LONE-HANDED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20360, 18 July 1934, Page 1

LONE-HANDED.

Man’s Attempt to Conquer Everest. ASTONISHING STORY. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received July 18, 12.30 p.m.) CALCUTTA, July 17. An astonishing story of a man’s atteitipt to climb Mount Everest alone is reported from Darjeeling. He is Maurice Wilson, an ex-Army captain and a member of the London Aero Club, aged 38, who gained prominence in June, 1933, when he arrived in India in a second-hand Moth with the avowed intention of flying to Everest, landing somewhere on the mountainside and placing the Union Jack on the summit. He was warned not to fly over Nepal under pain of arrest and a heavy penalty. Wilson sold his plane, but expressed a grim determination to conquer Everest alone on foot. Wilson, who weeks later disappeared, recently was discovered at Darjeeling preparing for his venture.

It appears that he secretly recruited porters with whom, himself disguised as a porter, he suddenly evaded official surveillance and set off along the Ruttledge Expedition’s route to Everest. Arriving at the frontier Wilson sent the porters back and proceeded alone. No further news of him has been received. TRAGEDY ON MOUNTAIN. German Climbers Lost in Himalayas. CALCUTTA, July 17. Nanga Parbat, known to the hill tribes as “ the Naked Lady,” one of the giants of the Western Himalayas, it is feared, has claimed several victims from among the German mountaineering expedition, says the Calcutta “ Statesman-'” Herr Merkl, the leader, and Wieland, Welzenbach, Bernard, Muelritter, Aschnbrunner and Schneider, with several Indian porters, are missing. Two porters died in the terrible blizzard which has been raging on the mountain for several days. News that has just been received from Astor, Kashmir, states that on July 8 the climbers reached a height of 23,000 feet. They were almost at the summit when they encountered a blizzard, in which snow clouds miles long were blown off the mountain top. The tents and sleeping bags were carried away and the climbers hastily descended to lower altitudes, the two porters dying on the way. It was feared that Merkl, Wieland, Welzenbach and several porters perished in the snow storms at the camp, and seven others, four Germans with porters, left immediately to attempt a rescue, but they also have not been heard of and fears are entertained for their safety.