Chapter 21 Chapter 18 The Third Expedition

A third expedition must now be organized.Thirdly, permits had to be obtained from the Tibetan government, funds had to be raised, teams had to be formed, supplies and equipment had to be gathered in England, and load-bearing troops had to be recruited in India. But this time more time was available because the Everest Committee had decided not to send an expedition in the following year but to wait until 1924.In the committee, the chairman has also been replaced.Now it was the turn of the chairman of the British Mountaineering Association, which happened to be General Bruce himself.Therefore, he can combine the duties of the chairman of the committee and the head of the expedition team.That was a happy combination for all parties.

It is more difficult to decide who will be the deputy head of the team who personally leads the team up the mountain.Experience has shown that the climbers must not be too old, and therefore Colonel Strutt will not be able to do it.And the deputy commander who might replace General Bruce in an emergency would have to know India and have experience with Asians.Colonel Norton, if he could get it, would not be a second choice.He is still young enough to climb mountains, speak Hindustan, and know how to master Indian mountain people.Furthermore, as the commander and staff officer of the artillery squadron, he has a lot of experience in organization and leadership.However, since the second Mount Everest expedition, he has been assigned as the staff officer of the Dardanelles, and it is still a question whether he can join the regiment for a while.The trouble was resolved, however; the British military authorities did so well to the committee's persuasion, and Norton joined the expedition.

Malory is a more sensitive issue.His joining the group is the highest desire of the committee, but is it fair to him to ask him to join the group again?If he is invited, he cannot refuse outright.By inviting him, the committee was essentially forcing him; could the committee do that?He was a family man, and he had been on the first two expeditions, and twice on this latter expedition there were two serious accidents, one of which killed seven people.He's done his part, and done it noble.Does the committee have any reason to ask him to give more?On the other hand, wouldn't he be deeply offended if he, who had endured those days of extreme cold and hardship, was not invited?Wouldn't it be a cruel insult to him if he was passed over?It was a difficult juncture to make a decision, so the committee stretched out some keen antennae to find out what his intentions were.The result was very satisfactory to the committee: he was sincerely willing to go.The invitation was sent, and he accepted it; and the committee was delighted and relieved.

Also to everyone's delight: Somerwell will join the expedition.He has the skills of a surgeon, has gained a lot of experience in the war, and his popular personality is very likely to have a successful career in England.And in the UK, he can also have a more like-minded social circle to develop his talents in music and painting.But he heard a call to serve the Indian people with his surgical skills, so he joined a medical team in South India.So he's around the corner and could easily go to the Himalayas for four or five months for another attempt at the summit. Geoffrey.Bruce is another veteran who could join the regiment.So far, he has had little training in mountaineering.But he went to Switzerland and learned a lot that can only be learned from an expert alpinist.

Among the newcomers, the most valuable addition was Mr. NE Odell.He was a geographer who had been invited on a previous expedition but had been held back by his profession despite being desperately needed by the expedition, but now he was free to go to Everest.He is still in Persia, but will be in India in a few months.He was a very beautiful and outstanding type, with a good figure and almost perfect lines.He was well versed in alpine technique and exuded calm, steady demeanor and determination from within.We expect a lot from such a man, and he is not the type of man whose appearance does not match his substance so as to disappoint.

Bentley.Bentley Beetham is of a different nature.He wasn't exactly a fire that burned like Malory's, but he was always seething and bursting and full of passion and fervour. A hundred and ninety pounds wasn't heavy enough to hold a ton of bricks.He is also an experienced mountaineer with a good track record in the Alps.He is a middle school teacher by profession.The school should be thankful that the Alps are not far away, because he can use this to dissipate a lot of unrestrained steam. The third new member of the climbing team is Hazard.He is an engineer by profession and has a brilliant mountaineering record. Because he served in the Indian army as a mine-sweeping engineer, he knows more or less the prerequisites for going to India.

The last new member is Andrew.Andrew Irvine.He was only twenty-one and did not have the much-needed alpine training.But Longstaff and Ordell had seen him on the Oxford Spitxbergen expedition in 1923 and strongly recommended him for admission.He had rowed twice at Oxford, so he must have had great physical strength, but he might have been too big for Everest to be as ideal as Audair's size.His youth may not be good for him, but on this point, no one can give an authoritative opinion, because no one knows the optimal age range. Someone as young as him will adapt faster, but on the other hand, he Your body may be too young to withstand hardship.

Perhaps he had no other mountaineering experience, or perhaps his youth was against him, but one thing is certain: his character and mind were admirably suited to exploration.At this point, his performance is obvious to all.He becomes fully involved in an expedition, keeps it going, identifies himself with it wholeheartedly, and naturally and habitually does what is helpful to the expedition, regardless of his own particular interests, and single-mindedly concentrates on the success of the venture.He was also a quick-witted man, with a clear mind and a flair for mechanical design.He was still a student at Oxford University, but the conditions for joining the League were so good, and with so many recognized abilities, the committee did not hesitate to conduct this experiment and let him join the League.

In India, there are other people who will join the group and become important members.Someone with Indian experience was also needed on the expedition to manage the challenges back and forth between the foot of the mountain and base camp.Captain Morris, who had served in this role on the previous expedition, was unable to come this time.The vacancy will be filled by Shebbeare of the Forest Service of India.He has a deep understanding of these mountain people and has the skill of commanding them. Finally, Colonel RWG Hingston of the Indian Medical Service was selected as the expedition's medical officer and naturalist.He is not strictly a mountaineer, and his position in the regiment is not mountaineering, but he has traveled on the roofs of the world in the Pamirs, so he is familiar with the general situation in Tibet, because there are many similarities between the two mountains.Also, as an officer in the Indian Medical Service, he was quite adept at dealing with Asians.He was also known to be a pleasant companion and a keen naturalist.As such, he stands a good chance of being the successful successor to Wollaston and Longstaff.

