Johan Peter Koch

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Johan Peter Koch
Photo: Sophus Juncker-Jensen
Johan Peter Koch
Drawing: Achton Friis , 1907

Johan Peter Koch (born January 15, 1870 in Vemmenkov near Nakskov , † January 13, 1928 in Copenhagen ) was a Danish officer, cartographer and polar explorer . He participated in three expeditions to Greenland and in 1912/1913 he was the first to winter on the Greenland ice sheet , which he crossed at its widest point.

Life

Origin and education

Johan Peter Koch was the son of pastor Carl Bendix Koch (1835–1912) and his wife Elise Knudine de Teilmann (1835–1873). When he was three years old, his mother died and the father remarried in 1875.

At the age of 15, Koch went to the Navy , where he had no future because of his color ametropia . He did his military service with the Royal Life Guard and then embarked on a military career. In 1890 he was promoted to prime lieutenant. In 1899 he graduated from the officers' school.

Amdrup's East Greenland Expedition 1900

The routes of the Antarctic and Aggas on Amdrup's East Greenland expedition of 1900

In 1900 Koch joined an expedition to East Greenland financed by the Carlsberg Foundation , the main goal of which was to measure the as yet unknown course of the coast between the 66th and 70th parallel. This section of Greenland's east coast is particularly inaccessible as the ice drift of the East Greenland Current is accelerated and condensed in the Denmark Strait . The expedition led by naval officer Georg Carl Amdrup left Copenhagen on the Antarctic on June 14, 1900. Via Jan Mayen , the ship went to the Greenland coast, which was reached on July 11 at 74 ° north. The expedition first visited the Sabine Island to plant, fossils from the Tertiary to collect, and then drove south to Cape Dalton. From here Amdrup explored the coast with Ejnar Mikkelsen and two other men in the south-west in the open boat Aggas , while Koch on the Antarctic , which was now under the command of the botanist Nikolaj Hartz , mapped the coastline in a northerly direction. He was supported by the Swedish geologist Otto Nordenskjöld . The ship first entered the Scoresbysund , explored Hurry Inlet and took the course of the coast of Jameson Lands to the northeast bay. Then the sound was left and the Liverpool coast was measured. After mapping the Carlsberg, Nathorst and Flemingfjords, the expedition explored the King Oscar Fjord. At the beginning of September the Antarctic drove via Iceland to Ammassalik and took the participants in the boat expedition again, which had surveyed 730 km of unknown coast.

From 1902 to 1904, Koch carried out topographical surveying work on behalf of the Danish General Staff in southern Iceland in the area of Skeiðarársandur and Vatnajökull .

The Danmark Expedition 1906–1908

The team of the Danmark Expedition, on the far left Johan Peter Koch, in the front right Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen
The Danmark in August 1907
Koch's Map of Northeast Greenland

In 1906 Denmark sent an expedition led by Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen to East Greenland. The main task of the expedition, named after their ship Danmark , was to use the spring months of 1907 to survey the last unknown coast in the northeast of the island. In summer she was supposed to take the Danmark to the Franz Josef Fjord further south in order to explore it more closely. In the following winter and spring, the inland ice should be climbed and explored and crossed by a small group to the west coast. Koch's job was to manage all of the surveying work. Mylius-Erichsen's first deputy was Captain Alf Trolle (1879-1949), but Koch's outstanding position was expressed in the fact that all men, including the expedition leader, received the same pay, while Trolls and Koch were granted an additional salary.

