New Zealand Mechanic Returns From The Pole

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28491, 22 January 1958, Page 10

New Zealand Mechanic Returns From The Pole

Mr Jim Bates, the mechanic in Sir Edmund Hillary’s five-man team which reached the South Pole last month, arrived in Lyttelton yesterday in the American ship, Private John R. Towle, which berthed at 11.20 a.m., after a series of plateshuddering attempts.

To meet Mr Bates, the first of the New Zealand Polar party to come home, were his wife, the secretary of the Ross Sea Committee (Mr A. S. Helm), newspaper reporters, radio commentators and photographers.

“I have no desire to stay on board now;, the Antarctic programme for me is almost over,” said the Morrinsville mechanic who was responsible, with Mr Murray Ellis, for keeping the adapted farm tractors churning through the snow to the South-Pole.

Among Mr Bates’s luggage was a pair of skis which he used on much of the polar trek. Leaning over the rail of the ship as it neared the oil wharf, waving to his wife—who at first was not permitted to enter the gates to meet her husband, who has been' in the Antarctic foi almost 15 months—Jim Bates looked tanned and fit. He was wearing a pair of army battledress trousers and a gay, tartan shirt, which he later said was all he often wore while in the Antarctic sun.

. One of the first persons to board the vessel when it was cleared was Mr Helm, who talked with Mr Bates. Earlier, he had asked reporters not to dwell oh the fact that Mr Bates had refused to remain at the South Pole, as requested by Dr. Vivian Fuchs, to give mechanical assistance.

Job Completed When told of the remarks of the Prime Minister (Mr Nash), replying to reporters’ questions, that disciplinary action for his refusal to stay at the Pole would not be justified, Mr Bates said: “I flatly refused to stay on at the Pole. I felt I had done my job, and that was that. I did not interest myself in Dr. Fuchs’s plans. “As for any thinking about disciplining me—w.ell, our outfit just isn’t like that.” He confirmed that Mr Ellis, the other mechanic, would stay on to assist Dr. Fuchs. When Mr Bates was asked why he had returned ahead of the remainder of the party, Mr Helm intervened and said: “Scott Base is getting crowded with I.G.Y. peopie.” As soon as Mr Bates’s luggage was collected, he was taken by car to Christchurch, where he talked with reporters about the New Zealand party’s achievements. Although obviously resolved not to discuss the chances of success of the continued trek of Dr. Fuchs’s party, Mr Bates said that the last 60 miles of the New Zea landers’ trek to the Pole was on a “great downhill sort of slope with fairly steep grades every 10 miles or so, like great steps across the snow.” Dr. Fuchs, he said, would have to “climb up out of this grade on his trek,”.and that would be much harder than the passage into the Pole. Had extensive work not been done on the tractors during the Antarctic winter, the arrival at the South Pole probably would not have been achieved, he continued. For most of the journey across the snow the expedition hardly knew it was moving. Sitting in the specially-designed caboose (*‘a rugged little hut built on wheels”) which had four bunks inside it, the movement often was not noticeable. “But at other times, when we moved across rough snow and ice, it was like being bashed about in a ship at sea in a gale,” he added. The New Zealand party did not know on January 3 that it was still about 12 miles from the Pole when it radioed Scott Base to say it was two miles away. “Dead-beat” “It’s no picnic driving a tractor for 60 miles, and we were deadbeat,” Mr Bates said. “We camped, and it was not until the next day, Saturday, that we radioed the Americans saying we were two miles or so away. We mistook radar, reflection flags for airstrip markers. The Americans put us right and we moved on. “It was a wonderful arrival. People came out to meet us after they had been watching us for the last 10 miles of the trek. The journalists were wonderfully decent.”

The report of the arrival of the party at a point two miles from the South Pole had been “jacked

up by Doug McKenzie back at Scott Base” after the station there had received the news flash, he said. Mr Bates did not think that journalists were asleep while the party camped out in the snow 12 miles from the Pole. Discussing the tractors, Mr Bates said they had been untried vehicles. Those that had been used in training were not used on the trek to the Pole. “We found them simple, and reliable,” he said; “The weasels were a completely unreliable means of transport. “The tractors had their teething troubles, but we soon had them well trimmed,” he said. “There can never be any doubt that these little tractors were the keynote of our success.” Of the weather, Mr Bates said: “The sun shone for 24 hours,* and although it was often 10 below, or 42 degrees of frost, the reflected sun from the snow and the dark clothing absorbing the sun’s rays, meant that one could almost say it was warm. Important Work “Far more important things than our trek are going on in the Antarctic,” Mr Bates continued. “Bob Miller and George Marsh are doing wonderful work. New valleys and mountain ranges have been found, and some extremely important seismic work is being done.” Mr Bates was anxious to buy some clothes yesterday, and after a hurried lunch in the city he shopped in his army trousers and flannel shirt. Completely outfitted. he left the city shortly after 4 p.m. to fly to Wellington, where he and his wife spent the night at the home of Mr Helm. He will leave this morning for Morrinsville. , For the Bates’s, today will be a day to remember. The main street in the town will be closed and the local hero will be driven through the street after a fullscale reception at which the local band will add to the welcome. But more important will be Mr Bates’s first meeting with his second child, a daughter, who was born shortly after he left for the Antarctic.

“It will be Jim Bates’s day at Morrinsville tomorrow,” said MiHelm.