.Correspondence on Planning and Equipment.

8 Cho Oyu Diary, March 27, 1952.

9 Ibid., March 31, 1952.

10
The Times,
May 10, 1952.

11 Ibid.

12 Evans 1953, p. 10.

13 Cho Oyu Diary, April 1, 1952.

14 Ibid., April 4, 1952.

15 Greene 1974, p. 138.

16 Ibid.

17 Cho Oyu Diary, April 6, 1952.

18 Ibid., April 12, 1952.

19 Ibid., April 5, 1952.

20 Ibid., April 23, 1952.

21 Ibid., April 12, 1952.

22 Ibid., April 7, 1952.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., April 13, 1952.

25 For instance, in 1935 Shipton thought nothing of sending four porters on a 48-mile “double march,” which they were expected to complete in a day, carrying loads (see Asthill 1935, p. 327).

26 Hunt 1953, p. 70.

27 See Pugh 1952, p. 13.

28 Cho Oyu Diary, April 17, 1952.

29 Ibid., April 19, 1952.

30 Ibid., April 18, 1952.

31 Jennifer Bourdillon kindly told me about her experiences on Cho Oyu in two taped interviews at her home in Southampton in February 2004 and July 2005.

32 Cho Oyu Diary, April 18, 1952.

7.
Miserable Failure

1 He made a diagram of a typical local house with animals on the ground floor and living quarters above, and described how leaf mold was collected in baskets to use as bedding for the animals. Some of the houses had lavatories consisting of a simple opening in the floor. After being in place for some time, the resulting compost was carried out in baskets, mostly by the women, and taken to the small fields, enclosed by stone walls, where it was distributed in neat heaps on the ground. It did not smell. The main local crop was potatoes, though maize and wheat were grown lower down. The villagers also kept yaks, goats, and chickens. Pugh decided that families probably went to bed after dark, as no lights were visible in the windows at night. There were no shops.

2 Shipton 1969, p. 207, and Shipton 1953, pp. 132–33.

3 Cho Oyu Diary, May 2, 1952.

4 Ibid., April 28, 1952.

5 Ibid.

6 Shipton behaved in the same way on the 1935 Everest expedition, which he led. The doctor, Charles Warren, wrote: “During the reconnaissance in 1935 we all suffered more or less severely with mountain sickness on reaching Tangu at 12,800 feet, and again 2 or 3 days later when crossing the Kongra La.” See Warren’s chapter in Ruttledge 1937. Even more striking are the anguished accounts in the diaries of individual members of the 1935 expedition (see Asthill 2005).

7 Warren 1939a, p. 108.

8 Young 1949, 7th ed., p. 6.

9 Steele 1998, pp. 234–35. Meanwhile, Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who got to the top of Everest in 1953, had long been conscious of the need to train for expeditions. In his autobiography he recalled: “As I had done for many years past, before big expeditions I got up early in the morning, filled a knapsack with stones, and took long walks up and down the hills round the town. I did not smoke or drink, and kept away from parties, which I usually enjoy” (Ullman 1955, p. 227).

10 Pugh 1952, p. 7. See also Evans 1953, p. 12, where Evans describes himself and Alf Gregory struggling to climb a “simple col” at 19,000 feet and envying the “easy movements” of their Sherpas up the same slope.

11 Hillary 1999, p. 88.

12 The most comprehensive account of this argument is given in Peter Steele’s biography of Eric Shipton. There is still more material in the unpublished notes of the interviews with most of the members of the expedition he did for the book, which are in the Alpine Club’s archives. See Steele 1998, pp. 170–72 and AC E 38.HP.

13 Hillary’s Cho Oyu Diary, June 9, 1952

14 The Jasamba Camp was at 18,753 ft. (5,716 m).

15 AC E 38 1: quoted by Peter Steele.

16 Hillary 1999, p. 90.

17 Evans 1953, p. 13.

18 Cho Oyu Diary, May 12, 1952.

19 Hillary 1975, p. 140.

20 RGS/EE/62/63/64.Oxygen.

21 Bourdillon 1956, p. 167.

22 Cho Oyu Diary, May 15, 1952.

23 Ibid., May 18, 1952.

24 Ibid.

25 See AC E.38 for Steele’s notes on his interviews with Lowe and others.

26 Cho Oyu Diary, May 19–20, 1952.

27 RGS/EE/75.Inclusion of a physiologist: Letter, September 24, 1952.

28 The height from bottom to top of the track, as measured by barometer, was between 280 and 285 feet.

29 This is the case when the oxygen is delivered at a standard rate, and any extra air needed is breathed in from the atmosphere. Another type of open-circuit mechanism adjusts the delivery rate of oxygen to the rate at which the climber is breathing, but makes it impossible to gauge with accuracy how long the oxygen will last.

