Edmund Hillary--A Biography
Page 45
As have so many readers before me I have been fascinated by stories of mountaineering – and of Everest in particular – as told and photographed by so many individual writers. I have often quoted their own words and I particularly thank: Jan Morris and Faber and Faber for quotations from Coronation Everest; Mary Lowe for allowing me to quote from George Lowe’s writings and use his photos; Arthaud publishers for quotations from Raymond Lambert and René Dittert in Forerunners to Everest; The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research for photos of the 1952 Swiss expedition; Jim Perrin for his observations on yeti tracks in his Shipton and Tilman; Tap Richards and Dave Hahn of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition for photos of Mallory and the Second Step; Tony Astill of Mountaineering Books in Southampton for sharing with me his wide range of contacts; Anna Riddiford for quotations and photos from her father Earle Riddiford; Derek Gunn for the memoir of his father Bernard Gunn; Tom Nevison for his Makalu diary, 1961; Irene Ortenburger/Beardsley for the Makalu diary of her husband Leigh; Brian Wilkins for his photo from the Barun 1954; Norman Hardie for his 1954 photo of Makalu and his comments on the manuscript; Francis Russell and George Rodway for the photo of George Finch; Colin Monteath of Hedgehouse House for photos of Aoraki/Mount Cook, Footstall and Cho Oyu; Julian Godwin for his memoir of Ed in 1945.
Potton & Burton as publishers have been of central importance and I particularly thank Robbie Burton. From the time I mentioned that the Museum archive contained the material for a new biography he has been unfailingly encouraging, supportive and reassuring. Geoff Walker wrote a most useful manuscript assessment of my first draft and Jane Parkin has been endlessly patient with me as she has worked through the detailed editing of the second draft. Others who have made valuable suggestions on the manuscript include: Jonathan Baskett for his medical and editing input; Pat Baskett; David Ellis; Claire Scholes; Diane McKinnon; Ruth Bonita; Robert Beaglehole; and Oliver Mitchell.
The staff of the Auckland Museum have always been most helpful making material available during several months spent working in their research area. Particular thanks go to Shaun Higgins, Pictorial Curator, for providing me with high-quality digitised versions of images from the Hillary Collection.
My wife Linda has lived with the Hillary project for as many years as I have. As a writer herself she has been tolerant of the intrusions of the book’s demands into our shared life. She has been my resident editor and advisor and for all these reasons has my gratitude and warmest thanks.
– Michael Gill
Notes
Sources
The most important source of information and images has been the archive Ed Hillary bequeathed to the Auckland Museum where its reference is: Sir Edmund Hillary Archive, Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, PH-2010-4. The documents are contained in 50 boxes with a total of 809 folders. My personal shorthand to source such a reference from these Museum Hillary Folders is MHF, box 1, fdr 1. The photos are in a separate file. I have credited these as Museum Hillary Collection. Photos or documents held privately by Peter or Sarah Hillary are attributted to Hillary Family Collection. Copies of interviews from which quotations have been taken are referenced in the endnotes.
Note on units of measurement
Because nearly all the books I have quoted were published before 1980 and gave altitudes in feet, I have followed their practice. The factor for converting metres to feet is 3.281. Otherwise I have used metric units: metres and kilometres for distance; grams and kilograms for weight.
Spelling of names of people and places
Because these can vary quite widely I have chosen a single spelling for each person and place. The most famous of Khumbu monasteries is Tengboche rather than the Thyangboche which used to be common. Tenzing of Everest always spelt his name with a z even though other Sherpas of the same name often call themselves Tensing. The village of Khunde has an h because the k is aspirated and is transliterated from Tibetan/Sherpa into Nepali script as such. And so on.
Endnotes
Chapter 1 A pioneering heritage
1. Gertrude Hillary, 1957, MHF, box 7, fdr 153.
2. Undated letter, MHF box 6, fdr 140.
3. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 18, and Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 38.
Chapter 2 Percy goes to Gallipoli
1. David Green, quoting Richard Stowers, ww100.govt.nz/how-many-new-zealanders-served-on-gallipoli; NZ History at www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/interactive/gallipoli-casualities-country (accessed 27 March 2017).
