FUCHS ON WAY TO POLE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28471, 28 December 1957, Page 12

FUCHS ON WAY TO POLE

Party Going “Full Bore* LONDON, December 26. Dr. Vivien Fuch’s vehicle party has left South Ice “going fullbore” for the South t’ole, it was reported tonight from Shackleton Base. Squadron-Leader John Lewis, in a radio-telephone interview broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, said Dr. Fuchs left last night, and, provided he met no obstacles, hopes to reach the Pole in a fortnight or three weeks. Dr. Fuchs, leader of the Commonwealth Transantarctic Expedition, had hoped to reach the South Pole by Christmas and link up with Sir Edmund Hillary’s New Zealand party at Depot 700, on the other side of the Pole. But he was held up by blizzards and other hazards and only got away last night. Squadron-Leader Lewis said that two dog teams which left South Ice on Christmas Eve ahead of the vehicle party to reconnoitre were now about 50 miles ahead of the vehicles. Behind Schedule

Squadron-Leader Lewis said Dr. Fuchs was well aware that they were behind schedule but they were all confident of making up the time they had lost.

Squadron-Leader Lewis said that when he flew to South Ice on Sunday to meet Dr. Fuchs’s party on their arrival, he found them physically and mentally exhausted after their month-long journey up on to the polar plateau. But when he spoke to Dr Fuchs just before the party left for the Pole, it was clear they had completely recovered. Squadron Leader Lewis said the men ahead of the vehicles with the dog teams had reported That the surface for the route was good and they were quite certain the vehicles would make good time.

The men now reconnoitring ahead were certain that the vehicles would not experience the difficult conditions met on the heavily-ere vassed route to South Ice, he said. During their three days at South Ice, Dr. Fuchs’s men renamed vehicles and reloaded all the sledges. They took with them enough fuel for the vehicles and nemmican for the dogs, to enable them to reach Denot 700 on the other side of the Pole.

Extra Depot Howevef, in a recent exchange of messages, Dr. Fuchs asked Sir Edmund Hillary to put in one further denot nearer the Pole on the New Zealahd side. Squadron Leader Lewis said. Squadron Leader Lewis and the three other R.A.F members of the expedition plan to leave Shackleton for the last time tomorrow.

They will call at South Ice to refuel and. if the weather is favourable, will take off at once on a direct flight to Scott Base, the New Zealand party’s headquarters, 1200 miles away on the other side of the Antarctic.