MULGREW STAYS AT POLE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28478, 7 January 1958, Page 8

MULGREW STAYS AT POLE

Radio Link For Dr. Fuchs

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SCOTT BASE, Jan. 6.

Chief Radio Electrician Peter Mulgrew has stayed at the South Pole to provide an essential radio link for Dr. Vivian Fuchs and his team.

The British traverse party has no reliable means of passing its messages beyond the continent except through American channels, and these are heavily engaged on their own work. Since Dr. Fuchs’s rearward base at Shackleton was closed on the departure of the Royal Air Force group, no British information has been going out through the Falkland Islands. Mulgrew, therefore, is still at the Pole to “work” Dr. Fuchs’s party daily through the radio equipment taken to the Pole in the New Zealanders’ caboose. This gives an independent service which relieves pressure to that extent on the American Pole station radio.

It is now expected that daily and up-to-date reports of Dr. Fuchs’s position and progress can be compiled. They will be sent out through Scott Base radio.

Congratulations From Navy

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 6.

The Navy Office in Wellington has sent a congratulatory message to Chief Radio Electrician Peter Mulgrew, Sir Edmund Hillary’s radio operator, at the South Pole.

The message reads: “The Royal New Zealand Navy has watched your difficult trek with close interest and we are all delighted you have given the Navy a proud record of participation in both successful British journeys to the South Pole. Congratulations.” Both Captain Scott, leader of the first British party to reach, the Pole, and Petty Officer Evans, a fhember of his party, were members of the British Navy.