EXPEDITION TO ANTARCTIC

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25161, 17 April 1947, Page 7

EXPEDITION TO ANTARCTIC

CO OPERATION OF R.A.F.

N.Z. REPRESENTATIVE ON RESEARCH COMMITTEE

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 16. Though the British Government has not yet indicated whether it will give financial support to the British-Norwegian-Swedish Antarctic expedition to the Norwegian territory of Queen Maud Land planned for the end of 1948, the Royal Air Force is preparing to co-operate and may send aircraft as well as technicians.

Squadron Leader J. F. Davis, of the Air Ministry’s Directorate of Navigation. with Mr L. P. Kirwan, director of the Royal Geographical Society, is going to Oslo shortly for discussions with the Norwegians. The particular interest of the Royal Air Force would be in such subjects as the behaviour of the compass near the South Pole, the operation of engines in low temperatures. and navigational problems. There is a probability that MajorGeneral Riiser-Larsen. who was second in command of the Ellsworth-Amund-sen expedition to the Arctic in 1925, may lead the expedition. Commander of the Norwegian Air Force in London during the war and now an official of Scandinavian Airlines, he will be released from his official duties to assist with the initial phases of the expedition, and it is hoped that he will eventually take charge. The name of the deputy-leader, who will be British, has not yet been mentioned.

Mr C. N. Watson-Munro, of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, is to represent the Dominion on the Antarctic Research Committee which is comprised of members of the Royal Geographical Society and the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge. The society has contributed £2OOO towards the expedition’s expenses. Mr Watson-Munro is at present attached to the Atomic Energy Research establishment at Harwell, near Didcot.