After these personnel gathered, the organization of the third Everest expedition was completed.But what about the financial aspect?This is an anxious question as the committee must find a way to raise £10,000 to inject existing funds.The matter was resolved by the entrepreneurial spirit of Army Captain Knoll.Although Noel is not a climber, he has always been the most ardent caretaker of Everest climbing operations.He proposed a plan to raise funds for the expedition with the distribution rights of the expedition's video and photos, which made the third expedition possible.He was supported financially by Mr. Archibald Nettlefold and others.The continuation of the expedition is due in particular to these two men.

The third expedition to Mount Everest has been approved by the Tibetan government, the financial problems have been resolved smoothly, and the composition of the group members has been settled. Then the supplies and equipment will start to be compradorized, packaged, and sent.It might be thought, after the experience of the two preceding expeditions, that the matter was simple; but as with many other things, an expedition is never perfectly organized and equipped.At the end of the expedition, Colonel Norton sat down with the team members to develop suggestions for improvement for future reference.There are many summaries of the experience of these three expeditions that are worth remembering, and perhaps this is the right place to describe them. Norton strongly advocated that the leader of the expedition should have the final decision on whether to choose the members.He must live with them, work with them, and be responsible to them, so he should be able to have the final say in the selection of persons. Norton also believed that the battle plan for the Everest expedition should be drawn up in England before the expedition set off.This is an interesting point of view.Some people may imagine that Tibet should be more suitable than Britain for the plan to attack Mount Everest.But Norton's reasoning is that the weight and size of the loader's equipment, as well as the food packaging of climbers in extremely high camps, mostly rely on pre-drawn plans.Another reason: April days on the Tibetan plateau are not a good time to meld conflicting views.In other words, at an altitude of 15,000 feet, in near-zero temperatures and howling winds, one's temper is very bad.Members of the Tibetan Special Envoy in 1903 also verified this point.A practical difficulty in formulating a plan in England is that important members of the expedition may be far away from England; taking the current situation as an example, Somerwell is in South India, Audell is in Persia, and Geoffrey.Bruce in North India.But many things can be done through communication, and the general way of overcoming difficulties can indeed be arranged in this way. Norton further suggested that the chairman of the equipment committee should be a distinguished member of the mountaineering team; he must have participated in the previous expeditions, and should be responsible for supervising the various departments of the expedition, urging each member to catch up with the schedule, and making the application items available before delivery. The first three or four months are fully prepared for proper testing. Tents seem to have always been satisfactory for both the Whymper and Meade tents, as well as the Lightweight Meade tent.Norton himself has invented a very useful and convenient hybrid tent for use across the Tibetan plateau and in base camps. He has another suggestion.He said the head of the regiment should wear a modestly dignified coat or suit.When we recall that those Tibetan officials are all dressed in beautiful Chinese silk dresses, and most of them may have never seen Europeans, we can understand how much our side needs to dress decently on formal occasions, at least the head of the regiment should. He also recommends that expeditions carry a well-stocked library with them.Most travelers would endorse Norton's opinion.Books are of inestimable value in making one forget for a moment the discomfort and unhygienicness of an expedition and keep one's spirits up.At the same time, the books read on the way of discovery are often not easy to forget: the mind is especially prone to deep impressions in those extraordinary moments. Geoffrey.Bruce also made many suggestions on the Indian personnel and equipment of the expedition.Army Major Xingston expressed his opinions on medical equipment. He affirmed the supply of surgical tools, but he also suggested some changes and additions; he also suggested that the equipment in the highland camp should be packed in boxes in the UK. And to indicate what should be contained in the equipment boxes in the camps of increasing heights.Somerwell expressed his views on the mountaineering equipment in the highland camp, including mead tents, ice axes, ropes, crampons, rope ladders, sleeping bags, food, simple stoves, solid alcohol, thermos bottles, scientific instruments, etc.Ordell advocated the use of lighter oxygen equipment: less than fifteen pounds, if possible, and no more than twenty pounds.If the spare oxygen cylinders can be placed on the mountain first, climbers don't need to carry more than two bottles of oxygen cylinders.Shebir dealt with transportation across the Tibetan plateau, and Bitan recommended practices for food distribution.He said that the situation in the highland camps is special, and it is necessary to supply bagged food prepared and delivered in London, so as to save the trouble of cooking on the Tibetan plateau.As for the meal boxes cooked in London for continuous consumption for several days, they should be made according to the serial numbers A1, A2, A3︱B1, B2, B3︱C1, C2, C3, etc. The contents of all A meal boxes should be the same, and Different from B; B lunch box is different from C lunch box; C lunch box is different from D lunch box.They should be eaten in the order of A1, B1, C1, D1; A2, B2; because by this method the repetition of food can be avoided, thereby avoiding a lack of appetite.Sugar, milk, jam and tea are all consumed quickly, he said. All these detailed observations can be found in Colonel Norton's memorandum for the 1924 expedition, "The Fight for Everest," Chapter VI, Organization of the Expedition. But by far the most important issue in equipment supply is the supply of oxygen equipment.Should oxygen be used?Unfortunately, the resolution is to be used and the author is in favor of it.At that time, the lessons of acclimatization were not yet fully understood.Somerwell was away from London at the time of the meeting, so he failed to insist on trust in human adaptation, as he had advocated the use of oxygen in 1922.Oxygen did allow man to climb 27,000 feet.It may also be the only means by which humans can climb the twenty-nine thousand.At any rate, it was probably best to be prepared, so much was said about it, that a great deal of oxygen tanks, and that heavy, cumbersome equipment, were among the provisions of the expedition.