The Danmark left Copenhagen on June 24, 1906. Koch, who spoke good German, the cabin shared with Alfred Wegener , the later discovery of continental drift , which as a meteorologist took part in the expedition. It was possible to cross the drift ice of the East Greenland Current, and on August 12, the island of Store Koldewey was met with open water. After the Danmark had traveled north for three days, Koch started as the leader of a group of six on a motorboat trip to map the coast of Germanialand between the Île de France and Cape Bismarck. The worsening ice conditions meant that the boat had to be left behind at Cape Marie Valdemar. Koch led the group across the coastal ice and rejoined the rest of the expedition team after twelve days. After this first practical test, Koch set about carrying out the surveying work. He led a group of helpers who set up a network of triangulation points around the base camp at Danmarkshafen in the south of Germanialand , which were marked by stone pyramids. On several boat and sledge trips, he led the survey of the coast and set up supplies for the big sledge rides of the coming spring. A longer sleigh trip led from November 13th to December 4th, 1906, to the Pendulum Islands in the south. Mylius-Erichsen wanted to inspect the depots built for the Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition on Shannon and Bass Rock , as well as to deposit mail and a preliminary expedition report in the event that a whaler called at Shannon. Koch wanted to carry out magnetic measurements with Wegener in the Germania harbor on Sabine Island, where Edward Sabine had already done the same in 1823 and a German expedition led by Carl Koldewey in 1869/70. Koch, Wegener and Gustav Thostrup (1877–1955) made the 315 km long way back in just five days. According to Wegener's biographer Ulrich Wutzke, the venture was the first sledge trip made by Europeans during the polar night .

In January and February 1907 Koch took part in the creation of further supply depots north of Danmarkshafen. With Mylius-Erichsen he put together the team for the voyage of discovery to the still unknown northeast coast of Greenland. The group of ten men with four tents, ten sleds and 86 dogs left Danmarkshafen on March 28th. It soon turned out that Mylius-Erichsen's planning was too optimistic. The men were moving more slowly than hoped. After two support teams were sent back, the two remaining groups separated on May 1, northwest of Greenland's Eastern Cape, Nordostrundingen . In view of the few provisions remaining, Koch had suggested turning back with his team and leaving most of the supplies to Mylius-Erichsen. But he had refused in the hope of an early hunting success and insisted on exploring the area with two teams. Koch struck with the Greenlandic sledge driver Tobias Gabrielsen (1878-1945) and the painter Aage Bertelsen the route to the northwest to create the connection to Robert Peary's map at Cape Bridgman , while the group led by Mylius-Erichsen follows the coast - turned straight west. Both groups only had provisions for 15 days, so Koch was forced to cut the daily rations in half. On May 2nd, Koch said he was seeing an unknown island in a northeastern direction. The attempt to reach it was given up because of the difficult ice conditions. As a mirage land that other polar explorers later believed to see, it was searched in vain until 1938, when Lauge Koch carried out two reconnaissance flights from Spitsbergen to northeast Greenland. Johann Peter Koch's group reached Pearyland on May 7th via the sea ice. Six muskoxes were shot in the afternoon, and another eleven the next day. On May 12, Koch found Peary's stone pyramid at Cape Clarence Wyckhoff and took his message from May 22, 1900. This closed the gap between Peary's most eastern and Julius Payer's northernmost point (at Cape Bismarck) and proved that Greenland is an island. The group continued the march for three days to Cape Bridgman because Peary had not measured the exact coastline here due to the fog. Sick and weak, the group made their way back and on May 27 at Cape Rigsdagen surprisingly met Mylius-Erichsen, Niels Peter Høeg-Hagen and Jørgen Brønlund . Mylius-Erichsen decided to continue the voyage for two to three days and explore the Independence Fjord . Koch, on the other hand, returned to the ship with his group along the coast. Snow blindness and breaking fast ice at Mallemukfjeld made the journey difficult, but on June 23 the group reached the expedition camp at Danmarkshafen. The onset of the thaw made it impossible for Mylius-Erichsen to start the return journey before autumn. An aid expedition met him on September 22nd, but had to turn back on October 17th because they could not pass open water at Mallemukfjeld. At the same time, Mylius-Erichsen and his comrades on the north side of this mountain were stopped by the same open water and decided to look for a way across the ice sheet.

In addition to the uncertainty about the fate of the group around Mylius-Erichsen, the expedition was confronted with a second problem. The Danmark was not freed from the ice in the summer and it was feared that this would be so in the coming summer. Plans have been made to abandon the ship in this case and hope to be picked up by a whaler on one of the more southern islands. In order to share his responsibility, Captain Trolle had the crew elect a four-person council, with which he from then on discussed all important questions. Because of his undisputed authority, Koch was a member of this council. On March 10, 1908, the second rescue expedition for Mylius-Erichsen, consisting of Koch and Gabrielsen, started. They followed the chain of supply depots along the coast, assuming that Mylius-Erichsen had chosen this route. They found the body of Jørgen Brønlund at the depot in Lambert-Land. From his diary it emerged that Høeg-Hagen had died on November 15, 1907 and Mylius-Erichsen ten days later. Koch also found the land surveys and map sketches of Høeg-Hagens, with the help of which he was able to publish a map of Northeast Greenland in 1911. Since a search for Mylius-Erichsen and Høeg-Hagen was hopeless, Koch returned to Danmarkshafen.

