LOST ON EVEREST

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1935, Page 18 (Supplement)

LOST ON EVEREST

BODY FOUND 21,000 FEET UP. FATE OF DARING ADVENTURER. With his notebook and a roll of films beside him, a daring young Englishman has been found dead over 21,000 feet up Mount Everest. He was Captain Maurice Wilson, and it was in May last year that he waved farewell to three native porters who had accompanied him to camp 3 and set out alone to attempt a feat which had proved beyond the powers of a highlyorganised expedition. Though ordered to return, the porters waited for him a month before sadly making their way back to civilisation. Captain Wilson had flown a Gipsy Moth to India in 1933, intending to land on the highest peak in the world and plant a Union Jack there. But the independent King of Nepal forbade him to fly over his State, so the airman sold his machine and resolved to try on foot. Having trained himself to live on dates and cereals, he assumed the disguise of an Indian porter and, engaging three natives to carry his food and equipment, made his way unchallenged up the slopes of Everest. His body was found by a party preparing the way for a new attempt to scale the mountain next year. They buried it reverently in a crevasse, and raiseH a cairn as a memorial to this most heroic (if most reckless) adventurer.