2. MHF, box 7, fdr 154.
3. Liddell Hart, History of the First World War, 1970, p. 188.
Chapter 3 Growing up in Tuakau and Auckland
1. MHF, box 7, fdr 157.
2. Peter Hillary interviews with Rex Hillary, 2003.
3. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 18.
4. Hillary and Hillary, Two Generations, 1984, p. 19.
5. Ibid.
6. Letter to Tom Scott, MHF, box 33, fdr 518.
7. Peter Hillary interviews with Rex Hillary, 2003.
8. Hillary and Hillary, Two Generations, 1984, p. 19.
9. June Carlile, personal communication.
10. MHF, box 6, fdr 134.
11. Hillary, in a talk at the Tuakau 150th Jubilee, 1992.
12. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 39.
13. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 19.
14. Peter Hillary interviews with Rex Hillary, 2003.
15. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 22.
16. Ibid.
17. Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines, 1907, Kindle location 2261/73%
18. Burroughs, A Princess of Mars, 2013, Kindle location 694/24%
19. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 23.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., p. 26.
22. Auckland Grammar School Magazine, 2003, pp. 19–20.
23. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 24.
Chapter 4 ‘The most uncertain and miserable years of my life’
1. The author was a member of the AUC Tramping Club in 1955.
2. MHF, box 7, fdr 158.
3. MHF, box 40, fdr 619.
4. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, pp. 25–26.
5. www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/radiant-living/edmund-hillary (accessed 27 March 2017).
6. MHF, box 48, fdr 749.
7. MHF, box 7, fdr 157.
8. MHF, box 6, fdr 137.
9. MHF, box 6, fdr 136.
10. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 28.
11. Ibid., pp. 30–31.
12. MHF, box 22, fdr 360.
13. MHF, box 22, fdr 350.
14. MHF, box 40, fdr 617.
15. MHF, box 40, fdr 619.
16. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, pp. 46–47.
17. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 32.
Chapter 5 Escape into the Air Force
1. ‘Mt Tapu-o-uenuku’, www.theprow.org.nz, 31 October 2013 (accessed 27 March 2017).
2. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, pp. 33–36.
3. MHF, box 22, fdr 350.
4. Ibid.
5. Mike Gill interview with Julian Godwin, 2015.
6. Memoir from Julian Godwin, May 2014, Hillary Family Collection.
7. MHF, box 45, fdr 698.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. MHF, box 21, fdr 331.
11. MHF, box 6, fdr 135.
12. MHF, box 21, fdr 332.
13. Ibid.
14. Letter, MHF, box 21, fdr 330.
15. ‘Airman remembers Sir Ed’, Hawke’s Bay Today, 15 June 2008.
Chapter 6 Harry Ayres teaches Ed the craft of mountaineering
1. MHF, box 7, fdr 157.
2. MHF, box 40, fdr 619.
3. Peter Hillary interview with Rex Hillary, 2003.
4. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 77.
5. Hillary, Foreword in Mahoney, Harry Ayres, 1982.
6. MHF, box 21, fdr 340.
7. Langton, Graham, ‘Ayres, Horace
Henry’, in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5a28/ayres-horace-henry (accessed 28 February 2017).
8. Mahoney, Harry Ayres, 1982, p. 45.
Chapter 7 The New Zealand Garhwal expedition and the Shipton cable
1. Edmund Hillary, 2007, Foreword in Lowe and Lewis-Jones, The Conquest of Everest, 2013, pp. 23–25.
2. Lowe, Because It Is There, 1959, p. 10.
3. Mary Lowe, personal communication, January 2017.
4. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, pp. 97–98.
5. Hillary, High Adventure, 1955, p. 17.
6. McKinnon, Only Two for Everest, 2016, Ch. 8. McKinnon has written the definitive account of the Garhwal expedition.
7. Lowe to Riddiford, 31 May 1950, in ibid., p. 28.
8. Ibid, p. 28.
9. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 115.
10. Lowe, 1951. Reproduced in a special George Lowe edition of Pohokura, Journal of the Heretaunga Tramping Club, 2003, p. 13.
11. Riddiford, NZ Alpine Journal, 38, 1951, p. 28.
12. Hillary diary, 1951, MHF, box 23, fdr 379.
13. Ed Cotter, personal communication, 2011.
14. The older spelling was sirdar. The sardar is the leader of an expedition’s porters and the interface between expedition members and the local people.
