ATTACK ON EVEREST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22413, 8 May 1936, Page 18

ATTACK ON EVEREST

SPLENDID TEAM SELECTED HOW THE MEN WERE TESTED LEADER EXPRESSES GREAT CONFIDENCE This is the first of a series of copyright articles which the Herald will publish at intervals as the attack on Everest progresses. They are being written, from the field of action, by Mr. Hugh Ruttledge, leader of the expedition, who is making his eighth trip to the Himalayas. To-day Mr. Ruttledge deals with the difficulties presented in selecting members for the party, bearing in mind the demands which- such climbing makes upon a man. He emphasises the necessity to possess a capacity to acclimatise and tells of strange things men do when suffering from "high-altitude deterioration." A cable message published last Wednesday stated that the entire party had reached Camp 1, on the Rongbuk Glacier, fit and well. It was estimated that after Camp 2 had been stocked, an assault would be made on the North Col about May 1 7.

TASK FOR LEADER

Aware of all this, the Mount Everest Committee decided last year, when the Tibetan Government renewed their permission, to split up our next effort into two parts. The first was to comprise an immediate preliminary reconnaissance under Mr. Shipton, one of whose objects would be the trial, under service conditions as it were, of several new men. The second part was to be the fully organised attempt upon which we have now embarked.

CLAIMS FOE INCLUSION SELECTION DIFFICULTIES MANY NOTED MOUNTAINEERS DARJEELING, March 31 The selection of the personnel of an expedition to Mount Everest is a task which has to be tackled mainly by the leader, for the Mount Everest Committee accepts the principle that the man responsible for the party should chooso it.

By September the first portion of the scheme had been carried out, with interesting and useful results. All the five men taken were good mountaineers and good travellers, but only three were found to possess that essential but unpredictable asset, the capacity to acclimatise. They were Mr. Kempson, of Marlborough College, Dr. Warern, late of Bart.'s, and Mr. Wigram, of Bt. Thomas' Hospital. Trials in the Alps

In this matter his lot is not a happy one. He has to consider all the good mountaineers, whose claims are often more sedulously pressed by their friends than by theLiselves, and to endure the attentions of enthusiastic adventurers who appear to possess every desirable asset save an acquaintance with mountains and are unaware that proficiency in other sports is irrelevant. He must set aside all personal prodelictions, and must study candidates from many points of view, remembering that mountaineering ability is but one of several essentials.

Meanwhile we had not been idle at home. It is not easy to find young men who are in a position to snend two seasons running in the Himalaya; the next best thing was to apply what tests were possible in the Alps. So Mr. Smythe conducted a campaign in the Zermatt region with a fairly large party, who had previously climbed elsewhere with a single companion. On his return he recommended for consideration Messrs. Lloyd, Bicknell, Secord, Major Alclous and Mr. Gavin of the Royal Engineers, and Mr. Oliver of the South Waziristan Scouts.

Fortunately he need not —indeed he should'not —pursue his researches alone. There will be some members of a previous expedition lit and and able to go again. With their re-enlistment the nucleus of the party —three or four men, it may be —is already in being, and the labours of creation are lightened by being shared. Development of Specialists Every attempt is made to find men who have climbed much together and know each other well; and ultimately the leader may hope to present for the committee's approval a team homogeneous and inherently stable. Like' other sports, mountaineering has in comparatively recent times tended to develop specialists, and the "general practitioner" is perhaps not so often found as he used to be.

Then Mr. Hunt, of the 60th Rifles, came home from India, having shortly before put up a very fine performance in the Karakoram Himalaya, where he reached a height about 24,500 ft. In addition there were available Major Morris, of the 2/'3rd Gurkha Rifles, who was second transport officer on the expedition of 1922; Mr. Wvn Harris, who did so well in 1933; Mr. Smijth-Windham, Royal Corps of Signals, one of our wireless officers in that year; and Dr. Humphreys, just back from the Ellesmere Land Expedition. Size of the Party

Naturally the right size of the party was a matter most carefully discussed, both with the old hands who were coming again and with the committee. In 1933 we were 16. So large a party is undoubtedly cumbersome and brings about much transport and porter difficulty.

