Vivian Fuchs
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Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs FRS (February 11, 1908 – November 11, 1999) was an English explorer whose expeditionary team completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958.
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[edit] Biography
Fuchs was born in 1908 in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, and attended Brighton College and St John's College, Cambridge. Fuchs was educated as a geologist, and considered the profession a means to pursue his interest in the outdoors. His first expedition was to Greenland in 1929 with his tutor James Wordie. After graduation in 1930, he traveled with a Cambridge University expedition to study the geology of east African lakes with respect to climate fluctuation. Next, he joined anthropologist Louis Leakey on an expedition to Olduvai Gorge.
At the age of thirty, he enrolled in the Territorial Army, and was dispatched to the Gold Coast from 1942 to July 1943. He returned home and was posted to London at second army headquarters in a civil affairs position. The second army was transferred to Portsmouth for the D-Day landings, and Fuchs eventually reached Germany in time to see the release of prisoners from the Belsen concentration camp. In October 1946 he was discharged from military service with the rank of Major.
Fuchs was involved with the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (now the British Antarctic Survey) beginning in 1947, when he applied for a geologist position. The organization's goal was to promote Britain's claims to Antarctica, and secondarily to support scientific research. In 1950 Fuchs was asked to develop the new London scientific bureau of the Survey, to plan research in the Antarctic and support research publication. He would eventually become director of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, beginning in 1958 (after his return from the successful Antarctic expedition) and lasting until 1973.
[edit] The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Fuchs is best known as the leader of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica. Planning for the expedition began in 1953, and envisioned the use of Sno-Cat tractors to cross the continent in 100 days, starting at Weddell Sea, ending at Ross Sea, and crossing the South Pole. Fuchs and his party arrived at Antarctica in January 1957 after camp had been set up. The party departed from Shackleton Base on November 24, 1957. During the voyage, a variety of scientific data were collected from seismic soundings and gravimetric readings. Scientists established the thickness of ice at the pole, and the existence of a land mass beneath the ice. On March 2, 1958, Fuchs and company completed the 99-day trip, having travelled 2,158 miles.
In 1958, Fuchs was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1960, he wrote, with Sir Edmund Hillary, The Crossing of Antarctica.
[edit] References
- Peter Clarkson, "Fuchs, Sir Vivian Ernest (1908–1999)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed September 4, 2006 (subscription required).
- "Scott Base Turns Out To Greet Dr. Fuchs." The Times, March 3, 1958; pg. 9.