30 Closed-circuit was also admired for preventing the loss of heat and moisture from the lungs.

31 Pugh was emphatic that the experiments with an oxygen bag could not strictly be compared with the experiments using proper open-circuit oxygen sets.

32 Short summer route used by Sherpas to reach Kathmandu from Tibet, involving glacier pass of 19,000 feet.

8.
An Infusion of Strong Blood

1 RGS/EE/90.Himalayan Committee correspondence.1952. Document headed “To the Himalayan Committee,” signed by E. E. Shipton, June 8. 1952.

2 Alf Gregory, who had also come home, was at the meeting too.

3 See, for example, AC P5 (3) Lloyd papers, Blakeney’s “Memo on the Everest Expedition Leadership for 1953” of November 1967.

4 AC P5 (3)Lloyd Papers. These contain full accounts of the meeting written by several different members of the committee and various other documents, including Secord’s note to the committee. The minutes of the meeting—RGS/EE/99—offer a heavily edited version of events.

5 He had learned this from the Swiss when he met them at Kathmandu on the way home.

6 “Valuable opportunities for systematic research were lost,” Pugh was reported to have said, rather woodenly, “because the party had not been briefed properly beforehand,” and “had no inclination to undertake systematic work.”

7 Steele 1998, p. 190. Telegram sent by Kirwan RGS/EE/68.

8 See, for example, “Everest Inviolate,”
The Times,
July 25, 1952. Later Andre Roche would tell the Alpine Club, “The success of the final assault will depend entirely on making it possible to breathe in an atmosphere which will permit climbers to exert normal efforts . . . The oxygen outfit we were given may be excellent for aviators, but it was not good enough for a climber who has to make a considerable effort” (Roche 1953, from a paper given in January 1953).

9 Besides Basil Goodfellow, Laurence Kirwan, and Peter Lloyd, the committee at this point comprised: chairman, Claude Elliott, Provost of Eton; Clarmont Skrine, a former consul general in Kashgar; Donald Lowndes, ex-colonel in the Garhwal Rifles and Himalayan plant hunter; James Wordie, polar explorer and president of the RGS; Harry Tobin, colonel in the Bombay Pioneers and co-founder of the Himalayan Club; Laurence Wager, Oxford geology professor who was with Lloyd on Everest in 1938; and R. W. Lloyd, the treasurer. The minutes of the HC meeting of 4 July (RGS/EE/99) show that, on the basis that Shipton might not be fit enough to take on the 1953 leadership, the committee discussed alternative leaders, including three army officers, John Hunt, Charles Wylie, and Major Roberts.

10 FD1/9042: Letter, July 11, 1952.

11 Ibid. Kirwan wrote to Sir Henry Dale, head of the Royal Society’s “Medical Research Committee.” On July 14, 1952, Martin, the secretary of the Royal Society, followed up with a letter to Sir Charles Harington (head of the MRC’s NIMR), enclosing a copy of Kirwan’s letter and affirming that “our support of this experiment seems to have been very much worthwhile . . .” NIMR. DO2 MRC Himalayan Expeditions.1952–3 (Dr. L. G. Pugh): Letter, Kirwan to Sir Henry Dale, July 11, 1952 (see also Royal Society Archive 027 RS HD/6/2/9/2/14).

12 RGS/EE/75.HAC.

13 Ibid.: The following extract from a letter Kirwan wrote to Pugh shows how he worked: “Dear Pugh . . . I sent a copy of my brief for Cherwell to Martin at the RS who passed it to Sir David Brunt who spoke to Sir James Barnes Perm. Sec. to the Air Ministry who took it up with the Director of Hygiene, Air Commodore PB Lee Potter. The Air Ministry seem anxious to help and I have arranged meeting for July 31st. Matthews will lead. PS: Will you please let me know as soon as you can when you will find it convenient to go over to Switzerland to discuss the equipment and oxygen problems with the Swiss” (written July 29, 1952, RGS/75/HAC.Oxygen subcommittee).

14 RGS/EE/75.Inclusion of Physiologist, Himsworth to Kirwan, July 15, 1952; and RGS/EE/62/63/64.Correspondence with Mr. Goodfellow: Letter, Kirwan to Goodfellow, July 16, 1952.