The originally planned program of the expedition could no longer be fulfilled due to the tragic death of its leader. The scientific and cartographic work was continued in the spring of 1908. Koch decided to march along the recently discovered lake Annekssø across the inland ice to the Ymer Nunatak. Accompanied by Peter Freuchen and Jens Gundahl Knudsen (1876–1948), he set off on April 24 with a sledge but without dogs. It was difficult to get ahead, especially the outflow glacier Storstrømmen was full of crevasses - Freuchen fell twice but was secured by a rope. The Ymer Nunatak was measured and examined from May 17th to 20th. On June 5, the group was back on the ship with a wealth of scientific findings. In July the ice opened so that Danmark could return to Copenhagen.

The Danish expedition to Queen Louise Land 1912–1913

Map showing the routes of Greenland crossings up to 1913

From 1908 to 1912 Koch was a teacher at the officers' school of the Danish army. During this time he also worked intensively on processing the scientific results of the Danmark expedition. When he visited Wegener in Marburg in April 1911 to discuss details, the plan for a new expedition to deal with glaciological issues and the crossing of the ice sheet, which the Danmark expedition planned, but carried out by the Death of Mylius-Erichsen was no longer carried out, but still to be tackled. In addition, the crossing of Greenland should be preceded by wintering in the middle of the inland ice. The Queen Louise Land was selected for this, which rises up to 1000 m above the surrounding ice. Koch decided to use 16 Icelandic horses to transport the 20-tonne equipment  , as a large part of the 150 km route to the winter quarters led over a snow-free area, which ruled out the use of dog sleds. In order to gain experience in guiding the pack horses over rough terrain and glaciers, the second half of June 1912 was used to cross Iceland from Akureyri in the north to Breiðamerkurjökull in the south and to return on the same route to Akureyri, where the transport ship Godthaab was already waiting.

On July 22nd, Koch, Wegener, the Icelandic Vigfús Sigurðsson (1875–1950) and the Danish sailor Lars Larsen (1886–1978) went ashore at Storm Cape, a few kilometers northwest of Danmarkshafen. The expedition now separated, Koch and Larsen transported the cargo inland by motorboat, Wegener and Sigurðsson advanced with the horses to the west by land. From the beginning, the men had to deal with considerable problems. The boat engine kept failing, and the horses brought ashore fled and could not all be caught again. It was possible to get the luggage to Cape Stop by September 1st, then the motorboat finally gave up and the expedition was stuck on the banks of the Borgfjord, which was just beginning to freeze over. Only after three weeks could the path continue and the ascent to the inland ice commenced. On September 30, the ascent glacier calved in the immediate vicinity of the expedition camp. A few days later, Koch had to realize that Queen Louise Land could no longer be reached before winter due to the delays that had occurred. The expedition built their winter home on a ridge of the Borg glacier, 15 km from their original destination. The meteorological station was set up quickly and the glaciological investigations, in particular temperature measurements in ice boreholes, began. Unfortunately, on November 5, Koch fell eight meters into a crevasse hidden under snow and broke a lower leg bone. After the fracture healed, the expedition explored Queen Louise Land from March 4 to April 14, setting up storage facilities for the upcoming ice sheet crossing. On April 20, the men gave up the winter camp and set off on the hard journey with five horses and five sledges. On June 13th they reached their highest point of 2935 meters with just one horse. The end of the trip was a dramatic battle against hunger and exhaustion. On July 15, the completely exhausted men met the pastor of Upernavik , who had come to meet them by boat.

As early as 1913, Koch published the popular travelogue Gennem den hvide ørken , which after the First World War also appeared in Wegener's German edition, Durch die white desert .