15. Hillary diary, 22 June 1951, MHF, box 23, fdr 379.
16. Riddiford, NZ Alpine Journal, 39, 1952, p. 179.
17. Hillary diary, 4 June 1951, MHF, box 23, fdr 379.
18. Lowe, 1951, in Pohokura, 2003, p. 17.
19. Riddiford, NZ Alpine Journal, 39, 1952, pp. 181–82.
20. Lowe, 1951, in Pohokura, 2003, p. 17.
21. MHF, box 23, fdr 379.
22. Ed Cotter, personal communication, 2011.
23. Hocken Collection, Dunedin, MS1164 1/11/18.
24. Shipton, That Untravelled World, 1969, p. 187.
25. Ibid., p. 96.
26. Ibid., p. 187.
27. McKinnon, Only Two for Everest, 2016, p. 102.
28. Ibid., p. 289.
29. MHF, box 39, fdr 596.
Chapter 8 Everest Reconnaissance 1951
1. Telegram, 31 August 1951, MHF, box 42, fdr 648.
2. Hillary, High Adventure, 1955, p. 20.
3. Ibid., p. 33.
4. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 81.
5. Hillary, High Adventure, 1955, pp. 32–33.
6. Ward, In This Short Span, 1972, p. 70.
7. Tilman, The Alpine Journal, Vol. 58, May 1951.
8. Steele, Eric Shipton, 1998, p. 9.
9. Alpine Club Archives, D 103 Bourdillon diaries, quoted in Tuckey, Everest, the First Ascent, 2013, p. 20.
10. Shipton, The Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 1951, 1952, chapter 2.
11. Hillary diary, MHF, box 39, fdr 596.
12. Shipton in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 118, No. 2, 1952, p. 133.
Chapter 9 Everest from Tibet, 1921 and 1922
1. The traditional instrument over 300 years for measuring atmospheric pressure has been the mercury (Hg) barometer consisting of a tall glass tube filled with Hg and sealed at its top end. The lower open end sits in a bowl of Hg whose surface is pressed down by the weight of air in the surrounding atmosphere. The upper level in the tube falls until the weight of the column of Hg is counterbalanced by the atmospheric pressure.
The standardised barometric pressure at sea level is 760mm Hg. Twenty-one per cent of this air is oxygen, the other 79% being inert nitrogen. Twenty-one per cent of 760mm is 160mm: this is the pO2 (pressure of oxygen) available for the brain to think and muscles to move. On the summit of Everest the atmospheric pressure is around 250mm. As at sea level, 21% of this is oxygen, so the pO2 available to the climber is around 53mm which is barely enough to support even the most basic functions of brain, heart and lungs.
2. Bert, 1878, quoted in West, High Life, 1998, p. 71. The italicisation of Alpine Club is Bert’s indication of two foreign words in his French text.
3. Norton, The Fight for Everest 1924, 1925, p. 111.
4. Robertson, George Mallory, 1969, p. 17.
5. Wainwright, The Maverick Mountaineer, 2015.
6. J.B. West, Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 94, No. 5, 2003, p. 1705.
7. Wainwright, The Maverick Mountaineer, 2015, Ch. 16.
8. RGS Everest Archives, box 12.
9. Kellas, 1912, quoted in Douglas, Tenzing, 2003, p. 9.
10. Davis, Into the Silence, 2011, p. 291.
11. Ibid., p. 206.
12. MHF, box 13, fdr 220.
13. RGS Everest Archives, box 18.
14. Somervell, After Everest, 1936, Ch 10.
15. Finch, The Making of a Mountaineer, 1924, pp. 318–19.
16. Ibid., pp. 322–23.
17. Somervell, After Everest, 1936, Ch 10.
18. Bruce, The Assault on Mount Everest 1922, 1923, p. 264.
Chapter 10 Mallory and Irvine, 1924
1. Norton, The Fight for Everest 1924, 2002, pp. 222–23.
2. Ibid., pp. 236, 238.
3. Robertson, George Mallory, 1969, p. 225.
4. Hemmleb, Johnson and Simonson, Ghosts of Everest, 1999, p. 118.
5. Ibid., p. 119.
6. An equivalent achievement on the South Col route would be to climb twice, in three days, from Camp 6 on the Lhotse Face to a height of 1200ft above the South Col – without oxygen.