Specialisation has, of course, resulted in a great advance of technique; rock climbs are now done which would have been considered impossible some years "ago; formidable ice-slopes have yielded to new methods; the countless moods of snow have been studied and almost tabulated. v

On the other hand, you must have reserves in case of illness or other breakdown; and a very small party, so efficient and easily handled when all goes well, is gambling too much on its luck when Everest is the objective. The upshot was that we decided on a party of twelve.

This has to a great extent been the work of men who devoted themselves to one or two aspects of the sport, to the comparative neglect of others. Hence the apparent anomaly that a climber who can lead, for instance, an Alpine rock climb of extreme difficulty is not necessarily suitable for inclusion in an Everest party, since a big Himalayan peak calls for good all-round performance rather than outstanding ability in one particular.

I had now to make a final choice of 12 men—a difficult thing to do, where all were so good. My method was to consult Smythe, Shipton and other mountaineering friends first, discussing each man from every possible point of

Many other considerations come into play. Except by mischance, few climbs in the Alps require more than one day for their accomplishment; none take the climber to altitudes where oxygen-lack is seriously felt, and none offer the actions and reactions incidental to life in a large party which has to march 350 miles across the Tibetan plateau to its base camp and then spend about two months under great strain, sharing confined quarters and climbing at altitudes where the smallest effort causes distress.

view. I then made up my own mind and offered my proposals to the committee, which considered and then accepted them.

1 think it can be claimed that this year's expedition starts with exceptional initial advantages in respect of homogeneity and of Himalayan experience. Of the eight men who are presumed to be potentially capable of reaching the summit there is not one who has not climbed with a proportion of the rest; and six have been to Everest before—a factor, to my mind, of great psychological importance, for they know what to expect and how to prepare for it. A seventh (Oliver) climbed Trisul, in the Kumaun Himalaya, in 1933, showing great enterprise and power of quick acclimatisation.

It is f indeed difficult to explain these conditions to people who have never experienced anything of the kind and have therefore no standards of comparison. It is difficult to describe how, for instance, the simple act of pulling on one's boots .may induce breathlessneys for several minutes; how a normally even-tempered man may find himself a prey to uncontrollable irritability in the presence of a comrade innocent of offence; how an habitually hard worker may be, at times, utterly unable to resist the temptation to sit about and let other do his job. It is difficult to explain how strength, courage, resolution, concentration —even the very objective itself—may be temporarily blotted out by that dreaded malady, high-altitude deterioration. The One Real Test Perhaps this abbreviated catalogue of difficulties will give some idea of the problem involved in the selection of a party. Plenty of good mountaineers are to lie found in our country, and it goes without saying that every candidate means to give of his best; but neither ho nor his inquisitors can foresee clearly his reactions to exotic conditions which do not exist among our hills, or on the Continent, or in the bowels of decompression chambers. The one real test is the Himalaya.

Gavin is going out for the first time. He is only 24, but is a good mountaineer, and his report from the Royal Air Force Medical Board placed him in a class by himself as regards physical fitness.

It may be added that Shipton is now going on his fifth Himalayan expedition, and Smythe on his fourth; Ujese two and Wyn Harris have already been very high on the mountain. Of what may be called the operation staff, Morris was on Everest in 1922 and reached the North Col, as did Smijth-Windham, who achieved this feat in 1933 without any previous mountaineering experience. Dr. Humphreys has not been in the Himalaya before, but if a tougher man exists I have yet to meet him. When I survey the individual records of this party I confess to a feeling of optimism. They have the qualities and the experience necessary for success, and have given many proofs. It may be of some interest that eight have been at Cambridge and four are soldiers, and that their ages vary from 24 to 52.