John Hunt, Baron Hunt

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Henry Cecil John Hunt, Baron Hunt , KG , CBE , DSO , PC (born June 22, 1910 in Shimla , British India , † November 7, 1998 in Henley-on-Thames , Oxfordshire ) was a British officer. He became world-famous as the leader of the 1953 successful expedition to Mount Everest .

Life

Hunt was born in 1910 as the eldest son of Cecil Edwin Hunt MC (1880-1914) and Ethel Helen Hunt, née Crookshank (1884-1976), in British India. His father died in Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée at the beginning of the First World War . Hunt received his education at Marlborough College and the Royal Military College , Sandhurst , where he was awarded the King's Gold Medal and the Anson Memorial Sword.

As a child, Hunt spent many vacation periods in the Alps and learned a number of mountaineering skills that he later used when he took part in some expeditions in the Himalayas while doing military service in India .

In 1931 Hunt came to India as an officer in the King's Royal Rifle Corps . On his return to England in 1940 Hunt became head of training at the Commando Mountain and Snow Warfare School , a training center for mountain warfare . In 1944 Hunt was awarded the Distinguished Service Order after being reassigned to the King's Royal Rifle Corps.

Hunt is also associated with the yeti in the Himalayas: while camping in the Himalayas for one night, he noticed the presence of a large animal at his tent. When he went out to investigate, he vaguely saw a large creature running away. When asked why he hadn't shot later, he replied, “That would have been murder.” On another occasion, in 1951, Hunt's team found mysterious footprints, apparently from a Yeti, and photographed them.

Hunt in 1958 in the Caucasus

In 1953 Hunt was appointed head of the ninth British expedition to Mount Everest , which was subsequently the first with a successful ascent. Hunt had chosen two climbing couples to reach the summit. The first couple ( Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans ) turned back when they were exhausted at the south summit, just 90 meters below the main summit, and had to weigh the risk of climbing the final ridge without being able to see the summit.

The next day the expedition made the second and final summit attempt with the second rope team, the Sirdar (head of the high-porter group), Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who lives in India, and Edmund Hillary from New Zealand . The summit was reached after a high camp at approx. 8500 meters around 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953.

Hunt had initially wanted to wait for a third attempt himself (together with another Sherpa) in what was then the penultimate high camp on the south saddle at an altitude of 7,900 meters. However, he had previously exhausted himself so much in supporting the first summit group that he had to descend parallel to the ascent of Hillary and Tenzing to high camp II and, due to a lack of radio communications, he was only one day late when descending the Südsattelgruppe into the valley of silence Got message.

The news of the success reached London on the eve of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation .

On their return to Kathmandu a few days later, the expedition discovered from congratulatory letters that Hillary and Hunt had been raised to the nobility for their services, Hunt was promoted to Knight Bachelor . From 1956 to 1959 Hunt was chairman of the Alpine Club .

Upon retiring from the Army, Sir John Hunt became the first director of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme . In 1966 he was named Life Peer as Baron Hunt , of Llanfair Waterdine in Shropshire . He also became the first chairman of the Parole Board . He was accepted into the Order of the Garter in 1979.

Henry Hunt died in Henley-on-Thames , Oxfordshire, at the age of 88.

Fonts

  • The Ascent of Everest. The Mountaineers Books, ISBN 0-89886-361-9 .
  • Mount Everest, fight and victory. Ullstein, Vienna 1956 (abridged edition of the original English title The Ascent of Everest ).

Trivia

In 1944, Hunt's mother, Ethel, called the doctor John Bodkin Adams, later suspected of being a serial killer . On the second visit, he asked her whether her business affairs were "in good hands". She replied that she was not wealthy and decided not to call him anymore. Adams nevertheless visited her a day or two later and told her that she was a very unpleasant patient and that she was slightly mentally deranged. Mrs. Hunt told him to leave the house, she "went wild, jumped out of the house and slammed the gate". Herbert Hannam, who researched Adams' methods, called this a typical behavior of the defendant. Adams was found not guilty in a 1957 trial, despite pathologist Francis Camps suspecting Adams of the killing of at least 163 patients, 132 of whom had provided Adams in their last will.

Hunt House is a Primary Wing House at St Paul's School in Darjiling , India , named in memory and honor of Henry Hunt.

literature

  • George Band: Hunt, (Henry Cecil) John, Baron Hunt (1910-1998). Oxford University Press, 2004 ( Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry , accessed May 18, 2007).
  • Pamela V. Cullen: A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams. Elliott & Thompson, London 2006, ISBN 1-904027-19-9 .
  • Stephen Venables, Chris Bonington: Obituary: Lord Hunt. In: The Independent of November 10, 1998 ( online )
  • In memoriam, Lord Hunt. In: The Alpine Journal, 1999, pp. 324–329 ( PDF )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Pamela V. Cullen: A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams. Elliott & Thompson, London 2006, ISBN 1-904027-19-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Hunt, John, Baron Hunt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hunt, Henry Cecil John, Baron Hunt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British officer
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Shimla , British India
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1998
Place of death Henley-on-Thames