7. Odell in Norton, The Fight for Everest 1924, 2002, pp. 127, 128.
8. Quoted in Davis, Into the Silence, 2011, p. 544.
9. Ibid.
10. Ruttledge, Everest, The Unfinished Adventure, 1933, p. 152.
11. Hemmleb et al., Ghosts of Everest, 1999, p. 173.
Chapter 11 The 1930s, a decade of disillusion
1. Noel, Through Tibet to Everest, 1927, p. 279.
2. Ibid., p. 294.
3. Shipton, Upon that Mountain, 1943, p. 126.
4. Ruttledge, Everest 1933, 1934, p. 163.
5. Ibid., p. 119.
6. Tilman, Mount Everest 1933, 2004, p. 107.
7. Shipton, Upon that Mountain, 1943, p. 95.
8. Unsworth, Everest, 1989, Ch. 15.
Chapter 12 Lessons on Cho Oyu, 1952
1. Tuckey, Everest, The First Ascent, 2013, p. 317. This is an authoritative biography of Griff Pugh and his scientific work written by his daughter Harriet Tuckey.
2. Hardie, On My Own Two Feet, 2006, p. 93. Hillary also paid tribute to Riddiford in his article for the NZ Alpine Journal, 1952, p. 4: ‘… due very largely to fine organization by H.E. Riddiford … this [Cho Oyu] expedition was arranged, equipped and transported to India according to schedule.’
3. For a description of open and closed systems, see chapter 14, page 186.
4. Hillary, High Adventure, 1955, p. 81.
5. MHF, box 24, fdr 382.
6. Dittert, Chevalley and Lambert, Forerunners to Everest, 1954, p. 176.
7. MHF, box 6, fdr 135.
8. MHF, box 39, fdr 596.
Chapter 13 The Swiss get close, 1952
1. Douglas, Tenzing, 2003, pp. 40–52.
2. Dr Kami Temba, personal communication, 2009.
3. Tilman, Mount Everest 1938, 1948.
4. Dittert, Chevalley and Lambert, Forerunners to Everest, 1954, pp. 114–16.
5. The earliest Swiss apparatus did not use oxygen in a metal cylinder as did all later sets. Oxygen was generated by passing humid breath through the chemical potassium tetroxide. Extreme hyperventilation is a feature of climbing at very high altitudes and designing valves with acceptably low resistance to air flow was not achieved until 1953.
6. Lambert in Dittert, Chevalley et al., Forerunners to Everest, 1954, pp. 143–46.
7. Lambert in ibid., p. 147.
8. Lambert in ibid., p. 151.
9. Chevalley in ibid., p. 196.
10. Chevalley in ibid., p.237.
11. Lambert in ibid., p. 252.
Chapter 14 Organising Ever
est, 1953
1. MHF, box 24, fdr 382.
2. MHF, box 39, fdr 596.
3. MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
4. Hillary, View from the Summit, 1999, p. 107.
5. Shipton, That Untravelled World, 1969, p. 213.
6. MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
7. Hillary, High Adventure, 1955, p. 114.
8. Letter Hunt to Hillary, 12 December 1952, MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
9. Ibid.
10. Letter to Hunt, 25 December 1952, MHF, box 40, fdr 620.
11. Hunt, The Ascent of Everest, 1953, pp. 241–50.
12. Further evidence came in 1944 from Operation Everest 1, a remarkable month-long study held in a decompression chamber at the US Naval School of Aviation Medicine. Over 32 days four volunteers were progressively acclimatised by being decompressed to a height of 22,500ft. By now the subjects no longer had headaches but were lethargic and eating and sleeping poorly. On Day 29 they commenced their ‘climb’ of Everest at a rate of 1000ft per hour. By 27,500ft, two subjects had requested oxygen masks but the remaining two were placed on the summit for 21 minutes. An observer noted that these two ‘were well coordinated at all times, and in full command of their mental faculties, though on the verge of passing out …They did not wish to go any higher’. West, High Life, 1998, p. 239.
13. Hillary, Nothing Venture, 1975, p. 145.
14. Ibid.
15. Stobart, Adventurer’s Eye, 1958, p. 195.
16. Ibid., p. 190.
17. Morris, Coronation Everest, 1958, p. 21.