Tom Bourdillon

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Thomas Duncan Bourdillon (born March 16, 1924 in Kensington near London , † July 29, 1956 in the Bernese Oberland ) was a British physicist and mountaineer . He was a member of the team that climbed Mount Everest in May 1953.

childhood and education

Bourdillon was the older son of Robert Benedict Bourdillon (1889–1971), a scientist, and his wife Harriet Ada Barnes. Robert B. Bourdillon was a founding member of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club in 1909 .

His son Tom attended Gresham's School in Holt ( Norfolk ) and then Balliol College at Oxford University , where he studied physics . He followed his father's ambitions and was President of the Climbing Club at Oxford University.

job

He worked as a physicist in rocket research.

climber

Bourdillon learned mountaineering as a school child and expanded these skills during his time at Oxford University. In his twenties he was one of the inspirers of the renaissance of British mountain climbing in the Alps .

He then took up the challenge of going to Everest. Bourdillon took part in the 1951 exploration tour of Everest and Cho Oyu led by Eric Shipton . In 1952 the English wanted to resume their attempts to climb the south side of Everest. All attempts on the north side in the 1920s and 1930s had failed, and Tibet no longer gave foreigners entry permits due to the Chinese occupation. Instead, Nepal, closed before the Second World War, opened its borders. The Nepalis only allowed one expedition a year, however, and for 1952 the Swiss had been quicker to apply for Everest. The only thing left for the British in 1952 was to explore the western neighborhood of Everest and hope that the Swiss company would ultimately fail.

Due to his training as a physicist, Bourdillon was responsible for the oxygen equipment for the British expeditions in 1952 and 1953 . Together with his father, he had developed the closed oxygen equipment that regenerated the exhaled gas in a special process and made it usable again. This was a complex, but more economical system in terms of oxygen consumption compared to the "open" oxygen equipment.

He also used this closed system with his climbing partner Charles Evans when they were the first summit team to set out on May 26, 1953 from the high camp on the South Col at around 7,900 meters. Expedition leader John Hunt had given them the preference to make the first attempt. However, the high regions on Everest were heavily snowed. Evans and Bourdillon spent themselves stepping in the deep snow and only stood at around 1 p.m. at the south summit, a small ridge 90 meters below the main summit and about 350 meters horizontally from it. With the Bourdillon system, they had icing problems along the way, which had further delayed the rope team.

Bourdillon wanted to continue to the summit, but this would have been a high risk of not making the descent: a prototypical situation for what statistically every sixth Everest climber threatens: to have been on the summit, but then the descent is over Exhaustion, unable to cope due to lack of oxygen or frostbite. Thus for the ambition to absolutely want to stand on the summit, to sacrifice one's life. To make matters worse for this team was the fact that you can only see a small part of the end ridge from the summit of the south summit; no one could say what to expect further up there. His partner Evans estimated the remaining time to the summit to be another three hours, very high as we now know. The contour of the uppermost ridge is generally bulbous with a multitude of small humps and extremely exposed; on both sides it goes steeply downhill for over 2500 meters. Only at the very end is the actual summit recognizable. As a rule, from the southern summit to the summit you have to climb another hour along the huge peaks overhanging to Tibet with their miles of tropospheric winds, which are so distinctive for Everest, miles long and visible from afar .

Evans urged prudence and repentance. Tom Bourdillon climbed a short distance to explore the final ridge, then saw the steep step, which is the last obstacle to reach the summit and obscures the view of him, the step that was later named the first ascent: Hillary Step , an approx. 12 meter high, more than 70 degree steep step, which at 8,780 meters requires the use of ropes and alpine climbing techniques. Tom Bourdillon thus held the world height record for almost three days at around 8,770 meters.

With this information they dismounted and, completely exhausted and with empty oxygen bottles, they reached their teammates near the south saddle at 7,900 meters. Bourdillon, too, was ultimately convinced that her decision to turn back so close to the summit had been the right one.

The changeable weather on Everest led to a break on May 27th, from May 28th Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed towards the summit. After a night at about 8500 m altitude, they reached the summit on May 29th. Both used a simpler, open oxygen system with only one gas hose from the bottle fitting to the mask, a system that has been used high on Everest ever since.

Tom Bourdillon was part of the team the following year that successfully climbed the eight-thousander Makalu to the east .

Bourdillon died in an accident on July 29, 1956, along with another mountaineer, Richard Viney, when they were about to climb the eastern summit of the Jägihorn in the Bernese Oberland .

family

On March 15, 1951, Bourdillon married Jennifer Elizabeth Clapham Thomas (* 1929), the daughter of Ronald Clapham Thomas. They had a daughter and a son who was ten weeks old when his father died climbing a mountain.

Movie

Bourdillon plays himself in two films, The Conquest of Everest (1953) and (as an archive excerpt) The Race for Everest (2003).

credentials

personal data
SURNAME Bourdillon, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bourdillon, Thomas Duncan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British physicist and climber
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Kensington near London
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1956
Place of death Bernese Oberland