Information about Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition

Activities in Antarctica During the 20th Century
International agreements
Antarctic Treaty System
British Commonwealth activities
Scott's 1st expedition (1901-04)
Shackleton's 1st expedition (1907-09)
Scott's 2nd expedition (1910-13)
Shackleton's 2nd expedition (1914-17)
Shackleton's 3rd expedition (1921-22)
Mawson's expedition (1929-31)
The Graham Land Expedition (1934-37)
Operation Tabarin (1943-45)
Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs-Hillary) (1955-58)
French activities
Charcot's 1st expedition (1903-05)
Charcot's 2nd expedition (1908-10)
German activities
Drygalski's expedition (1901-03)
Filchner's expedition (1911-12)
The New Swabia Expedition (1938-39)
Norwegian activities
Amundsen's expedition (1910-12)
U.S. activities
Operation Highjump (1946-47)
Operation Windmill (1947-48)
Ronne's expedition (1947-48)
Operation Deep Freeze (1955-56)

The 1955–58 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. The expedition was funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, as well as private and corporate donations, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II. It was headed by British explorer Dr Vivian Fuchs, with New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary leading a supply support team. The parties also included scientists participating in International Geophysical Year research.

Preparations

Preparations began in London in 1955. Over the southern summer of 1955–56 Fuchs sailed with an advance party from London to Antarctica in the Canadian sealer Theron, with the purpose of establishing Shackleton Base near Vahsel Bay on the Weddell Sea, from which the trans-Antarctic expedition would begin. The Theron, like its immediate forbears, the Endeavour (1914 Shackleton's Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition) and the Deutschland (Filchner's German Trans Antarctic Expedition of 1911), was trapped in the ice. Fortunately, despite sustaining considerable damage, she was able to free herself with the help of the Auster Antarctic floatplane that scouted a way out. In early 1956 Fuchs sailed back to London, leaving eight men to over-winter at Shackleton.

The eight men of the advance party, led by Kenneth Blaiklock, were left on the ice, having only tents and a packing crate as shelter. Most of the stores were left on the bay ice, some two miles from the site of where the base was to be set up. Their first task was to get all these stores from the bay ice to the base and to try to build some permanent shelter for the oncoming winter. Once a modicum of food and a little fuel (paraffin) had been brought up and the dogs safely tethered by the base, the men started to build their hut. This proved to be far more difficult than had been envisaged, not only were the eight men insufficient in number to carry out the heavy tasks easily but the weather at Shackleton proved to be colder and much windier than had been anticipated. When the skeleton of the hut was complete, it was decided to position the crates containing the wall and roof panels around the building site. Then disaster struck. A blizzard blew up; it lasted for more than a week, the temperature dropped to -20C and the drift around the base made it impossible to do any work outside. The men sheltered in their crate and slept in their tents which were constantly in danger of getting buried by the drift. When finally the wind subsided the scene had changed out of all recognition. The giant crates of wall panels had all disappeared under many feet of drift and the unfinished hut itself was full of snow. But worse still, when the men went to look for the remaining stores on the bay ice, they found nothing but water. The bay ice had broken off taking all the remaining stores with it. Much food and fuel a couple of huts and a tractor had all gone to sea.

This major set-back condemned the men to much very hard work trying to retrieve the crates which they did by tunnelling under the snow; incidentally the tunnels proved to be useful kennels for the dogs protecting them from the unexpectedly severe winter conditions at Shackleton. The party of eight survived the winter with some difficulty living by day in the tractor crate and sleeping in their tens, two men to each tent. The winter temperatures often fell well below -30C but worse than this was the wind. Shackleton proved to be a very windy place, this made work outdoors unpleasant, all stores lying in the snow tended to get buried and there was a constant danger of their getting lost.

Despite all these vicissitudes, the eight survived the winter in reasonably good health and finally completed the building of the hut save for one hole in the roof the panel for which was never recovered from its icy resting place.

They managed to take a number of journeys to collect seals for the dogs and to scout a route to the south. They used dogs and the Weasel tractor while the one Snocat that they had, never functioned properly as it seemed that someone had dropped a nut into one of its 12 cylinders.

Expedition

In December 1956 Fuchs returned on Danish Polar vessel Magga Dan with additional supplies, and the southern summer of 1956–1957 was spent consolidating Shackleton Base and establishing the smaller South Ice Base about 300 miles inland to the south.

After spending the winter of 1957 at Shackleton Base, Fuchs finally set out on the trans-continental journey in November 1957, with a twelve-man team travelling in specially adapted tractors and Sno-Cats. En route, the team were also tasked with carrying out scientific research including seismic soundings and gravimetric readings.

In parallel Hillary's team had set up Scott Base – which was to be Fuchs' final destination – on the opposite side of the continent at McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea. Using converted Ferguson TE20 tractors^[1], Hillary and his men were responsible for route-finding and laying a line of supply depots up the Skelton Glacier and across the Polar Plateau on towards the South Pole, for the use of Fuchs on the final leg of his journey. Other members of Hillary's team carried out geological surveys around the Ross Sea and Victoria Land areas.

It was not originally intended that Hillary would travel as far as the South Pole, but when he had completed laying supply depots he saw the opportunity to beat the British and continued south, reaching the Pole – where the US Amundsen-Scott Station had recently been established by air – on January 3, 1958. Hillary's party was just the third (preceded by Amundsen in 1911 and Scott in 1912) to reach the Pole overland. Hillary's arrival also marked the first time that land vehicles had ever reached the Pole.

Fuchs' team reached the Pole from the opposite direction on 19th January 1958, where they met up with Hillary. Fuchs then continued overland, following the route that Hillary had laid, while Hillary flew back to Scott Base in a US plane (he would later rejoin Fuchs by plane for part of the remaining overland journey). The overland party finally arrived at Scott Base on March 2 1958, having completed the historic crossing of 3,473 km (2,158 miles) of previously unexplored snow and ice in 99 days. A few days later the expedition members left Antarctica for New Zealand on the New Zealand naval ship Endeavour.

Although large quantities of supplies were hauled overland, both parties were also equipped with light aircraft and made extensive use of air support for reconnaissance and supply depoting. Additional logistical help was provided by US personnel who were working in Antarctica at that time. Both parties also took dog teams which were used for field work trips and backup in case of failure of the mechanical transportation – though the dogs were not taken all the way to the Pole. In December 1957 four men from the expedition flew one of the planes – a de Havilland Otter – on an eleven hour, 1,430 mile non-stop trans-polar flight across the Antarctic continent from Shackleton Base via the Pole to Scott Base, following roughly the same route as Fuchs' overland party.

Fuchs was knighted for his accomplishment. The second crossing of the continent did not happen until 1981.

See also

• List of Antarctica expeditions

References

The Crossing of Antarctica, Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary, 1958

Notes