ATTACK ON EVEREST

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 19621, 31 January 1936, Page 4

ATTACK ON EVEREST

TWELVE CLIMBERS CHOSEN. THIS YEAR’S EXPEDITION. The Mount Everest Committee has completed its task of selecting the party which is to attempt the ascent of Mount Everest this year. Mr. Hugh Ruttledge, the leader, explains that the party of 12 is the strongest that could be got together for the purpose. Of the 12, nine have already been to Mount Everest, 10 are known to be capable of climbing to at least 23,000 feet, and eight are expected to be capable of going very high. The party hhs been limited to 12 to reduce the has been limited to 12 to reduce the to simplify the problems of control. The members will be: Mr. Hugh Ruttledge, leader, as in 1933; Mr. F. S. Smythe, who will be making his fourth expedition to the Himalayas; Mr. E. E. Shipton, a member of the 1933 expedition, and famous for his successful exploration last year, when he and Mr. Tilman were the first to penetrate the great glacier basin of Nanda Devi; Mr. p. Wyn Harris, of the Kenya Civil Service; Mr. E. G. H. Kempson, a master at Marlborough College; Dr. C. B. Warren, formerly of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London; Mr. F. H. L. Wigram, a medical student of St. Thomas’ Hospital, London; Lieut. J. M. L. Gavin, of the Royal Engineers; Lieut. P. R. Oliver, of the South Waziristan Scouts, who first made a name by taking a small expedition of his own into the Himalayas in 1933; Major C. J. Morris, late 23rd Gurkha Rifles; Dr. Noel Humphreys, who recently returned after leading the expedition to Ellesmere Land; and Lieut. W. R. Smith-Windham, of the Royal Corps of Signals, one of the two wireless officers who accompanied the 1933 expedition.

This is the fifth expedition to go out, and Mr. Ruttledge states that, with each successive effort, the difficulty of the selection of personnel has, perhaps, been more plainly realised. In 1933, the party numbered 16. This, it is stated, was found to be too unwieldy. Only two of the present party have never been to the Himalayas.