Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain by Harriet Tuckey Read Free Book Online Page B

Office, who had been pursuing a policy of strategic cooperation with the Swiss in the Far East, was surprisingly unsympathetic to the committee’s difficulties, pointing out: “The Swiss offer seemed worth looking at carefully; otherwise the Swiss might get up by themselves and beat us to it!” 26
    Another member of the Himalayan Committee, Laurence Kirwan, secretary and director of the RGS, met with a similar response from his contact in the South East Asia Office, who said, “We would deprecate making a political issue of climbing Everest and should like to avoid international bickering about it.” 27
    Disappointed that the committee had rejected a joint Anglo-Swiss venture, the Foreign Office was less than enthusiastic about Goodfellow’s alternative proposal. This was to send a British “training expedition” to Cho Oyu, another mountain in the Everest region, while the Swiss were on Everest, and, on the assumption that the Swiss would fail, to follow that up with an exclusively British attempt on Everest in 1953. Mr. Scott commented:
Goodfellow . . . was obviously hoping that I would endorse what had been done, but I refrained from doing so and instead left him in no doubt that I was very disappointed to hear this news. I warned him that the Alpine Club were taking a risk that the political atmosphere would be right for an expedition next year, and I warned him that the responsibility for this risk lay entirely with the Alpine Club. 28

4
    Turf Wars
    In the years after the war, Eric Shipton had developed the habit of occasionally turning up uninvited at Griffith Pugh’s laboratory in London to ask questions about the physiology of altitude. They had first met in Iran in 1942, when Shipton, on his way home from China, stopped off at the British consulate in Meshed, where Pugh was working as a doctor. They spent several days walking together in the hills. Pugh wrote home afterward that Shipton was “the strong silent type,” a trait that “lent considerable charm to his rather stern appearance.” 1
    Though not a great lover of science, Shipton was intrigued by news of some daring physiological experiments, entitled “Operation Everest,” which had been carried out in America in 1946 by Charles Houston, working for the US Navy. 2 The experiments appeared to demonstrate that it was possible to survive on the summit of Everest without supplementary oxygen. Four young men had spent twenty-nine days in a pressure chamber, gradually acclimatizing to increasingly high altitudes. On the thirtieth day they were rushed from 22,500 feet to a simulated altitude roughly equivalent to the summit of Everest (29,029 feet). One dropped out on the way up; another asked for oxygen, but two remained unharmed without extra oxygen for 21 minutes.
    Hearing of this in 1947, Shipton urged the Himalayan Committee to take an active interest: “I do hope something is going forward to coordinate physiological research regarding high altitudes, and I would be extremely interested to hear what is being done about this . . .” 3
    When he began visiting Pugh, Pugh reacted unenthusiastically. In his view laboratory experiments could be no substitute for studying men in the field. “Eric didn’t get much useful information from me,” he said. “You can’t give really telling information from your laboratory chair.” Pugh told Shipton, “If you want anything from me, I’ll have to come with you.” 4
    The Himalayan Committee was well aware that the war had brought substantial improvements in the oxygen equipment used by RAF fighter pilots, as well as in the design of protective equipment, clothing, and rations for soldiers operating in extreme conditions, all of which could be of use to climbers. 5 Three experienced men—Peter Lloyd, Dr. Raymond Greene, and Scott Russell (George Finch’s son-in-law)—were delegated in 1947 to analyze the latest developments, but they had no more success than Shipton. 6
    Peter Lloyd, who took on the