SOUTH WITH BYRD

Taranaki Daily News, 18 November 1933, Page 3

SOUTH WITH BYRD

YOUNG DOCTOR’S EXPECTATION. EXPERIENCES IN 1930. Auckland Nov. 16. A New Zealander, who has already had a trip to the Antarctic, expects to have another shortly, and he is eagerly awaiting the arrival in New Zealand waters of Admiral % Richard Byrd’s second polar expedition. He is Dr. Hilton Wilcox, a member of the Auckland Hospital residential staff. “ A keen student of polar exploration from his youth. Dr. Wilcox, partly satisfied his desire to participate in an expedition in 1930. He was' then a medical student at Otago University, and like scores of other New Zealanders, applied for a trip on the City of New York when, Byrd’s ship returned to Dunedin for more coal toward the end of 1929. The City of New York was to await instructions to return to the Bay of Whales to pick up the explorer and his party when the flight over the Pole had been accomplished. The complement of the ship for the return voyage was settled about November, but it was not until the following January that she headed south from Port Chalmers. Dr. Wilcox had not then finished his course at the University, and his nautical experience was nil, but he signed up as an A. 8., and in that capacity experienced a voyage packed with hard work, thrills and adventure. ACCUMULATION OF ICE. , The City of New York had a trying experience in penetrating the ice-pack aind reaching the clearer waters of the Ross Sea. For three days she had to lie to in the lee of the pack to escape a heavy gale. Then she steamed on, only to encounter another terrific storm. The ship was continually awash. The weather turned to cold that the ice accumulated faster than the crew could chop it away, and toward the end 150 tons of ice massed on the ship. When the skipper, Captain Melville, was despairing of having to turn and run with the wind, Mount Erebus, on the polar barrier, was sighted. The ship had drifted several hundred miles to the westward, but was now able to ‘get under the lee of the barrier and make for her destination, Little America. On February 18 she' was sighted from the Bay of Whales, as Byrd himself described it "sheathed in frozen spray from stem to stem, like a phantom ship against the dim horizon of frost smoke.” The trip from Dunedin, a direct distance of 2300 miles had, owing to the battle with ice packs, storms and high seas, taken 44 days. VISIT TO NEWFOUNDLAND. . There was no respite when the base was reached, and all hands worked feverishly all night in getting the expedition ,and its equipment aboard, as it was imperative that the return journey be commenced immediately. Next morning the City of New York headed for New Zealand again,: and 19 days later reached Dimedin. Dr. Wilcox transferred to the other ship of the expedition, the’Eleanor Bolling, and went on to America with her. After a year at one of the hospitals established in Northern Newfoundland by Sir William Grenfell, he returned to New Zealand and completed his medical course. He has been a member , of the Auckland Hospital staff for twelve months. Though lie has not yet had definite advice of his being included in Admiral Byrd’s personnel for his pending visit to the polar wastes, Dr. Wilcox recently had a communication which raised his hopes. ■ Possibly the fact that he is now duly qualified will result in his. services being availed of in some capacity other than that of able seaman. The explorers’ two ships, Jacob Ruppert and Bear of Oakland, have cleared Panama, and are due at Dunedin toward the end of the month.