James Robert Dennistoun

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JR Dennistoun on board the Terra Nova (1911)

James Robert "Jim" Dennistoun (born March 7, 1883 in Geraldine , Canterbury , New Zealand ; † August 9, 1916 in Ohrdruf , Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg , German Empire ) was a New Zealand mountaineer , explorer and soldier in the First World War . He is best known as the first to climb Miter Peak .

Life

Dennistoun was the middle of the three children of George James Dennistoun (1847-1921) from Glasgow and his wife Emily (née Russel, 1856-1937) in Peel Forest, a scattered settlement near Geraldine on the South Island of New Zealand . The family lived off the cultivation of a nearby stone lumbar forest . In the course of his school education Dennistoun attended the Collegiate School in Whanganui and later the Malvern College in England. He then worked as a sheep farmer and owned successively farms in Hāwea , Lumsden and Mangamahu near Whanganui. In the latter, he escaped in 1914 narrowly the personal bankruptcy after a business partner had withdrawn from the joint venture.

Miter Peak in 1913, two years after Dennistoun's first ascent

Dennistoun has been enthusiastic about mountaineering from a very early age. He climbed his first summit in Peel Forest Park not far from his parents' home. Aoraki / Mount Cook , New Zealand's highest mountain, followed later , and in March 1910, with two companions, the first ascent of the 2875  m high Mount D'Archiac in the Southern Alps followed . The latter is generally considered to be his greatest mountaineering achievement. But is more known his first ascent of the Milford Sound located 1,692  m high Miter Peak on March 13, 1911. The idea came from Dennistoun developed along with his brother George (1884-1977) in 1909 at a sea voyage. He ended up choosing a route recommended by Donald Sutherland , the "Hermit of Milford Sound". The joint ascent with his climbing friend Joe Beaglehole (1875–1962) began at 7:30 in the morning. Beaglehole, however, remained exhausted some 300 m below the summit, which Dennistoun reached alone over steep and smooth granite slabs . Both men then returned to the starting point of their tour together at 9.45 p.m. Initially, Dennistoun was not awarded the summit victory because Sutherland had bluntly stated that Miter Peak could not be climbed. Three years later, however, Jack Murrell (1886–1918) and Edgar Williams (1891–1983) found the stone man erected by Dennistoun on the summit with a handkerchief attached to it on the second ascent and thus confirmed Dennistoun's success.

In October 1911, through the mediation of First Officer Harry Pennell (1882-1916), Dennistoun received a sold- free post on the research vessel Terra Nova for a supply trip for the participants of the Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913) stationed at Cape Evans on the Antarctic Ross Island ) under the direction of the British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott . He was responsible for looking after the mules that were carried on board, with the help of which a search party found the last camp of the missing South Pole group with the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers on November 2, 1912 . Dennistoun was not a member of this search party, but had already returned to New Zealand on April 1, 1912 with the Terra Nova . For his services to the expedition he received the polar medal in silver and the medal of the Royal Geographical Society .

When the First World War broke out , Dennistoun traveled to England as a deckhand on board a steamship. There he belonged as a war volunteer to the Yeomanry of the North Irish Horse . His first front line assignment was in November 1915 as an intelligence officer in his unit in France . After a few months, he moved to the 23rd Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps on June 16, 1916  . Ten days later he flew an aerial mission from Arras over German positions as an observer and bomb thrower on board an FE2b controlled by his cousin Herbert Russell in the course of the preliminary fights for the Battle of the Somme . The machine was hit by machine gun salvos from a Fokker of the German air force near Fampaux and went up in flames when it crash-landed. Dennistoun and Russell were thrown out of the machine. While Russell got away with minor injuries, Dennistoun was seriously injured. During his captivity , he was twice in a sustained during aerial combat shot in the stomach surgery and seemed to recover afterwards. On August 9, 1916, however, he had to undergo a third procedure in the hospital in Ohrdruf , as a result of which he suffered a sudden attack of weakness and died the same day. Dennistoun was buried in Ohrdruf before he was reburied in Niederzwehren Cemetery near Kassel after the war .

The Antarctic Dennistoun Glacier and the 2315  m high Dennistoun Peak , north of Mount D'Archiac, are named after James Dennistoun . In addition, a mountain pass and a glacier in the Southern Alps bear his name. In his hometown of Peel Forest, a window in the small St. Stephen's Church reminds of Dennistoun, on which he is depicted in the figure of the Archangel Michael .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Robert Dennistoun. Genealogy information at ancestry.com.au (accessed December 21, 2015).
  2. ↑ Night out on Mt D'Archiac. In: John Wilson, Mountaineering - Beyond the central Southern Alps. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, July 8, 2013 (accessed December 21, 2015).
  3. ↑ The 'magnificent' Miter Peak . In: The Press , October 27, 2010, stuff.co.nz.Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  4. ^ Huxley: Scott's Last Expedition . Vol. I. 1914, p. Xxii.  - Internet Archive
  5. ^ Huxley: Scotts Last Expedition, Vol. II. 1914, p. 372  - Internet Archive
  6. Jump up ↑ Strathie: From Ice Floes to Battlefields - Scott's 'Antarctics' in the First World War. 2015, pp. 159–160.
  7. ↑ James Robert Denistoun in the database of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (accessed December 21, 2015).
  8. ↑ Dennistoun Glacier. Information on geographic.org (accessed December 21, 2015).
  9. ↑ Dennistoun Peak. Topographic map on topomap.co.nz (accessed December 21, 2015).
  10. ↑ Dennistoun Pass. Topographic map on topomap.co.nz (accessed December 21, 2015).
  11. ↑ Dennistoun Glacier. Topographic map on topomap.co.nz (accessed December 21, 2015).
  12. ↑ Picture of the church window with Dennistoun as Archangel Michael (right). Displayed on rootsweb.ancestry.com (accessed December 21, 2015).
personal data
SURNAME Dennistoun, James Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dennistoun, Jim (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand mountaineer, explorer
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Geraldine , Canterbury , New Zealand
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1916
Place of death Ohrdruf , Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, German Empire