Late years

During the First World War, Koch was Chief of Staff of the 1st Division of the Danish Army from 1915 to 1917. In 1917 he acquired a military pilot's license and on October 18 became head of the army aviation service and the flying school with the rank of lieutenant colonel . In 1923 Koch was promoted to colonel .

Koch remained connected to Arctic research. He was a member of the scientific committee of the Thule expeditions and planned to bring the inland ice investigations together with Wegener to a wintering station in the central firn area. His untimely death meant that Wegener carried out this project on his own in 1930.

Familiar

Johan Peter Koch was married twice. His marriage to Agnete Koch (1871–1920) in 1897 was divorced. In 1909 he married Marie Christensen (1874–1949). The Greenland explorer Lauge Koch often referred to Johan Peter Koch as his uncle. In truth, he was a second cousin of Lauge Koch's father.

Honors

Johan Peter Koch has received several awards for his research work. After the Danmark expedition he was awarded the Danish Medal of Merit in 1908 , and after crossing Greenland in 1913, the Carl-Ritter-Medal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . In 1927 he became second class commander of the Dannebrog Order . The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography honored him with the Vega Medal.

In Greenland, several geographical objects are named after Koch, e.g. B. the J.-P.-Koch-Fjord between Freuchenland and Pearyland, the 909 m high mountain JP Koch Fjeld and the cape JP Koch in Pearyland.

Works

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Johan Peter Koch  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c J. P. Koch im Dansk biografisk leksikon (Danish)
  2. ↑ G. Amdrup: Beretning om cyst expeditions along Grønlands Østkyst 1900. In: Meddelelser om Grønland , Volume 27, 1902, pp. 109–152 (Danish)
  3. ↑ Apollonio, 2008, p. 87 (English)
  4. ↑ Apollonio, 2008, p. 91 (English)
  5. ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 1 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 12 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ G. Amdrup: Report on the Danmark Expedition to the North-East Coast of Greenland 1906-1908 . In: Meddelelser om Grønland 41, 1913, p. 47 (English)
  7. ^ A b Johan Peter Koch: Danmark-Ekspeditionens Kort . In: Geografisk Tidsskrift . Volume 21, 1911-1912, pp. 167-177.
  8. ↑ a b G. Amdrup, 1913, pp. 52–57 (English)
  9. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , p. 30
  10. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , p. 33
  11. ↑ G. Amdrup, 1913, p. 77 (English)
  12. ↑ G. Amdrup, 1913, p. 79 f. (English)
  13. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , p. 42 f.
  14. ↑ G. Amdrup, 1913, p. 123 (English)
  15. ↑ G. Amdrup, 1913, p. 124 (English)
  16. ↑ Anthony K. Higgins: Exploration history of northern East Greenland (PDF; 2.9 MB). In: Exploration history and place names of northern East Greenland (= Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin 21, 2010), ISBN 978-87-7871-292-9 . P. 49 (English)
  17. ↑ G. Amdrup, 1913, p. 132 (English)
  18. ↑ note from Brönlunds diary in the Danish Royal Library Copenhagen, accessed on June 25, 2014
  19. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , p. 101 f.
  20. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , pp. 105-109
  21. ↑ Apollonio, 2008, p. 119 (English)
  22. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , p. 124
  23. ↑ Alfred Wegener: Diary. October - December 1912 (PDF; 9.47 MB). P. 103 f.
  24. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: The researcher from the Friedrichsgracht. Life and achievement of Alfred Wegener . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-325-00173-4 , p. 142
  25. ↑ Cornelia Lüdecke: German polar research since the turn of the century and the influence of Erich von Drygalski (PDF; 11.0 MB). Reports on polar research No. 158, Bremerhaven 1995, p. 165
  26. ^ Klaus Georg Hansen: Cook, lye . In: Mark Nuttall (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Arctic . Routledge, New York and London 2003, ISBN 1-57958-436-5 , pp. 1103–1105 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  27. ↑ Notes . In: German literary newspaper . tape  35 , 1914, pp. 120 ( online ).
  28. ↑ Koch, Johan Peter . In: The New International Encyclopedia , 2nd Edition, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York 1915, Volume 13, pp. 317 f. (English)
personal data
SURNAME Cook, Johan Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish officer, cartographer and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Viesterkov near Nakskov
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1928
Place of death Copenhagen