TRAGIC END TO POLAR QUEST

Southland Times, Issue 22998, 18 September 1936, Page 7

TRAGIC END TO POLAR QUEST

FAMED EXPLORER

DROWNED

SHIP SINKS IN STORM OFF ICELAND

ONE SURVIVOR OF 34 FRENCHMEN

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) Copenhagen, Sept. 17. Dr Jean Charcot, leader of the French Polar expedition on board the Pourquoi Pas? (Why Not?) and his crew were drowned, with one exception, when a storm sank the vessel on the coast off Iceland on which 30 bodies have been washed up. Dr Charcot sailed for Angmagsalik (Greenland) during the present summer to bring back to France Robert Gessai and Michal Perez who, with Paul Emile Victor, intended to cross Greenland by sleigh and carry out scientific investigations. Victor remained in Greenland. It is understood that Gessai and Perez were on board the Pourquoi Pas? The Pourquoi Pas? sailed from Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, on Tuesday night, and immediately encountered a fierce storm and was wrecked while apparently striving to return. Vessels going to the rescue found only the masts above the water. Aboard were Dr Charcot, seven French scientists and a crew of 26, all of whom were French. The only survivor, Eugene Gonedec, saved his life by clinging to a piece of wreckage on which he was washed ashore, unconscious, four miles from the wreck and after nearly five hours in the icy water. “The vessel ran aground at five o’clock in the morning,” said Gonedec, “and immediately sprang a leak. The engines stopped, and soon afterwards the boiler burst. Terrific seas broke over the decks, preventing the launching of lifeboats. I managed to swim ashore because I seized a piece of wreckage, but the others were either washed overboard or trapped.”

“MY LAST POLAR VOYAGE”

DR CHARCOTS STATEMENT.

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 1.10 a.m.) Paris, September 17. “This is my last Polar voyage,” said Dr Charcot on the eve of sailing. It is now established that Perez had not joined' the Pourquoi Pas? Instead he boarded a faster steamer for Copenhagen.

Dr Jean Baptiste Etienne Auguste Charcot, “the French Shackleton" was the son of Professor J. M. Charcot and was born at Neuilly, near Paris, in 1867. He was educated at the Ecole Alsacienne and received his medical training in the city hospitals. By 1890 he was attached to the Pasteur Institute and in 1896 was made chief de Clinique of the Medical Faculty of Paris. Meanwhile he began his Antarctic work by taking command of the expedition in the Francais which in 1904-05 explored the Palmer Archipelago. Three years later he set out southward again in command of the Pourquoi Pas? This vessel was one of the most perfectly equipped ever sent out for the purpose of Polar exploration. The work of the expedition, moreover, was carried out in a thoroughly scientific manner and yielded very valuable results. The coasts of Graham Land, Adelaide Island, Alexander Land and Deception Island were mapped. Oceanographical explorations were made, including soundings, the determination of surface and deep-sea soundings, deep-sea dredging and work with tow-nets and vertical nets. Meteorological observations were also taken systematically and valuable biological collections made. By June 1910, the members of the expedition were back in France and shortly afterwards Dr Charcot published an account of its experiences and achievements in his book “Le Pourquoi Pas? dans I’Antarctique” which with a book he had previously written on the Francais expedition made a very valuable contribution to Antarctic records. Dr Charcot then settled down for some years in a new appointment he received — that of Director of the Maritime Research Laboratory. But in 1926 he was back in Polar surroundings on a scientific expedition made under the auspices of the French Academy of Science to the Greenland seas, again in the Pourquoi Pas? In September 1928, he took the famous vessel northward once more to assist in the search for Amundsen and Captain Guilbaud. who had set out in the aeroplane Latham to look for the missing members of the crew of Nobile’s airship, the Italia. In addition to the books mentioned Dr Charcot wrote a number of medical and other works on subjects arising out of the activities of his life. He was a Commander of the Legion of Honour, and the French Society for the Encouragement of Progress awarded him its gold medal. The King of the Belgians made him a Commander of the Order of Leopold.