RECKLESS ADVENTURE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 20, 5 November 1935, Page 6

RECKLESS ADVENTURE

DEATH ON MOUNT EVEREST With his notebook and, a roll of films beside him, a, daring young Englishman was recently found dead over 21,000 feet up Mount Everest. He was Captain Maurice Wilson, and it was in May last year that he waved farewell to three native porters who had accompanied him to Camp 3 and set out alone to attempt a feat which had proved beyond the powers of a highly-organised expedition. Though ordered to return, the porters waited 1 for him a month before sadly making their wav hack to civilisation. Captain Wilson had flown a Gipsy Moth to India in 1933, intending to land on the highest peak in the world and plant a Union Jack there. But the independent King of Nepal forbade him to fly over his State, so the airman sold his machine and resolved to try on foot. * Having trained himself to live on dates and cereals, he assumed the disguise of an Indian porter, and, engaging three natives to carry his food and equipment, made his way unchallenged up the slopes of Everest. His-body was found: by a party preparing the way for a new attempt to scale the mountain next year. They buried it reverently in a crevasse, and raised a, cairn as a memorial to this most heroic (if most reckless) adventurer;