there was one sort of unsung hero on
this expedition
Oliver wheeler who I was drawn to in
part because he was Canadian
in part because Malory famously hated
Canadians and being a Canadian that drew
my attention and I went and found rather
serendipitously all over wheelers son
John aged 77 living in a cottage four
houses from the house in which I was
born in Vancouver I went to see him and
we had a splendid afternoon at the end
of the afternoon he pulled off a shelf
two treasures too thick volumes of
journals that his father had kept in
1921 as he walked across the bet with
George Mallory these had never been seen
by historian I was to Canadian III I
couldn’t even sputter the words to say
and then in this marvelous way that is
Canada I discovered that he had gone to
the same boarding school as my father
I had climbed many of the same mountains
he had surveyed as a surveyor in the
Geological Survey of Canada and at the
end of this beautiful afternoon he
simply handed me these two journals and
said son I think these will really be
useful to you well they certainly were
because of course it wasn’t George
Mallory who found the key to the North
Col the East Room book lacier it was not
it was Oliver wheeler he was a one who
spent more time closer to the mountain
photograph in its Armour he’s the one
who found the doorway to the mountain
and on the very day that Alexander kelas
was buried this is what wheeler wrote in
his journal well they buried the old boy
in the morning thought it was going to
be the afternoon terribly sorry to have
missed it but I do hate funerals well
how on earth do you miss the internment
of a fellow climber that you’re marching
across Tibet with there had to be more
to the story and of course there was
wheeler was born to be a soldier he was
seconded to the seventh murder Division
of the Indian Army he was a royal
engineer he sailed with the Indian Army
to France in August of 1914 by October
of 1914 the entire British Home Army
Regular Army of the Empire had been
annihilated the British Expeditionary
Force the British sector of the line was
held by the Canadians in the north the
Indian Army in the South by this point
the topography of Armageddon had come
into place the trench has reached the
coastline from the Swiss border and both
sides were beginning to saw each other
trenches at 90 degrees to the trench
lines so you get close and law bombs and
raid your enemy and it came to the
attention of wheelers battalion that the
Germans had put two saps within 30 feet
of their line he was given the order of
dark November night to go over the top
with his 125 men and not only to
eliminate these saps but to do it in the
way the Germans would be dissuaded from
ever trying this technique again he goes
over the night at the top in the
darkness silence then all hell breaks
loose
very lights artillery machine-gun fire
and they get to the SAP Sun to the
horror they discover they’re filled with
German soldiers about to attack them the
result is a ferocious mullai of
hand-to-hand combat beyond your
magazines noses ripped off eyes gouged
out clubs shattering brains eventually
the Indians push the Germans back but
not before the entire SAP is densely
lined three bodies deep chest to chest
of boys of both sides flailing about as
wheeler said like trout in mic rail he
then tried his best to the darkness to
get his own wounded out but he couldn’t
and in the end he had to bury them all
alive so when he says on Everest I do
hate funerals you begin to see the way
that this war resonated in the lives of
these men
this expedition
Oliver wheeler who I was drawn to in
part because he was Canadian
in part because Malory famously hated
Canadians and being a Canadian that drew
my attention and I went and found rather
serendipitously all over wheelers son
John aged 77 living in a cottage four
houses from the house in which I was
born in Vancouver I went to see him and
we had a splendid afternoon at the end
of the afternoon he pulled off a shelf
two treasures too thick volumes of
journals that his father had kept in
1921 as he walked across the bet with
George Mallory these had never been seen
by historian I was to Canadian III I
couldn’t even sputter the words to say
and then in this marvelous way that is
Canada I discovered that he had gone to
the same boarding school as my father
I had climbed many of the same mountains
he had surveyed as a surveyor in the
Geological Survey of Canada and at the
end of this beautiful afternoon he
simply handed me these two journals and
said son I think these will really be
useful to you well they certainly were
because of course it wasn’t George
Mallory who found the key to the North
Col the East Room book lacier it was not
it was Oliver wheeler he was a one who
spent more time closer to the mountain
photograph in its Armour he’s the one
who found the doorway to the mountain
and on the very day that Alexander kelas
was buried this is what wheeler wrote in
his journal well they buried the old boy
in the morning thought it was going to
be the afternoon terribly sorry to have
missed it but I do hate funerals well
how on earth do you miss the internment
of a fellow climber that you’re marching
across Tibet with there had to be more
to the story and of course there was
wheeler was born to be a soldier he was
seconded to the seventh murder Division
of the Indian Army he was a royal
engineer he sailed with the Indian Army
to France in August of 1914 by October
of 1914 the entire British Home Army
Regular Army of the Empire had been
annihilated the British Expeditionary
Force the British sector of the line was
held by the Canadians in the north the
Indian Army in the South by this point
the topography of Armageddon had come
into place the trench has reached the
coastline from the Swiss border and both
sides were beginning to saw each other
trenches at 90 degrees to the trench
lines so you get close and law bombs and
raid your enemy and it came to the
attention of wheelers battalion that the
Germans had put two saps within 30 feet
of their line he was given the order of
dark November night to go over the top
with his 125 men and not only to
eliminate these saps but to do it in the
way the Germans would be dissuaded from
ever trying this technique again he goes
over the night at the top in the
darkness silence then all hell breaks
loose
very lights artillery machine-gun fire
and they get to the SAP Sun to the
horror they discover they’re filled with
German soldiers about to attack them the
result is a ferocious mullai of
hand-to-hand combat beyond your
magazines noses ripped off eyes gouged
out clubs shattering brains eventually
the Indians push the Germans back but
not before the entire SAP is densely
lined three bodies deep chest to chest
of boys of both sides flailing about as
wheeler said like trout in mic rail he
then tried his best to the darkness to
get his own wounded out but he couldn’t
and in the end he had to bury them all
alive so when he says on Everest I do
hate funerals you begin to see the way
that this war resonated in the lives of
these men
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