POLAR EXPEDITION

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 29, 29 October 1942, Page 8

POLAR EXPEDITION

Address By Member Now In Wellington Under the auspices’of the Hutt A alley Tramping .Club, an interesting talk on Shackleton's transantarctie expedition was given in Wellington last night by Lieut.-Colonel Onle Lees, A.F.C., C.8.E., who described himself sis eqok s mate on the expedition, and, at present, junior office assistant at the Education Department Correspondence .School. In tracing the course of the expedition which attempted, but failed, to march the 1800 fniles right across the Antarctic Continent. he paid a high tribute to two New Zealand members of the expedition, Mr. Ninnis, now of Christchurch, who was in the s.s. Aurora on the Australian side of Antarctica, and Captain Worsley, D.S.O. “In the final stages,” lie said, “Shackleton himself bore testimony to the fact that all our lives depended entirely on Worsley's brilliant navigation of oiir three rowing boats on their eightdav journeiy from the ice to the 'South Shetlands, 'and his even more accurate course on the unexcelled boat journey of SOO miles from Elephant Island io the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic.” . ,

In spite of prolonged privations no member of the expedition remained impaired in health after being rescued nnd returning to normal living conditions, said Lieutenant-Coionel Lees. As well as this polar experience Lieu-tenant-Colonel Lees said he was the first man in the R.A.F. ever to jump out of an aeroplane by parachute, aiid perhaps the only man to have made as many as 10 consecutive parachute descents in less than DO minutes. Once he dropped from the upper level of the Tower Bridge in order to settle the argument whether a parachute would open in less than 160 ft., still probably the lowest drop on record, lie was a member of the into. Dr. Kellns s Mt. Everest-expedition, which was postponed and finally cancelled owing to the untimely death of that experienced mountaineer. While employed as “Our Own Correspondent” in Japan for “1 he Times.” of London, he was the first climber to reach the top of Mt. I* uji in midwinter (February 22). He is at present a refugee from Japan.