RECORD SLEDGE JOURNEY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21324, 17 November 1934, Page 19

RECORD SLEDGE JOURNEY

BRITISH PARTY'S FEAT 1100 MILES ACROSS GREENLAND (■boh oub otnr cobbespondent.) LONDON, October 9. The three men' who left Great Britain on April 7 to cross by sledge the 1100 miles Greenland ice cap from west to east have arrived-back in England, their task accomplished. The members of the expedition are Lieutenant Martin Lindsay, aged 28, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, a member of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition led by Mr H. G. Watkins in 1930-31, and holder of the King's Polar Medal; Lieutenant A. S. Godfrey, aged 24, of the Royal Engineers; and Mr Andrew Croft, aged 25, son of the Rev. R. W. Croft, vicar of Kelvedon, Essex. When they started the sledge journey on June 29 they knew that once they had crossed the ice cap there would be no coming back, for by then they would have had insufficient food to return. This is the longest sledging journey ever made by a self-supporting party without food depots along the route. Some anxiety had been felt for their saefty, as severe weather had delayed their arrival at Angmagsalik until September 8, and they had missed the regular steamer to Denmark. They got in touch by wireless with the Jacinth, which was fishing about 10 miles off the Greenland coast, and thus avoided an enforced winter in Greenland. Departure Just in Time "The Jacinth picked us up at Angmagsalik on September 15," said Mr Lindsay in an interview at Aberdeen. "Had it been four days later we should have had to remain there till next year, as the ice pack has formed two months earlier than usual this year. "The expedition did what it set out to do. It has made the longest sledge journey which has ever been done by a self-supporting party. We covered between 1150 and 1200 miles, of which 1050 were done without depots and without anybody's help. "We started from Jacobshaven, on the west coast, on June 10, with three sledges and 42 dogs, and 450 miles of our journey was over continuous ice. From the time we left the coast settlements on the west until we came to the settlements on the other side, we met no one."